Brief intro and a question: Too cute with Reva?

[InvokeChaos]

Hello all!

I started malifaux with only picking up asian themed models (kirai and misaki) but I fell deeply into ten thunders with Yan Lo and Shenlong.

As soon as Reva was announced though, I knew I would need to return to rezzers. And after buying the entire faction... well, it's time to really get some serious table time.

That leads me to the following idea and a desire to know if it's just too cute to be effective:

So I played against a buddy right before christmas and got a weird idea. First of all, want to make sure I didn't mess it up... here we go.

 

Reva with Guise, blood mark and spare parts, Mortimer with bloat and MLH, a nurse just because.

After initiative, Reva pops a corpse candle just on the opponent's side of the board and mortimer MLHs.

Your first activation, summoned candle walks, then 0 actions to kill itself and drop a corpse.

Next mortimer walks up and 0 twice to put two more corpses down.

Reva goes, pops a candle out, marks it to move it up and kill itself, dropping a fourth marker. She summons a rogue necro. 

Nurse can heal mort, or give necro more walk or whatever's needed. 

 

It worked REALLY well, but we were also playing interference and he was playing an aggressive crew, so I really didn't need to go to him at all. My carrion emissary blocked off a bunch of lanes turn one and then became the focus of his turn two, but not before doing some more work. I summoned a second rogue necro that game on turn three.

But that was just one game, and I really don't know if I'm just being silly here. I know that I am denying the whole concept of Reva's arcing that first round, but with the emissary and her shards, I didn't feel like I did anything that detrimental. Blood mark was really useful, and the only reason I didn't also summon a couple of autopsies was I don't have their card (I have the metal ones).

So what's the verdict? Too cute with Reva? 

[Fetid Strumpet]

Why not just start with a rogue necromancy? You are spending a lot of AP, a lot of stones, and a lot of positional tweaking to essentially just get a slow rogue necro close the enemy lines, when you can get exactly the same by hiring one at the start and stalking. Personally seems too complicated and more of a gotcha trick, which against a new player could put them off the game and "might" work once against an experienced player. 

Why is this better than just hiring one, since there is a massive amount of AP and resources tied up in getting the rogue on the table?

[Saduhem]

14 hours ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

Why not just start with a rogue necromancy? You are spending a lot of AP, a lot of stones, and a lot of positional tweaking to essentially just get a slow rogue necro close the enemy lines, when you can get exactly the same by hiring one at the start and stalking. Personally seems too complicated and more of a gotcha trick, which against a new player could put them off the game and "might" work once against an experienced player. 

Why is this better than just hiring one, since there is a massive amount of AP and resources tied up in getting the rogue on the table?

With GG 2017 That Chatty with Morty is pretty awesome. Nurses are always great regardless. Sure, you're giving up AP on the first turn but I assume the OP is assuming that the hired models/upgrades fit schemes and strategy in the first place.

Also, why should we not elaborate and such ideas and maybe maximize potential? If Malifaux reduced itself to a series of optimal obligatory choices I'd be out of it in a heartbeat.

Providing unpleasant answers with negative and heavily criticizing tones will just decrease the likelihood of future posting from the same person. 

That's not exactly fostering a positive and live community.

[InvokeChaos]

No worries there, @Saduhem. Fetid was just expressing why he doesn't like it. I didn't take that aggressively at all. Maybe a touch frank, but that's alright  I've had several discussions with them on the forum. Always civil!

16 hours ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

You are spending a lot of AP, a lot of stones, and a lot of positional tweaking to essentially just get a slow rogue necro close the enemy lines, when you can get exactly the same by hiring one at the start and stalking. Personally seems too complicated and more of a gotcha trick, which against a new player could put them off the game and "might" work once against an experienced player. 

This is actually exactly my thoughts about it being too cute.

16 hours ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

Why is this better than just hiring one, since there is a massive amount of AP and resources tied up in getting the rogue on the table?

To quote some of what Saduhem already said, it's the trading of AP for model costs.  Yeah I could just hire a Rogue Necro... but then I don't have Mort with chatty and the ability to toss out corpses on command. Plus the corpse bloat bomb. Nurse is a semi-auto include for me, so no loss there.

The biggest weakness I have with the list honestly is that it uses 3 master AP.  Mort isn't sacrificing his walks or AP to make the corpses. It's two zeros. And while I am spending a stone on MLH to basically just help get a necro out, I don't feel that's a waste because the card also fuels setup for 2nd turn.

The nurse doesn't HAVE to heal Mort either... I just feel it's probably the best use of her AP at taht point. Walk and heal. Chiaki can then walk and remove slow from the necro.

The argument would be that it's better to double walk my models that turn one for positioning, and that's a valid point. But Chiaki and the Nurse I typically want to keep back a bit. And Reva is so fast that it doesn't really matter. 

So at the end of the day I'm really only trading three master AP and 3 stones (one for summon and two for corpse bloat) for a Rogue Necro. That just seemed like a great trade to me. Obviously depending on schemes and strats.

[Fetid Strumpet]

I stand by what I said. It is as you say too cute. It's a gimmic that will rarely ever work against a competent player because you are spending your opportunity costs, crew slots, upgrade slots, And a massive amount of resources and AP to summon a slow rogue necro. 

Your opponent spends similar things on winning the game.

Rogue Necro < winning game.

[verpixelt]

I have to go with @Fetid Strumpet. I can see this work(and I like such shenanigans) in a casual game but as soon as you build more towards a competitive game / tournament I think these points / AP are spend better elsewhere.