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Shifting Loyalties Campaign as Arcanists in 2017


retnab

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Hey all, my local gaming group is doing a Shifting Loyalties campaign starting next month and I'm excited to give it a go!  I've never done the campaign before though and I'm not sure what a good start to my crew would be.  I know I want to make Carlos my leader (I'm torn between taking Kaeris or Mei Feng as my eventual Master), and I was hoping to take the Emissary with the standard upgrade and some minions, but then I'd have to choose between the Emissary's upgrade and Stunt Double.  So right now I'm thinking of taking one of these two:

1) Carlos Vasquez, Arcane Emissary (Arcane Conflux), Large Arachnid, Rail Worker, Union Miner, 0 scrip.

2) Carlos Vasquez (Stunt Double), Gunsmith, Large Arachnid, Rail Worker, Union Miner, 2 scrip.

Are either of those any good as a start?  Any suggestions?

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I like the addition of the Gunsmith over the Emissary. He is a hard hitter but also very squishy early in the campaign. You don't want to see him get delivered a few injuries before there's enough points on the board to protect him a bit. Also in low point games, Gunsmiths can really ramp up to do some damage

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The better choose is the choose with more scrip,ever.

I've start a campaign with Cassandra,and with 2 scrip at least...

I'm the one in my group that has started with scrip and is a good thing,beacause you need 4 scrip to buy the bounty.

Bounty done--->Cool rewards--->unlock the 15 scrip Master 

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Agreed, number 2 list seems good.

I don't know much about campaigns but one of the best things Gunsmiths offer is their versatility and easyish access to Fast. Normal 50ss Malifaux doesn't really care about versatility, and Fast on a 2/3/4 minion isn't exemplary. However, in smaller ss games Fast becomes even more valuable and the versatility they bring is worth so much.

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The Miner is plenty on his own if the schemes are marker-based. If there's an interact heavy pool, you might struggle a bit. Honestly though, I think the synergy he has with every other model in your crew makes it kind of a shame to lose anyone. If one of them goes it will lessen the incentive to take him in the first place.

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I am half way through a shifting loyalties campaign as arcanists and started with Joss working up to a Kaeris crew and just unlocked and hired Kaeris for my master.

Soulstone miner has been MVP countless times for grabbing 3-6 points for schemes. He can also use Soulstones too, which is quite handy. Firestarter is also amazing in the campaign. Emissary I hired week 3 and has done work. Just was able to purchase the kaeris confluence upgrade.

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  • 3 weeks later...

So just an update to this, I just played through my first week's games and I did pretty darn good overall!  As was suggested all of the :+fate's in my list were very helpful in getting damage across.  End of week 1 Carlos got built in :+fate's to his Ml actions (Off-Hand Fighting) but became Shaken, and my Rail Worker became Wanted.  I picked up the Hit List Bounty after game 1 and got a kill on my target (Mech Rider) so I'm halfway through to getting that finished as well!  I finished up with an extra 5 scrip to play with, and am torn on what to add on to my crew now.  I'm thinking either of adding in the Arcane Emissary and adding in the upgrade in week 3, or getting Practiced Productions for Carlos and picking up a 5-8ss model (Firestarter maybe?).  Any suggestions would be appreciated!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hey all!  So I'm done week 2 now (it was delayed a week because the store was closed on our usual games night, grr Family Day) and it went pretty well overall.  The weekly event was the one with the Depleted that you can kill for bonus scrip, which was nice!  First game was a draw, where my opponent took out my Rail Worker and Carlos (both of the models who had injuries last game) and they both got new injuries (Carlos got Not Quite Right and the Rail Worker got Swamp Hex, boo) but I finished my Bounty (I got a Welding Torch for my trouble) and I got my Gunsmith the Fan The Hammer skill.  Game 2 was a win for me but I had a few more injuries: Carlos got Unfocused and the Soulstone Miner got A Wayward Adventure, which isn't too bad I suppose.

I did sadly end the week with only 8 scrip so I can't get a Master next week... not sure what to spend my scrip on, does anyone have any suggestions?  My crew is really beefy, and I'm still looking at leaning into either Kaeris or Mei Feng as my Master when I can actually afford one of them.  I'm currently thinking about grabbing Johanna and either Bleeding Edge Tech (since I have 3 Construct Minions) or Well Rehearsed (I would have 5 Living models including Johanna, and it would give her more mobility with False Claim), what do you all think?

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If you want to save up a bit, grabbing a performer for free isn't a bad idea, or a Union miner.

Also, as an aside, on week 3 of my own campaign, and as it turns out, Sh7 December Acolytes and a Flying Arcane Emissary are preeeetty good. Furious casting Silent ones aren't bad either.

Also, after the last game the Emissary can leap. Because I clearly needed a 22 in. threat range that's unaffected by models or terrain. (I more got the leap because he'll lose flying once I get raspy and add her upgrade to him. Then I'll probably have a flying Snowstorm...)

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Im playing a campaign now. In week 6 of 8 I have Mei Feng (Siesmic, Vapormancy, Duelist, Avatar), Captain (Patron, A Cold Wind), Emberling, 2 x Rail workers, Howard (Tough Hide), Gunsmith (Fan the Hammer), Acolyte, Effigy.  This week I'm adding in Sparks and a Porkchop. Its been a lot of fun but it definitely took a while to pick up but I've had some fun games, like vs Avatar Ramos who turned everything into constructs. Mei was flying around the board.

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Okay, so week 3 is finished and it turned out pretty good for me!  Ended up getting a win 10-9, and for the weekly event I killed one of the Carnivorous plants for a total of 9 scrip (woo)!  Before the game I had chosen to add in Johana with Well Rehearsed, so after this game I'm up to 13 scrip.  Johana ended up being a fantastic purchase and spent the game beating a zombie to death and then healing herself and the Gunsmith every other turn, keeping them from an otherwise certain doom.  Also, in the game I picked up no new equipment and no new injuries (and actually lost two Injuries, my Soulstone Miner coming back from his Wayward Adventure and my Gunsmith using the Welding Torch to get rid of the Rail Worker's Swamp Hex.

I'm planning on adding in a Master, either Kaeris (with Purifying Fire) and a Malifaux Child, or Mei Feng and Sparks (1 scrip spare either way).  I'm really torn and not sure which way to go!  There's no chance of getting the Avatar upgrades at this point (only 2 weeks left and 1 game per week at this point) so it's just the plain ol' Master for me to consider.  Which do you think would be the most exciting / fun?  The current list of things that I have is as follows:

Carlos Vasquez - Off-Hand Fighting, Not Quite Right, Unfocused

Gunsmith - Fan The Hammer

Johana

Large Arachnid

Rail Worker

Soulstone Miner

Union Miner

Equipment/Upgrades - Practiced Productions, Stunt Double, Well Rehearsed, Welding Torch, 13 spare scrip

Hideout - Junkard, with Junkyard Dogs, One Man's Trash, Pick & Pull, 2 spare CM

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Week 4 is done and it went pretty well!  We had an odd number of players come out for games night so I did a 3 player game (which with Interference meant very few strat points, lol).  I ended up going with Kaeris, Purifying Fire, and Malifaux Child as the additions for my crew, and one of my opponents also went Kaeris which made things pretty interesting.  My 3rd opponent didn't have a Master yet but had a list built around Collodi.  End of the game the score went 8-6-3 for me.

So, next week is the final week of this event.  My Henchman said there may be a follow-up event leading off where we finish next week so it still does matter, but for this event next week is it.  I have 9 scrip to spend and I'm torn between the Arcane Emissary with Flaming Conflux (+2ss), Rail Golem (+3ss), or a mix of smaller stuff like Firestarter and Arcane Effigy / Fire Gamin (+3ss).  In any case with the extra scrip I'll probably add in the Seize The Day upgrade.  Anyone have any thoughts about those options?

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One interesting idea for Shifting Loyalties is to have a "master behind the scenes" for those master/crews that only work when the Master's card's hiring enhancements are played, even without the master (many of the duel faction or themed masters have either some kind of infiltrator rule on their card, Like Tara, Mei Feng, Jakob Lynch, etc.). This would allow Arcanists to use Kang as their Henchman, Neverborn players to use Hungering Darkness, etc.--in exchange for the only master that they can hire later is the one behind the scenes. So under this kind of modification to the campaign rules: later on I can only ever play Mei Feng as my master in the campaign, because I'm using Kang as my leader early on and playing Arcanists.

Outside of that, I've found the following crew interesting:
Shastar Vidiya Guard with Bleeding Edge Tech (9 stones)
Rail Worker (5 stones)
Rail Worker (5 stones)
December Acolyte (7 stones)

Which leaves 9 stones for the Henchman for a basic 35 scrip list (paying for Henchman). I've found that having models that can give themselves focus or focus-like effects for discarding a card (instead of spending an AP) really swings fights. The December Acolyte gives me the ability to fling out some early game Slow to help make up for the fact that this crew isn't going anywhere in a hurry. Everything in the crew has some good damage spiking, allowing them to hit like a brick.

So far (week 1) I've picked up Metal Plating and bought a Bounty without sustaining injuries (Sinner's Prayer event, and my one Finished Off model flipped a 12 getting me an additional 3 scrip instead of a wound). Depending on what kind of scrip I get through the rest of the week (9 max), I might be able to bring in something like Envy for more focusing shenanigans as well as another dude with a nasty spike in damage, and the Effigy for much-needed condition removal.

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As of last night, my campaign has finished!  We didn't tally up who won (there were a few people who won most/all their games including me) but I did pretty good overall and had a lot of fun in the process :D We did 7 games over 5 weeks (weeks 1 and 2 were 2 games, 3-5 were 1 game), and I got 6 wins 1 draw total.  We did the Hideout competitive variant, and I collected a total of 16 CM (ended the campaign with the Junkyard, all three tier 1 buildings, Appraisals from tier 2, and 2 spare CM).  So, not bad overall!

My final game was basically a standard game but with the Glitter Bomb strategy which was interesting.  Ended up winning 10-9 (very close!) vs Yan Lo.  I took two Injuries in the game (Union Miner got Flashbacks and the Malifaux Child got Baggage) and picked up one new skill (Kaeris gained Agility).

In the end, my final crew loadout is the following:

Kaeris - Agility

Carlos Vasquez - Off-Hand Fighting, Not Quite Right, Unfocused

Johana

Rail Golem

Gunsmith - Fan The Hammer

Large Arachnid

Rail Worker

Soulstone Miner

Union Miner - Flashbacks

Malifaux Child - Baggage

Imbued Energies, Purifying Fire, Practiced Productions, Stunt Double, Well Rehearsed, Welding Torch, 3 spare scrip

So, what did I learn from this campaign?  I focused hard on three things when picking up models each week: lots of Armor, :+fate's, and healing.  The :+fate's in particular were a massive help and let me do way more every turn than I otherwise would have, especially in the lower point games.  Having so much durability with the Armor and healing significantly reduced the total number of Injuries I took, and the Welding Torch letting me get rid of the especially nasty Injuries was incredibly useful.  All in all, I was very happy with this crew and felt like i was always able to handle the different strats and schemes (even when Neutral models suddenly appeared and attacked me :P).  Before this, I hadn't really had much experience with the Soulstone Miner and after seeing it on the board, I quite like it!  I had always heard of it as a model that just pops out near the back and gets used for schemes that need a model way back, but actually getting it into melee was useful too and it got a fair bit of work done when needed.  I'd strongly recommend a similar theme to anyone else wanting to get into this, as it works pretty good from what I've seen.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Interesting games come up in Malifaux, but the kicker in the campaign game I played last night was Turn 2:

Won initiative, first activation: Sharpshooter December Acolyte focuses to try and shoot down a Katanaka Sniper in cover. I mainly wanted the Slow, but if I could get a high enough differential to cheat the damage, would go for putting it at HTK and finish it with next activation. Flip the Black Joker. That Katanaka Sniper (with help from a nearby Monk healing him) would spend the next two turns tied up on a ledge with Kang before Kang manages to land a hit (stoning for Ram) that would then push him off the Ht 3 ledge. The Sniper had 4 wounds when that hit landed, 3 from the shovel, 3 from the fall to finish him off.

Opponent's first activation: Obsidian Oni focuses and attempts to cast at Rail Worker. Flips the Black Joker. That Rail Worker will proceed over the next three turns to deny Leave Your Mark, pick up a head marker, kill the Obsidian Oni, and eat up another 8 AP from my opponent without dying. Positives on Attack and Damage are seriously good things to have natively.

Game ended in a 6-6 tie in Turn 5. This was my second consecutive game where I denied my opponent 2+ VP from the Strategy; sadly that was not the bounty I had purchased. I have enough scrip to bring in the Soulstone Miner in Week 3, but I might opt for something that will let me complete more bounties (like the Mechanical Rider) or cause more havoc (like Envy or Sparks). A Cerberus with Pack Leader would also make for a great disruption tool.

 

One thing I'm learning is that Kang leading Arcanists is really rough on my opponents. Arcanists getting additional positives against constructs and undead, as well as immunity to horror, is kind of over-the-top early on in a campaign where Neverborn and Resser players are counting on things like Teddy and general resilience (respectively) to carry them through the first couple of weeks.

Current roster is Kang (Trophy, Armor Plate, Wp 7), a pair of Rail Workers, a single Shastar Vidiya Guard (BET), December Acolyte (Sharpshooter), and Angelica (Toolkit).

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