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Post by chocobsessed on Nov 6, 2018 21:31:10 GMT
I'd love to get a rundown of the secret masters list and what you want to do with it. Sure. | Circle Army - 75 / 75 points [Theme] Secret Masters
(Krueger 2) Krueger the Stormlord [+27] |
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[/b] [*]Woldwarden [14][*]Woldwarden [14][/ul]Blackclad Stoneshaper [0(3)]Una the Falconer [4][/b] [/ul]Farrow Valkyries [8]Farrow Valkyries [8]Shifting Stones [3][/td][/tr][/tbody][/table][/td][/tr][/tbody][/table] The core of the list is a bones of orboros list (double woldwarden, huge based gun platform, stoneshaper - it even had double wyrds and a fulcrum at one point) because that is the Krueger2 list I had been prepping for WMW since I thought there was a snowball's chance in Urcaen that the storm Raptor would keep pulse. I'd been playing around with a double Raptor CotW list with the well and a blood shaman - but with the release rules I prefer the secret masters version. It plays moderately similar to Krueger2 bones of orboros (play as a gunline for a few turns, control with tk and feat - oh and all those things are heavies) with some key differences: 1. The pureblood. I originally put the pureblood in to further punish upkeeps with purgation and wraithbane, but I like it even without the wyrds. It's another heavy (sorta, pow 16 isn't that impressive), but wraith bane lets you skip the mist speaker, as well as helping with Arcane shield and roots of the earth 2. Valkyries. These are strong independent women who always do great for me. They require almost no support, are excellent contesting or scoring pieces, do decent damage on their own, and can keep Una and the storm Raptor safe from random shots that get through windstorm (looking at you, sprays and range 16 guns). They're certainly not better than Mannikins, but they're close enough. 3. Una + Storm Raptor. Obviously this is the biggest change and the reason to give up Mannikins and 8 free points. The storm Raptor under Krueger2 is a huge pain for your opponent, especially if you go first. It can scalpel out key pieces(ignoring all Los blockers except buildings), it can clear an entire zone's worth of infantry by itself (while also scalpelling out any important solos that wander too close) - and between the feat and guardian beast disruptions it's actually really difficult to damage even in melee. It massively improves your Cygnar, Devourer's host and Harbinger exemplar interdiction matchups - which are a big chunk of what Iona doesn't want to play into, and everything on that list that I expected to see in the invitational
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Post by jisidro on Nov 7, 2018 12:53:38 GMT
Isn't the list begging for a mist speaker?
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Post by Trollock on Nov 7, 2018 13:16:26 GMT
Isn't the list begging for a mist speaker? How come? You already have magical attacks with th pureblood, and the raptor already sees through terrain. A mist speaker that magically appears in the list for no cost would be amazing, but what would you drop to get it in there? Una cant be dropped as she is needed to get the free solo...
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Post by wolfchild on Nov 7, 2018 15:27:17 GMT
That result doesn’t show that of 32 players only 2 very talented players ran Circle. They both placed well n even then from what I heard Bret just ran Iona in every game. How great is secret masters really?
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Post by streetpizza on Nov 7, 2018 15:53:18 GMT
That result doesn’t show that of 32 players only 2 very talented players ran Circle. They both placed well n even then from what I heard Bret just ran Iona in every game. How great is secret masters really? You're right that its a one off and that one off is the hands of a very talented player. That being said its also less than a month since the changes dropped. Lets give it some time before we allow skepticism to overwhelm us. Thing is SM has some versatility to it now and it becomes another tool in our belt.
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Post by LoS Jaden on Nov 7, 2018 15:58:00 GMT
Bret dropped the Secret Masters list twice, once into Haley 3 which worked very well, and once into me in the Krueger 2 mirror.
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Post by jisidro on Nov 7, 2018 17:09:33 GMT
Isn't the list begging for a mist speaker? How come? You already have magical attacks with th pureblood, and the raptor already sees through terrain. A mist speaker that magically appears in the list for no cost would be amazing, but what would you drop to get it in there? Una cant be dropped as she is needed to get the free solo... Not sure about the points but ignoring stealth is valuable. Is the pureblood's animus in there as a primal sub?
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Post by chocobsessed on Nov 7, 2018 18:22:04 GMT
What did you drop it into and why? Conversely, and I suppose a little off topic, what match ups does Iona generally not want in your opinion? Pulling this over from the secret masters thread. I dropped Secret Masters into Haley3 and Krueger2 at the invitational. The storm Raptor drastically improves your Dev Host, Cygnar and Harby exemplar interdiction matchups, which are all three of the bad matchups for Iona I expected to see in the invitational. (edit) : Oops, forgot to say why I dropped Krueger2. Into Haley3, I think Iona could beat her, but I've never played it before, and the scenario was very good for Haley. I also think the Raptor is an enormous problem for Haley3, since it can trivially pick off ghosts, is immune to guns and can disrupt all the Jacks that come in to kill it. In fact, if I had landed the boosted 6 on a TK, it might have taken only 10 damage the entire game. I also dropped it in the mirror matchup. I feel like having two warbeasts immune to TK and gallows really helps the matchup (though not more than winning the roll to go second) - and the storm Raptor single-handedly kills a devourer's host list For reference, I think Iona also struggles into a couple other specific lists : Morghoul 2 and 3, Xerxis 2 drake spam, sorscha1, 4 shade in shadows and HR double judicators. Isn't the list begging for a mist speaker? I definitely considered a mist speaker for the list (in fact, I borrowed another one and speed painted it before the event), but I prefer the pureblood for a handful of reasons : 1. It's another heavy. If the cygnar pair had a bunch of centurions, or if I did have to play into double judicator, that would prove very valuable 2. Wraithbane helps a lot in the cygnar and menoth matchups (Arcane shield and Tristan's upkeep) and a little bit into Iona 3. Stealth removal had very little value to me - there aren't a lot of important stealth solos I'm worried about in cygnar, and I didn't want to pay 4 points just for LotF insurance That result doesn’t show that of 32 players only 2 very talented players ran Circle. They both placed well n even then from what I heard Bret just ran Iona in every game. How great is secret masters really? I ran Iona 3 times, and Krueger2 twice. I feel like secret masters gave me a huge advantage into cygnar (compared to bones or non-theme) and a tiny advantage into the Krueger2 bones mirror match. I don't think my list is perfect or optimized or anything, but I think secret masters brings something valuable to the fiction (in my case, a storm Raptor)
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Post by Trollock on Nov 7, 2018 19:58:21 GMT
chocobsessedThis list of yours seems very much like a corner case list, where it handles ionas bad match ups well, but one can hardly claim that it utilizes the theme very well. Do you think there are more lists in SM that are actually competitive now, or is this the exception to the rule that SM is a bad theme?
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Post by macdaddy on Nov 8, 2018 13:38:23 GMT
chocobsessed This list of yours seems very much like a corner case list, where it handles ionas bad match ups well, but one can hardly claim that it utilizes the theme very well. Do you think there are more lists in SM that are actually competitive now, or is this the exception to the rule that SM is a bad theme? I was actually wondering if it would be worth it to swap over to CotW for more free things and +1 to go first...and free animi on birb. But the second unit of Valkyries seems to be the main reason to play it in SM. 3 additional shieldguards can be huge in some match ups.
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Post by chocobsessed on Nov 8, 2018 16:49:38 GMT
chocobsessed This list of yours seems very much like a corner case list, where it handles ionas bad match ups well, but one can hardly claim that it utilizes the theme very well. Do you think there are more lists in SM that are actually competitive now, or is this the exception to the rule that SM is a bad theme? I was actually wondering if it would be worth it to swap over to CotW for more free things and +1 to go first...and free animi on birb. But the second unit of Valkyries seems to be the main reason to play it in SM. 3 additional shieldguards can be huge in some match ups. Re Trollock: I hesitate to call the entire list corner case - it does answer a large swathe of cygnar and menoth, plus is advantaged in the mirror. I would absolutely agree that the list is hardly optimized or thought through. As far as the theme is concerned, it does utilize the Sac pawn for additional insurance in keeping Una1 alive, and getting a free stoneshaper is a small benefit, but a real one. Honestly, it's almost like playing bones or non-theme, but I thought there was enough in the almost to justify it. I mean, I'm probably biased here because I love playing minions in my circle lists, but I think secret masters is absolutely a valid theme (I think it's better in a vacuum than Wild Hunt and Call of the Wild), and the first two casters I'd explore with it are Krueger2 and Morv1. Re: MacDaddy On the other hand, I do think Call of the Wild is a bad theme and should feel bad. This is just, like, my opinion, man, but I really dislike call of the wild even after all the points discounts and living warbeast buffs. The free animi is fine, and +1 to go first is obviously amazing - but the free points have almost no value. It's important to remember that the free circle solos (outside of Dev host) are complete and total garbage, barely worth a point or two if you had to pay for them. And you're asking me to give up on geomancy and 14 point p+s 18 heavies for that? Yuck, no thanks.
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Post by streetpizza on Nov 8, 2018 18:00:43 GMT
but the free points have almost no value. It's important to remember that the free circle solos (outside of Dev host) are complete and total garbage, barely worth a point or two if you had to pay for them. I think this is going to be the biggest challenge for the Dev's when looking at circle from now on. Almost all of our themes are now competitive in some form or another (poor wild hunt) with the subpar free options we have going for us. Adding anything that actually leverages the free points to good effect could propel circle into OP territory pretty quickly. Still I'm surprised they didn't go for the low hanging fruit in front of them when they had the chance. Bundling gallows groves as pairs for free in SM, Morraig and/or war wolves in triplicate as free options in WH seems like a pretty good interim solution. What are your thoughts on minion solos counting towards free points or being available as a free option in SM? Would that have broken the theme? What about a ranking blackclad attachment making minions FF or a blanket theme benefit doing so?
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Post by oncomingstorm on Nov 8, 2018 18:32:23 GMT
I was actually wondering if it would be worth it to swap over to CotW for more free things and +1 to go first...and free animi on birb. But the second unit of Valkyries seems to be the main reason to play it in SM. 3 additional shieldguards can be huge in some match ups. Re: MacDaddy On the other hand, I do think Call of the Wild is a bad theme and should feel bad. This is just, like, my opinion, man, but I really dislike call of the wild even after all the points discounts and living warbeast buffs. The free animi is fine, and +1 to go first is obviously amazing - but the free points have almost no value. It's important to remember that the free circle solos (outside of Dev host) are complete and total garbage, barely worth a point or two if you had to pay for them. And you're asking me to give up on geomancy and 14 point p+s 18 heavies for that? Yuck, no thanks. Finally, another Circle player that agrees with me on this. CoTW feels like you're giving up all of the incidental tech that you get in Bones, just to get slightly faster (but less points-for-damage-efficient) heavies. If I play Bones, I have access to RFP, shield guards, continuous fire, good guns, geomancy, and magic weapons everywhere, on models that are already acceptable in terms of points-to-attrition value. If I play CoTW, the only way to access those things is by making sacrifices in terms of heavies that actually attrition well (ie,picking up a pureblood or mist speaker for magic weapons, picking up valkyries for shield guard)...and even then, some tech just isn't available in theme (RFP is notably absent), and the theme has serious problems with being out-threatened, shot, and out-maneuvered on scenario because everything is BG models (and Circle has no long-leash models to handle widely-spread scenarios.) The living heavies are mostly fine, but IMO CoTW is still a bit of a dumpster fire.
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Post by macdaddy on Nov 8, 2018 19:41:56 GMT
chocobsessed Losing the wardens is kind of a big deal and I shouldn't have brushed over that. I think Mixed BG is a large part of why SM is worth it, minion units just enabled you to play a more fleshed out list. Something CotW struggles with. As far as CotW being bad? I'm not sure. Kaya3, Kromac2, and Una2 all can run the theme well. Baldur1 and 2 can play some in it leveraging the defensive brick to stay relevant in scenario (something the theme struggles with.) Having said that, I know my first ideas for pairs have leaned more towards Secret Masters and Devo Host....
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Post by Trollock on Nov 8, 2018 20:26:50 GMT
chocobsessedAh, I think i worded my comment poorly. By "cornercase" i did not mean that this list is not doing its job. I meant that it seems to me at least that valid builds in SM are few and far between. You have already mentioned that Krueger 2 and Morv 1 have your attention, and that was basically what i was wondering As a contrast, i have played DH with a bunch of casters and it seems fine with basically all of them. I can only hope that a future CID for SM should be that successfull.
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