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Rathnard's Marcus Diary


Rathnard

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3 More Games: :D

GAME 5: Marcus (Reconnoiter) vs Collete (Slaugher) (35SS)

Marcus (Master-Specific Scheme & Eye for Eye)

Jackalope 1

3x Silurid 15

Razorspine 7

Convict 'Slinger 6

Moleman 3

32SS (+3SS Cache)

Collete (Hold Out & Collete's Master-Specific Scheme?)

Cassandra 9

Performer 6

2 Corphee 14

Dove 2

31 (+4SS Cache)

In Short:

I got slaughtered. :rolleyes: Honestly, I took the wrong approach from the start. With Reconnoiter

vs Slaughter I should have just played hard to get, let him overextend himself and pounce on the isolated elements I could deal with. Instead I got bogged down trying to kill the Corphee Duet, which let him bomb me with doves and teleport in Collete for Magicians Duels, killing Marcus on the turn I failed to get initative with him.

What I Learnt

With the exception of the Silurid, the crew I chose wasn't well suited to the mobile game I needed to play

. I think when Marcus is matched against Collete, you definitely need to take advantage of your mobility to hunt down isolated elements. I think you also need to carefully choose your moment to strike, using companion to pounce on key models like the Corphee and Cassandra before they get a chance to activate and use their defensive actions.

The Corphee Duet are definitely a hard nut to crack for Marcus. Can't be charged, bullet proof and evasive with use soulstone and a high Df mean they're very difficult to pin down and actually kill. Hitting them before they activate is probably the key, but I think one of the best chances Marcus has to deal with the Corphee is with Alpha. If you choose your moment right and get it off before they activate, you've got their best minion on your side for a turn, giving you the chance to at least move them into melee range with your crew and "Dance Apart" to seperate the duet into two single Corphee. If I have it right, the Alpha effect will pass onto both single Corphee, preventing your opponent from activating them that turn and allowing you to beat them down with your own minions.

Other than that, it's a 14SS model - I think a Marcus player is generally best off avoiding it and concentrating on killing the rest of the crew until the above-mentioned opportunity for Alpha comes up.

GAME 6: Marcus vs Pandora, Shared Claim Jump

Marcus

Jackalope 1

3x Silurid 15

Freikorps Trapper 7

32SS (+3SS Cache)

Pandora

Candy 8

Doppelganger 8

3x Sorrows 9

In Short:

This was actually a 4-way Brawl but as it turned out and as I should have learnt by now, it often degenerates into two 1v1 games and it slows right down when most of the players are still learning the game or their crew. So basically, this came down to it being a beginner game, with Marcus vs Pandora. ;)

Basically, Marcus ran up and neutralised Pandora with a Howl, then cast Feral on the Doppelganger for my Trapper to kill it with his rifle. It was a deliberately risky move for Marcus (beginner game) and even with the Wp9 he almost ran away when Pandy Soulstoned Self Loathing with the Fallback Trigger. An activation later, Marcus uses Howl again and charges Pandora, easilly getting through her Wp defense and hitting her twice, once with a Red Joker on the damage flip to kill her.

The initial 4-way nature of the game left the Silurid out of position, so they didn't really contribute this game.

What I Learnt:

If you can get it off before Pandy activates, Howl is debilitating against crews like hers. A Wp9 Marcus has little trouble hitting Wp4 Pandora and it can be very good at keeping the rest of your crew a little safer too.

The Trapper pairs well with Marcus when he's giving things Beast. With it, he was able to quickly take down a Doppelganger and started assassinating Sorrows in short order. This is definitely your go-to guy if you're after a sniper for Marcus.

With Regenerate and a low Damage melee attack (when you're not casting Wild Heart-Bear) , Marcus isn't usually too concerned about the bits of damage Pandora can deal him. However you do need to watch out for Pacify (he's better off activating early) and her very nasty fallback trigger.

GAME 7: Marcus (Deliver a Message) vs Lilith (Treasure Hunt)

Marcus (Eye for an Eye, Marcus-specific Scheme)

Jackalope 1

Moleman 3

Shikome 8

Razorspine 7

Ronin 6

(25SS)

Lilith (Kidnap, Hold Out)

3x Terror Tots 9

Mature Nephilim 10

Waldgeist 6

(25SS)

In Short:

Another Learner game, this time with a 9? year old kid who looks eerily like the Dreamer (which is what I'll call him for the rest of the post ;) ). For someone so young he's actually pretty switched on in terms of game rules etc. He still hasn't grasped some of the tricks and synergies but he's beaten players 3-4 times his age so he's not terrible! Nevertheless, I basically threw the game to try and teach him some of those tricks and combo's he should be using with Lilith. I still have trouble deliberately losing games however (not acting on an awesome combo you see in front of you is very hard!), so it was a challenge for me too. ;)

So Dreamer starts by moving the Mature Nephilim up to the treasure counter, only for me to charge it with the Shikome (with Prey on the Mature) and Razorspine (with Hunting Partner), killing the big guy in short order. The rest of our respective crews move up to support, with me trying (and unsurprisingly failing) to charge Lilith in my turn with Marcus. The rest of the game turns into a brawl in the centre. I let a Terror Tot run off with the totem while I'm distracted with Lilith (which is what I suggested he do), but Feral & Stare Down from Marcus neuters Lilith both offensively and defensively, allowing me to kill her (after Delivering that Message, of course). At this point I effectively threw the game, showing Dreamer how to easily kill a nearly dead Marcus by attacking your own tots (Black Blood). The Ronin slaughters the Waldgeist but thanks to some sly maneuvering by Dreamer (I didn't even suggest it), the Ronin winds up engaged and I'm unable to use her to pursue the Tot with the Treasure Counter. It's an 8-4 win for Dreamer.

What I Learnt

Stare Down is a great way of neutralising otherwise difficult enemy models. I was deliberately foolish putting Marcus up front so early, but Stare Down and a bit of luck with initative kept him safe from taking too much damage...until he died to bleeding baby-demons that is. ;)

I've only played one game with Shikome now, but I'm pretty impressed. I feel that the Razorspine made for a very good Hunting Partner, since it was able to more than match the Shikome's speed, could get past non-prey models due to Spiny Growths and had a good damage output that could take advantage of the :+fate flips. I'm a bit reluctant to use Hunting Partner with Marcus due to your opponent potentially taking advantage of the 'prey only' attack restriction. That said, I can see it being useful under the right circumstances.

Beast or not, those Ronin are cool. :D They're a fragile unit if you don't get defense up but with melee expert and their combat trigger, they're very mobile in a melee brawl. She also fills a bit of a gap in Marcus' toolbox for dealing with armour and hard to wound. I wouldn't say they're an ideal choice for Marcus (no beast synergy) but they're definitely not terrible either. :D

---------------------------------

Models to try next:

Guild Hounds!

Lawyer

Shikome w. Razorspine

Trapper

I'm leaving Myranda well alone until I can get some Malifaux Raptors for her, and the Night Terrors will probably come out to play when they're released. Oddly enough, I'm reluctant to proxy Night Terrors or Raptors, but have no problem proxying the Guild Hounds. It's probably because I've already got some dog models available in the form of Canine Remains. ;)

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Well the Trapper has some much better synergy with Marcus but he fulfils a very different role to the gunsmith and convict 'slinger.

The Trapper is generally going to sit out of the way or near an objective, using his long reach to support your crew by weakening or finishing off whatever enemy models he can see, or even just providing scout to some other models to make it through some terrain for a turn. In terms of being a minion for Marcus, the Trapper offers better synergy, if only because Marcus can beast out models for the Trapper to target and he'll usually be far enough away to not worry about taking -3Wp when Marcus Howls. However that's less of an issue against crews you don't need to use Howl for.

I see the Gunsmith and Convict 'Slinger as more like front-line shooters. The Convict Gunslinger puts out a ridiculous amount of raw damage and earns his reputation as one of the best shooters in the game. The Gunsmith does less raw damage, but has much better resiliance and the tools to deal with a variety of otherwise tricky opponents.

Given the choice, I'd take a Trapper over the other two simply for his synergies and the opportunity to have a Sniper in the crew, but at least part of that is also my personal aesthetics, which often gets in the way of my list building. ;)

The Convict 'Slinger and Gunsmith should still be great choices for Marcus though - he values any shooting he can get in his crew and if he's not going to need Howl, the only real drawback is that they might not be able to keep up with him if you take a very fast crew.

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Can you use Dance Apart on the Coryphee while under Alpha? I know you can't do Dance Apart during an Obey action. For instance, if you controlled a Steampunk Arachnid Swarm with Alpha, could you cause them to use Self-Detonate? I'm not sure on that one.

Still, seems like Alpha definitely would be the best option. And as long as you used all of the Coryphee Duet's AP (even if you just Pass them), then it wouldn't matter if the Alpha effect carried over or not, as the individual Coryphee would have no AP left.

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It's too bad the Duet replaces models - if you could manage to get it targeted as the Prey for a Shikome, combining that with Howl (since the Shikome can target Wp) would be pretty solid. Ah well.

As for Alpha'ing Dance Apart, I'm not sure. I can see a few reasons why it might not work:

- The "can't kill itself" rule for controlled models is fairly fuzzy, and I don't know if it would apply to replacement effects like Dance Apart.

- When you're activating the Duet, it's your model. That means that if you were going to Dance Apart, you'd have to replace it with your own Coryphee, not your opponent's.

Given the "WTF??" that would follow the second point, I'd be inclined to fall back on the first point and just say you couldn't do it, before my head explodes.

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As for Alpha'ing Dance Apart, I'm not sure. I can see a few reasons why it might not work:

- The "can't kill itself" rule for controlled models is fairly fuzzy, and I don't know if it would apply to replacement effects like Dance Apart.

- When you're activating the Duet, it's your model. That means that if you were going to Dance Apart, you'd have to replace it with your own Coryphee, not your opponent's.

Given the "WTF??" that would follow the second point, I'd be inclined to fall back on the first point and just say you couldn't do it, before my head explodes.

Okay, so I actually sat down to pick through the rulebook and cards, and discovered a few things. For one, the only relevant rule I could find in the Rules Manual about controlling models is on Page 13:

Models able to summon, place or otherwise generate additional models cannot do so when controlled by an opposing player. Those effects are ignored while the model is under an opposing players control.

There's another sentence about opponent controlled models (specifically summoning) but it's basically saying the same thing.

What's interesting is that apart from the usual "can't use talents/spells that would inflicts Wds on itself if it would reduce it's Wds to 0" (pg 44), there's no reference in the main rules manual about being unable to deliberately sacrifice/kill an enemy model you control. That condition is found on Obey...but not Alpha.

So the most obvious benefit for Marcus is that he can Alpha enemy models to use their sacrifice type actions with impunity. Arachnid Swarms can be detonated, Nix can sacrifice himself with Drain Essense, the list of potential high-value targets is considerable.

Less obvious is the summoning. As per the rules manual you can't use Alpha to summon models, so an Alpha'd Ratcatcher will not get his rats back from Voracious Rats when he uses Slaughter Rats. But here's where it gets interesting. Since you only ignore the summoning/placing effect of the spell/action, it means that the other effects of that spell/action still take place. So if an Alpha'd Nicodem uses Arise, he'll sacrifice all the corpse counters in range but won't summon any mindless zombies.

Now onto the Corphee Duet. This is actually a little tricky so lets go through this bit by bit;

1. "Sacrifice this model."

No problem there - it's perfectly allowable as per the rules for Alpha.

2. Replace it with two Corphee in BTB contact before this model is removed from play.

Even I hate to admit it, but I'm pretty sure this comes under the "or otherwise generate additional models" clause on pg 13 (see above), and thus the Corphee will not be placed. The remaining effects relate to what happens with those two Corphee so while they technically still occur, there is no Corphee for them to affect.

So in short, an Alpha'd Corphee Duet using Dance Apart will be sacrificed. Full stop. No exceptions. It's pretty brutal, but considering what Marcus has to go through to actually Alpha a Corphee Duet, it's not entirely unfair. ;)

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Okay, so I actually sat down to pick through the rulebook and cards, and discovered a few things. For one, the only relevant rule I could find in the Rules Manual about controlling models is on Page 13:

There's another sentence about opponent controlled models (specifically summoning) but it's basically saying the same thing.

What's interesting is that apart from the usual "can't use talents/spells that would inflicts Wds on itself if it would reduce it's Wds to 0" (pg 44), there's no reference in the main rules manual about being unable to deliberately sacrifice/kill an enemy model you control. That condition is found on Obey...but not Alpha.

So the most obvious benefit for Marcus is that he can Alpha enemy models to use their sacrifice type actions with impunity. Arachnid Swarms can be detonated, Nix can sacrifice himself with Drain Essense, the list of potential high-value targets is considerable.

Less obvious is the summoning. As per the rules manual you can't use Alpha to summon models, so an Alpha'd Ratcatcher will not get his rats back from Voracious Rats when he uses Slaughter Rats. But here's where it gets interesting. Since you only ignore the summoning/placing effect of the spell/action, it means that the other effects of that spell/action still take place. So if an Alpha'd Nicodem uses Arise, he'll sacrifice all the corpse counters in range but won't summon any mindless zombies.

Now onto the Corphee Duet. This is actually a little tricky so lets go through this bit by bit;

1. "Sacrifice this model."

No problem there - it's perfectly allowable as per the rules for Alpha.

2. Replace it with two Corphee in BTB contact before this model is removed from play.

Even I hate to admit it, but I'm pretty sure this comes under the "or otherwise generate additional models" clause on pg 13 (see above), and thus the Corphee will not be placed. The remaining effects relate to what happens with those two Corphee so while they technically still occur, there is no Corphee for them to affect.

So in short, an Alpha'd Corphee Duet using Dance Apart will be sacrificed. Full stop. No exceptions. It's pretty brutal, but considering what Marcus has to go through to actually Alpha a Corphee Duet, it's not entirely unfair. ;)

Ugh....see....I'm not entirely sure I'd agree with that either though. As you point out, the important wording is clarified in regards to Obey, not Alpha, but under Obey, it specifically says that you can't perform an action which would guarantee that the model is killed or removed from play. So, I would think that the same would apply for Alpha, as it's simply another form of an ability which allows control of a model.

Probably worth asking in the rules forum, and phrasing it to account for both Alpha and Hoffman's Override Edict.

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Ugh....see....I'm not entirely sure I'd agree with that either though. As you point out, the important wording is clarified in regards to Obey, not Alpha, but under Obey, it specifically says that you can't perform an action which would guarantee that the model is killed or removed from play. So, I would think that the same would apply for Alpha, as it's simply another form of an ability which allows control of a model.

I imagine that if the folks at Wyrd intended to disallow sacrifice effects while under the control of enemy models, they would have said as much in the rules manual on pg 13 rather than specifying it with obey.

In any case, surely you agree that the rules currently allow you to sacrifice models under the influence of Alpha? You're objection seems to be one of "that doesn't seem fair" rather than "that's not what the rules say".

I agree that against the right models it's a very powerful trick, but you also need to consider the effort Marcus needs to go through just to get the spell off. This isn't a (1) spell he can shoot off and forget about. It takes his entire activation, 1-2 high cards (inc. a high :masks) and 1-2 soulstones to get off. The payoff is great, sure, but failure will probably result in a dead Marcus. When you consider what other Masters can do to a single model with a single activation, two high cards and two soulstones (Lady Justice & melee, Leveticus & his necrotic spells etc), it's really not that broken.

Probably worth asking in the rules forum, and phrasing it to account for both Alpha and Hoffman's Override Edict.

I'll be sure to do that. I'm personally quite sure that this is how Alpha is supposed to work, but the last thing I want to do win games with Marcus on the basis of a wrongly worded spell.

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LOL you're probably right that I'm just having a knee jerk reaction. FWIW, I did just have Marcus pull off Feral/Alpha against my Colette on Saturday because he flipped an 11 and then a 13 with the SS for Feral, and then I flipped the Black Joker for my initial resist on Alpha. :P

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I'd like to point you to page 55, "Summoned Models" section.

The restriction over there is more general and not limited to Obey alone.

It pretty much excludes the use of abilities such as Arise or Reanimate under Alpha.

Other than this particular restriction (which doesn't deal with every case you mention), I also have problems with the notion, that spells can go off partially. I don't think it's clearly stated in the Rules Manual itself, but normally Malifaux spells either go off fully (and you pay all the additional costs, including sacrifices), or they fail (and none of the effects takes place). Obviously in many cases the opponent can resist afterwards, but that doesn't mean it is a partial success (it's a full success with the damaging effect resisted by the target).

I'd assume that if you cannot place or replace a model, the spell or ability fails entirely and none of its other effects takes place.

Edited by Q'iq'el
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  • 1 month later...

I had an alpha question that came up the other day.

I managed to alpha Kirai, and wanted to use some of her cool "self-sacrificing" powers, such as Evolve Spirit (sac a friendly [choice of 3] and summon an X... the summon would stop, of course), or Absorb Spirit (sac a friendly spirit to draw 2 control cards, heal 2 wds and receive fast).

However, we weren't sure if (since Kirai was now on my side) the Kirai units were considered "friendly" in this case. We went under the assumption that they weren't (and I ended up losing by a close margin), but for future reference, should I have won that game? Could I have Absorb Spirited to sac a "friendly" spirit?

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Then it would stand to reason that if the spirit army wasn't friendly, that my beasts would be, right? So I could use (for a quick example) an alphaed Librarian's Healing Energy to heal my beasts (because he's a "friendly" to them), or had I had my own Shikome, I could have used Kirai to Soothe it's Spirit and have it make a healing flip. Does that make sense?

The way we were playing (unfortunately), was that no character was friendly to Kirai, since we didn't know the actual rule, we were playing it safe.

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Given the effects of Howl, the abilities of a flock of Raptors to make lots of Marcus' crew Beasts and the Wp abilities of the Showgirls, has anyone tried a Marcus crew like that?

Not sure of the ins and outs of it, but the Raptors would make the Performers and Coryphee Beasts on Turn 1, and then Marcus would Howl once they were in melee range and all those nasty Poison and Paralysing Wp effects on the Showgirls would come into play, but with a huge penalty on the opposing crew to resist them.

Defend Me with a Coryphee is fun, because a Coryphee cannot be Charged :) If Myranda were to borrow a Mannequin's Beautiful Clothes spell and spam it with Furious Casting, that would be three enemy models that could not target her.

Edited by Sholto
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Defend Me with a Coryphee is fun, because a Coryphee cannot be Charged :)

I'm not sure this will work as expected. Defend Me says that the switched model becomes the target of the attack, not the charge, so I think the charge would have already been declared and gone off, leaving only the attack, which the Coryphee can be targeted by.

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It's a defensive trigger anyway and isn't worked out until damage correct?

No, the trigger definitely goes off before the attack - it's triggered by the hit, not by damage. Defensive triggers can go off at various times, it's just that most of them are done by damage.

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No, the trigger definitely goes off before the attack - it's triggered by the hit, not by damage. Defensive triggers can go off at various times, it's just that most of them are done by damage.

How can this trigger happen when you haven't flipped anything yet? You work out the attack with all normal attack and defense flips, then you swap the models to deal damage. Thus Coryphee's can't be charged is null and void.

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How can this trigger happen when you haven't flipped anything yet? You work out the attack with all normal attack and defense flips, then you swap the models to deal damage. Thus Coryphee's can't be charged is null and void.

Sorry, you're right - I got wrapped around the wording on Defend Me. I even did a bit of searching in the rules forum to clear up some fuzzy that came in from how I was trying to read it, and you're exactly right.

We ended up at the same place, at least :)

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It reads weird, because the ranged attack has to hit, but the charge just has to happen or that's what I gathered from reading the V2 pdf. I thought maybe there was something in the resolution chain that I was missing.

My buddy and I do that all the time, we'll argue about something and then realize we are giving the same answer just phrasing it differently.

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I imagine that if the folks at Wyrd intended to disallow sacrifice effects while under the control of enemy models, they would have said as much in the rules manual on pg 13 rather than specifying it with obey.

In any case, surely you agree that the rules currently allow you to sacrifice models under the influence of Alpha? You're objection seems to be one of "that doesn't seem fair" rather than "that's not what the rules say".

I agree that against the right models it's a very powerful trick, but you also need to consider the effort Marcus needs to go through just to get the spell off. This isn't a (1) spell he can shoot off and forget about. It takes his entire activation, 1-2 high cards (inc. a high :masks) and 1-2 soulstones to get off. The payoff is great, sure, but failure will probably result in a dead Marcus. When you consider what other Masters can do to a single model with a single activation, two high cards and two soulstones (Lady Justice & melee, Leveticus & his necrotic spells etc), it's really not that broken.

I'll be sure to do that. I'm personally quite sure that this is how Alpha is supposed to work, but the last thing I want to do win games with Marcus on the basis of a wrongly worded spell.

Did we ever get a resolution on the Alpha vs Duet?

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