MuMantai

Up to 5 actions (plus Bonus), as Banasuva can now command Sandeep

Sandeep is great on his own. Good, flexible master. I tend to not take the academic minions (Guards and Mages) most of the time and concentrate more on the Elemental part of his kit (and Kudra). Of those minions, Guards are better than Mages, in my view. Of the elementals, I tend to use most, except for Metal Gamin and Golem. One could argue for one Metal Gamin for flexibility, but that is about it. Wind Gamin make the crew work and are exellent scheme runners, Poison Gamin are for later summoning and slowing down the enemy, I usually start with one Golem and summon the other, so there I need both Golems and the respective Gamin. I usually don't take Versatile or OOK with Sandeep, as he has good models and exellent synergy in his keyword(s). Rider, Effigy and Emissary are good models, though.

I have not played him as a brawler yet, no. I usually play the Dreadnought as a gun platform, with either the mortar and one gunner, or two gunners, and one of the two processor assets, of which I like the anthem more. I was impressed with him, but it did not feel overpowered that way. I don't know when I will get the chance to test your loadout, I haven't played TOS in ages, as we are just now ramping up Malifaux a bit more again.

As I said, the wording is not clear here. I agree that it can be read that way, unfortunately. But, your first point was that the Dreadnought seems too powerful. And if you can take essentially a whole activation not only if it activates, but also when Kassa activates, and when Unathi activates, and then again when the Crow Runners activate, yes, that seems a bit too powerful. In my opinion, actions that make another unit take an action are meant as increased flexibility, not as power multilpier, making multiple actions at the cost of one. Coincidentally, titans are the best target for that, as they have the most versatile actions to compound that. Again, yes, the rules allow your interpretation, and unfortunately we will probably not get an FAQ for that any time soon, but I wouldn't play it that way, and if you were my opponent and argued along those lines, you would have one less opponent very quickly.

Please don't do this to you or your opponent. I know the rules are not clear here, but as I interpret it, you can take Versatile actions in addition to the standard action as part of an order. If you take an action outside of activation (with Field Test or similar means), you take exactly one action (plus an additional action, if the first one triggers it). This can be a versatile action, but it does not allow you to do all versatile actions again.

I am with you that Rasputina needs a buff. But to say that she has no way of getting Slow on a model is... odd. First, the Ice Golem has another trigger on his Fist that gives out Slow. So he can make a model slow, and then attack again (and then again) to get the Frozen Smash trigger. Ice Gamin have the same trigger, but that is not very likely. Then you have three ranged models: Acolytes, Silent Ones (trigger built in) and Rasputina give Slow on a trigger on their ranged attacks. Rasputina also can give Slow to anyone under the blast. And Snow Storm has a shockwave that can give Slow on a trigger. Again, not saying the crew is good. I like your suggestion, even if it is a bit close to what Sandeep does. But if this crew can give out one thing, it is Slow.

King Empire: The main schtick of Kings Empire is shooting. That`s what they do, and they do it quite good, with long range and good accuracy. I think they are most hampered by terrain of all factions. They have melee capability, and I think going all in on shooting is a mistake, but shooting is their best bet. For that reason, they tend to play as the least mobile faction, but that can also be a mistake, as mobility wins games (operations tend to have their objective around the center line). The best units in KE are, imho, the Royal Rifle Corps, and the Kings Hand. They are the most efficient when it comes to getting to glory, and especially the Corps is getting deadly once in glory. Keep in mind that I am an Abyssinia player, so I may be biased here. South Wales Borderers and Grenadiers are also quite good, the rest is ok, I think. Dragoons are too squishy for a pure melee unit, imho, but again, I play Abyssinia. They should be a lot better against Hordes or Cult, to get the enemy melee units out of the gunline. For commanders, Charles is very good, for shooting and making things shoot (getting things in glory is surprisingly difficult for KE), and Kassa is a very good fit for the Kings Hand (and enables Abyssinia Envoys). I am not a fan of Margaret. I don't think she does what she is supposed to do very well (killing champions), and while she is very mobile, a commander unit as operations runner is not worth it imho. As for assets, you generally want to load out commanders and titans fully, so unless you desperately need one scrip, the only debatable assets are adjuncts. Sharpshooters are ok, I think. Abyssinia: Abyssinia tends to be a slow moving faction, with less range than the Empire, and usually less forces than the rest. But they have two things going for them: Resource advantage and raw power. They have the best card draw, some of the best reinforcement capabilities, and with prototypes, they have good action efficiency for their units. They also tend to have good armor and damage values which, combined with their card advantage, gives them excelent damage capabilities. They tend to have to choose their battlefield, as they cannot easily reinforce everywhere, but when they strike somewhere, it tends to hurt. As I see it, there are two types of units Abyssinia has: Punchy and Shooty. Punchy is mostly Steel Legion, Electrocutioners and Mehal Sefari. They advance slowly and kill everything that comes too close. Shooty includes Mechanical Infantry, and the Dreadnought. They still have to advance, as the ranges are not great, but these units can threaten a good chunk of the board, especially combined with Rail Gunners and prototype assets. In the end, a mix of both is usually best, but it also depends on what you play against. More ranged combat is good against Hordes, while against Cult, you want melee, as you will probably not have the opportunity to shoot at them. Mortars and Flare guns are very good at killing Stalking Portals, though. Against Kings Empire, you want shooting capabilities, I found, to my surprise. Some of Abyssinias Units have greater range than the Empire, and even when not, as soon as they close the gap, the damage tends to be higher. For commanders: all three are good. I tend to have Prince Unathi with me, as he is the one that keeps the troups in fighting shape. Call for Reinforcements, in combination with It's Dangerous to Go Alone, is just absurdly good. And for Abyssinia, it is very easy to get to glory, at least for anyone with an action that requires a simple duel. The Lord of Steel is just a killer, and one of the few mobile options we have. I quite like him. Kassa is just as good with the Dreadnought as she is with the Kings Hand, and has at least some synergy with the Walker and the Shredder (former more then ladder). Abyssinian Engineers are very good. Assets are better for expensive units as for cheap ones, and the abyssinian units are usually on the expensive side, so that fits. Take them, they are good! Cult of the Burning Man: Mobility has arrived. These guys have it in spades, and then some. They also tend to have good offensive, mostly at the cost of defense. They want to strike hard, and then retreat, to do it all again next turn. Playing them, you need to know the portal mechanics by heart, and all the tricks they allow. Playing against them, you need to know them to know how to shut that down. Which is surprisingly hard to do. The cult has some shooting, but not that much, they mostly rely on portals to get their melee guys where they need to be. Cult is very opportunistic in playstyle, and have some very fun options in units. Warped are the main battle unit, as they not only hit very hard, they are also quite sturdy, which is something not often found in Cult. The Rhino is also in that category, as is the Goryshche, but that one has some interesting options to boost either mobility, survivability, or damage with assets. ECB Black Ops are very good against what are usually "hard targets" (commanders, titans, Abyssinia in particular), as they scale their damage with assets. Twisted Horrors and Broken try to emulate the Self-Replacement mechanics of the Hordes, but are far less reliable at that. Twisted Horrors and Doomseekers have good ranged damage, as well as (in the case of Doomseekers) another teleport mechanic. I am not sure if I would ever take a Breachling to start with, but it could be a fun combo with Brahms. Cult usually tries to find the weak point in their opponents ranks, and strikes there with the hard hitters, while holding the other parts of the battlefield with the more sturdy (and/or cheaper) units. Adeodatos reinforces the teleportation aspect of the faction, and has some fun abilities that move units and give out shaken token, as well as at least a bit of card draw. Fenton is a bit more offensive(ly capable), and gets his units to glory faster. Horomatangi, then, is another big beater, and gets quite nasty with teleportation. I think. I never faced him. As for the adjunct, he's nice. He mostly saves the unit from losing shaken token, which can be good, and our local Cult player uses them a lot, but I am not quite sure if it is worth it. The Gibbering Hordes: The theme of these guys is a fast paced, squishy melee army that wants to be in your face and stay there with units that replace themselves. That part tends to not work that well, I feel. They also shape the battlefield to their advantage, and that part works quite well, at least as long as there is a storm siren. In some of my games, I felt the storm siren was the only thing keeping the game at least somewhat even. They also give out a lot of reinforcement tokens, which can be a fun mechanic when set up right. The hordes is an interesting bunch, with a variety of units that do a variety of things but not the one thing that I would have expected: They don't have a clear "tank", meaning a protector unit that can soak hits and has a good defensive capability. They have some of that, the crawlers have a lot of hitpoints for very few scrip, the Striped Skulkers have positive flips on everything as long as they in terrain (and why would they ever not be), Armored Whelks have good armor and prevent pinned token (which would remove reinforcement token), the Alpha Crawler also has ok armor, and the eel has very good defence. But none of those things has a set of defensive abilities that would indicate them in a tank role. They all are individually quite squishy, and they kill themselves to get to glory, and rely on reinforcement tokens and their Endless Numbers ability to keep in good enough fighting shape to overwhelm their opponent. In terms of roles, Alpha Crawler, Striped Skulkers, Karkinoi and Eels are the main damage dealers of the bunch, with Armored Whelks mainly for support against Pinned Tokens. Speckled Crawlers and eggs are there for giving out Reinforcement tokens and being eaten. The Stormsiren is, in my opinion, the strongest commander in the game and absolutely necessary for the Hordes. In glory, she makes parts of the battlefield (Tide pools, to exact) deadly for the opponents forces, and makes them go there. Especially deadly for units with multiple fireteams. The Frenzy want to be a deadly melee commander, but do not quite get there. They have either not the staying power or the damage output to really shine, which is in part because the Hordes have the worst card draw of all factions, even worse than the Empire (which at least has access to Kassa). Horomatangi should also be good in this faction, where he can more easily get to glory, but does not have portals. Again, never seen him on the table. The adjunct of Hordes is the worst in the game, and because of Endless Numbers, you probably don't want him anyway

No, the swarms are still on 40mm

On the Yasunori card there is a typo in the Revel In Chaos action

Essence of Power is an Enforcer, so it cannot be summoned. It is a pure support piece, more useful defensively than offensively, and unfortunately not worth it in my opinion. But in a less competative environment, it is a cool and useful (and flavorful) model.

Field Test allows you to take one action from a prototype asset, like Perfect Accuracy would allow you to take one action. I think it is clear enough, but maybe it gets into the FAQ at some point All I could find was this thread: They seem to acknowledge that when a non-titan fireteam is on elevated terrain, it counts as high. I haven't found anything in the rules about it, but I would play it as such for the time being. Else, it would be nearly unplayable, as a fireteam on elevated, blocking [low] terrain can see anything, but cannot be seen by anything other than titans.

No. Field Test especially needs a prototype asset action, so adjunkt does not work. Hm. Can't find it right now. I was sure it was in the FAQ somewhere... A hill would be Elevated, Blocking [Low], so if both units are completely on it, the blocking part would not be relevant for them, and they would be able to shoot on one another without the cover. If (like in your example) the enemy unit is on the hill, yours is not (or only partly), then they can shoot on you without cover, as elevated units ignore low terrain, but they would get cover against you, as you can see them (they are elevated, yes, I know, this is not in the rules, but please! You cannot stand on a hill and NOT be seen!), but the shot still goes through blocking terrain. A hill with just blocking is a mountain and should be impassable

You cannot give assets to Combined Arms titan, as it is itself an asset, not a unit. The unit (in this case a Steel Legion) is a squad, where one fireteam happens to be a titan. That does not change the fact that the unit is a squad. So it cannot attach Chemical Foggers, but it can attach Active Defenses Armor (even when the titan cannot use it). Yes. Even if only the titasn is left, he still represents a unit of Steel Legion and can be reinforced as such. Not sure, but I would guess yes? I you would like... I wouldn't recommend it... As far as I know it does. I haven't played for some time, but as far as I know, all flips can be reflipped or cheated, if there is no rule that says otherwise. See above, as far as I know yes. Yes, you can take that action. You still can only one action with those effects. No, you cannot. You either activate a unit, or you pass. A stratagem is part of an activation. If you have no units left to activate, you automatically pass, with no oportunity to play statagems. You also cannot play a stratagem between two Coordinated Strike activations (see FAQ). Not sure, but I would assume yes? As long as either your fireteam or the opponents fireteam is in the blocking terrain (here: on the hill), they can see each other. Cover applies as normal, though, and in this case, both fireteams would probably get cover. I would guess so. Both effects trigger at the same time, so you should be able to choose in which order they are resolved. So the other unit should be able to teleport first, then the portals. Not completely sure on this one though. No. Endless Numbers summons a new unit, which cannot have an adjunct attached. A unit can target friendly units (including itself) with actions that do not involve an opposed duel (like Bellow of Command or Field Test). Also, yes, as far as I know you can use Field Test on a unit without Prototype Asset (or valid target) to just draw a card.

As I said, the Chache is not glued to Colette. If you find a better model, put it somewhere else, by all means. That said, it is not a bad upgrade on Colette, as she usually is where the action takes place and may siphon a stone or two there. As for killing more doves, true, that is something you can do. I have to think about that. It would fix the activation issue. I know you can do that, but that would mean bringing models closer to the enemy before you want to necessarily have them there. The list is (in my opinion) fast enough to not having to do that. But it is an option in case there is little threat there. Just be sure to target the right model, you probably want the dove with Colette, not 8" away from her. And now, to the silly stuff: Yes, you can expand on the gimmick. But that is not the point of the list. I use the killing dove stuff, because it is cheap (One additional cache and some doves, which may or may not be free) and effectiv. This is neither cheap nor particularily more effective, which would defeat that purpose. Showgirls, imho, are bad models. They do nothing for this list. Having more soulstones, at some point, has diminishing returns, so I don't think this is worth it.

I was under the impression that you could both add a suit and get a modifier. That is not the case, thanks for that correction, I will incorporate that As I said, I usually don't have my opponent jump im my face agressively at the start of the first turn. If that happens, it most likely is at the end of the turn, and even if not, the list has a duet and some other models to deal with that. Or Colette herself, if necessary. In that case, your gameplan is out of the window and you have to improvise anyway. But usually, Colette doesn't really have anything better to do turn one other than bury and prepare her reemering turn two.

I had some fun games with Colette, using this core: - Colette (Soulstone Cache) - Mechanical Dove (times 3) - Mechanical Rider (Soulstone Cache) - Coryphee Duet Season to taste (Swarms, Emissary, Mobile Toolkit, Captain, Joss... you have options) The Soulstone Cache on Colette is not fixed there, if you find a better target, go for it. It just has to be there. The Cache on the Rider is necessary. So, what does this list do? Simple, you abuse two things: At the start of the game, Colette sacrifices doves to summon more doves, getting a card and two stones per dead dove in the process. She buries herself and gets another card and another two stones. You get a good hand for turn one/turn two and a lot of stones to keep your models alive, as well as the freedom to put Colette whereever you want turn two, for the low cost of... nothing really. We will get to how that works. Second, starting turn two, the rider reactivates the duet, giving it six to eight actions to work with a turn. So you have a very sturdy, very mobile beater/scheme runner that can annoy the enemy crew, while at the same time taking pressure off the rider, who can do her thing unharassed. How does this work? Deployment: You need to group up a bit. Both Cache models need to be in range of all doves, Colette should also be there. She doesn't necessarily need to be there, but she will be buried after her activation anyway, so I usually put her with her doves somwhere at the front, with the Cache models nearby. Put the duet somewhere where it project threat and the rest accordingly. Turn 1: You want to have initiative. Cheat it if necessary. You will probably play one activation down, so this is important. I am rarely really threatened early turn one, so if that happens... deal with it? The tools should be there... - Should you have pass tokens for some reason, use them. - First dove does nothing - Second dove does nothing - Third dove does nothing - If you have more chump activations, use them here. Every model that activates before Colette is one more activation your opponent has to take and that can not react to what happens after Colette. - Colette activates -- and uses Presto-Chango on a dove. Check if you have a 7 of masks or tomes in hand. If you have not, you can buy one of those with a soulstone. Sacrifice another dove to get two stones and a card for the second suit, or if you do not want to summon, for a mask. Either way, place the doves exactly where they were before, movement is not the point. If you did not declare the trigger, swap one with a scheme marker. -- Do this up to two more times, make sure to always sacrifice another dove. In the end, you should have up to three new doves, drawn up to three cards, and (depending how lucky you were with cards) up to six new soulstones. If you have an original dove left, focus with your last AP and use it for the next step. -- As your last trick, use Sword Trick on a dove, either with a low mask, or saccing another dove. Relent, kill the dove for all in all two to four more stones and one to two cards, and bury. - At this point, your opponent has some pass token, and you have new doves to counteract them. Do that. If you killed more than the original three doves, your opponent has more pass token than you have doves. That is unfortunate, but cannot be helped. - You can activate the rider here, she does nothing of consequence turn one other than advancing a bit, if possible. She has to be kept safe, as she cannot use her fate tokens. You can use stones to keep her alive, but if possible, she should not be attacked in the first place. - Duet and other beaters can activate now. The duet wants to be on a flank, so it can attack scheme runners or support without directly engaging the enemy fighting core. If you can do so safely, you can attempt to split/reform, but it is not necessary. At least one beater should be near the enemy core crew for Colette to be able to emerge somewhere impactful. This can also be a dove, but they are a bit fragile. They are expendable now, though, so they will serve, if necessary. Turn 2: You want at least one 6+ tomes this turn, and this crew has very little card draw, so stone for it, if necessary. - Your first activation will probably be Colette, if nothing else need immediate fixing. The rider wants to go as late as possible. - Colette wants to unbury in 3" to as many models as possible. Once there, you want to either Distracting Illusion to give out Stunned to people, or False Reality to disrupt them. If at all necessary, you can Presto-Chango to move models, but this activation aims at maximum disruption. Bonus action is Sword Trick to bury something scary. At the end of her activation, she should also engage as much as possible. Try to keep her there as long as possible, but if necessary, bury her to keep her safe. - The rest of the turn is not as planned out, the duet wants to activate early to further disrupt/kill models, aiming at models that can help those bound by Colette, or whatever wants to score points. Split if you can, but don't plan on it. - The rider wants to activate late to threaten a second duet activation. It doesn't matter if you really do it, sometimes other models are better suited for that, but the second duet go is usually what is the scariest, so your opponent has to account for that. You should have three fate token, stone for the fourth, you need the card for the fifth tome. The rider is your main scheme runner, keep her safe and she will do any marker scheme there is. Turn 3 you need another tome for the reactivate trigger, else it is just rinse, repeat. Colette can scheme as well, as can the duet if it needs to. Colettes activation turn one needs a bit of moderation. You have to look at what you are working with. If you want to go crazy, you can kill up to five doves here (three with Presto-Change, each saccing one and (maybe) summoning one, and Sword Trick saccing one and killing one), but at that point one has to ask if it is worth it. You play two activations down at that point. You definitely should kill the three original doves, as they are essentially free in terms of activation. Presto-Chango without summoning a new dove is essentially free in terms of stones, as the suit comes from the sacrificed dove. If you have the card in hand, you can summon a dove, but if not, I don't think the stone it worth it. Also, keep in mind that killing newly summoned doves sets you back one activation. I think three doves if you are first player and four if not should be the sweet spot, but that depends heavily on what your hand looks like, what the enemy crew is made of and how many stones you anticipate you will need. What can you do against it? - Anti bury tech works, because Colette is a lot less mobile, and cannot pulse out Distracted. This is not her main trick, but it is part of the book, so it is nice to have. - Anti trigger tech is also nice, as Colette relies on her defense trigger to keep her alive, so she cannot be as agressive if that is on the board. Stunned on the rider is great, as it shuts down the whole reactivate thing. - Armor ignore is great against the duet (and the faction as a whole), irreducable damage works against the main three threats in this (duet, rider, Colette). Beware of this one. Also, Shen Long (as usual) just kills this list, as he ignores all defenses anything will ever have. - Early aggression should be fine, as the only thing that could be killed are the doves, and at that point your opponent is doing your job for you. To really shut it down, you need to focus either the rider or the duet before turn three. Spreading out helps mitigate Colettes impact. And now, the most disgusting part of this: Lets do some math: 16 (Colette) + 2 (Dove) + 2 (Dove) + 2 (Dove) + 11 (Rider) + 13 (Duet) + 2 (Soulstone Cache) + 2 (Soulstone Cache) = 50 Yes, you can do this with any master there is (in Arcanists). This reduces the risk of getting countered significantly. The good: Ramos actually gets the whole package for 46 stones, as he doesn't have to pay tax on doves and duet. He also synergizes great with this, as he can repair duet and rider, gets another card for dead doves, can summon, can blow doves and coryphees up, and is an all out great guy. Also, fast on the duet is disgusting. Sandeep loses out on card draw, but can still use most of his tricks in this setup. You get mobility on top of mobility, and outside of the most aggressive setups you get a very good late game. Also, Banasuva is a beater again and loves himself a Cache. You need to summon a wind gamin to get going, but then, you are good. The bad: Ironsides is a good sturdy beater that can go in with Colette. Not much else to say, some of her tricks work, but the adreanline is slow, the aura doesn't do anything, and anything that disables triggers also works against Colette. Have to test some more, but I suspect pure Ironsides may be stronger. But it is a nice scheming package for Toni, something she doesn't have otherwise. Mei Feng, again, is a good beater. The rider can put scrap markers down, but there is almost no support for her otherwise, so I am not sure if it is worth it. But I am not really experienced with Mei Feng, so maybe it could be good? Hoffman has similar support for the crew to Ramos in that he can make the duet fast, repair it, and can also make it sturdier by making the armor stick. Other than that, nothing in the crew cares about power token, and he doesn't seem to be doing much on his own, but as long as he can support the duet, it may be worth it. Kaeris has no synergies in this crew whatsoever. Conversly, this may not be a bad thing, as I find the synergies not to be very strong in the first place. As many others, Kaeris would be just a beater here, but she is not bad at that, Colette helps keeping her alive (as do many stones), and pyre markers work as they should. Also, she is a decent scheme runner on her own. I haven't played it yet, but just thinking about it, it could work. She wants a mostly independant crew anyway. The ugly: Marcus would be completely on his own. Nothing wants his upgrades, he can move nothing, he would be just a beater. I don't think this would be remotely as strong as a standard Marcus crew. Rasputina would also have no support or synergy to her name. While that would not be so bad (she has still the ability to place markers and channel through them, as well as make things slow), I don't think Raspi would work particularly well in this setup, because Colette wants models to be aggressive with her, and Raspi does not do that. I think this could be one of the stronger Raspi crews, but definitely one of the weaker masters for this. Poor Raspi

ToS has two "heights". Low and high. This goes for units (Titans are high, everything else is low) and terrain. A Terrain can be one of those or both (a small hut could be low, a bis house could be both, a house on stilts could be high, but not low). A non-titan fireteam can see everything that is not blocked by low terrain or units of the opposing company. A Titan can see everything that is not blocked by high terrain or titans of the opposing company. Yes, that does lead to some weird interactions, but at least it is consistent

You are aware that Stealth does nothing for the Hoarcat when Marcus uses Protected (Beast), right? Manipulative is a neat trick, though, never thought of that.

Lets see. Abyssinia Player here, but I throw my opinion in anyway: You will need some Egg Clutches. The box of Karkinoi should include some Egg Clutch Proxy bases, if I remember correctly, so those would suffice to start with. If you do not want that, you will need two to three of them, I think. Morphlings are at the bottom of adjuncts in terms of usefulness. They have their jobs, but one is enough for starters, and you can skip that if you want. Eels are very good, even after the last change. If you buy one, you get some proxy bases for new eels, but if you want only original models on the field, you will need at least two of them. Your opponents will probably not allow you to multiply them, but should it comes to that, one eel can spawn at least three more over the course of a game. That said, you will need approximately two eels for each one you plan to field. And, again, you will get proxy bases. As for units, Armored Whelks are quite useful, Speckled Crawlers are nice to have to either eat or give out Reinforcement Tokens to other units, Yarazi are fun and Barbed Crawlers are quite useless, imho. So in terms of units you could skip, I would say Barbed can be skipped, Yarazi could be, the other two should not. Hope this helps you. As always with these games, I would say if you are not sure if you want something, borrow it if you can or if you cannot proxy it and try it out. Or if you are like me, buy it anyway

I find this really funny, because in our playing group, Arcanists also have a bad reputation. The reason for that is exactly what Ludvig said. Don't get discouraged because of that, I take it as a badge of pride

They are in general. The list is more generalists to specialists, less good to bad. For single commander, you probably only want one more unit to start with, and maybe one or two other as soon as you start experimenting. For a dual commander game, you need a second commander (obviously) and a lot more stuff, so here you can start to look at what interests you really, try out other commanders and really go down the list (as far as your wallet gets you).

I would recommend Mechanized Infantry as a good fire support unit, and Electrocutioners as a flanking unit with good damage and good mobility. A Rail Gunner or two and at least one Adjunct (Abyssinian Engineer) should also be high on the buying list. Kassa wants the titan, so if you want the titan, get her, otherwise get the Lord of Steel (or get both, really). For later purchases, Steel Legion is just al round good, but expensive, Motorcycle is a good mobile schemer, but very fragile, and the Basotho Cav is nice, but not really necessary, imho. Your wallet decides how far down the list you go

My Goto for Reckoning is Ironsides. For this, Schemes I would consider are Dig their Graves, Assassinate and Claim Jump Ironsides, Mouse, Amina, Fitzsimmons, Gunsmith, Season to Taste. Defensive posturing Turn 1, From Turn two on just pull a model in and kill it. Let them come to you (they usually do), and kill everything that comes too close. If you expect a lot of shooting, take the Captain.

I have two problems with this. First: You walk/charge a gamin next to the duett, dropping a scrap there. Why would the duett ever stay there? It is Agile, it can just walk away. Or Angelica walks it away, or Colette places it away, or whatever other movement trick. Second: For this to work, everything has to hit. You have to hit three attacks, with most likely even odds (7 vs 7, then 6 vs 6), and have to hit severe and moderate in damage. And even when it works, this will most likely cost you your full hand. Getting attacks in on the duett is good, it is a very costly model and threatening it is a good way to get it out of the game. Colette won't have many healing effects most likely, so any damage sticks. If you get a scrap marker next to the duett, go for it. If you can kill it, it most likely is worth your hand and Neill in the process. But if you can't, it can also be an idea to Railwalk in, get a hit or two in with Neill, and Railwalk out again. Or maybe you can ignore it. It is 12 stones of a model that can do a lot, but only so much. If you can play around it, you don't need to kill it.

"The first half of the trigger" is the costs. You cannot get the effects of the trigger without paying it's costs. Otherwise, the trigger could just as well read "after resolving, target gains slow".