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No House Calls - A McMourning journal


jchrisobrien

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No House Calls

This is my second thread chronicalling my return to the Guild in GG 2018.  I've been playing Malifaux for three years (ever since the Great WHFB Migration of 2015) and enjoy casual and comeptitive games.  I started with Guild, had a brief flirtation with Outcasts and Ressers, but with the release of the Wave 5 models and GG 2018, I'm coming home to Guild.  I found McMourning pretty underwhelming when I first acquired him, but with all of his new hiring options I was keen to try him again.

Vs Reva
50 SS
Symbols of Authority, standard deployment
Punish the Weak, Inescapable Trap, Hold Up Their Forces, Search the Ruins, Public Demonstration

McMourning - Test Subjects, Plastic Surgery, On the Clockilhim
Amina Naidu
Executioner - Ready to Work
Mounted Guard
Razorspine Rattler
Scorpius
Nurse
Zombie Chihuahua
2 SS cache

Reva - (not sure, but definitely the one that prevents you from preventing/reducing damage)
the Forgotten Marshal
Jaakuna Ubume
2 Dead Doxies
2 Shieldbearers
2 Crooligans

How it Went Down: McMourning, the Rattler, and Scorpius ran towards the left and center Symbols.  McMourning focused on punishing minions while the Scorpius and Rattler picked up two Symbols.  A group of his models staged a Demonstration on McMourning, then went about trying to score models.  I was holding up his forces but Reva was removing a model around.  I sent the Mounted Guard and Executioner in on a cavalry charge against her, but the cards didn't go my way, and she killed them both.  The Rattler was very close to claiming the third Symbol, but a failed Hazardous Terrain via Jaakuna brought him down.

Final Score: McMourning 6 (Symbols 3, Hold Up 2, Punish the Weak 1) Reva 7 (Symbols 3, Public Demo 3, Punish the Weak 1) 

Report Card: 
McMourning: (B) I was super excited to try McMourning with his new hiring pool.  His various attacks helped kill a few enemy models and heal himself, but Reva puts out a colossal amount of damage that you just have to take.  His injection was very useful for getting models up the field, and I planned on using his ability to make modles take Interact at range, but didn't get the chance.  I like the idea though!

Amina Naidu: (C) She was an early victim of Reva, but she got to use a few of her triggers and defensive abilities.  I want to use her more because I believe she has a lot of potential.

Executioner: (C) He tagged along with the Mounted Guard to try to take down Reva, but my opponent had higher cards so I missed completely.  Then she killed him.  I want him to do more work for me, but he is often targeted early and folds surprisingly easily.  One day he will shine!

Mounted Guard: (C) I was psyched to pull off a cavalry charge with him on my first use, and on a dramatic charge against Reva herself!  I pulled off the For the Guild trigger to let the Execution chain activate, but we didn't do the kind of damaged I wanted.  He's a fast model, and he can charge models near a Symbol and drag someone along to claim it.

Scorpius: (B) I get a lot of mobility out of him, especially if he Creeps Along and gets Injected.  He also caused a few models to become Slow when McMourning poisoned them.  This model is basically an in-joke with some friends of mine, but my paint job came out really nice and he does synergizee with McMourning, so he stays for now.

Nurse: (A)  The nurse died fairly quickly thanks to Jaakuna and soem Doxies, but before she died she made my scorpius extra fast and Paralyzed two models.  I don't notice the SS increase because several other models I used had a decrease.  Models like...

Razorspine Rattler: (A) The rattler was awesome in my game.  Slither let me attack a doxy that I didn't have LoS to, and his built in trigger pushed me around and out of combat, freeing me to make a dash for the last Symbol. He may not be a great model, but he's really cool and he did some work for me.

Zombie Chihuahua: (F) He moved up and was squashed by Reva.  No impact! It's hard to pass on that cheap activation though.

Strats and Schemes: Both of us ended up removing two Symbols and protecting one.  I've played this a few times, and I've had the most success by bascially giving up one of the side markers and clustering around the other two, while sending models towards any undefended points.  I should have taken another beater Hen chman if I wanted to score Punish the Weak.   I did have the minions to pull off Public Demonstration, which is pretty easy to score.  Hold Up Their Forces worked fine, lots of models have to be close to each other for various abilities, so it's easy to tie up two enemy models with one of mine.

I will likely drop the Mounted Guard and Executioner next time out, though they could still be useful for Ours and capturing a quarter.

Thanks for reading!

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vs Kirai
50 SS
Ply for Information, standard deployment
Surround Them, Set Up, Show of Force, Vendetta, Public Demonstration

McMourning - Test Subjects, Plastic Surgery, On the Clock
Zombie Chihuahua
Amina Naidu
Sebastian
Rogue Necromancy
Nurse
Razorspine Rattler
Scorpius

Kirai (the shooty version)
Asura Rotten
Phillip and the Nanny - Haunting Cries
the Forgotten Marshal
Izamu
Goryo
Necropunk

How it Went Down: Izamu moved up the center and killed my Chihuahua quickly, then engaged the Rogue Necromancy.  The RN survived the charge and I was able get full points for Public Demonstration.  His Necropunk hopped around my back fiend before being caught and snipped by the Scorpius.  He was still able to score points for Surround (all that summoning makes it easy).  I almost killed the goryo in combat before Kirai swirled him out of combat, but an Injection from McMourning pushed him in range and I finished the Goryo off with some acid breath!  McMourning helped many of my models Ply for Information before he died.       

Final Score: McMourning 7 (Ply 2, Public Demo 3, Vendetta 2) Kirai 7 (Ply 2, Surround 3, Set Up 2)

McMourning: (B+) My plan to use "One the Order of the Governor's Secretary" to make my models Interact worked extremely well.  Some rounds I had 4-5 Gather Intel conditions on my models!  I only started failing the strategy at the end because most of my models were dead.  I can use Injection on my Test Subjects with little worry because McMourning's healing aura offsets the poison damage.  

Amina Naidu: (B+) I was able to user her abilities better this game.  Her Summons pulled the Forgotten Marshal in range so I could score Public Demonstration.  She also influenced several combats with pushes and negative flips on attacks.  Slow was also handy (as always). 

Sebastian: (F) He did nothing impressive this game, but he attracted attention away from my other models.  My opponent put a lot of effort into summoning and moving models to block his Catalyst attack. 

Rogue Necromancy: (A) I'm sure you're all surprised to hear the Rogue Necromancy did well.  He ended up getting me points for Vendetta after the Razorspine Rattler died.  He will definitely be back in my list.

Nurse: (A) She proved her worth by paralyzing Izamu twice! 

Razorspine Rattler: (B)  He had the Vendetta on the Goryo, but when he went in for the killing blow he was out flipped.  He had three models in my opponents crew tied up, until Kirai swirled a few of them out of combat.  He gathered a lot of intel too.  I really like his built in push.

Scorpius: (B) A good game for the Scorpius: he Gathered Intel, was pushed around by McMourning, and killed a pesky Necropunk.

Zombie Chihuahua: (C)  He did what you'd expect him to do: spread a little poison then died. 

Strats and Schemes: McMourning's "On the Order of the Governor's Secretary" ability gave me a wide margin of Gathered Intel; the only rounds I failed to score it were after he died.  This is the kind of mission where he can hang back and get other models to do work for him.  Public Demonstration is very easy to score if you build for it.  I could have chosen a better Vendetta target, someone like Izamu.  McMourning can make the Rogue Necromancy precise and ignore his armor, and he will fold quickly.  If a scheme involves killing, it's something the Guild should do well.

Thanks for reading!

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  • 2 weeks later...

This is the first of two practice games I played last night preparing for CaptainCon 2018

vs Rasputina
50 SS
Ply for Information, standard deployment
Surround Them, Inescapable Trap, Take Prisoner, Take One for the Team, Vendetta

McMourning - Test Subjects, Plastic Surgery, On the Clock
Zombie Chihuahua
Amina Naidu
Rogue Necromancy
Mounted Guard
Nurse
Razorspine Rattler
Scorpius

Rasputina - Shattered Heart, Cold Nights, Arcane Reservoir
Wendigo
Snow Storm
December Acolyte
Silent One
Ice Dancer
Ice Gamin
Hoarcat Pride

How it Went Down:   The Chihuahua, Scorpius, and Mounted Guard played with the Wendigo and Hoarcats on the right flank, the rest of my crew and his faced off on the left.  He tagged the Rogue Necromancy early for Vendetta and did a lot of damage to him.  The Nurse quickly healed and paralyzed it.  Rasputina did her thing and started blowing up my crew. By games end I have one model left, but the game ended in a draw!

Final Score: McMourning 3 (Ply 1, Take One for the Team 2) to Rasputina 3 (Ply 1, Vendetta 2)

Report Card:
McMourning: (C+) He died around turn three with little impact. One neat thing he did was Injecting the Rogue Necromancy and pushing into Rasputina's crew, then Amina used her Casting actions to give the Rogue Necromancy a free attack when they failed their Wp tests. I need to remember to get other models into combat so I can make them Interact. 

Zombie Chihuahua: (B+) He had more impact this time!  He poisoned two models with his odor, which let the Scorpius creep up and make them slow!  I could get more use out of him by poisoning other models in the crew and use his Expunge attack.

Amina: (B) She used most of her powers, pushing out of combat, harvesting soulstones, being a legal pain.  I need to get more use out of Summons, it can really shut down big beaters. 

Rogue Necromancy: (C) He was less effective considering all his opponents were immune to Terror.  he was vendetta’d, I ended up healing/paralyzing him, forgot a round I could have smelled fear.  Raspy put a lot of effort into killing him (along with a lucky negative flip with two severe cards).  I'd rather he be up in her face than trying to play the range game against her. 
 
Nurse: (A) The sole survivor! She almost kept the Rogue Necromancy alive all game by healing it.  I could have handed out more medication; she spent a lot of time running for cover.  Pay attention to the early triggers to McMourning free meds. 

Razorspine Rattler: (B+) He was my sucker.  Ran him up, got him killed, scored my points!
 
Scorpius: (B) Getting more work out of it (spreading poison, slowing people)  Very durable between his armor, regeneration, and proximity to McMourning.   

Mounted Guard: (C)  He didn't do anything amazing, but he could have taxied the Rattler or Scorpius along for a ride.  He's definitely in my flex pool for this crew.
 
Strats and Schemes: McMourning's "On the Order of the Governor's Secretary" didn't come into play much this time, but it could be a great way to take the lead on Gathering Intel.  I can also Inject my models out of combats to prevent being Plyed.  Rasputina and the Snow Storm put out so much damage that Take One for the Team is easy to accomplish.  I planned on taking the Ice Gamin prisoner, but all my models died.  Vendetta is always a good option for the Guild.  I don't think I'll ever take Inescapable Trap, too difficult with this crew.  Surround them is hard too, but with right models (Watcher, other fast models) it could work?  Easy to telegraph, but also easy to bluff.

This weekend is CaptainCon!  Will I stick to my guns and use Perdita and McMourning, or will I reach for the crutch that is Nellie?  Stay tuned to find out.

Thanks for reading!

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Isn'tinescapable trap the ridiculously easy one where you can have markers near any two models and only remove one of them when scoring each turn? Easier than surround them.

Sounds likethe necro did all right, soaking tons of ap is a good thing. The necro feels primarily melee to me, use stalk to get there fast and let rip with very good ml attacks and smell fear. Did you consider

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7 hours ago, jchrisobrien said:

There is some contention on inescapable trap, where you need two models next to one scheme marker.  For now it depends on the to

Until errata I would assume we go by the written wordd which make it silly easy. Depending on your TO it could be a little harder but McMourning's (0) is pretty great for it (even the hard version) if you have a decent number of activations. As long as any two models in the enemy crew are at any point within 5" of each other you push something there and plop a marker. 

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Game 2 of the CaptainCon tournament pitted me against Chris Rue and his Neverborn!

Standard Ply for Information
Surround Them, Set Up, Search the Ruins, Take Prisoner, Vendetta

McMourning - Test Subjects, Plastic Surgery, On the Clock
Zombie Chihuahua
Amina Naidu - Numb to the World
Rogue Necromancy - A Debt to the Guild
The Scorpius
Razorspine Rattler
Guild Austringer
Nurse

Titania - An Audience with the Queen, Behold My Glory,
Primordial Magic
Barbarous
Mysterious Emissary - Conflux
Envy - A Thousand Faces
Doppelganger - A Thousand Faces
Changeling

How it Went Down:  I deployed second and far away from Envy and the Changeling/Doppelganger combo.  The rest of my crew pushed up the right flank.  Barbaros followed them and caused a lot of problems with his challenge aura.  I wasted a lot of resources trying to pass tests instead of killing/neutralizing Barbarous.  McMourning lost an entire turn trapped between Barbaros' challenge aura and Titania's Behold My Glory.  Envy started picking off my crew, Doppelganger and Changelings helped by copying Envy's attack. The Rogue Necromancy earned three points for Vendetta by Mysterious Emissary in activation.  In the end he Plyed and ran from my models, and the game ended in a draw.

Final Score: McMourning 7 (Ply 2, Vendetta 3, Surround Them 2) Titania 7 (Ply 1, Set Up 3, Search the Ruins 3)

Highs and Lows:
McMourning - That one horrible turn where Barbaros and Titania neutralized him. 

Amina:  She was too far from my crew most of the game and was gunned down by Envy before accomplishing anything of note.

Rogue Necromancy: My hero for killing the Mysterious Emissary.  I used to think that adding Debt to the Guild to a beater model was a waste.  I have since changed my opinion on that 

Scorpius and the Rattler:  Both are good targets for injection, because they are usually close enough to McMourning to heal the damage they take from poison. 

Strats and Schemes: I find McMourning's "On the Orders of the Governor's Secretary" incredibly useful for Ply for Information.  Even if I use initiative, I can Ply up to three models, giving me a big lead on Gather Intel.  Amina's Missing Forms turning models into Peon's is great for preventing enemy models from Plying yours.  The Austringer's Deliver Orders is also obviously great.

Vendetta:  A very easy way for the Guild to score three points.

Surround Them: This was an experiment, I was hoping that with all his pushes, McMourning could get a model into the opposite corner to score.  That turned out to be harder than it looks.  Compounding that the Mysterious Emissary can eat scheme markers (which I wasn't aware of).  Pay close attention to the other crew's abilities before choosing this.

Set Up: I don't like the scheme for Guild in general, and certainly for this crew.  The Mysterious Emissary can shut this scheme down as well.

Search the Ruins:  See the above comments on the Mysterious Emissary, though if he is dead he won't be around to eat my markers.  I'm not sure if Titania has a way of discarding my markers, so better safe than sorry.  Dropping them in the middle also puts me in danger of dying from a hail of (copied) bullets.

Take Prisoner: I'm growing less enamored of this scheme.  I think you can build for it, but I didn't.  There are also few of his models I feel comfortable about letting live until the end.

It was a very tight game, we had no rules issues, and we finished our 2 1/2 hour game with an hour to spare! 

Thanks for Reading!

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Take prisoner is one of the harder schemes in this game. You need your models to survive, you need the specified opponent to survive and you need that opponent to not somehow push out and no other of their models can be near. Setup is a breeze in comparison. 

Set up is probably fairly doable with McMourning although a model that removes markers is a big hindrance to it and if you used him to go first for ply he can't go last to plonk down two markers with On order of... and Injection. With out activation I think setup is very doable.

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Game three was against Alex Schmid, semi-famous podcaster and Gremlin expert.  Today he was playing Neverborn.

Corner Ours
Guarded Treasure, Dig Their Graves, Undercover Entourage, Recover Evidence, Public Demonstration

McMourning - One the Clock, Test Subjects, Plastic Surgery
Zombie Chihuahua
Amina Naidu - Numb to the World
Witchling Thrall
Dawn Serpent
The Scorpius
Thalarian Queller
Witchling Stalker

Lillith - Beckon Malifaux,
Primordial Magic
Nekima
Hooded Rider
Doppelganger
Lilitu
Iggy

How it Went Down:  Our armies circled each other around the center.  I moved McMourning a bit too far forward and Lelitu lured him in for Hooded Rider and Nekima to kill off.  Iggy and Doppelganger scored Guarded Treasure for him while I tried to catch his models with my Goon Squad (Scorpius, Dawn Serpent, Witchling Thrall).  He denied me Ours the last few turns and killed Amina before she could sneak into his deployment zone. 

Highs and Lows:
McMourning: I played a little sloppy with him and paid for it. I could have shielded him behind my Goon Squad and kept him safe while also scoring Public Demo if he advanced on me.
The rest of the crew didn't do anything of note.

Strats and Schemes:  I treated this round as an experiment, since I was under no illusion that I could beat Alex.  I thought I could use Inject to push models into different quarters to flip them, but that's not a great plan.  Alex's Hooded Rider/Nekima combo can put 23 pts into any quarter he basically wants.  That's hard to outnumber, and very hard to put down. Public Demonstration seemed like a great pick since all of Alex's models are Enforcers or higher and aggressive.  Alex saw that move coming, and his crew was fast enough to run away from my Goon Squad and I couldn't catch them.  Undercover on Amina was my way of being tricky, he chased after McMourning thinking he was the target.  Amina almost pulled it off before Nekima objected. Recover Evidence would be a poor choice in that pool, and Dig Their Graves would also be hard to score.  With a different build, I could have gone for and scored some Guarded Treasure. 

You can hear Alex's commentary on this game on his YouTube channel, and it pops ups again on the latest episode of the Max Value podcast. 

Thanks for reading!

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So how are people feeling about McMourning now? My record with him for GG2018 is one win, three losses, and three draws.  He's been fun to play, but a number of high competitive players don't rate McMourning on the table, citing him as the worst model in his crew.  I still really like him for Ply, since he has the potential to make three models to Interacts at range.  I also notice that I lose McMourning a lot, and need to work harder at keeping him alive.

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So far he’s been the only master I played into Symbols, as a glorified scheme runner to threaten a symbol at initiative on turn two, in the only strategy which can be fully scored in three turns, like a scheme. (Somewhat like hurling Leveticus into the thick of things and waiting for people to develop kill-the-master tunnel vision?)

That being said...it’s worked. Not sure for how much longer it’ll work, but for now I actually have a favorable win/loss ratio in Symbols. This is not normal.

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I think guild McMourning is basically giving yourself a bit of a challenge. He brings some fun combos but none of them are mind bogglingly op and compared to most other masters he doesn't do much with his own ap. 

Against a player you catch unaware because they've never faced him you might get a sick rancid transplant + expunge and make good use of Seb's aura and poison but even when you do that you just think about how much better and easier that would have been in ressers. At least that's how I feel about him.

Spending three master ap to interact isn't that interesting to me, Lucius could have done that better if that's what you want your master to bring to the table. Doc's ml attack really has an abysmal damage track. The healling can,save you but can also be shut down in a number of ways or played around by foecing activation order. Lady J could chill on the plying, let enemies waste their ap plying or waste activations not plying and then wipe out evwry enemy ply in the game for a (1) so you can use some 3ss models on the end to ply and win the strat.

A resser McMourning list could use belles and nurses so you could pull in and ply some poor patient or any activated model with almost no chance of retaliation using "cheaper" AP and also not needing to spend ap walking the other models up. You could then ply-paralyze it all game.

Don't get me wrong, I have fun with him but he doesn't feel like he brings master power to the game. He feels more like of a way to enable fun beast-combos and push around being silly.

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I did have some success with him in Symbols as well, ordering other models to take interacts.  Of course while McMourning's using his AP to make people interact, Sonnia or Lady J could be killing things, or Nellie making people fast.  He is fun to play, and you can build some fun crews, so he does have that going for him. 

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Would you spam nurses into Symbols? It isn’t a cluster strat so the poison bubble is not a given (I had one going last game, but that was a flat mistake on my opponent’s part and an unbelievable number of high crows on my lawyer’s part). They have a 50% chance of a useful random medication instead of 75%, since negative duels don’t hinder interacts. But the enemy is coming to you, so their dreadful walk value while tottering on those stilettos matters a lot less.

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