Need help picking three masters to focus on

[OctaBit]

Pretty much what the title says. I'm coming back to the game after a short hiatus and would like some help selecting three outcast masters to focus on in order to more or less relearn the faction.

I'd like to have a selection of masters that complement each other and cover each other's weaknesses. I'm not really sure what most of the masters are especially good at as opposed to other master in the faction. Any advice about where their individual strengths lie would be greatly appreciated.

As far as my personal playstyle goes, I'm open to just about anything really. It's more of a question of how interesting the master is. I prefer masters with more depth, such as shenlong as opposed to say lady j.

The only two things I know I want to do is that I want to definitely include jack as one of the master I want to focus on, and I don't want to use VonSchill.

[DXXXVIII]

Hamelin as your scheme one.
Viks or jack as your killy ones.

Tara for being versatile.

Levis a bit out of  favour unless  you wish to abuse his hiring pool.
Schill and Misaki are kinda "meh"-Tier.
Parker is... weird. I dont get him to work so i'm not recommending him. But some ppl say he's great.

[OctaBit]

Why is Levi out of favor? Is it because of the changes to eliminate the leadership?

[PositronMike]

The more interesting outcast masters from my point of view are Jack, Parker and Tara. All three are really fun to play with and against. I love playing Hamelin but he can be frustrating to play against.  I would recommend going with 3 from these 4. They are all really flexible and able to handle pretty much anything. 

[Cedar]

For schemes, I suggest Parker or Hamelin. I prefer Hamelin, since he is more durable, offers better activation control and he can deal enormous amount of damage (few times I had dealt more than 8 damage with his Bleeding Disease- usually people don't focus on removing Blight and they don't mind getting few stacks of it, so damage from Bleeding Disease or even Rat Catchers is sometimes ridiculous). However, he is very difficult to play at the beginning and has no movement tricks. Parker on the other hand is very mobile, can deal decent amount of damage, but he is very card hungry and requires enemy scheme markers to work. He suffers from low activation count, low amount of cards and lower potential damage and resilience than Hamelin, but he is very mobile and versatile master. I suggest going Parker if you want to focus on 3 different masters, as he can forgive more mistakes than Hamelin.

For your killy master I'd suggest Viktorias over Levi - if you are playing them in scheme pools focused on removing models from the table, they can do much more than Levi, however he is more versitale master with higher activation number (thanks to Waifs).

[PositronMike]

@Cedar your experiences with Parker are very different to what I have seen. My Parker crew is usually 8 or 9 models which is a high activation count for me in outcasts. It can't compete with the rat engine but then nothing really does. 

Regarding being card hungry I haven't noticed he is any more card hungry than other masters and he usually gets you resources every activation. I almost always get a soul stone and draw 2 cards and discard 1 every Parker activation. 

 

[Cedar]

@PositronMike I played few games as Parker with more than 7 models but I prefer to have one big beater more than two cheap activations.  Could you post me one of your crews with 9 activations? i'm really curious about it. And since Dead Outlaws are now available I might give Parker another chance. 
My other problem with Parker is fact, that range of his abilities are weird - from 12" gun range to 4" discard range. It can be hard to find best position for him.

[PositronMike]

22 minutes ago, Cedar said:

@PositronMike I played few games as Parker with more than 7 models but I prefer to have one big beater more than two cheap activations.  Could you post me one of your crews with 9 activations? i'm really curious about it. And since Dead Outlaws are now available I might give Parker another chance. 
My other problem with Parker is fact, that range of his abilities are weird - from 12" gun range to 4" discard range. It can be hard to find best position for him.

My typical crew for interference/recon with him is:

Parker - Highwayman, Stick Up and Coordinated Heist

Doc Mitchell

Sue - Return Fire

Johan - Oath Keeper

Big Jake

Bandido

Bandido

Dead Outlaw

Dead Outlaw

 

If I need another heavy hitter then I drop Big Jake and a Dead Outlaw and bring in Mad Dog. Sometimes I bring Mad Dog anyway just because of the terrain. I have never found Parker needing more that his base cache due to Limited Supplies. I generally have Parker about 6 inches from the enemy during his turn and if need be I will attach and drop Stick Up in the same activation to get even further away. My main damage dealer in the crew are Sue and Johan but Bandidos and Dead Outlaws can do a respectable job of damage dealing if required. Parker only shots someone if I need enemy scheme markers for anything. Generally I have him pushing the crew about, blowing up scheme markers or using what I believe to be his best action "Hands in the Air". "Hands in the air" is able to really mess up a crew if used at the right time and I will often have Parker be my first activation on the turn just to do this 3 times to 3 different models if possible.

[Virtus]

When picking what Masters to play to compliment what you currently play, a lot of it has to do with personal playstyle. For example, DXXXVIII above prefers Hamelin for schemes over Parker, and Jack as a killy Master. I on the other hand like Parker for scheme-marker-placement schemes and Hamelin for condition-heavy schemes in particular, and I consider Jack more as a positioning Master than as a killing-focused Master. Jack Daw probably does kill well, but if I were to look at a killy scheme pool, I personally wouldn't pick Jack because in my experience I'm used to him moving models around more than mowing things down.

I now play Parker and Hamelin exclusively as my two mains, and I feel they work well with each other.

[OctaBit]

So what do you generally do in a very kill heavy pool? Do you play Hamelin with more of an elite crew focused on obeys?

[Virtus]

 

52 minutes ago, OctaBit said:

So what do you generally do in a very kill heavy pool? Do you play Hamelin with more of an elite crew focused on obeys?

If I need to kill one particular model, I run Killjoy with Hamelin. If I need more widespread damage output, I run Parker and focus more on Mad Dog's Blown Apart marker along with Parker's repertoire of upgrades. Adding elite models in either list if necessary.

[Jesy Blue]

I've begun a scheme heavy Hamelin crew I play every 3-4 games just to mess with people when I say I'm playing Hamelin and the schemes are right.

Using Sewer King to get Crooligans, Iggy, and Mercenary Torakage with Emissary "don't mind me" trinket (gonna try adding Big Jake soon).

 

Point:  there's a lot more going on outside of the crew box.

[Seadhna]

I'd go with Hamelin for scheme-heavy and control pools, Levi for straight-up murdering stuff and Jack as a versatile hybrid.

 

Tara is too fragile and matchup-dependent (any dedicated melee will wreck her day), Viks are basically a card flip (you flip high, you win), Parker is inferior to Hamelin in terms of schemes and control (he also dies like a bitch until Marlena hits the board), Schill does nothing in particular (straved for both AP and soulstones/activations), Misaki is probably inferior to Levi/Jack when it comes to murdering stuff.

 

Granted, the Levi/Jack/Hamelin setup would require quite a lot of out-of-faction models (Jack's box in particular has 3 models you'll hardly use), but I'd go with Sue, Johan, A&D, Emissary and Effigy in-faction, then Jaakuna for Jack, Necropunks for Levi - and that's a very good and versatile start.