Thursday, August 10, 2017

Five Finger Discount

Hello all.  It's been a while.  I was going to post on my experience a couple months back but I am at a loss for how I want to approach the topic in a constructive manner.  But I did manage to collect third party data. At this time I will continue to collect data on the subject and maybe one day we may discuss it.

I will be at Gen Con for certain.  So if you see me you are welcome to come say hello.  Chances are good I will make it to Nova.  And for those of you who are unaware there is a nationwide league (TFL) with sign ups this month and games run from September through November.  Details can be found here https://www.facebook.com/groups/1081844208549627/ .  The quick and dirty summary:
-If your meta has 6 people interested buy in is $30 per person.
-If your meta has up to ten the top player gets to play in the champion tournament in June.  11-20 send 2 players. 21-30 sends 3.
- I am uncertain to the logistics of why the tournament is held 6 months later in June. The tournament will be held in New Jersey again this(next) year.
-Prize support requires your meta to send someone from your meta to pick it up.   I thought the prize support was excellent at $15 last year.  
-The champion tournament will be run at a convention (hosted by Gadzooks I think) and will have non champion events that anyone can attend for an undetermined ticket price.  I will attend regardless of if I am my metas champion or not.

-Everyone declares a faction at the start.
-You will get 6 pre generated 50 SS games to play in any order.  Best record(s) is the champion.
-Tournament sounds like it will be a multi-day event.  Last year it was 5 rounds in 1 day.
If you have any questions on the TFL I will do my best to answer them or you can get ahold of Chris Weinstein on Facebook.

So with that out of the way onto my up coming project.  Parker Barrows.  Adam just closed a poll where he asked what master do you want and in depth write up on.  While he did not intend for write in answers Parker did manage to win the poll.  So I decided I would pick him up in the near future and run him as a side project and see if I can figure out what makes him tick.  I will probably run him at local tournaments until I have 30 games with him.
On the surface I can see why he won the poll.  Why pick this guy if you have the other 7 masters available to you.  Nevermind the in faction models are a hodgepodge hot mess of why are we allies?

So from what I can determine there is resource juggling that will be the first thing I need to get a handle on. I can see there is an order of operation in which upgrades I want to discard and which ones I want to add back.  His attack is mediocre but can punch once for min damage 5.  There probably is a little bit of hidden finesse in his attack but I suspect I will get more mileage out of his other abilities.  It's obvious he will play different from every master I've already played.  When I have played against him in the past there is nothing that jumps out on his card that makes him a threat that needs to be removed at first opportunity.  So the focus shifts to the nasty items in the crew.  In turn that allows Parker to score or deny victory points.  The problem is I have beaten him all 3 times I have faced him by ignoring Parker.  Thus making crew selection exponentially more important.

When I acquire the crew I will have a totem I'm not sold on.  Might be situationally good depending on the opposing faction.  Short range healing might be good if the crew is slow or stationary and able to survive an alpha striking model.  Mad Dog looks good and will probably make it into most lists.  Moderate range solid damage.  He only lacks defensive tech.  Bandidos look like cheapish scheme runners.  But they don't seem to do anything I would need them to do.  So I will maybe put one in to help with schemes (or to bluff schemes) but I doubt 2 or more will see the table unless it's a demo game.  So beyond the crew box I already own the Wokou raiders.  I need to paint some up for Misaki so they will be on the paint table this week.  I like the deceptive nature of these models but I expect to be hosed by the fate deck.  So I will report back on what I think of them after I play a few games with them.  Dead outlaws look ok.  Not sold on if I will buy them right away.

I own Tara and her box but not assembled.  I have the metal Levi, Von Schill and Vic's Boxes.  Misaki obviously but her crew is not outcast native (less the Wokou Raiders).  The Torakage and Oiran are mercs but unlikely worth pulling into outcasts. I also have a handful of mercs to try out.  Now to see about digging up some unwanted metal Ronin... I will update when I acquire the crew.  With any luck wave 5 will help shore up his weaknesses.

No comments:

Post a Comment