Proposed Hamelin Nerfs

[TedPro]

I'm going to be testing out different modifications to Hamelin with friends in the near future.

I'd love playtesting and thoughts from others. I have a friend who has Hamelin and wants to play him, and loves the complexity and play style, but not the bad reputation.

Personally, I really want to buy Hamelin and start playing, but not until he's back in balance.

So here's the playtest I want to try. If it ends up working, I'll probably encourage local players to use it until an official change rolls out.

* * *

The Stolen and Obedient Wretch:
Change Abandon to:
"(all) Abandon: Sacrifice this model. Target model within 6" receives Insignificant until the model takes an (all) Interact action and discards two Control Cards. The model may prevent this by discarding two Control Cards immediately."


Malifaux Rat:
Add the following Ability:
"Teeming Hordes: This model cannot make Strikes on the turn it is Summoned."

* * *

My goal is to make the play style still Hamelin-like and very potent, while removing the most frustrating aspects for other players (which seem to be "Hamelin models come back instantly", "rats kill everything without fail" and "my models are unable to accomplish anything").

Your thoughts are very welcome.

[Ratty]

Er. is your aim to give him an infinite loop again?

[tadaka]

Indiscriminate Void was changed to prevent a number of jacked up tricks. I would not change it back.

[Jonas Albrecht]

Yeah, the original Indescriminate Void allowed Hamelin to take infinite turns. I thought Sandwich had a pretty decent idea for the fix.

[TedPro]

Er. is your aim to give him an infinite loop again?

Oops! Yeah, taking that out.

[Omenbringer]

Have you looked at the several other threads that suggested "fixes" for Hamelin?

I know of at least 2 that had a lot of really good, positive suggestions that would tone him down without completely changing his feel (and both included several notable Hamelin players making the recomendations).

I would start there and build from there.

[TedPro]

Thanks Omenbringer.

For reference, I think these are the threads where such ideas are discussed:
Would Hamelin loose me friends? (several ideas kicked around)
A quick fix for Hamelin (rats don't activate on the turn they're summoned)
Hamelin: is he really that hamy? (mostly a list of the NPE problems)
How to deal with playing as Hamelin (mostly a list of the NPE problems)
How to beat Hamelin the Plagued (magicpockets suggests ways to do so)
Polite suggestion Re Hamelin Errata (magicpockets suggests that we not forget about Avatar abilities)
This might be stupid, but Hamilin and Ht 1 (contains my favorite quote from thechosenone: "I play Hamelin and I did it not knowing what I was really doing. I've never lost with him nor really ever been in a position where I felt too challenged and thats all the fault of the crew mechanics. ")
Did they fix Hamelin? (old thread, where the infinite loop of Indiscriminate Void is discussed. The context I'd missed before.)

I haven't among those seen a lot of fixes, but what I have seen usually revolves around a few things that are common things-that-need-fixing:
- All the extra Activations rats get.
- Getting turned Insignificant so easily and irrevocably.
- Hamelin being immune to Ht 1 models, since that means Ophelia need not bother playing.
- Maybe his Counter-denial abilities.

Some things that are powerful but don't seem to need fixing:
- Hamelin's trick of "You can't attack anyone but me, and you can't attack me either."
- Hamelin's powerful card manipulation, which is both a strength and a weakness.
- Hamelin's super-Lure and super-Obey abilities.
- Nix's durability, movement, and debuffs.
- The Obedient Wretch card-cycling.

Anyway, I'm going to try it with the nerfs listed above, and see how it goes.

[Omenbringer]

The main one I was talking about was started by magicpockets.

It was called Hamelin is better than we think. The thread came out shortly after the crew was released.

There was another one with Sandwich as well though I cant seem to find it right now, it might have been in his Hamelin Tactica.

[TedPro]

Thanks. I found Sandwich's suggestions on page 20:

1) Make Lure Malifaux Citizen a Spell with CC 13, once per crew per turn.
2) Make Bully require a Wp -> 13 duel to target, instead of impossible.
3) Make the Malifaux Rats appear in the same spot as a killed model rather than B2B.

These all seem like good changes. I think "Rats can't Attack on the turn they are Summoned" belongs in there too.

Thanks for the pointers.

[Omenbringer]

No problem TedPro, Hamelin has been somewhat of a project for me for a very long while and I am eager to see him "fixed".