Taelor + Mechanical Rider in Raspy List?

[Tpenksa]

Right now my only master is Rasputina and as much as I love her and what she can do... I get really frustrated with the lack of mobility in her troupe. It seems like a lot of strategies really need speed which Rasputina is obviously lacking... I am still very new and learning a lot about the game however.

Anyway, I had an idea (depending on what strategy I flip) of using the Mechanical Rider with Taelor. The idea is simple. Put the Mechanical rider as close to obj as deployment will allow. Place Taelor directly behind the rider touching it's base. First activation, activate Taelor and hammerstrike the Rider twice giving it a six inch boost. Next activation choose the Rider and proceed to use nimble and a AP to move 12". Hopefully by this 18" turn one move you can use your last AP to interact with whatever the objective is.... use power manipulation and now you have a quick melee beast... In case of a strategy where you need to be holding obj at the end of the game, get out of there and rev up the following turn to get +3 Armor and hard to kill... Taelor still serves a purpose beatsticking enemies that get to close to Raspy (I use Taelor as a sort of a body guard), as well as using hammerstrike to push enemies out of melee range so Raspy can blast them without wasting movement/disengage flip.

As anyone tried this yet? Any thoughts? I have a game this tuesday where I'll probably give this a shot.

Last: I am really tired and didn't proof read so hopefully this makes sense and isn't too hard of a grammatical read.

[Buhallin]

Admittedly I haven't tried it, so take this for what it's worth...

It seems like it should work for getting the rider to the objective quickly, but I see several drawbacks:

1. That's an awful lot of SS worth of models just to get to the objective quickly. Yes, you still have them once you do, but neither synergizes with Rasputina very well. This is a very big deal, IMHO - Rasputina's crew enhances each other a lot, taking out things that give you Bite of Winter or Frozen Heart limits your options a lot.

2. You've hung your rider out solo, and/or stuck it carrying a treasure marker, which will slow her down dramatically. Not a recipe for survival.

I think there are a number of options for getting speed out of Raspy that don't involve giving up half your crew to do it:

1. I love the Sabertooth Cerberus. Leap and Stalker give it a lot of mobility, it hits hard, and you can use her Ice Pillars to help keep it out of LOS for Stalker (this got harder with the v2 cards, used to just need cover).

2. Not out yet, but Snowstorm includes options for moving icy stuff around.

3. Most people think he underperforms for his cost, and I agree, but the December Acolyte's ability to deploy forward can get you to objectives quickly.

4. The Silent One can increase the ranged strikes on a lot of your models. Doesn't necessarily get you there any faster, but does let you threaten enough to slow your opponent down and make them worry about just charging in.

The other option is not to worry about speed so much - don't get to it fast, control it. Rasputina has a ton of board control options, and if you can block off the objective so your opponent can't get to it, you can take your time working up to it.

[Wodschow]

Well mobility is the price Rasputina pays for having the longest ranged ranged(yes, it's x2) attacks in the game, and I think it's actually somewhat fair all things considered :P - Even if she does indeed feel soooo slooow at times(always).

It's alot of points taking Lady Hammerstrike just for flipping two cards, hoping to get one higher than the Riders Df (odds are on your side, but you can't cheat those flips should you fail..). I also believe that if you push the rider with your first Hammerstrike it will no longer be within 3" for it to be pushed again, so you'd only ever get 3" of it..


I don't think the Mechanical Rider is a bad idea at all however.. If you want a speedy model it really comes down to the Rider, the old school Cerberus or the Coryphée (okay, so some might fancy the Razorspine, Cassandra or even the Steamborg).

Personally I really don't like the Cerberus and find both Book2 solutions much better. I have two issues with it.. a) It's sort of fragile (unless you nurse it and keep it blessed or screened which drains alot of resources).. And far more importantly b) to use Leap it takes MASKS! Rasputina doesn't have any spare Masks! Seriously! :(
It was good during the Book1 era - but only because it was our only option!

I'm still toying around with Coryphée - They're undeniably very effective as a pair, but this is also a rather expensive solution. Thus I'm trying them to decide whether they're worth taking as singlets.

Haven't gotten to the Rider yet (don't like proxies, although the Hooded Rider would make a good one for the time being..), but on paper it looks GOO-d.


As for other ways of adding mobility to the crew I think most were discussed by Buhalin already, soeh, nothing special here.. But:
Kaeris, Gunsmith (still beyond me why), most of the Freikorps and Desperate Mercenaries all have a base Wk of 5 which I think is worth mentioning..
Personally I'm really looking forward to adding Kaeris to Rasputina, but Von Schill might be better to make a special mention of in this context as he's Nimble and all sort of other stuff.. He's just generally good at doing objectives I guess and with a larger cache than he's able to take on his own I theorize that he'd be alot of trouble to put down.

[tadaka]

Cant see this working well.

First both hits would need a mask. Asking for decent mask cards to hit your own model 2x is not the best thing to plan around. Second Knock back still does damage. Doing this would hit the rider for at least 6 damage if you got a low card both hits.

Takeing a few marcus crew models such as a tiger would be a much better option to add speed to rasputina.

[Scurry]

hes not talking about hitting the rider but using Taelors Hammerstrike action, where u flip a card and all models with def less than or equal to the card within 3" are pushed 3" away

[Buhallin]

I also believe that if you push the rider with your first Hammerstrike it will no longer be within 3" for it to be pushed again, so you'd only ever get 3" of it..

I think that if you start them in base contact, the first push would be 3", which would put the rider exactly 3" away, and therefore within 3" for the second one.

[Wodschow]

I think that if you start them in base contact, the first push would be 3", which would put the rider exactly 3" away, and therefore within 3" for the second one.

Well yeah.. And I think it would work the other way around..

If you move it 3" then it's clearly no longer within 3"..

I suppose it depends on whether you use < or ≤.. The rulebook doesn't say anything so yeah..

[Buhallin]

I obviously can't guarantee writer's intent, but the formal definitions for within are <=

9. at or to some point not beyond, as in length or distance; not farther than: within a radius of a mile.

10. at or to some amount or degree not exceeding: within two degrees of freezing.


"Not farther than" and "Not exceeding" are solidly in the <= category.

[Wodschow]

Okay, even if that's correct (which I'm not convinced that it is) it'd be impossible to have a distance of 0" between two models anyway.

So their bases are touching? That'd still mean that there's an infinitesimal distance between them greater than 0".

So after having been pushed 3" away you'd be 3" + this infinitesimal distance away which would result in you not being within 3" anyhow.


But whatever, play it like you agree with your friends, makes the most sense to go by what you feel is right.

[Buhallin]

Okay, even if that's correct (which I'm not convinced that it is) it'd be impossible to have a distance of 0" between two models anyway.

So their bases are touching? That'd still mean that there's an infinitesimal distance between them greater than 0".

So after having been pushed 3" away you'd be 3" + this infinitesimal distance away which would result in you not being within 3" anyhow.


But whatever, play it like you agree with your friends, makes the most sense to go by what you feel is right.

:hmmmm:

Uhm... Wow. That's quite the argument. I can honestly say that in more than 30 years of gaming I have never seen its equal.