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Mei Feng essentials


Ludvig

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Hey

Assuming I'm going into Mei Feng to make one well-rounded collection of models but I don't want to go whole hog on arcanists, what are the essentials?

Schemes and Stones and common sense both propose that Ramos' box is a no-brainer purchase. I've also procured a mobile toolkit for Ramos/Hoffman. Anything else I should really be picking up to enjoy playing her in most pools?

Thanks in advance! /Ludvig

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A second master :P

Seriously, she's the one master in the game that I never get any work out of (despite her apparent potential). I have a better track record with old Lucius than with Mei Feng...

Models-wise? She wants burning vectors to put damage on the board, so the Arcane Effigy (worth its weight anyway) and Union Miners. I would rate Large Arachnids above the Ramos box just because I don't like Langston at all, but you'll get work out of the arachnids and Joss so maybe it's worth it. And it comes with that second master...

 

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Mechanized Porkchop and Arcane Effigy make it into the vast majority of my lists with her. Those and her totem are generally the only models I drop in without thinking, everything else I tailor based on the board/strat/schemes/opponent.

Kang/Sparks sees play based on what I think my opponent is bringing.
Otherwise normal strong arcanist choices (Howard/Mech Rider/Malifaux Raptor/December Acolyte/etc...) tend to fill out the rest of my lists

 

Edit: I tend not to focus on burning with her, instead just use it as an incidental bonus when it comes up (usually due to Arcane Effigy dropping Radiance on her)

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If you don't already have them for Hoffman, a couple Metal Gamin can go with her everywhere (Foundry), same thing with the Rail Golem. Willie can travel around with her (Foundry) when she's wearing her TT badge, but whether or not you bring him along for the ride is up to you. Of these suggestions, the top of the list are the Metal Gamin, followed by Willie. Sadly for the steamed up golem, he works much better with other crews (especially Hoffman).

 

I'm also a fan of the Mechanized Porkchop and Sparks. Sparks is more situational, but the Porkchop goes into any list I build that's going to be maneuver oriented.

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The trap I've been finding with her is it's easy to think Large Steam Arachnids, Rail Workers, Metal Gamin, Joss, Effigy.. okay I've got my armored core! But what I've learned is she doesn't need a ton of constructs. She needs a handful of well-placed scrap and/or friendly constructs if she's going to play pinball, but if she's going to be supporting a crew that needs to take a solid hit, armor-skewing plays right into opponent expectations ("hey, I'm playing against Arcanists, what can I expect?" "armor and/or glass cannons"). I like bringing things that have internal buffing that can do the work that's needed.

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Thanks everyone! This took off better than I had dared to guess. I will take a look at all models mentioned above and see if anything catches my fancy. @admiralvorkraft now that Lucius is so much better I need to find new walls to bash my head against ;)  

To be honest I generally don't even bother looking through the gremlin portions of my books. Will take a look at the foundry additions.

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See that you do - Mechanized Porkchop is a very, very fun addition to the crew! His Walking Rage Machine ability is important for Mei if she wants to consistently hit her targets without using your entire hand - her Ml 6 only gets you so far. It's also a really good ability for hitters like Joss or Howard, where again, you have good Ml stats and good damage but don't want to be using control cards just to ensure you hit.

My core crew consists of Porkchop, Arcane Effigy and at least one or two other 50mm constructs. I place a big premium on big constructs with Mei because she can get lots of extra movement if the Railwalking target is 50mm, and they can be within her Vent Steam aura with just the tip of their base while the rest extends quite far towards wherever I need them to be.

If you're looking to collect a nice big hiring pool for her, I'd suggest buying or converting Sparks, 1-2 Large Arachnids, Arcane Effigy, Mechanized Porkchop, Metal and/or Fire Gamin, and Mech Rider :P.

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Sparks and Lazarus can be a cool combo for her. Sparks makes Mei a Construct and Lazarus can then us his (0) to copy Rail Walk or Vent Steam. I haven't gotten to try it yet but the theory sounds cool.

So Ramos box, Sparks, Mech Porkchop and Lazarus would give you a strong set of choices to pull from.

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In casual games you can shoot for this combination for Construct Emissary under Mei Feng:

Scrap marker on table (Porkchop, Emissary with Combat, Creative Salvage), Sparks puts metal plating on Emissary. Until Sparks activates again you've got a construct Emissary to use as a Railwalk Node.

 

If you find that it works out for you, the next step(s) to take involve incorporating it into more competitive games.

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4 hours ago, Mutter said:

If you're not planning of wandering into Arcanist territory too much, I'd seriously consider playing her as TT. I find the synergy of TT stuff with the Foundry things she can bring much stronger ...

How would you go about if you were going to play her as TT?

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19 hours ago, Ludvig said:

How would you go about if you were going to play her as TT?

Recalled training, Toshiro summoning Komainu off Embarking/Pork chop, Obsidian Oni, great minion choices, fire synergy if you want it...

Partly theoryfaux as I haven't played her since I got hold of Porkchop/Inn, but was fun before and should be stronger now...

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11 hours ago, Pyrflamme said:

Not quite sure what you mean by "anti-synergistic." Could you expound on that?

Mei likes burning and her rail dudes like burning. A good synergy would be if her rail workers had a decent way to add burning to things to set up for her attacks as well as their own but they don't. She is decently beaty if you can set up that fire reliably, without it she doesn't look like all that.

The rail golem positively loves burning. Her totem can add burning to stuff but NOT to the rail golem, it has a rule specifically designed to give anti-synergy within the crew.

The foundry upgrade gives a cool (0) action but the guys in her set and rail golem already have very worthwhile (0)s that conflict with this.

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1 minute ago, tmod said:

Recalled training, Toshiro summoning Komainu off Embarking/Pork chop, Obsidian Oni, great minion choices, fire synergy if you want it...

Partly theoryfaux as I haven't played her since I got hold of Porkchop/Inn, but was fun before and should be stronger now...

The oni had me intrigued, too bad they're not constucts themselves but oh well. Komaino seem awesome! I guess if I play her it might be on the TT side. I do have Lynch and McCabe and I like the look of Yan Lo so Toshiro and komainu would slot nicely with that.

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19 hours ago, Ludvig said:

How would you go about if you were going to play her as TT?

What has been said before ...

Shadow Emissary is really good with her, Toshiro & Komainu, Monk of LR. Not so much for their direct synergies with Mei, but rather because it's fairly easy to make a well-rounded crew around with TT, I feel.

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24 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

The oni had me intrigued, too bad they're not constucts themselves but oh well. Komaino seem awesome! I guess if I play her it might be on the TT side. I do have Lynch and McCabe and I like the look of Yan Lo so Toshiro and komainu would slot nicely with that.

You don't need constructs if your models droo scrap for you - it's not as if Mei gets anything special out of constructs, besides the occasional railwalk.

Same for burning - she dorsn't need! it.

It helps her damage output, but she can hit, give out burning and the hit harder all by herself - you are looking for more synergy when none is needed^^

 

But agreed, I think she's better on TT side (railgolem without Hoffman is meh, and Recalled Training, Misdirection are just great upgrades - also, Obsidian Oni and Komainu are golden for her ;)

She's much more in TT then in Arcanists imho)

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Shadow Emissary+Porkchop make for free scrap, Toshiro turns two of those into Komainu t1, and any 9~11ish :tome after that are gonna be more Komainu leaving you with 9-10ish activations turn 1. Mei generally sticks to venting (at least against the crews I tend to take her with), with the occasional scalding breath setting a group of enemies trying to close in in reponse to the venting to a -1 or 2 Df with the Emissary.

Admittedly Mei turns more into a floater support type who does some odd jobs around the center but it tends to yield some decent results. And if it turns out they don't care much for casting she can just deploy herself aggressively along with the hordes you should be summoning on :tome' and :crow's.

 

ps; be sure to stock up on soul stones

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10 hours ago, Tris said:

You don't need constructs if your models droo scrap for you - it's not as if Mei gets anything special out of constructs, besides the occasional railwalk.

Same for burning - she dorsn't need! it.

It helps her damage output, but she can hit, give out burning and the hit harder all by herself - you are looking for more synergy when none is needed^^

 

But agreed, I think she's better on TT side (railgolem without Hoffman is meh, and Recalled Training, Misdirection are just great upgrades - also, Obsidian Oni and Komainu are golden for her ;)

She's much more in TT then in Arcanists imho)

If you don't have Recalled Training, I find she absolutely needs burning to get damage out. Unless you have a crazy good hand you'll slap a couple models for 2-4 damage and that's just... not great. I'm shifting back into Arcanists as my main, and I'm going to try running her with the Firestarter/Effigy/Union Miners just to see if I can get some work done that way.

And I'll see your Recalled Training and Misdirection and raise you Seize the Day and Arcane Reservoir... :P

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10 hours ago, Ludvig said:

Mei likes burning and her rail dudes like burning. A good synergy would be if her rail workers had a decent way to add burning to things to set up for her attacks as well as their own but they don't. She is decently beaty if you can set up that fire reliably, without it she doesn't look like all that.

The rail golem positively loves burning. Her totem can add burning to stuff but NOT to the rail golem, it has a rule specifically designed to give anti-synergy within the crew.

The foundry upgrade gives a cool (0) action but the guys in her set and rail golem already have very worthwhile (0)s that conflict with this.

Yeah, burning is at a premium in her core box, but a lot of core boxes find themselves wanting for additions to get the synergy going. I should note that she has an upgrade, Vapormancy, that gives out burning with blasts as a Ca attack on a built-in suit. It also comes with a trigger for her basic attacks that lets her Vent Steam, which makes it very useful beyond ranged burning. Honestly, I never found the shoveling too compelling on Rail Workers, so it mostly comes down to her getting that + on damage.

FWIW, I originally started with Mei as TT and will be using her to kick off my Arcanists, and while she's certainly very strong in 10T, her burning game there was weak for a good while until Komainu and Obsidian Oni hit. I much preferred combo Mei at the time, and have played the latest iteration with summoning to good effect. I'm looking forward to Arcane Effigy and Firestarter in Arcanists for the burning play, and it seems the Firestarter alt sculpt has moved to the Wyrd webstore for special sales, meaning that it's now feasible to get one without buying a Kaeris box.

Agreed on the Rail Golem thing. They went a touch too far in trying to shut off the synergy. I guess internal playtesting must have had Rail Golem running the world?

One thing to note about the Foundry (Hard Worker) upgrade is that it lets ANY foundry model take the action, which includes Mei. If you're going against anything with Armor or H2W and plan to utilize Mei to rip up weak models or combo something threatening to death, it's very good and doesn't compete with any native (0)s on Mei (although the Wind upgrade is very useful if you're playing her as 10T). Using Hard Worker lets you get to straight damage flips more consistently against H2W (assuming burning setup to get the innate + on Tiger Claw) and lets you get that additional damage against models with armor. Also it lets you ignore LOS-blocking markers, which the two big bringers of Armor and H2W - Arcanists with their Ice/Flame Pillars and Rezzers with their Shards of Nythera - like to throw out. Any markers with blocking characteristics will still be a pain, but a charge at an angle followed by a Jackhammer Kick to shove Mei into Tiger Claw range can be a rude surprise. Yeah, it's not great with the Rail Golem or the Rail Workers compared to innate (0)s there, but it can be very handy for Mei.

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12 hours ago, Tris said:

 

Same for burning - she dorsn't need! it.

It helps her damage output, but she can hit, give out burning and the hit harder all by herself - you are looking for more synergy when none is needed^^

 

With burning getting her to plusflips she is at weak damage for Lady Justice so if we are going to treat her as a damage dealer she kinda needs it ;) Ignoring armour from her (0) looks sweet though, those two things in tandem look nice.

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