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Help me to find value in Mah Tucket !


Blacks85

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Yesterday I've played a tournament where I've used Ophelia twice and - only to give her a try - Mah Tucket in the last game.

  • Ohpelia deals more dmg - ridiculous amount of - and she can shoot as well
  • Mah tucket has a lot of pushes - which can be useful - but Ohpelia can drag GREMLIN to her and place kin within 8" that is - simply amazing.
  • Ophelia is a little bit more durable thanks to the Plink ability
  • The three passive abilities of Mah tucket looks quite useless to me: I've tried the "Get off my land" but it expose some of your crew to opponent before the rest, the initiative symbol is somehow uneffective unless you turn +1MI and the "Do it right" isn't very valuable haven't access to summon any gremlin.
  • Totem is kinda useless while ophelia can have extra activation for only 2/4/6 SS that also equip (prevent dmg.) and occasionally shoot around.

I've tried also the Bayou bushwackers that - in the paper were very sad - result very sad in game too. Being in cover from CA action is very helpful, but the min. damage of "1" force you to take focus action and makes impossible to move and shoot. Also they are very fragile once someone put his hand on them.

Question is: when do you believe Mah would be a good choice? Why? And how can you make her mechanics count?

Thanks :D

 

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First, Bayou Bushwhackers are really bad with Mah. They aren't very good with anyone but they especially suck with Mah since both love to discard cards for abilities.

Second, I do think that Ophelia is more powerful.

Third, Gremlins models as a Faction don't have all that much synergy with Mah's melee-centric life-style.

(Fourth, it's Ml with an lowercase 'l' like in melee, not a capital i) ;):P 

That said, Mah does have some things going for her. She is a tremendous distraction piece with her potentially 3" Ml reach. She can tie up huge chunks of the enemy and all in all take their attention which is something that Ophelia does more rarely. She can be tanky (I like the Apron - it's very expensive but she really needs all the toughness she can get) and very annoying. And yet while being tanky, she can take off and Charge away when needed.

Her Pushes are also more plentiful and more versatile than Ophelia's. I usually use Get Off My Land on her and then use her first turn mostly to Push my models into position (and then they Push stuff in turn be it Trixie's Lure or Piglet's Truffles or whatever). And note that you can Push enemis as well. The Ca is low but it's against Wp so there are some models that are very susceptible to it. And you can Push stuff into severe terrain or off of buildings or whatnot. A useful option to have.

The Initiative bonus passives are often focused on ("Look! You can get +1 Ml!!") but I would mostly ignore it. It's a nice minor bonus but don't stress about it. I was really disappointed by Mah's Emissary Upgrade as more card discard is not what will make her shine! But I haven't tested it yet so take that with a grain of salt.

Do It Right is similarly situational but quite handy if the Scheme Pool has stuff like Exhaust their Forces or Cursed Object or whatever. You seldom get to use it but the opponent has to take it into account and that is valuable in and of itself.

Her Totem isn't very good. Old Cranky is better. I use Lil' Lass mostly as a cruise missile with Lead-lined Apron and if the opponent is unwilling to kill her, I tend to Do It Right her if it looks like Mah will be getting enemy attention.

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38 minutes ago, Math Mathonwy said:

(Fourth, it's Ml with an lowercase 'l' like in melee, not a capital i) ;):P 

Anyway, this was definitively the best advice :D

Bug? I can't write out of this box...Thanks, I agree on almost all points of your view. Except for the armor upgrade, I don't think it can worth 2? But maybe I'm wrong.

I will keep her in the case but very unlikely play again in a tournament, unless for fun !

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I've run Mah a lot recently, and took her to win a 50ss tournament last weekend at Califaux.  Some general stuff I've puzzled out with her:

  1. Mah loves terrain.   In boards choked with cover, Ophelia can struggle to get clean shots.  For the most part she doesn't care since she's got the innate +flip to fix the accuracy, and just "settles" for min damage 4 (since you probably brought Lenny).  Since Mah is melee focused (and has diving charge for me) I generally don't care about the ubiquitous Ht1 Hard Cover scatter terrain that pops up all over.
  2. Mah loves Roosters.  Roosters go from good to *amazing* with her around.  Her ability to push them around, give them +flips on attacks, and just kill them dead if they go wrong, makes her a great minder for them.
  3. Mah is mobile.  It's like playing lady justice with rocket boots.  With her 1 AP charges and 0 action 6-inch push, Mah can get to almost anywhere she needs to be for very little AP.  She *can* be charging into your opponents deployment zone turn 1 if you want to be cheeky, but it's VERY costly.   Mostly I'll only use "Get off My Land" to move up into a good piece of cover or redeploy Mah if I had to deploy first and the things I'd rather be hitting put themselves far away from her.
  4. Mah is greedy.  Mah *always* gets Dirty Cheater, Out for Blood, and Know the Terrain.  The Lass gets the Apron.  I'll typically bring at least 5 stones, and Mah will normally spend 1-2 of those on alpha strike turn, and likely 1 on turns after that.   On that turn (normally turn 2 when they've never seen Mah before) Mah can charge something 9 - 16 inches away by either Aiming for the sore spots and getting the trigger or else using "Let Mah Handle this" to push up, THEN charging into whatever thing she wants.  As you work things over with your spoon, don't feel bad about spending more stones for repositioning triggers.  Most melee beater masters suffer because they eat one thing and then die, Mah can cheat those trades and actually get away to fight another day!
  5. The Lass dies, a lot.   Unless I'm trying to do Show of Force, the lass is likely dying to set up Mah's killing spree.  This gets me not only a +flip for the turn, but also gets Mah the Apron (which she might need if she can't get far enough away at the end of her turn).  I haven't had the chance to test Cranky with her yet, but I'd worry about trying to keep the two of them together, Mah's turns almost always involve her cruising off across the board to beat face.

Bushwackers I actually like.   Actually one Bushwacker I like, singular.  Their ability to ignore cover when shooting and always get cover against non melee attacks means a lot of the standard answers to snipers (more snipers, lure, etc) don't work as well so things tend to come *get* them in melee.  Generally, when i bring one (depends on terrain), it will Get Off My Land forward at the start of the game to get into a good position, then make a nuisance of itself.  I need to start making sure someone has "on your tip toes" around them though, since I ran into a few problems with scatter terrain and ht 1 targets.  (On your tip toes is a fantastic upgrade btw, it doesn't get enough good press)

Having said that, Boost their confidence is a weird kind of reckless.   I've never remembered to actually use it now that i think about it.  Generally, Mah's box is really challenging to make work.  Hand and resource management is already a primary concern; and Mah, the bushwackers, AND Trixie give a lot of opportunity to burn resources you need for other things.  There is no such thing as a useless card to that crew.

Edited by Clement
Because I derped Out For Blood.
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38 minutes ago, Clement said:

do not feel bad about spending another soul stone and aiming for the sore spots again to get another 1 AP charge (depends on how my opponent positioned things).

You can't do this unfortunately, the trigger is once per turn.

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Thanks for the thoughts! 

I don't usually like to take upgrades in general, I tend to play not more than a couple per crew. Fill MahTucket like a Turkey :D with 3 upgrades plus the Lass bomb...looks like very, very expensive to me. It might actually work, but spend 8 SS to boost her and give gremlin :+fate on attack? Hum, a little bit too much !

But I will definitively try her this way...as a full option hard beater before remove her from my tournament case ;)

Maybe is a good crew when the schemes are very bloody and you can do a pretty intense Turn 2 all in with :+fate on DMG, :ram on initiative and there you go !

Also I didn't think about show of force...maybe it doesn't worth to get MAH only for a free totem with upgrade, but it could always be another option

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5 hours ago, Blacks85 said:

I don't usually like to take upgrades in general, I tend to play not more than a couple per crew. Fill MahTucket like a Turkey :D with 3 upgrades plus the Lass bomb...looks like very, very expensive to me. It might actually work, but spend 8 SS to boost her and give gremlin :+fate on attack? Hum, a little bit too much !

When the lass goes down really depends on what the opponent is up to.  Most of my gremlin lists in general find room for a bayou gremlin or two, and I've used them to kick things off if the lass is in a good position to get after things.  That won't put the apron on Mah though.

Her ability to shove both friendly and enemy models around shouldn't be undersold either.  In my finals game I went up against Hamlin and a rat joy bomb, I got Burt 10 inches up the table before he activated (terrain angles got in the way of the max 11 inches) so he could reckless and get a shot off into the rat pile.  Throwing Burt that far up curtailed the havoc Killjoy caused later in the turn.  Turn 2, Mah went in on Killjoy and wrecked him. 

Edited my previous post for Out for Blood derping, and highlighted other ways I've used stones with her when the time calls for it.

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Just adding on to what Math and Clement said (kids got here and took most of my points), but Gremlins have a very strong suite of combat options across different point values in the faction. Mah can support them all really well and (this goes for both her and our beat sticks) on occasion, knock them up to Ml7. This is crucial in Gremlins as we have so much at Ml6 and we all know how good going from Ml6 to Ml7 is.

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so with Mah and her bush-wackers, how do people feel about adding gators/W. boars and McTavish? that would help the whole crew advance and you don't have to discard for swamp fiends to get into position. McT doesn't randomize and Mah can charge while engaged leaving enemy models open for the bush-wackers to well.....ambush. and McT can create cover for the shooters, while boars and pingpong out of combat like Mah leaving models open. 

 Not the end all be all of crews, but i feel it can have it's uses and in true gremlin fashion what doesn't have it's risks?

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22 hours ago, Clement said:

I've run Mah a lot recently, and took her to win a 50ss tournament last weekend at Califaux.  Some general stuff I've puzzled out with her

First, that is awesome to hear, well done!

Second, did you have a 'core' crew that you begin with when building a Mah crew (aside from the obligatory upgrades that you have stated already)?

Cheers!

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54 minutes ago, Tayne said:

First, that is awesome to hear, well done!

Second, did you have a 'core' crew that you begin with when building a Mah crew (aside from the obligatory upgrades that you have stated already)?

Cheers!

My core crew for Mah is pretty small.  She *will bring* Trixiebelle, the Lass, and a slop hauler.  Trixie and sloppy are honestly in most of my crews for gremlins.   After that you can generally season to taste depending on strats/schemes and opponent.  I often run her with a rooster or two and some other flavor of beater like Burt or Francois to help draw heat.

I've had the pigapult with her a bit and some stuffed piglets, but that's mostly because they're amazing by themselves.  It's worth noting that Mah can really easily holler it into position if it ever has to redeploy.

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There's some stellar advice in this thread (kudos to Clement for the most part), I can't help but think we should have an M2E Mah Tuckett thread like the other faction subforums do for some of their masters. Would anyone mind if I organised this into a new thread? I will give credit where it's due, of course.

I'll give this until tomorrow evening (as I have a tournament in the morning!), if there's no objections I'll work on it then :)

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3 hours ago, Tayne said:

There's some stellar advice in this thread (kudos to Clement for the most part), I can't help but think we should have an M2E Mah Tuckett thread like the other faction subforums do for some of their masters. Would anyone mind if I organised this into a new thread? I will give credit where it's due, of course.

I'll give this until tomorrow evening (as I have a tournament in the morning!), if there's no objections I'll work on it then :)

If you want to do something useful for new and old players, why not?

I think the hard part is to make it viable and durable over time, without be too much "long" in the talk but short in the concepts.

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  • 1 month later...

I'm very new to Grimlambs, coming from Notborns and Arcanists (Colette, mostly), but Ophelia and Mah happen to be the two I have the most experience with. My general take is that it is all about the terrain, as mentioned earlier.

Put another way:

-If Mah isn't leveraging diving charge and "Let Mah Handle This", she's not going to be as good as Ophelia.

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4 hours ago, orkdork said:

My general take is that it is all about the terrain, as mentioned earlier.

Aside from what has already been said, this is true for almost every crew. A lot of players (particularly those coming from Warmahordes or Warhammer) dont utilize nearly enough terrain on their tables. A large amount of terrain (50-70% as recommended in the 2 Player Starter not the lower amount of 25-50% from the mini Rule Book or Large M2e book) and a good range of terrain types has a huge effect on the game. Often times models are declared either broken or pointless because of how they preform on tables that aren't dense enough.

I can link you to some examples of what I consider well laid out tables if you are interested.

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Here is a link to the ones I used for my recent tournament (competitive tables which were closer to 50% than 70%.

Here are some I have used for another tournament (at Bayou Wars in Louisiana)

Badlands board all features were inbuilt (lots of blocking terrain, the highest portions were nearly 6" tall)

Round1JoeandWes.jpg

Sewers (1st edition Indoor rules with lots of severe and blocking terrain)

Round3Marcusinthesewers.jpg

Here is one of my home tables I have posted built from Terraclips (this density level is what I generally prefer to play on)

Terraclipscityfight32_zpsf843e375.jpg

I posted this one primarily to show some terrain tiles I built however it would be an example of what I would consider below the minimum (it would meet the main rule books recommendation though). When I played on it later I added several pieces of scatter terrain (several 2" tall, 6" long, 1" thick Hedges, a few 2" tall, 3" long, 1" thick Hedges, and some train tracks) to the street sections which are way to open. Wish I would have taken some pictures of the full table (also need to get some street cars and carriages for future tables).

Malifaux%20Tiles%20Dressed_zpssscrd5we.j

I can re-stage with everything I put on it if you want.

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This is where I am limited on terrain for Malifaux. Most of my Terrain is GW's Cities of Death buildings and their Jungle trees. My Old West buildings will work for the Guild. Of  course I've got Gremlin and the lil woman has Outcasts. The 3' x 3' is throwing me off a bit to. My pieces I believe will be to large or high to use.

Great work on your Terrain boards!!!

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9 hours ago, Omenbringer said:

Here is a link to the ones I used for my recent tournament (competitive tables which were closer to 50% than 70%.

Tables look nice, I would say the "best" table for tournament or GG2016 games are somewhat in the middle between the two options you've posted.

I think that have table too much filled like the pictures of "Bayou wars" is too much penalizing for model with 40 and 50 mm bases...they are likely to be unusable.

Very nice tables, anyway

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Terrain is an interesting balance to strike. I remember when we had in one 1e tournament a terraclips board with tons of houses with interiors and such. Kirai's Incorporeal horde was utterly invincible on that board and models on 50mm bases were almost unusable. I also had a game where Sonnia and Malifaux Child were able to cordon off half the board with double Flamewalls and essentially win the game trivially through terrain alone. But of course far more common have been the games where there have been way too long firing lanes and the less shooty crew got annihilated on the way to the center of the board.

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7 hours ago, Blacks85 said:

Tables look nice, I would say the "best" table for tournament or GG2016 games are somewhat in the middle between the two options you've posted.

I think that have table too much filled like the pictures of "Bayou wars" is too much penalizing for model with 40 and 50 mm bases...they are likely to be unusable.

Very nice tables, anyway

Unfortunately those pictures don't provide enough view of the actual relief but each lane was able to accommodate a 50mm base.

3 hours ago, Math Mathonwy said:

Terrain is an interesting balance to strike. I remember when we had in one 1e tournament a terraclips board with tons of houses with interiors and such. Kirai's Incorporeal horde was utterly invincible on that board and models on 50mm bases were almost unusable. I also had a game where Sonnia and Malifaux Child were able to cordon off half the board with double Flamewalls and essentially win the game trivially through terrain alone. But of course far more common have been the games where there have been way too long firing lanes and the less shooty crew got annihilated on the way to the center of the board.

Incorporeal is definitely an issue with the amount of terrain recommended for Malifaux. As is it is a really good ability with virtually no downsides.

I am assuming the game with Sonnia and the Child was 2nd edition since in 1st the Flame Wall wasn't Blocking.

I agree though that boards need to be balanced in terms of incorporating several different types of terrain to prevent abuses.

 

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