Rail Crew, Metal Gamin, Rail Golem, then what?

[Emberlost]

Okay, Malifaux's heating up again locally. I already have a Rail Crew box and metal gamin, a rail golem is a no-brainer next buy, but what should I think of picking up after that? I prefer to stay in Arcanists rather than run Mei Feng as Ten Thunders. I'm wondering if it wouldn't be a good idea to pick up some ranged capability instead of being all melee, any suggestions?

[Vitruvian Man]

I would recommend Ramos's Box: The M&SU. This gives you a second Arcanist Master, as well as some faction staples: Joss and Howard.

Joss is a tanky beatstick, that utterly decimates whatever he comes into contact with, since he ignores most common defensive technologies. He also is extremely resilient, and difficult to get rid of. Howard is a cruise missile: fast and devastating, but unlikely to survive. Both of them are constructs, so Mei can railwalk off of them. Plus, whenever Joss kills a model, a scrap marker is dropped in addition to any other markers. 

The box also comes with several steam arachnids, and can be built as individuals or swarms. They are fast little buggers, and great for scheming. These are also constructs, so good synergy there. 

Finally, Ramos. He's a fun, straightforward master that works by applying large quantities of spiders to the problem, regardless of what the problem is. He also has some neat tricks to buff his own constructs. 

Hope this all helps! 

[Jinn]

For Mei Feng specifically, you should consider buying the Mechanized Porkchop. It's a gremlin model with the Foundry tag so unfortunately only Mei Feng can use it in Arcanists.

It has a lot of synergy with Mei Feng.

[WWHSD]

If you want to pick up some ranged support for Mei without picking up another crew box or going with mercs then look at getting a box of December Acolytes. Gunsmiths might have a bit more synergy with Mei's crew (due to burning) but the built in slow and discard from the Acolytes is hard to beat as well as their better damage track.  
 

[Frollo the Wordbearer]

In my opinion Mei has some autoinclude models and some good ones.

The autoincludes, outside her box are:

-Mechanized Porkchop: walk 6 (her railwalk har range 6) and free scrap after moving. And it gives [+]s to friendly models who start a charge near it. Reeallly worth it.

-Arcane effigy: tanky construct, removes condition and gives Mei the ability to set afire enemies. Mei really wants enemies to burn (her claws have [+] to dmg against them) and this little fella synergize really well.

 

Good models:

-Arcane emissary: 0 action to push AND give a super free Scrap. Solid model on its own.

-Willie: good shooter, ignores armor, cover, LoS..

-Large Arachnid: good tanky minion. Can create more scraps, eat schemes to buff itself.

-Sparks: economic henchman, gives Fast to constructs and has a situational game changing ability.

-Firestarter: really good scheme runner, sets things afire (enemies or rail golem..)

 

There are some more, like gunsmiths or Dec Acolities, but these should be more than enought to start.

 

Byez

[retnab]

Top Priority:

• Ramos' box (The M&SU)
• Mechanized Porkchop
• Arcane Effigy

High Priority

• Large Arachnids
• Sparks
• Willie

Good to Have

• Arcane Emissary
• Lazarus
• Fire Gamin

[H4ml3t]

All of the above are great choices. I'll add that Coryphee give Mei highly mobile Constructs to use for Railwalking. They hit hard and are surprisingly tanky for their low Wound count.

[WWHSD]

1 hour ago, retnab said:

Top Priority:

• Ramos' box (The M&SU)
• Mechanized Porkchop
• Arcane Effigy

High Priority

• Large Arachnids
• Sparks
• Willie

Good to Have

• Arcane Emissary
• Lazarus
• Fire Gamin

It's kind of surprising to see Fire Gamin listed as a "Good to Have". I don't find myself summoning them with Sandeep, let alone hiring one. How  do use them that they rate that highly?  

[retnab]

For their cost they're shockingly good at ranged for throwing Burning and some damage out there to start Mei off, and since they blow up you can throw them into some enemies to get some mass damage / Burning off.  The forums seem not to like Fire Gamin too much but I've always gotten good work off with them (remember they're a 4ss model, they're not going to be competing with December Acolytes or anything).

[WWHSD]

12 minutes ago, retnab said:

For their cost they're shockingly good at ranged for throwing Burning and some damage out there to start Mei off, and since they blow up you can throw them into some enemies to get some mass damage / Burning off.  The forums seem not to like Fire Gamin too much but I've always gotten good work off with them (remember they're a 4ss model, they're not going to be competing with December Acolytes or anything).

For a Mei Feng crew they seem to be competing against Emberling, Rail Workers, and the Arcane Effigy for a spot in the crew. Maybe I just need to use them more.

[Jordon]

Mobile toolkit is pretty solid with Mei. If you run it with Sparks you can make Mei a construct and give her positives to damage which really helps getting those high spike damage on her kick or the blasts on her scalding breath.

If you want ranged support then it might be worth looking at Lazarus. Again with the toolkit you can put him on positives to damage. Combine that with his superior version of flurry (but shooting) that is able to target multiple models and he can put out some serious hurt. However that is not really Mei specific.

[hydranixx]

2 hours ago, Jordon said:

Mobile toolkit is pretty solid with Mei. If you run it with Sparks you can make Mei a construct and give her positives to damage which really helps getting those high spike damage on her kick or the blasts on her scalding breath.

If you want ranged support then it might be worth looking at Lazarus. Again with the toolkit you can put him on positives to damage. Combine that with his superior version of flurry (but shooting) that is able to target multiple models and he can put out some serious hurt. However that is not really Mei specific.

Agreed. I've been pondering the uses of these specific models with Mei recently. Her new rail walking upgrade lets her reposition Lazarus with ease. Tying him up in Melee is usually the easiest way for your opponent to stop him blowing up their entire crew... But now Mei Feng can easily save him from Melee. 

Sparks and Mobile Toolkit give him Fast, an extra  to his damage spread if I recall correctly, and  to damage flips. Lazarus' (0) can steal another nearby Construct's action, which could be one of Mei Feng's actions if Sparks makes her a Construct, so Lazarus himself can use Railwalker too as long as if I've interpreted things correctly?

I also second @retnab's comment about Fire Gamin. I think they're far better than most people on this forum would have you believe. Their low stats and relatively empty card space can be off-putting at first, but they are 4ss Minions with an 10" ranged attack that is often essentially minimum damage 3 (with a potential  for good measure). Sometimes your opponent is Immune to burning but in 95% of cases your opponent will take the extra point of damage or spend resources removing it - both of which are good for me since I've only used 1AP from a 4ss Minion. 

My Mei Feng core has Effigy, Mechanised Porkchop and at least one other 50mm construct; Mech Rider, Langston, Coryphee. I'll be trialling Mobile Toolkit, Lazarus & Sparks extensively soon.

I also think Carlos is very interesting with Mei Feng, in particular because the Emberling stops Burning from removing at end of turn to nearby models. If it's near Carlos, he can hold onto all his stacks of Burning between turns. By mid game he'd be permanently Armour +2 and automatically healing for obscene amounts each turn. 

[spooky_squirrel]

Fire Gamin are interesting. I've enjoyed using them as effective grenades (jam them into the middle of your opponent, force them to deal with them), and as constructs you can use them as Railwalker targets.

If they can give out burning, then a late-activating Mei Feng gets to go to town with her claws (usually a good thing). They just have to hit something, which ends up being their weakness if you're trying to do it at range. I learned this trying to use them as turrets with Command Sandeep--ranged threat created a bubble of terrain denial for things with low defense, but not enough of one to deter main efforts (anything with Def 6+ can overbid on defense and just ignore your shooting or otherwise stick to cover and know that they've got a reasonable chance of being missed (Sh 5 with a negative).

So my two scrip is that they make for interesting pieces, especially when you're getting them deep into the opponent's area of operations. You might hire them, but you might not get the same amount of work out of them as you would some of the other 4 stone options.

[hydranixx]

1 hour ago, spooky_squirrel said:

Sh 4 with a negative

They're Sh 5 (and their  is Ml 5)

I can't think of many 4ss models that output as much damage per average AP as a Fire Gamin. Does any other 4ss model in the game even have access to ? Do any come as close as Fire Gamin do to a min 3 attack?

[retnab]

1 hour ago, hydranixx said:

They're Sh 5 (and their  is Ml 5)

That's kind of the big thing for me as well, decently accurate and min 2 shooting for 4ss (at the same range as the Oxfordians) is pretty decent IMO.  They won't survive a stiff breeze, but with Flaming Demise half the time I don't want them to.

[spooky_squirrel]

18 hours ago, hydranixx said:

They're Sh 5 (and their  is Ml 5)

I can't think of many 4ss models that output as much damage per average AP as a Fire Gamin. Does any other 4ss model in the game even have access to ? Do any come as close as Fire Gamin do to a min 3 attack?

...makes me wonder if I crossed my eyes or something. Editing post.