Totally Noob, please help me in building some crew list example

[Delirium88]

Hi all, i m totally new to Malifaux, i falled in love with Gremlins and bought Zipp and Som'er boxes. I m thinking about to buy Ophelia too but i really don't know how to build good strategies and how to create good competitive lists.

Please can you share with me some good lists on 40 45 and 50 ss to start playing with Zipp, Som'er and Ophelia as masters and explain a little bit the strategy behind the list?

[daniello_s]

Unfortunately everything is down to which strategy you are playing and which schemes are in the pool so it's not easy to present competitive list unless you know these above.

Somer is good with summoning, buffing and killing stuff so you can't go wrong with him in any encounter.

Zzip is good with disrupting opponents play style and his game strategy so he is good choice too.

Ophelia is typical damage-dealer which suffers from the 'one and only playstyle' she is designed to and she loosing badly when Somer and Zzip are available too (not to mention Wong).

[goat90]

So the way I take list building in Malifaux is I typically build a "Crew Core" This is typically about 30-35 points of models that I take with a particular Master at all times. I try to make them as generalist as possible, to fit strats that I find that particular Master to be good at. The remaining points I use to try and set up my scheme running or denial. Typically I bring a set amount of models to hire from for those remaining 15-20 points, so I can focus on certain interactions. I dont have any experience with Zipp yet, and I dropped Ophelia once my LFGS got the Wong box in (which would be my recommendation to get as well)

 

But as Daniello said, Somer is a great over all jack of all trades. He summons, can dish out some good damage and makes our Bayou Gremlins that much better. His Do it like Dis ability is just amazing, especially considering taking skeeters with him. The way I play him is he summons bayous on turn 1 and 2. The new brood of green menace does what ever they need to do, mainly scheme running or playing the strat. So with Somer the idea I play him as is, for Strats like Guard the Stash, Interference etc I can flood these types of zones to ensure I can score. My other remaining points play towards the scheme or scheme denial. Some models I like with Somer:

bayou Gremlins: Somer Summons these guys, they have a push trigger, big damage (at the cost of their selves) can fuel Somer draw engine, and he can summon a metric ****ton of these dudes.

Pigapult+Stuffed Pigs: Great damage, can throw Bayous and company with a 24 inch place. Resilent, can mitigate cover. Stuffed pigs give the damage increase at the cost of SH

Burt+Dirty Cheater: 8 points of wont die. Use to carve out enemy scheme runners and deny markers

Slop Haulers: Heals Bayou Gremlins after summon or Drunk and Reckless. Can lower def 

Francisco: Awesome damage dealer, can mitigate cover and surviviable

Trixibelle: I use her to manipulate models, Pull a mismeasured friendly model into a zone to score. Move Scheme Markers around, Push enemy models out of Scoring range and Slow. 

Merris LaCroix: Sweet Scheme runner, can drop 3 scheme markers a turn if you wanted to, able to set up your turns for a decent amount of damage and can mitigate blast damage.

McTavish: In a scheme pool with a lot of markers, or with your Bayous dying he can be good with his push. I am not a huge fan of him in Somer, but works

Lightning bugs: Good healers, Somer can help with their damage output. Scheme runners and good utility models

Sparks: Only there for 4 AP Pigapult

 

Hopefully this helps. Schemes and stones also has a good buying on a budget guide that I used to start my collection of gremlins. I think its a bit dated, but helps to start out

[Math Mathonwy]

Here's a nasty list made from your three starters:

Zipp (Gift of Gab, Rambling Diatribe)

Earl

Francois Lacroix

Iron Skeeter (Poorly Handled Explosives)

Iron Skeeter (Hovering Airship)

Raphael Lacroix (Dirty Cheater)

Pere Ravage

4 Bayou Gremlins

 

Earl can give Tomes for Skeeters who ferry Francois and Raphael giving them Fast as well as to Pere who makes a big boom (also ferried). Poorly Handled Explosives makes the boom extra big. Bayou Gremlins do Schemes and Zipp disrupts everything.

You won't make any friends with the list, though...  

[EpicWaffle]

To @Math Mathonwy lista i wold substitute Burt Jensen for Raphael!

For somer, a good core is 

Somer (Fam tree, dirty cheater, do over)

3 bayous

2 or 1 skeeter 

A combination of 2 between Sloap hauler and lighting bugs (either 2 of both or 1 of each).

From there fill up with what you need or the scenario. I would sugjest 1/2 beaters like Frank and Burt and some support models like Trixie and merris.

[Dogmantra]

Without a specific strat and scheme pool I'm not sure how applicable my advice can be, I seem to tailor my crews even more than your average. But I will give you a couple of specific tips that I think make for a good Gremlin crew:

Always bring at least one of: Merris LaCroix, the First Mate, or a few Bayou Gremlins. This is for Claim Jump, which is the Always scheme for Gaining Grounds 2017 (the schemes get updated yearly). It's also the easiest scheme in the game for Gremlins imo, and these models make it super easy to complete. If you're using the base rulebook schemes, this is still basically applicable, but you'll just want to pick the suited scheme marker schemes like Protect Territory and Breakthrough for these models to do.

Aim for 9+ models. In my experience, the average model count is about 8. If you have more models, you can get several activations at the end of the turn in a row where your opponent has no chance to react. This is perfect for performing schemes or killing enemies - if you stall with cheap models, your opponent will have to move to get into range of your expensive models, and then you don't need to spend the AP to get into range come your expensive models' activations. Bayou Gremlins work excellently for this, but Slop Haulers and Lightning Bugs are also some of my favourites to use - the commonality is that they are all extremely versatile models and can fill whatever niche you need at that moment.

[Math Mathonwy]

2 hours ago, EpicWaffle said:

To @Math Mathonwy lista i wold substitute Burt Jensen for Raphael!

Burt Jebsen doesn't come in the three starter boxes I was trying to work with  

[goat90]

1 hour ago, Math Mathonwy said:

Burt Jebsen doesn't come in the three starter boxes I was trying to work with  

hes worth it in addition to the starters, not too expensive, 12 USD states side

[EpicWaffle]

18 hours ago, Math Mathonwy said:

Burt Jebsen doesn't come in the three starter boxes I was trying to work with  

Oh sorry I missed that  didn't t read carefully enough the description  

[Eorek]

As some people have said: Burt is a good addition to any gremlin crew. He especially likes the dirty cheater upgrade(healing one wound + hard to kill will make him a pain to finish off)
I'd also invest in a box of slop haulers as gremlins tend to hurt themselves, these are especially good with somer teeth who summons but I like em no matter what master I play.
A worthy mention is also Merris Lacroix as she can both protect your crew and is a really good scheme runner. 

What to play and how to play it really comes down to what the schemes, deployment and strat is flipped. 
I'd suggest looking at the scenario and making a plan for what model will score what points. 
For example: 

I generally field Zipp over Somer in strategies where I benefit from blocking my opponent out of points by making em unable to reach the markers such as Guard the stash or Extraction. 
Schemes Zipp loves are undercover entourage(he is super hard to pin down), Leave your mark(can drop off earl far up the board) but also quick murder and sometimes eliminate the leader as he can bring a enemy model our from cover and have his crew nuke it. 

Somer teeth really shines if you face ressurectionists or any summoner with his discard the whole hand ability as they can't reliably summon anything then. 
He also preforms really well on schemes where you want alot of models such as Reconoiter or interference. 

But finally it all comes down to how you think you will be able to score and deny points for your opponent. Read all the schemes and strats and get an idea how you would gain points for it, Trial and error. 

An example: Eliminate the leader is in the pool and I've picked Zipp and francois in my crew. if I now face a master I am confident I can kill I'll pick eliminate the leader and set it up so I can use zipp to drag is master towards francois, use francois chain activate and nuke the leader, hopefully doing loads of damage, forcing him opponent to use his soul stones and discarding cards(zipps upgrade)
And say it didn't work, then you analyse what went wrong, and do it better next time or try something new. Trial and error... Experience comes with time.