I may be a little in love with Molly – thoughts of a total newbie

[lille354]

I appear to have come late to the Malifaux party, although not to the hobby.  I picked up the Molly box set because it looked quite cool and I had looked at Malifaux years ago but I think it is a fairly well accepted opinion that the rules were not the clearest and also no one I knew played it.  I had bought some of the older metal figures, which I still have, by happy coincidence Madame Sybelle was amongst them which has proved fortunate.

I have not played a lot of games but am totally hooked.  So far I have only used Molly (Horror) as a Master and I am loving her.  I am beginning to think she is not the easiest of first Masters but you can get the hang of her eventually.   I have been fortunate to face a great variety of enemy masters to get a real feel for the game. 

To me the strengths are:

·         You don’t need an awful lot of models for a decent crew – I have found this to be slightly less true of Molly but that’s because she has so many sexy summoning options and in two flavours!  University of Transmortis? Don’t mind if I do. Dead Doxies? Why not.

·         There is no set winning combination – you cannot put together an unbeatable combination of models and just win every game.  For instance I have used Bete Noir 4 times.  Once she didn’t get on the board for 3 turns, once she got shot to pieces on arrival, and twice she has been man of the match and scored me 2 VPs on her own.  Watching her go to town on a group of Gremlins is a thing of beauty, watching a Guild gun line blow holes in her and realising you didn’t save a 10 to bring her back not so much.

·         The schemes mean you don’t just win by killing the enemy models or Master – I am looking at you Warmahordes.  Obviously the more models you can afford to buy the more options you will have but most generic crews can have a shot at most schemes.  If there is such a thing as a generic crew of course.

·         The game is well supported – Forums like this one, and Pull My Finger, are an absolute goldmine and people are friendly and willing to help.  Most questions I have thought of are answered on here, often in great detail, and it really helps you get your head around the rules.  Godswearhats guide is an excellent resource that I refer to a lot when looking at new options.

·         The card system – brilliant.  Although the symbols on the back of the character cards could be a bit clearer, my glasses are not for show and a few is that a crow or a mask? moments have been known to happen.

My only real issues with the game is some of the wording can be a little open to interpretation and the terrain rules are a bit woolly, but it becomes easier and I have yet to play anyone who wasn’t happy to either explain something I was struggling with or quickly come to an agreement about what it meant.  I struggled with the built in suits as well, but its easy enough once you understand it.

Resurrectionists are simply awesome and mark my words someday Molly is going to be top dog.  She is very clever and not insane. Not totally insane anyway. Well OK she is insane but who isn't?

Every faction has some simply awesome models, I sometimes find painting a chore (skaven!) but have loved painting these.  They are not always the easiest to put together, the Necrotic Machine nearly reduced me to tears, and the online instructions are from the Ikea system.  Here is a picture of the parts, here is a picture of the model put together with some arrows in case you don’t know where legs go. 

From my admittedly limited experience new models do not imbalance the game or appear to be super troopers that you can’t win unless you own.  I am not naming names here as that would not be fair to GW, but that can be irritating in some games systems.

Once I have completed my Ressers (never going to happen) I am thinking of giving Gremlins a go, just for something different.

Finally, any tips on stopping Taelor smashing her way through all my summoned models? She is like the Anti-Molly!  So far my tactics in dealing with her have met with limited success.  Doxies to move her out of her charge range of where I want to summon; do the summon before she has activated so her Welcome To action is not up or  stand something bigger between her and the summon which she eventually beats to death anyway.  She scares my Iron Zombies, which is just wrong!

Look forward to many more games and using/hearing the expression “It does WHAT??”

[mythicFOX]

Welcome to Malifaux!  

My tip for dealing with Taelor;  summon something to pull her our of position to be counter charged by a big gribbly (Killjoy, Archie, Rogue Nerco), or summon somewhere she isn't.

Glad you're enjoying yourself.  

[lille354]

Hi mythicFox,

Thank you.  I am currently building up my collection so don't have any of the really big hitters just yet, other than the Valedictorian and she is not a fan of that hammer.  I use Doxies and Belles to try and move Taelor out of the way at the moment which has its successes.  I have just added Madame Sybelle and she is quite good at getting Molly around to places where it is safer to summon.  I find Taelor quite a good control piece for a melee monster, but Bete Noir has shredded her once so like everything in Malifaux she can be beaten.  That is one of the games greatest strengths IMHO.

 

[koronuslight]

Taelor is a top priority when I play as Rezzers - if you have Sybelle, you might want to consider taking Bleeding Tongue for the killing trigger. You only need to deal one wound to Taelor to force your opponent to burn cards or soulstones, plus it gets around her Hard To Kill ability. 

[lille354]

Thanks, I have Sybelle and have just got her cards so I will give that a go.

[MagicGis]

You have Bete... Bete is the answer. If she has activated and Welcome up. Wait till you feel the opp is low on high cards Summon something there for her. If she charges and kills it. Pop Bete if you have that paralyze trigger.  Make her sit there a round taking it without countercharges.

[unti]

I have a related question: is taelor allowed to charge if i summon a say punk zombie in 1" of her? 

[Clement]

14 minutes ago, unti said:

I have a related question: is taelor allowed to charge if i summon a say punk zombie in 1" of her? 

she's allowed to charge while engaged, so yes   The only way to summon something and not have Taelor get to it is to place it in such a way that she can't get it in her expansive charge and engagement range.  You might be able to pull that off with a belle or Doxy pulling her into base contact, then summoning things behind that, but Molly really wants to throw her models into the heart of the enemy crew, so you really have to just wall Taelor off in your crew behind stuff you haven't summoned yet...  it's not fun.

Or Killjoy and/or Bette....   Taelor has no opinion about them.

[godswearhats]

Or use Chiaki to remove the Condition from Taelor before activating Molly.

[benjoewoo]

Summon a drowned to block the charge lane--Taelor has min damage 3 I think, but that's 1 damage to drowned per hit after resilience 2. If your drowned survives, summon stuff behind the drowned out of 3" but within 3" of other models so they don't immediately explode.

Taelor still has to take the TN 15 Wp duel for the summons as normal before her charge goes off, so there's opportunity to do damage just by summoning.

[Fetid Strumpet]

Or don't bother summoning. Molly is a well designed master because she has options. Molly has a powerful summon, but it isn't as if you can't just ignore it, not summon and be weaker. The fact that she has the option means the opponent has to respect it might happen happen and then plan accordingly. Don't summon and focus on her Revelation attack or her Debuff, and positional tricks she can do.

[lille354]

Thanks La Belle Mort, I hadn't actually thought of that - and I have found you can block Taelor's charge/LOS reasonably easily.  We were only playing 35SS games whilst we got the hang of the rules, in a 50SS game you can put plenty of stuff in her way - and Bete Noir has dealt with her fairly well in the last couple of games, at least to the point where she has to decide if charging and splatting the crooligan you just summoned is worth having Bete Noir appear in front of you and go haywire.

Of course having spent around £200 on models and 6 weeks painting them, summoning is just too tempting! I have another 2 masters to try out, Nicodem and McMourning, but I am enjoying using Molly - her learning curve is just a little steep.

[benjoewoo]

There are a lot of tricks you can do. Try running Vincent St. Clair (Reva's box), Philip, and Necrotic (good for spirit/horror) for lots of draw power and models with ranged options. Molly can't accelerate summoning like Kirai or Nico, so if she decides to summon, card draw will be important to mitigate SS stress on summoning. 

I've been playing around with this list conceptually, and it looks pretty fun, albeit probably not competitive as stated.

Molly's Bicycle

1. Molly--6 SS Starting
   1. Forgotten Liife (Horror Path)
   2. Spare Parts
2. Necrotic Machine
3. Madame Sybelle (no upgrades)
4. Vincent St. Clair
   1. Corpse Bloat
   2. My Little Helper (MLH)
5. Philip & the Nanny
   1. Haunting Cries
   2. Take Back the Night
6. Rotten Belle
7. Nurse
8. Crooligan

Turn 1, unless your hand is the strongest thing ever, you'll pop MLH on Vincent, have him rip two spleens out to generate two corpse markers, then walk him somewhere, keeping the corpses within his draw aura. He'll be at 3 Wds, but no one can hit him Turn 1 anyway from MLH.

From here, your hand strength chooses who goes first. If you have a bad hand, necrotic goes and discards one of the corpses, triggering Vincent to cycle 1 card. Necrotic walks and stuff.

If your hand is mediocre, activate Philip, have him use his 0, cheating in a 5 crow (or stone) and convert both corpses to scheme markers, drawing 2 cards and discarding 1 twice sequentially. Cycle 1 card from Vincent.

If your hand is strong, activate Molly, summon two drowned that die immediately, then summon your Turn 1 RN, and prompt it to take a walk to pretend it doesn't have slow. Cycle 1 card from Vincent.

After the choices above, you'd activate the other two in any order essentially. Typically the RN option is very costly between summoning (3 SS for 2x Drowned with two 10s and 1x RN for 13) Spare Parts (2), Corpse Bloat (2), and MLH (1) with 6 damage to Vincent, so I wouldn't do it unless I figured I wouldn't likely be too pained without the SS later. It also minimizes the cycle from Vincent.

You'll probably typically activate Necrotic first, pitching a corpse to cycle 1 from Vincent. Then, Philip activates if nothing can reach him Turn 1 (Hans and other snipers) to convert at least 1 corpse (5 for TN) to a scheme marker, cycling 1 from Vincent, then eating a scheme marker for 2 discard 1, pooping one more scheme marker. Molly finally activates, summoning a drowned that dies for a 10, then summons a guild autopsy for an 8 (w/ or w/o stone), cycling 1 from Vincent, pooping out an extra scheme marker, and 0 prompt on Philip to draw and discard 1. Molly can give an extra set up to Philip by summoning a second drowned to provide an additional corpse marker and scheme marker for later as well.

So, with a 5, 8, and 10, you can generally see 8 cards, discarding 5. That nets you 3 cards at the potential cost of 4 SS including MLH's cost. If you go for the second drowned, you'll net 4 cards with a 5, 8, and two 10s and potentially 4 SS with a set up for seeing 5 cards netting 2 Turn 2 with Philip's activation. You'll also have 9 models Turn 2 and two scheme runners between the crooligan and autopsy, who comes in full health. 

The other models do stuff to support the crew. Sybelle drives the belle, who lures Vincent and Philip, Nurse can paralyze Vincent on any crow to heal him so he doesn't get popped Turn 2, etc. 

This list doesn't require high cards for the most part and much of the card draw works without TNs, so if you draw high from the engine or initially, you should still cheat decently for defense or have a stronger hand Turn 2--even if you draw absolute garbage, that just means your 10 card hand of garbage isn't in your now 42 card deck when you draw going into Turn 2. Hopefully you get something useful then. 

The list isn't likely very competitive because of the huge potential SS drain Turn 1, the crew doesn't start with a melee beater or tarpit, it cycles more than it draws (cycling is much weaker if you cycle really strong early), and it is fairly vulnerable to crews that can launch an attack deep into the deployment zone late into Turn 1. But, against crews that have to walk up, the Turn 1 set up gets you an 7/8 card hand that should be decently strong with so much cycling/draw.

Have fun!

[unti]

I dont know how you convert corpses to scheme markers with phillip. His 0action discards an enemy scheme marker for a corpse....

[lille354]

Thanks for the advice, I don't have the Reva boxed set yet but I can always substitute Vincent for another hitter!

[benjoewoo]

On 2/2/2017 at 10:09 PM, unti said:

I dont know how you convert corpses to scheme markers with phillip. His 0action discards an enemy scheme marker for a corpse....

Whoops sorry, messed it up with Reva in my mind. I haven't actually run the list yet, so I was theory-faux'ing and mis-remembered Philips' 0 as Reva's (1).

To correct that, the math would work out very differently, subtracting 1 card cycle from Vincent during Philip's activation. Philip could still eat scheme markers, but you would have to get them from the two drowned summons.Alternatively, if Philip puts on Spirit Beacon instead of Take Back the Night, Vincent can use 1 AP to drop a scheme marker after ripping a couple spleens out. Philip activates, eats the scheme marker and throws up his aura. Molly activates, summons 1 drowned, dropping 2 scheme markers, prompting Philip to eat one, and summoning a guild autopsy or two for the cycle.

As another more ballsy alternative, you could do this:

Molly's Party Bus (I tried)

1. Molly--6 SS Starting
   1. Forgotten Path (Spirit Path)
   2. Spare Parts
2. Necrotic Machine
3. Madame Sybelle 
   1. Not too Banged Up
   2. My Little Helper
4. Mortimer
   1. Corpse Bloat
   2. My Little Helper (MLH)
5. Philip & the Nanny
   1. Haunting Cries
   2. Take Back the Night
6. Rotten Belle
7. Shield Bearer

If you drop 1 the nurse, you can start with 6 SS and a shield bearer instead of a crooligan, opening up claim jump relatively well. 

Turn 1 plays very differently since Vincent isn't going to cycle card for you. Mortimer still rips two spleens out, but can now dig for a bone on a 9 of any suit, putting him at 5 Wds and giving you 3 corpse markers. Shield Bearer activates and hits Mortimer with any crow and Mortimer relents to drop your 4th corpse marker, using the second AP to drop a scheme marker. Sybelle actives, dropping a scheme marker and call belle on Molly or the rotten belle for positioning--keep Molly within 6" of all the corpse markers. Philip activates, eats the scheme markers to set up RN summon. Molly activates, summons a drowned to drop a corpse marker and scheme marker, prompting Philip to eat another scheme marker, then summons a Rogue Necromancy--it's likely Molly used 1 SS for the RN, so the shield bearer should have fast for Turn 2.  

At this point there should still be a corpse marker on the field. Necrotic Machine can discard it and move to your desired direction before casting his 0 to push your undead models towards him--which is everyone except Mortimer and the shield bearer. You'll need an 8 of any suit for the TN, as discarding the corpse marker adds the second required crow. 

From here, you'll have the RN and rotten belle left. Not a whole lot, maybe get a lure--if you get the model close enough you might even get a smell fear, though that's somewhat unlikely. More likely you'll lure the model just close enough for the RN to shoot it, although it'd probably be better to walk into engagement and stalk it or another model.

If you win initiative Turn 2, you'll almost guarantee a first activation kill between RN and companion into the belle--lure can trigger pounce and RN's smell fear for two out of activation attacks, one with Ml 7 and effectively built in focus. 

If you don't win initiative Turn 2, hopefully RN is above half wounds after the first activation(s) so you can still pretty much get a kill--even below half wounds isn't terrible, you just lose a lot of the consistency. But, the fun thing is if RN survives, you can activate Molly, who's hopefully in range post Turn 1, to apply negative flips to an enemy model, triggering Smell Fear, summon two hanged, have one hanged whispers the enemy model, and then accomplice into Rogue Necro for potentially 9 damage and half Wds from 1 Hanged's Whispers--that's a lot of damage even if the enemy model has Armor--Joss would take 2 from two ticks from Molly summoning, 2 from whispers, then 3 from RN, putting him at 2, assuming all min damage and not including the poison tick pre-SS prevention--Joss won't have re-activate, and you can finish off with Sybelle. If you summoned two hanged, you now have the triangle of death--the two hanged turn the RN's Terrifying 13 into essentially a manipulative check that ends your opponent's activation rather than causing actions to fail. Against Howard you would do 2 from Molly, 4 from whispers, then 6 from RN, plus a poison to give you ample chances to kill him.

You have a number of options regardless of whether you win initiative, assuming your opponent is nearby and going to engage. Belle can double lure, allowing RN and the belle to get a free attack or two between them, Necro can charge into companion for same thing, etc. Alternatively, if your opponent is far back, you can activate the fast shield bearer first, drop a scheme marker, and double walk to catch up to the rest of the crew, setting up Philip to eat two scheme markers on his activation to maximize card cycling for the Turn 2 engagement. 

Even though I listed Spare Parts, it's not really a horror list because you don't care much about the RN after it does its thing Turn 2. If it lives somehow, great because your opponent has a lot to worry about with the double hanged RN triangle. If it doesn't live, you can either set up another RN for Turn 2 as you fight through the Turn, or get some autopsies as chaffe and/or additional scheme runners. They can't trigger Spirit Beacon, but they can trigger Take Back the Night and aren't bad for a 5 SS summon with full Wds--it costs 8 to summon them so if your hand isn't too strong, it's a good alternative if you need models more than you need to use Molly's other actions. There's also always blowing up corpses with Mortimer, who's unlikely to be a high priority target given his lack of direct damage. Also, spirits have better opportunities for Wp duels via the hanged, meaning RN can more likely trigger out of activation attacks.

If Mortimer is still kicking, he can move almost all of your crew via fresh meat or blow up corpses for some serious pulse damage--each WP duel can also trigger smell fears assuming RN is alive. 

If you don't discard the corpse to Necrotic, you can double down Turn 1 by having Mortimer activate first, ripping a speen, putting him at 3, digging for a corpse for a 9, and then have shield bearer hit him on a crow for a fourth. Molly gets a 2nd RN Turn 2.

[Wifstrand]

2 hours ago, benjoewoo said:

Stuff about punishing Mortimer

 

I would never have thought about that myself. Suddenly my old metal Rogue Necromancy jumped to the top of my build queue! 

[benjoewoo]

It's by no means meant to be a competitive list. Super vulnerable to Marcus' alpha strike since the RN is a beast. Vulnerable to alpha strikes by other crews if they can reach across the map Turn 1 or they have Hans. It's not as hardy as a Kirai Sebastian Philip set up

But, if they don't have snipers, aren't Marcus, and their Turn 1 attack won't devastate you, this crew gets a nice set up. The activation delay isn't as extreme, but the comparable damage across significantly more ticks can be a lot better once set up. Molly is also able to attack different defensive stats as needed as opposed to Kirai, who normally targets Df only outside of the Hanged.

[Getyerbro]

So I'm a Gremlin player and haven't started playing Ressurs yet, but I find its generally pretty easy to just block her charge lanes when I summon with Ulix.  I also hear that Molly somewhat has an affinity with Killjoy because of her ability to basically place him anywhere whenever she wants (with Sybelle).  I don't find Killjoy to be the most competitive choice, but  I imagine he really would make Taelor think twice about going around and charging things that get summoned considering that he will just unburry next to a debuffed (as long as Molly does her job) version of her.

 

...but again I dont play Ressurs so I may be incorrect.