Hamelin Tactica: Drown them in Rats

[tenshu]

great write up miles better than I could do. but im pretty sure it takes four rats to make a rat king?

[Rameses]

This is very extremely true. It takes 4 rats to make a Rat King

[PraetorDragoon]

"When Rats get together, their tails become Tangled. When a Rat activates with 3 or more rats within 3" of each other (no matter the controller!) , they are all sacrificed and become a Rat King. "

 

I ment of this to be read that in addition to the activating Rat, you needed 3 or more other rats. I reformatted this to be more accurate. 

 

So you need a total of 4 or more rats.

[Cornelious1424]

Why four, wouldn't the activating rat count as a part of activating within 3" of 3 or more rats?

[PraetorDragoon]

including the activating Rat, of course

[Bengt]

It's four because the tangled text says "other Malifaux Rats".

[Ausplosions]

Why four, wouldn't the activating rat count as a part of activating within 3" of 3 or more rats?

Because it says 3 or more other rats.

[SevenSins]

Can we lay the four rats needed to rest now? I think most people get it

Man this makes things even harder, was so set on trying out Jack Daw, but now i want to try Hamelin as well.... Decicions decicions

[NeverEnding]

So I did play Hamelin with Obey with a Trapper vs Yan Lo...Oh my god that was cool. It worked Turn 1 I took out the Soul Porter and Put some damage on Yan Turn 2 He took out Yin and by then Yan himself died to a bunch of Bleeding Disease spam. He was able to reliably drop a bunch of damage on whatever I wanted for the rest of the game. Nasty stuff.

[Ausplosions]

Outcasts Crew - 40 - Dustup

Hamelin -- 5 Pool

+The Piper [2]

+The Plague [2]

The Stolen [2]

Killjoy [12]

Malifaux Rat [2]

Malifaux Rat [2]

Nix [8]

Rat Catcher [6]

I have a 40ss,fixed list tournament coming up.

Strategies will be:

Recconoiter

Squatters Rights

Reckoning

I'm lost but have this as a maybe?

[PraetorDragoon]

I would swap two of the Rats for a Obedient Wretch, as she can easily make more rats. Also, more significant minions Maybe take Melodies for the Kill Joy slingshot, as you have KJ himself already.

[Ausplosions]

It's going to be difficult to get more significant minions in there...

I don't own an obedient wretch, and no one in my area stocks her.....

I have proxies her, and she has been pretty rubbish. Relying on crows and giving up movement just to "maybe" bring out a rat is fairly shit.

[PraetorDragoon]

It's going to be difficult to get more significant minions in there...

I don't own an obedient wretch, and no one in my area stocks her.....

I have proxies her, and she has been pretty rubbish. Relying on crows and giving up movement just to "maybe" bring out a rat is fairly shit.

 

I had some success with her, but if you don't like her, don't take her. Just stating my own opinion.

 

I would still recommend to take Infectious Melodies as a KJ delivery system. 

[Ausplosions]

I had some success with her, but if you don't like her, don't take her. Just stating my own opinion.

I would still recommend to take Infectious Melodies as a KJ delivery system.

Im not saying either of us is right or wrong, just trying to get points of view. Thanks for your input!

I struggle with Hamelin and his lack of significant models...

[PraetorDragoon]

I usually draw some significant models from other sources, such the ever useful Void Wretches. Just don't forget to blight them first. 

[Rameses]

Keep the Rats Ausplosion. Ditch the Rat Catcher and hire the Obedient Wretch. By the end of turn 1 its possible to have a rat catcher summoned and or just keep the rat king. And just repeat the summoning process turn 2

[Ausplosions]

Outcasts Crew - 40 - Dustup

Hamelin -- 6 Pool

+Survivalist [1]

+The Piper [2]

+The Plague [2]

The Stolen [2]

Canine Remains [4]

Canine Remains [4]

Lazarus [10]

Nix [8]

+Hollow [2]

I am unable to hire an Obedient wretch, because I don't own one.

How about this? Also, it's Stake a Claim, not Squatters Rights..

[Mr. Bag-O-Guts]

It's going to be difficult to get more significant minions in there...

I don't own an obedient wretch, and no one in my area stocks her.....

I have proxies her, and she has been pretty rubbish. Relying on crows and giving up movement just to "maybe" bring out a rat is fairly shit.

There are quite a few Obedient Wretches for sale on eBay, and reasonably priced. 

[Rameses]

I had a chance to field Hamelin again. Anf I really must confess. Hamelin is a ton of fun to play. Of course it was pointed out to me to explore Hamelin with Lost keyword models since I haven't broken that boundary

So possibly next weekend.

One thing I did notice I struggled to get Blighted on models. Not like I wasn't getting Blighted out there. But just not in the amounts I thought possible while reading over the cards.

[Kadeton]

If you build and play with a focus on spreading the Blight, you can definitely get a heck of a lot of Blighted on models. But yeah - in most cases, there won't be that much of it around. It's very nice to get it on difficult enemy models early, and let it stack up over the course of the game.

[SevenSins]

It seems blighted is more late game affecting? After drowning in rats you poke them apart with blight bombs?

[Kadeton]

It really depends - it's a very versatile condition. You can use it to kill people at range, pull them further, shut down enemy schemes, get 1AP charges, heal... spreading it around will always be useful in some fashion. Even taking a couple of Rat activations to spread it around your own crew can be valuable once your models start dying off.

 

Spending serious effort spreading lots of blight is generally not necessary, but spending effort to make sure it stays out there on plenty of models is worthwhile - just putting a few Stolen around is often enough, but beware of enemy condition removal.

[Drool_bucket]

So I have been exploring Hamelin recently, maybe ten games at this point.  I

 

As a disclaimer, I want to admit that I did not care for his style at first and still don't consider him "fun to play" still after these games, though a had a bit of a breakthrough tonight and feel more optimistic about him.

 

I have been using him in Turf War and Reconnoiter where the scheme pool features at least a single marker placement scheme, Breakthrough and Power RItual being my favorite.

 

I have also been using three or four Lost models each game, Baby Kade (up until tonight) and 2-3 Crooligans.  Nix (usually with Infectious Melodies) and Hamelin with The Piper, Survivalist and Sewer King.  The rest of the crews have been a mix of Rat Catchers, The Wretch, a Stolen and then a few Outcast shooters, mostly the CGS.  I have specifically stayed away from Killjoy because I feel like once I start using him with Hamelin I'll rarely leave him behind.  I also skip hiring Rats and Rat Kings and start with at least 5 stones, often a full seven, mostly for Lure Malifaux Citizen and Nix damage preventions.

 

Anyways, here are a series of observations and lessons I've learned from my games, hopefully they might help other people starting Hamelin.

 

- It seems you have a choice between spreading mass Blight or getting the Rat/King/Catcher engine going.  The fuel is generally your Stolen with help from the Wretch.  Rats generated elsewhere are usually just bonus and don't seem to consistently join the engine.  At first I was drawn to the Blight because of Bleeding Disease Spam and the ability to do massive amounts of consistent and growing damage.  I saw Bleeding Disease as Hamelin's method of killing enemy models.  However, in the past few games I have found myself moving heavily away from this, matter of fact this past game I handed out Blight twice to an enemy over game play.  Instead I worked hard at summoning Rats to make Kings.  Then when a Rat Catcher died I always had a King to make another Catcher.

- Hamelin is dead hard.  Between Survivalist and concentrating on having at least two Stolen nearby I find my opponents sometimes just toss their hands up in the air.  Not to say he is unkillable, I actually have seen him die in the majority of my games.  But his death usually comes late and I am reckless with him. 

- Rat Kings are okay.  Any model that can remove a Scheme Marker has his place and their attack is not horrible.  They have a few nice tricks like Bore that you have to remember and being able to reactivate them on an "8" from a Catcher is pure gold.  This said, I find Catchers to be amazing for what they are.  Being able to place nearby Rats into Btb, giving themselves Armor, on a 8 wound model, can not be overlooked.  Tie in "Don't Mind Me" and it took a bit for me to figure out where they have the most success, standing next to the enemy. I was pretty protective of them at first but now I toss them into harms way with little hesitation.  They are not the easiest thing to remove and when the opponent does, just have a King sac itself and viola, another Armor+1 Catcher!

- I come from a Victoria/Leveticus background. Generally means I save my high cards to succeed on offense.  (not always the case with the Viks) Over my time with Hamelin I've come to see that my high cards are probably better in defense.  In particular wasting my opponent's AP.  Offense does not seem to be the crew's strong point, so why try and force it?  Using my 12's and 13's for Df on Catchers, Nix and Hamelin really bog things down.

- Nix.  Oh Nix.  At first I thought he was a model to support Hamelin right in the thick of things, removing enemy Severe damage from the game, healing up in the middle of the action, spreading pulse Blight and using Incorporeal to go where he needs to be.  Yeah and then he died, over and over.  I've moved on to using Nix specifically as a flanker.  While he starts just close enough to pulse out Blight to my friendly, non-Blighted hires, he quickly moves away from the action and instead hovers around the edges.  While he features no decent movement tricks and his Wk is unimpressive, Incorporeal always has its uses, he hasn't met to many Objective Runners that he can't best and being an anchor for Infectious Melodies has been gold with certain schemes.  While I am not 100% sold on his overall value, I can't see leaving him home any time soon.

- Shooters.  I've been drawing from the excellent stable of ranged attackers that the Outcast Faction features.  Currently the Convict Gunslinger is my favorite, but anyone with a gun seems to work.  Early game Obey's from Hamelin seem a solid use of his AP, especially when you have a 7 in hand.

- Baby Kade. This guy has been my All-Star in most of my games.  I've been parking him close to Hamelin, with a Rat nearby, and having Hamelin Pipes (Lure) in something worth killing.  In many instances I've gotten two Pounce attacks off with Kade, at Ml 7 and a 3/4/6 damage track because of how many other models Hamelin has floating around.  In Turf War this combination has served me very well.  Kade gets in the middle and then uses Defensive Stance to maximize that Df7 and Hamelin's crew's advantage in Activations to keep Manipulative up and running. 

- When I get my control hand I always search for a 8-10 of Masks/Tomes to know if I can summon one or two Stolen and plan accordingly.  If I have those cards (and a back up 8 as gravy) I then sacrifice every Stolen I can for two Rats each.  Useless Toys I use on Rats, because we'll I find them useless....

 

Overall, I feel the Summoning track of Hamelin is stronger than the Blighted track. 

 

If I had a "core" Hamelin crew it would look like this:

 

Hamelin w/ Sewer King, The Piper, Survivalist

Nix w/ Infectious Melodies

Convict Gunslinger

Baby Kade w/ Oathkeeper

Rat Catcher

Obedient Wretch

Stolen

5 Soulstones to Cache

 

That's roughly 45 (iirc) and the rest to taste with Crooligans, Void Wretches and another Catcher all options.

 

This all said, I still feel like Hamelin is a lot of deck chair shuffling.  And what I mean by that is I get lots of Activations, but most of them aren't worth the game time to conduct.  Likewise, most of the theme'd Hamelin stuff fails to do anything worthwhile during the game outside of Scheme Marker manipulation.  (Catchers placing and Kings removing... powerful, game winning stuff mind you, just not particularly sexy)  I have made the statement multiple times that I don't feel Hamelin is weak as a Master, but that his playstyle can really bog down into a boring place....

 

But the experiement continues.  I intend to add more once I start my Killjoy Odyssey.

[IntereoVivo]

Nice to hear your thoughts Drool_bucket. I agree that Hamelin isn't a very sexy master, but is pretty strong due to most of his strong plays being ones that win games. However, I have to agree that he isn't very exciting to play against. I've been toying with some ideas and would like to start trying to find an "exciting" style that also works well. I'm thinking that 1 Stolen and a couple Lost + non-theme Outcasts should be pretty solid.

[Kadeton]

The model-shuffling dance (models become Rats, Rats become Kings, Kings become Catchers and Rats, Rats become...) can certainly get a bit tedious, both to play with and against. My recent games with Hamelin have taken a different tack, and focused more on using Pipes and Obey to control the playing field, and it's been way more fun for me and my opponents. Rather than focusing on any one aspect to the exclusion of all others, I've tried to get a little bit of everything (some summoning, some Blight, some control) and it's worked out very nicely.