New Resser player and Seamus

[psychogeek123]

So due to my outcasts, I have a series of resser models and figured its time to branch out. I have picked seamus for this but don't know what to add to his box other than a nurse (people seem quite keen on that). I am considering the emissary and will grab doxies, but is there anything else?  do drowned work well with him?? How about jakuna? I am very new to this faction and its playstyle so any suggestions and tips are welcome

[Fetid Strumpet]

Welcome.

Search for posts by me, as I'm probably the most vocal, though not always right, fan of Seamus. Benjoewoo also has some good tips and a slightly different perspective than I have. Emissary, Doxies, and Nurses are good adds, as are Jaakuna, Yin, Datsue-ba, Seishin, more Belles, Mindless zombies (for the Emissary), Necropunks, Anna Lovelace, and the Valedictorian. If you listen to podcasts I did an episode of schemes and stones covering him (Note that this was prior the third book releasing).

[redbeardos]

Seamus is good for what they call "super-soloing". Meaning he can back alley and jump across the board. His totem is pretty nice, jumping up to 18" regardless of line of sight to join up to him. Don't expect him (the totem) to survive all that often. His pistol is really good, enough of a threat to stop. That leaves the rest of your crew to cover non- enemy deployment zone schemes. You want something that could stand up on it's own. Consider-

Vincent St. Clair with 3 shieldbearers. I got third in a tournamenet with this recently- basically you spend a soulstone, the shieldbearers gain fast and can easily whomp on things. Once they take hits they turn into spirits and St. Vincent can fire into the melee without hitting them. Also he's a beater for models with special rules, and burns up corpse tokens that happen to be lying about.

I used to run Seamus with Mortimer and Punk Zombies, trying to summon guild autopsies. That worked almost alright. Datsue Ba is a solid hire since she can be quite amazing if you dedicate the cards to her (most of the summoners in ressers take all the good cards out of your hand and soulstones too, it's hard to split them between henchman and master).

 

Toshiro and Punk zombies could do alright as well. But there's probably more in depth tactica around here.

[MeatAndFauxtatoes]

I just want to advocate The Hanged with Seamus, using Seamus to give a model -2 WP goes a long way to helping The Hanged succeed on it's cast actions.

[Fetid Strumpet]

I'll say try them but I've found hiring hanged pretty bad myself.

[psychogeek123]

I will take a listen to the podcast! I mostly go for what models I like the look of. I hadn't even noticed the emissary can summon zombies! I have a lot to learn

here are the models on my list due to what I think looks cool:

Drowned,

Emissary,

Dead Rider,

Jakuuna,

Harydin

 

What are the thoughts on these models, particularly with seamus? My secondary master is gonna be Tara and I think I will have a bit of fun by making a nearly all buried list!

[Fetid Strumpet]

Take any comments of anyone, including myself, about the effectiveness of a model with a grain (or perhaps huge helping) of salt. My advice would be to proxy them, play them in games, and decide what you buy based on your personal experiences. Your individual opponents and meta might make even serious tournament player advice moot and ineffectual.

That said, in the most general terms, here are my opinions of the models you mentioned, specifically in regards to Seamus.

 

The Drowned: Pointless in a Seamus List, generally only good as summons, never as hires and he can't summon them. No Wp duels. Slow. Combo piece for an easily killed model.

Carrion Emissary: Strong consideration for many Seamus lists. No Wp duels but the ability to get mobile corpse markers to assist with Summoning or Red Chapel Killer is good. Shards give additional board control as well as helping block LoS for Back Ally. Strongish beater with Rot and Rend. Both upgrades can have a place.

Dead Rider: Pointless in a Seamus List. No Wp duels until late in the game, in which case ideal positioning will be an issue. Over costed as a beater without a master that can give it more support. Better more synergistic models are available.

Jakuuna Ubume: Situational model. Have used to good effect in a Seamus list, have also had her fail miserably. Good model to have as an option.

Heyreddin: Situational model. No wp duels, and his aura works against your models as well as enemies. He can be a good solo model that is mostly autonomous on a flank. If you are good at positioning he can help you get essentially free focus (damage portion) for all you models that are able to take advantage of it. Downside is if you are bad at positioning, or if your enemy is able to control Heyreddin's placement via placement effects or pushes you can essentially give your opponent bonus damage against your models. No real specific advantages or disadvantages in a Seamus list beyond no WP duels. Another decent model to have in your case if you like options.

Again just to stress, these are my personal opinions and should in no way be taken as the absolute truth about any of them. And again this is just in relation to Seamus. Paring them with other masters can raise or lower their effectiveness.

[psychogeek123]

4 minutes ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

Take any comments of anyone, including myself, about the effectiveness of a model with a grain (or perhaps huge helping) of salt. My advice would be to proxy them, play them in games, and decide what you buy based on your personal experiences. Your individual opponents and meta might make even serious tournament player advice moot and ineffectual.

That said, in the most general terms, here are my opinions of the models you mentioned, specifically in regards to Seamus.

 

The Drowned: Pointless in a Seamus List, generally only good as summons, never as hires and he can't summon them. No Wp duels. Slow. Combo piece for an easily killed model.

Carrion Emissary: Strong consideration for many Seamus lists. No Wp duels but the ability to get mobile corpse markers to assist with Summoning or Red Chapel Killer is good. Shards give additional board control as well as helping block LoS for Back Ally. Strongish beater with Rot and Rend. Both upgrades can have a place.

Dead Rider: Pointless in a Seamus List. No Wp duels until late in the game, in which case ideal positioning will be an issue. Over costed as a beater without a master that can give it more support. Better more synergistic models are available.

Jakuuna Ubume: Situational model. Have used to good effect in a Seamus list, have also had her fail miserably. Good model to have as an option.

Heyreddin: Situational model. No wp duels, and his aura works against your models as well as enemies. He can be a good solo model that is mostly autonomous on a flank. If you are good at positioning he can help you get essentially free focus (damage portion) for all you models that are able to take advantage of it. Downside is if you are bad at positioning, or if your enemy is able to control Heyreddin's placement via placement effects or pushes you can essentially give your opponent bonus damage against your models. No real specific advantages or disadvantages in a Seamus list beyond no WP duels. Another decent model to have in your case if you like options.

Again just to stress, these are my personal opinions and should in no way be taken as the absolute truth about any of them. And again this is just in relation to Seamus. Paring them with other masters can raise or lower their effectiveness.

I will take all the suggestions that I can get! some of these models I will get eventually as my outcasts can take many of them (Leveticus and the 4 horsemen sounds fun). I just want to prioritize my purchases and see my options. I think between the models I already have and the models people suggest, I should be mostly good to go with seamus.

[psychogeek123]

one question I have is how many rotten belles should I have on hand? would Seamus' box + doxies be enough for summons?

[Adran]

Typically yes. At most Seamus will summon 1 thing a turn, and sometimes you want to use a different 0 action for him, or just don't have handy corpses near by. 90% of the time you are probably only going to be replacing losses during the game. I would play with just those for now, and see how often you ever wish you owned another belle/doxy for the summon. If its a regular thing, then it might be worth buying more, but I would be surprised if you would get more use out of an extra pack of rotten belles than you would out of buying something else. 

[Saduhem]

I would say yes. Although I sometimes start with 3 belles, I rarely have the opportunity to summon in more as I'm using the 0 action for other purposes. I do not often hire doxies, but they are my preferred summon with Seamus if occasion arises.

[Fetid Strumpet]

Depends. I've had games where I just had the ones I hired at the start and never summoned another model, and others where I ended the game with 7 Belles on the table. It really just depends. 

[benjoewoo]

At least in my experience, outside of somewhat artificially forcing myself to hire in the undead theme, Seamus generally hires spirits and a nurse. My regular undead hires are belles plus Sybelle, though I hire Sybelle less now for rules reasons.

I generally hire 1-2 belles. With Seamus I tend to hire 2, because Ca 7 lure is pretty consistent when the opponent has -2 Wp from Sin Rep. I would definitely pick up doxies--when I'm able to actually see corpse markers (most of my opponents play models that are constructs or just don't drop markers) I tend to summon a doxy because as mentioned, Seamus will often be solo while his crew does other stuff.

While I've already made a model suggestion in picking up doxies, I would echo the caution of buying models before playing them. Seamus has a relatively unorthodox compared to most masters, especially for Ressers, and your model choices will likely reflect how you like to play him. There's a podcast by Ted and someone else who plays a Seamus list with Jaakuna, Yin, Datsue-ba, and a hanged--that list fits that person, but I've found it doesn't fit my play style very well. Even if that list can be shown to be strictly better than what I run, I can't play that list at a higher level than what I achieve with my personal lists. 

Tl;dr of the above: proxy and play test before you buy. 

Of your list, I'd recommend Jaakuna more. I regularly hire her because she's a comparable Lure to Belles but has better damage output and qualifies for more schemes. She also presents multiple out of activation, resource less heals for Seamus, which is fairly rare on an individual model basis--most models heal Seamus out of activation during their own activation in using AP, but Manipulative will heal Seamus each time it's failed.

I would not get the others until you've solidified your play style. I bought Dead Rider and have used him 2-5 times with Seamus specifically, each time regretting the choice because I chose to run my Skeletor riding Rainbow Dash instead of hiring more efficient options. I would never hire drowned as they offer little a shield bearer couldn't do with better options. 

Hayrredin is an odd duck for me, because his aura can greatly set up Seamus, and he's a 7 SS shooter with a built in repeat trigger 2.0, but his other actions just don't impress me much--the pools I'd want Seamus in don't really mesh with what Hayrredin offers on his card that I can't duplicate in specific areas more efficiently with other models. 

The same goes for Emissary, at least for me. I've never felt the Emissary is particularly durable--I figure he's dead the Turn I send him in to fight, usually 1-2 activations after I send him out. I also don't often need the shards to block LoS--for 1 SS less, I can hire Datsue-ba who summons two seishin that will teleport to Seamus Turn 2 and later to achieve the same effect usually--Ht 4 markers are better than Ht 2 models, but Datsue-ba can summon without tempo loss and doesn't need to be near Seamus to summon seishin. This excludes belle spam lists, however, as he's amazing in those with the generic conflux. 

[Fetid Strumpet]

Seishin can't block los from vantage point rules which is the reason I tend to find that load out inefficient. Unless you've completely ignored 3D rules I tend to find if the opponent is playing against Seamus and there is a vantage point someone will be on it.

[benjoewoo]

True, and that issue comes up for me, usually because there's a sniper. It's usually a trick I use when opportunity arises as opposed to normal planning. I'd much rather heal with seishin or attack Wp, but sometimes I want them to flash in quickly just to disengage a model right next to me that's Ht 2 or less. They also attack Wp, so each of their activations is a a potential Ml 6 with Sin Rep to heal Seamus.

I also tend to back alley near terrain that negates vantage point for that reason, because Seamus should eventually move from where he initially back alleys to. Not always available, but it should be or else the terrain set up is likely imbalanced anyway. 

[MeatAndFauxtatoes]

On 18/02/2017 at 8:20 PM, Fetid Strumpet said:

I'll say try them but I've found hiring hanged pretty bad myself.

As with any other model, they are situational. I generally only take them when I'm either trying to kill the opposing master or against crews with poor WP when the pool dictates a fight in the centre of the board.