New at Mailfaux with Ironsides - how to play against the Victorias?

[Sebasthos]

Had my third Malifaux game yesterday (first was a demo match) with my first master, Ironsides - so second game with her. I went against the Victorias, my first match was against Von Schill, both 26 SS.

After my experiences in the Von-Schill-Match (spend the whole game trying to catch him, ignored the rest, lost most of my team and the scenario), I played my team very close together and managed to draw in most of his ronins and even killed the Student of Conflict rather easily. Only to be taken apart by Victoria, thanks to a Red Joker at damage.

Now I am wondering: is Ironsides a bad matchup against the Victorias or is it just a matter of playing around them?

My crew was Ironsides, the Captain, both with Warding Runes, Oxford Mage with Doom Ward and two spiders. His crew was the Victorias, Student of Conflict and 3 Ronin.

[Jinn]

Be wary of enemy crews who summon a large amount of models or are able to kill a lot of models, like the Viks, in low SS games. Malifaux is balanced around 50SS games and in smaller games the Viks are going to be a lot more effective. If the Viks kill two models in a 26SS crew they might have killed half or even more of your models, if they do the same in a 50SS game they have a much lower impact.

For Ironsides in particular, the Viks are pretty scary as you usually want to be in melee against your opponent. What I would recommend is making sure your board has sufficient blocking and impassable terrain to block a portion of possible charge vectors and then sacrifice a model or two to slow the Viks down in their alpha strike by blocking even more charge lanes. After the Viks go for the kill they should be vulnerable to counterattack (unless the new upgrades are in play, I don't have any experience with those).

The advice below is more general, and not specific to the Viks match up.

To maximise your chances in a small game you should probably bring all three Oxfordians with both their rune upgrades and the new patch upgrade that makes them cheaper. You get all three for 15SS with good synergy with Ironsides. You should probably be aware that The Captain is considered a rather poor model, as is Ironsides totem Mouse. You should probably grab Ramos's box for Joss and Langston (and Ramos) who both go well with Ironsides and will put you closer to a 50SS crew which most people recommend you start playing sooner rather than later (or at least 35SS, 26SS is insanely low). Other great models to pick up on their own are Johan and the Arcane Effigy who will enhance your crew a lot and get you closer to the 50SS mark. One of the new models from book 5 can give her Armor +1 until the end of the game, which is really good.

The new upgrades for Ironsides should be in stores soon, or if you can get your hands on the new book, you should be able to try them out from there. They make Ironsides a lot better. Her new 2SS upgrade makes her not have to lower adrenaline at the end of the turn and gives her a new (0) action, and her new 1SS upgrade makes her generate +1 adrenaline when she activates and allows her to heal on a  trigger (which is inbuilt) on her (1)Ml action. Good stuff.

[thatlatinspeakingguy]

One thing that is of great importance when playing against Victorias specifically is that they have that nasty Whirlwind trigger which lets them attack every model in range after damaging the original target. Bear that in mind and keep the distance of ~6 inches between your own models.

[Squirrelich]

Challenge on one of her wave 5 Upgrades! They have to test on every single whirlwind attack!

[MuMantai]

What the squirrel said. I would rate Ironsides one of the better matchups in Arcanists against the Vics, especially with the new upgrades (see above). If you are lucky, you can pull one Vic out of formation, killing the whole slingshot (but that banks on mistakes on opponents side), and she has an ok chance to tank the whole blood first strike, with getting more adrenaline and saving her crew in the process. Also, every hit on Ironsides does damage on Blood.

It still is dependant on luck, but I think we have far worse matchups to drop into this.

[Mxbedlam]

On 10/5/2017 at 9:40 AM, Jinn said:

Be wary of enemy crews who summon a large amount of models or are able to kill a lot of models, like the Viks, in low SS games. Malifaux is balanced around 50SS games and in smaller games the Viks are going to be a lot more effective. If the Viks kill two models in a 26SS crew they might have killed half or even more of your models, if they do the same in a 50SS game they have a much lower impact.

 

This. 26ss is not a good metric for the game at 50SS.  Also, Ironsides can add more models like Amina and Steamfitter to take the punch out of hte Viks

[spikes]

Just to be sure, is your Ironsides post-errata? She now has in-built Tomes on her Df, which should automatically trigger Good Shot, My Turn. I forget if Viks can ignore Df triggers, but if they cannot, this should also soften them up somewhat, allowing you to finish them off even if they kill Ironsides. Pre-Wave 5, I believe most Ironsides players do expect her to die before the game is over, so just make sure she has done good work before that. 

Anyway, Viks are squishy, so what Jinn advises is very sound. Try to make them spend their alpha strike inefficiently, then counter attack. Or if you have a strong hand and stones, you can try to weather the storm with Ironsides. But with Wave 5 upgrades, Ironsides becomes much better. 

 

[Vitruvian Man]

Use her "You looking at me lure" to pull a key model out of position, then viciously beat it to death. Shutting down one part of the victoria's combo basicly renders it useless. In addition, the ox mages can slow and push models out of position, in addition to their basic damage. 

[SevenThirtySeven]

I think a great counter to Viks in Wave 5 would include Ironsides, Steamfitter, and the Medical Automaton.  The Automaton has a front card ability to move another model within 3" to base to base with it when it takes dmg.  Totally ruins any big charge.  Add the steamfitter to convert severes to moderates for whoever could be tanking a charge.  

Positioning will be important, but make sure the Viks can't whirlwind on our whole crew.  But if you can get a model to tank the charge, then be moved to B2B with the Automaton, the Viks are shit out of luck.  Automaton still has heals too. 

[WWHSD]

How exactly does the Vik's Sligshot work? I can kind of figure it out looking at the cards but was hoping that someone could describe how it actually tends to play out.

[Franchute]

5 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

How exactly does the Vik's Sligshot work? I can kind of figure it out looking at the cards but was hoping that someone could describe how it actually tends to play out.

Tactics and tips:

https://pullmyfinger.wikispaces.com/M2E+Viktoria+of+Ashes

[SevenThirtySeven]

1 hour ago, WWHSD said:

How exactly does the Vik's Sligshot work? I can kind of figure it out looking at the cards but was hoping that someone could describe how it actually tends to play out.

No one plays the Viks slingshot in your meta??  Bless your heart.

[WWHSD]

13 minutes ago, SevenThirtySeven said:

No one plays the Viks slingshot in your meta??  Bless your heart.

They do. I just haven't played against them yet.

[I'm a Teapot!]

As a Viks player who is starting ironsides at the moment, ive got to say:

Ironsides in combination with the steamfitter should be able to deal with the viktorias in close combat if u can win the duel on 1 attack or more. If u take 7ss cache and stone for prevention on every hit by vik of blood, you can survive a charge, because the steamfitter condition reduces severe dmg to moderate.

The problem is, that with wave 5, a good viks player has a ton of options to get the viks in range of ironsides without spending any of their ap. Slingshot is a thing of the past. There is more efficient tech these days. And while the viks have never been bad cause they always threaten to table you, with wave 5 they become top tier since marlena is incredibly broken with them (giving a glasscannon a safe button) and they are just so safe now.

That being sad, Ironsides got a huge boost with the new upgrades and she can pack a punch now. There are ways to play ironsides agressively, interrupting they enemy backline turn 2 and letting amina deal with the frontline. Basicly wave 5 gives you 1 Adrenaline for turn 1 (2 if you take the emissary - which is considerable right now) and the steamfitter is a huge buff cause armor 1 on a 14wds master is a big deal. You can heal so many wounds with ironsides because adrenalin is so easy to stack right now. 

With some trick plays you can start turn 2 with ironsides and have 6+ Adrenalin before anyone has hit you. 

Viks are some of the only alphastrikes that can actually kill ironsides before she can heal back up. 

 

[Frollo the Wordbearer]

Wait a moment. How can you build up 6 adrenalines on start t2?

I can see 4 adrenalines (2 from new upgrade and 2 from emissary).. but 6?

[retnab]

Probably end of turn 1 slingshot Ironsides into a couple enemies, turn 2 activate and rake in a pile of Adrenaline. I've regularly been swimming in Adrenaline lately, Veteran Fighter may be a bit of a "fix" upgrade but it does the job so well it makes her feel like a real Master  

[I'm a Teapot!]

So here's the secret tech:

Malifaux Raptor: 3ss
Anna Lovelace: 10ss

Oxfordian Mages: (3x 5ss)

Union Steamfitter: 6ss

Emissary: 10ss


Steamfitter gives ironsides the anti severe thing and armor +1
Oxfordian Mage hits raptor with (1)atk for burning and 2 dmg and with the (0) for 1 dmg 

Ironsides activates next to the emissary and gets +2 Adrenaline. Goes defensive if you have spare cards.

Anna attacks ironsides with the bury trigger for 1 dmg and ironsides cheats a low card to burry.

blablabla...finish the turn...

End of turn:

You chose the end of turn effects to be in the following order:
Raptor unburries anywhere on the board, in the best spot to provide massive enemy engagement.
Raptor suffers 1 burning dmg and dies.
Ironsides unburries in base contact with the raptor engaged with as many models as possible.
Ironsides choses to not lower Adrenaline.

Turn 2: try to win initiative if possible.... if not its not such a big deal since Ironsides has armor for the rest of the game and the anti severe condition (Wich btw prevents red joker since red joker is severe plus weak and counts as sever for rule purposes.)

Activate Ironsides first: 
- Gain +1Adrenaline (New upgrade).
- Gain +1Adrenaline for each enemy engaged.
Activate the challenge aura, spent about 8ap beating opponents up.
If u took recharge soulstone: profit.

Pro:
- positions ironsides anywhere on the board - gives her what she wants: binding a lot of enemies
- Solid dmg output due to high adrenaline
- Very durable ironsides with armor etc.
- If the enemy spreads out - whatever kill an important target 1on1 and continue with your job. You decide who you want to engage, not the enemy. 

Cons:
- Sacrifices a 3ss model

- U need to take Anna Lovelace (Not really a con tho)

- Ironsides is passive in turn 1 (Doesnt matter if its not close deployment)

 

[Frollo the Wordbearer]

Aah ok, thought of a more complex way i missed xD.

Althought i see this as an effective delivery, it brings to me some doubts.

1-seems very easy to read for the opponent and predictible where she will go.

2-Lot of set up

At the end, Toni could move 15" +6" place on her own.. in a normal game this should be enought i think.

[I'm a Teapot!]

well moving 15" and placing 6 is good, but brings 2 things:
- Out activating opponents might get serious hits on ironsides before turn 2. With the raptor taxi you get attacked by 1 Opponent beater at maximum if you lose initiative.
- Blocking enemy models can protect their supports/backline

[I'm a Teapot!]

aswell as her 6" place costs adrenalin if im correct.

[Mxbedlam]

So just FYI, Viks ignore armor and companion. They can absolutely kill Toni if you don't go first. Not to mention, the new Viks upgrade with a Scion of Black Blood means that they will be in YOUR face by the end of turn 1. So you might lose half your crew with out that Challenge down. Viks are exactly the kind of crew Toni doesn't want to go up against without seriously careful planning. The best plan is to bait out the Viks player, feed them something they feel like they have to kill and have Toni take out totem Vik and the malifaux child as quick as possible

[hydranixx]

9 hours ago, Mrbedlam said:

Not to mention, the new Viks upgrade with a Scion of Black Blood

I presume you mean Scion of the Void?

[Mxbedlam]

4 minutes ago, hydranixx said:

I presume you mean Scion of the Void?

Yeah that too. lol. Was distracted today. Either way putting Toni in the Vik's sights is a bad idea. Still the best way to deal with them is to spread out and hope you can take them out before they get more than 1 of your models.

[hydranixx]

There's some divided opinions (on the forums at any rate) on whether or not that new Vik upgrade is worth the upgrade slot anyway. Some Vik players seem to believe the set-up is a bit expensive card-wise. Plus it means Blood can't hold Oathkeeper either, which puts it at odds with the mindset of every Outcast player already lol. But the Scion, yeah, that thing is absolutely nightmarish to play against. 

If Viks are really becoming that much of a menace in your meta, you could always bring in that Sub Zero upgrade on Frozen Heart models, right? That would completely neuter their Whirlwind bs. Do any Frozen Heart models make sense for Ironsides to hire though? :/ Maybe just reserve Raspy and co with Sub Zero for your Outcast encounters?

[I'm a Teapot!]

If the Vik starts burried  she will do min 3 instead of 5. and I know she ignores armor, but ironsides can Stone and hit her back. As long as its not 3 atks that hit you, you can survive. 

If you play safe with your crew turn 1 and stay out of viks reach you can engage them turn 2 and activate before they have their buffs. In this case ironsides beats vik of blood up easily.