Slumming it: Calmdown's Rezzers 2012 Diary

[Calmdown]

Thanks to Hatchethead for the thread title

[Disclaimer: I'm discounting Kirai from everything here, unless otherwise noted. Kirai is in the running for best master in the game (along with Chompy and Hamelin). She uses almost totally different model pools to the rest of the faction.]

So with the UK Masters out of the way, I've decided that it's time to put Chompy to rest and play something "normal". McMourning is pretty much my favourite master and I've had a fair bit of table time with him, and Rezzers are actually my faction (if indeed I have one), so for 2012 I'm going to be seeing how far I can get up the UK rankings by playing this crappy faction!

Faction Pros and Cons

Well, not really. Rezzers are far from a crappy faction. Whenever I play something, I look objectively at what it can do, and what it can't; what it does better than anyone else, and where it is second rate and likely to lose out. This is my basic pros/cons list for Rezzers:

Pros

Summoning: Models from nowhere, right? Well, not quite. Summoning requires a significant investment of AP, cards, board position, and more. Still, it's a very strong mechanic when used right, in terms of gaining effective SS in your crew, positional control, and model count.

Night Terrors: Best objective capping, significant model in the game imho, and we can take as many as we like!

Positional Control: Rezzers have great positional control via Belles and Dead Rider, and Jakuuna Ubume soon. They need it to make up for their lack of movement.

Hard to remove: Although Hard to Wound is a very mixed blessing (more on that later), Rezzers are generally, point for point, more difficult to kill than most.

Buffs: Rezzers have some of the best utility / buffing models in the game in Nicodem and Molly.

Cons

Slow: Perhaps the single most important thing in Malifaux is movement, and Rezzers are not good at it in general.

Bad Faction/Master schemes: Mostly unplayable except for McMourning's. A big downside in competitive play, particularly when schemes are unique across more than 3 rounds.

Bad Odds: Rezzers generally have terrible Df, below average Wp, and very little paired or similar, when compared to other factions.

Hard to Wound: Oh lord, how I love and hate this ability. HtW1 is great, and pretty much means your opponent will never get to cheat a Dg flip. Rezzers generally have more wounds than they deserve too, so this makes them hard to remove, although they are hugely vulnerable to "chip" damage as their Df is so low. The major problem with HtW is when you get HtW2 on bigger models (eg Dead Rider and Flesh Construct), your opponent can simply spam attacks at them, flipping 4 cards for damage at a time, and hope for a Red Joker to annihilate them. You may think that this is rare, but its not; I'd say it happens on average once a game, due to the amount of cards all those HtW models make your opponent chew through; and it's happening to an important model when it does happen. It's a serious issue for Rezzers.

Model Selection

So the next thing to do, was using my pros and cons list, establish a pool of models to work with. I don't hold with the fact that every model in a faction is something worth taking circumstantially; there are some models that will almost never be used, so I prefer to rule them out early.

My pool of models now looks like this:

McMourning (Kills stuff dead. gets killed dead if he gets focused. Very fast and has great summoning abilities thanks to ignoring the corpse counter mechanic. Awesome SS pool.)

Nicodem (Very strong offensively, weak defensively, terrible movement. Perhaps the best card draw mechanic in the game.)

Molly (She'll never be run as a master, but she has a *lot* of things going for her. To name but a few: Firstly, a 3" walk buff basically covers Rezzers' main weakness; unfortunately it needs a 7 mask to cast. Secondly, her debuff of --ve to all attack/def flips is the best in the game. Thirdly, her "autokill" ability is amazing, especially since it can be cast via her totem and soulstoned. Lastly, she can summon Sybelle. Edit: Since Molly's card was changed and she can no longer kill Leaders with philosophy, she's tooka. Huge power hit )

Von Schill (This guy was made for slowbie crews. He moves fast, he's impossible to pin down, he's really tough to remove, he uses soulstones, and he has a great gun. He's a commando and he has a ton of utility abilities to boot. Also he gives McMourning an "extra totem slot" so he can hire a Grave Spirit with his Chihuahua)

Zombie Chihuahua (poor guy, I bet he'd love to see what turn 2 looks like one day)

Grave Spirit (epic, EPIC totem. So damn good. 2 armour for Squishodem or the Dead Rider, an extra activation, and a surprise melee attack/spell cast... for 1 point)

Necrotic Machine (for Molly; great totem. Also good for other masters who want to make living models like Mortimer supportale by undead-affecting spells)

Vulture (not sold on these; -3ca sucks and 2ss is expensive, it's 2/3 of a Night Terror! But will try them)

Night Terrors (See "Major Pro of playing Rezzers and no idea why Dreamer got access to them!")

Necropunks (A big downgrade from Night Terrors in the same role, but not half bad and drop corpse counters. Need to trial these)

Canine Remains (big Chihuahuas and effective in packs. Also good debuffs and fast objective grabbers)

Belles (Duh)

Sybelle (Would never hire her for 6ss, but Molly can summon her)

Mortimer (a good solution to the slowness of the faction if you can spare the masks and has sime utility and medium combat ability)

Rafkin (Didnt realise he was out so soon! Obvious synergy and tricks with Nicodem)

Punk Zombies (Slow, and need movement support or lures to get the most out of them. But Cb7 paired 2/4/6 on a 5 point model is WOW, and Df 5 Wd 6 HtW1 Slow to Die is a really nice little package. Also some utility AE and a clutch ranged attack.)

Flesh Constructs (Best and easiest big fella to summon. Puts out reasonable hurt and soaks up some damage. Again, shame he has HtW2 and not 1. Regularly summon 2 and sometimes 3 of these per game)

Bete Noire (Never been sold on her, but after seeing Mike3838 use her on me at the masters, I'm going to give her a chance)

Dead Rider (This guy is the king of positioning your enemy where you want them; if he's 13 inches away from an enemy, for 2ap he can hit that enemy and drag it 5"+its own base size towards your hungry undead horde. He can also have bits carved off him by McMourning. Such a shame he has HtW2 instead of 1.)

Rogue Necromancy (The only 50mm base summon; can be summoned turn 1 by McMourning if needed, and draws 4 cards for Nicodem. A summoned model with 3ap for attacks is scary. About as tough as wet paper, though)

Desperate Mercenaries (Great point-for-point model that can also drop a corpse counter. Unfortunately not playable with Von Schill)

Convict Gunslinger (Might as well be here. He's always solid.)

...don't think I've forgotten anything there.

Preliminary Lists

Although you should never make a list until you see the terrain, the opponent, the VP conditions, and so on, it does help to have some general lists in mind. Personally I "modularise" my lists a lot also. I play mostly 35ss games and tourneys, so here's what I'm planning on:

McMourning:

McMourning with 8ss cache

Zombie Chihuahua (1ss)

(Von Schill Module)

Von Schill (10ss)

Grave Spirit (1ss)

(Dead Rider Module)

Dead Rider (10ss)

Canine Remains (2ss)

(9pt Combat Module)

Punk Zombie (5ss)

Rotten Belle (4ss)

Here's a couple of the standard swaps:

Molly Module - can be subbed for Von Schill Module (Von Schill+Grave Spirit)

Molly (9ss)

Necrotic Machine (2ss)

Night Terror Module - can be subbed for Zombie/Belle module or Dead Rider (wasting 1ss or upgrade Belle to a Punk)

3x Night Terror (9ss)

Bete Module - is one model a module? Can sub for the combat module or for Dead Rider +1ss, probably only against living lists

Bete Noire (9ss)

Desperate Mercs

Any time Von Schill leaves the list, all Canine Remains become Desperate Mercs since they're a better 2ss model.

Nicodem:

Nicodem with 8ss cache

Grave Spirit (1ss)

Molly (9ss)

Necrotic Machine (2ss)

2x Punk Zombie (10ss)

Rotten Belle (4ss)

2x Desperate Mercenary (4ss)

This list has potential for some swaps too:

Molly > Von Schill +1ss

Zombies > Dead Rider

Belle > Punk Zombie -1ss

Conclusions... aka, the beginning!

So there you have it, my plans in brief for attempting competitive rezzers... I'll let you know how it goes. Feel free to comment if you have any input!

Edited February 12, 2012 by Calmdown

[micahwc]

Sounds good so far. I am interested in seeing how this goes. I like your modular system for crew selection.

One time my opponent didn't carve up his Chihuahua all the way until turn 2.

[Cunning]

Will be interesting to see how you get on mate.

As ever I will be around for practice games.

I notice you've not mentioned avatars on here.

[Calmdown]

Sounds good so far. I am interested in seeing how this goes. I like your modular system for crew selection.

One time my opponent didn't carve up his Chihuahua all the way until turn 2.

Whoa. That guy must have been crazy!

[Ratty]

Whoa. That guy must have been crazy!

nope Chihuahua has uses, it's not totally pointless except for cheap body parts.

It's a good little rundown, I would argue that a lot of Rezer crews are not quite as slow as they seem, Seamus can get up some reasonable speed and I've seen McMourning blitz enough times to know he can move fast. Against the super fast crews it is slow, compared to most Guild crews they are fast.

[gnam]

I'd be interested to know why you didn't include Crooked Men in your model selection choices? They offer some great control, especially when paired with Belles.

Also, what are your thoughts on the Hanged? or Mortimer?

One thing to also consider is taking the Convict Gunslinger with some of your Resser masters. One thing I always had fun with was using the Gunslinger with Nicodem (and Molly + Necrotic Machine). If you are trying to control a point you can use the Machine to turn the CG undead, and he'll gain the benefit from Nico's bolster undead.

[Calmdown]

I'd be interested to know why you didn't include Crooked Men in your model selection choices? They offer some great control, especially when paired with Belles.

Also, what are your thoughts on the Hanged? or Mortimer?

One thing to also consider is taking the Convict Gunslinger with some of your Resser masters. One thing I always had fun with was using the Gunslinger with Nicodem (and Molly + Necrotic Machine). If you are trying to control a point you can use the Machine to turn the CG undead, and he'll gain the benefit from Nico's bolster undead.

The problem with a lot of rezzer models is that they don't offer enough return on investment for their points and for the investiture of time you need to make them work. In a vacuum they look good, but when you pitch them against the models of other factions, they're not so good and thats where rezzers fall down.

Crooked Men: Firstly, Cave-In requires a 7 minimum to cast and is only Ca4. Anything less than Ca6 is very unreliable, even more so when it's a spell due to how resisting works; AP are a valuable commodity in Malifaux and you want to use actions that will be successful more often than not (which is why, for example, soulstones and paired are so amazing). Shafted requires a 9 to cast, meaning cheating more often than not, is short range and needs another whole model to make use of (Belle; imagine what damage you can do with 8 points of other stuff). Getting Shafted markers onto objective counters in a competitive environment is not a good plan as a 4" Wk 2ap model is unlikely to always get them where they need to go fast enough, and in any case if you don't flip paralysis, 3Dg is not a great RoI for such a tough ability to use.

Gunslinger: He's solid, but no more solid than he is for any other crew. Again, to make a combo like that work you have to use Necrotic Machine to make him undead (requiring your machine to be in a position to do so, no more than 2" away) as well as have Nicodem using Bolster (which he cant always do). Combos like this are things that you should always be aware of but never things that should directly affect your model choices. I have a painted Gunslinger, there's no real reason he isn't in the list above in fairness, he probably should be just because Gunslingers are solid.

The Hanged: I find The Hanged to basically be Fool's Gold. It's good on paper and has some great abilities, but it's only truly effective against living lists (which make up only a small percentage of competitive tournament lists) and even then, its numbers are very low and only 2ap and Wk4 on an 8 point model just can't compete with other, better models out there. People get far too caught up in stopping models from healing being some sort of god-ability; the best way to stop things healing is to remove them from the table altogether.

Mortimer: Epitomises a book 1 model. Was part of some corpse counter generating combos back in the day, nowadays he's just 7 dead points. His utility abilities cost too many AP to activate and don't give you enough, and he's not particularly able in combat. If your opponent is running a Lelu, or a Young Neph, or a Gunsmith, Executioner, the list goes on... you're in deficit in combat ability from the second you deploy. Utility/buffing models aren't generally very good in Malifaux, they have to be *very* good for their cost (eg Freikorps Librarian, Molly, Datsue-Ba) to warrant taking the slot of a model that exerts board control via being an actual threat.

[dsmiles]

I certainly hope you'll take on Kirai in here somewhere. This is a good rundown for Ressers, but the only one I run is Kirai, and PullMyFinger only goes so far.

[gnam]

....

You do make some very valid counter-points in your response, and I do agree with some of the points you've made (especially around The Hanged and Mortimer), but I would humbly suggest that you do not discount them right off the bat, at least give them a chance to see if they can have specific uses in some cases.

Your post has really made me think a bit, and the recent Neverborn feedback I'm getting from my local group, I think I may go for a few Resser months. I have the whole faction, so I'm going to start testing them out more regularly and I'll be happy to provide feedback to this thread (and others) through-out the testing.

[Calmdown]

I already play Kirai, quite a lot (and I took her to the masters too) but the objective of this exercise is to try not to play her since she's super awesome and we all know this!

What I'll probably do is carry her in my case when playing fixed faction tournaments, just in case someone decides to run Hamelin or Chompy against me and I think I need Kirai to teach them a lesson

[Hatchethead]

Love it! The prospect of a high calibre, competitve player commiting to Book 1 Rezzer masters is very exciting/entertaining/rad/etc. Kirai has already proven herself to be top tier (alongside the majority of masters from Book 2), but I've got high hopes you'll do for Doug and Nico what ukrocky has done for Marcus. As per my tweet, I hope you break the HELL out of them.

[Calmdown]

Will be interesting to see how you get on mate.

As ever I will be around for practice games.

I notice you've not mentioned avatars on here.

You know my thoughts on the McM avatar! But neither of them are out yet so can't add them until they're legal. Whilst were on book 3, Rafkin will make it in there too and potentially Jaakana Ubume.

[Drazosh]

Brilliant so far; I look forward to seeing your results. I find that the Book 1 Rezzers are often excessively maligned and poorly understood (Surprise! It's occasionally beneficial to START the game with good models on the table!), so perhaps you can repair some misconceptions.

[Fetid Strumpet]

I'm glad that you are attempting this, as I'm having a frustrating time with my ressers. In general I tend to agree with most of your points. I've also found how truly frustrating my resser lists to be after branching out in a small way to NB, specifically Pandora.

Some things I'd be curious about your opinion on are these.

1: After Playing Pandora, and watching numerous Dreamer games, I can't help but notice how reliant on suits my Ressers are. If I want my crew to actually work effectively I need crows, often high ones, and often I need a smattering of masks as well. If I don't get the cards I'm going to lose it often feels like. Contrasted to when I play Pandora, I really like to have suites, especially a High Crow or two for Pandora to play with, and Masks are nice for my twins, but overall I feel I can be competitive and win even if I never get a suit I want. What is your opinion on how difficult Ressers are to use if suites become an issue?

2: What is your opinion on Seamus and his Avatar? He and Molly were what got me into Malifaux, and I'm having a good deal of trouble getting him to work for me. I wonder if it is just me, or if he just isn't geared for how the game environment currently stands at the present time.

[Calmdown]

1: After Playing Pandora, and watching numerous Dreamer games, I can't help but notice how reliant on suits my Ressers are. If I want my crew to actually work effectively I need crows, often high ones, and often I need a smattering of masks as well. If I don't get the cards I'm going to lose it often feels like. Contrasted to when I play Pandora, I really like to have suites, especially a High Crow or two for Pandora to play with, and Masks are nice for my twins, but overall I feel I can be competitive and win even if I never get a suit I want. What is your opinion on how difficult Ressers are to use if suites become an issue?

As a faction, Neverborn have a strong bias of odds in their favour all over, both in their suit distribution and their Cb/Ca/Df/Wp numbers. Many of their spells dont need suits, the ones that do are easy to cast, and many of their models that end up in the same crews use triggers on varies suits rather than all hogging the same one. The problem you mention isnt specific to Rezzers, it's specific to everyone but Neverborn. It's just something you have to deal with and build your crew for.

That said, I think a lot of people build Rezzer crews based on this or that ability working and a lot of the good abilities in Rezzers dont need suits at all. Also, Rezzers have very few useful triggers on most of their models; I dont think that's a good thing, mind (since Neverborn in particular seem t get Flay on just about everything for free), but it's one less thing we need cards for I think honestly the only thing I'll be worrying about cards for in those lists is the odd high crow for McM summoning (offset by his epic cache in any case), Nico summoning (offset by his card draw), and Molly giving people faster walk.

2: What is your opinion on Seamus and his Avatar? He and Molly were what got me into Malifaux, and I'm having a good deal of trouble getting him to work for me. I wonder if it is just me, or if he just isn't geared for how the game environment currently stands at the present time.

Seamus is not Ramos bad, but he is pretty bad. His Soulstone cache is too low (like a lot of book 1 masters), he's missing 3 stones. So he starts with a disadvantage in a faction already disadvantaged.

His Avatar is completely fine but not amazing, and given that you have to base it off a master missing SS and put yourself further into deficit with the avatar cost, I just don't think its competitive.

Edited January 21, 2012 by Calmdown

[dsmiles]

Hey, now. Ramos is actually pretty good. His avatar just takes it in a new direction. I mean, living time bombs, Guild constructs, no hiring restriction on Special Forces [M&SU Assets], not to mention the billions of spiders at his beck and call. He just needs a bodyguard and doesn't move around much. (Then again, he doesn't have to move around much when he can just stand there spamming spiders.)

[Calmdown]

After some serious consideration, I'm going to be adding a Nurse to the list

Yeh, seriously.

Anyone know where I can get a Miss Pack? :S

[dsmiles]

Anyone know where I can get a Miss Pack? :S

eBay?

[Fetid Strumpet]

*blink* what are you considering using the Nurse on? I've just got to be on a lower level then others as I've never seen an effective way to make them work. Maybe if the Nurses had Link, but 5 points for an exceptionally fragile buffer... not certain, what is your plan for them?

In response to above: Yeah, I've noticed most games I play with Seamus he seems woefully under stocked in the SS department. Do you think that is his biggest failing?

[Toonook]

Good to see your 'modules' are set up very similar to the way I group my models together when selecting crews, although I have to say I've never run 3 night terrors will have to give it a go. I always run a belle whenever I'm running my 2 night terrors, being able to lure enemies away from tokens they're guarding is just too good since the terrors aren't the best combat wise.

To be honest with McMourning I can't really see an occasion I'm going to branch away from this list, no matter the strategy.

Doug + Chihuahua

Von Schill + Grave Spirit

Dead Rider

2 x Night Terrors

Belle

Canine Remains

So I'll be interested to see how your lists run (especially the punk zombie - never used one before) for some ideas on ways to mix things up.

Long story short: hooray for this thread.

Edit: Also, do you have any interesting ways to use Sebastian? I love his fluff, adore his model (probably my best paint job ever too), but he's just a little too slow and a little too easily whittled away for my liking.

Edited January 21, 2012 by Toonook

[Calmdown]

*blink* what are you considering using the Nurse on? I've just got to be on a lower level then others as I've never seen an effective way to make them work. Maybe if the Nurses had Link, but 5 points for an exceptionally fragile buffer... not certain, what is your plan for them?

I've literally never put a nurse on the table. I dont even own one.

I'm intending to see what I can do with reactivate on tap. I have some ideas

In response to above: Yeah, I've noticed most games I play with Seamus he seems woefully under stocked in the SS department. Do you think that is his biggest failing?

In my opinion, yep. Competitively, almost every master in this game wants to be run with 8 soulstones in its cache. lot of underpowered masters in this game are just so because they dont have enough stones. Look at Seamus and Pandora raw, with 0ss... they're not *that* much different. Same with Perdita and Lilith. Etc. They could stand to have the odd extra point of Df, Cb and so on here and there, but if the caches werent so disparate it wouldn't be half as bad.

[Tiny]

*blink* what are you considering using the Nurse on? I've just got to be on a lower level then others as I've never seen an effective way to make them work. Maybe if the Nurses had Link, but 5 points for an exceptionally fragile buffer... not certain, what is your plan for them?

Nurses got better with book 3. You can give reactivate to your master then have them manifest before you would have to sacrifice them and you get rid of the debuff.

[magicpockets]

the best way to stop things healing is to remove them from the table altogether.

:amen:

What I'll probably do is carry (Kirai) in my case when playing fixed faction tournaments, just in case someone decides to run Hamelin or Chompy against me and I think I need Kirai to teach them a lesson

Anyone know where I can get a Miss Pack? :S

I have one but unlikely to ever do anything with it. Happy to sell it to you for a reasonable price.

Nurses got better with book 3. You can give reactivate to your master then have them manifest before you would have to sacrifice them and you get rid of the debuff.

Awesome +1

[Dumb Luck]

Squishodem. Ha. Nicodem is now called that.

[aka_hazard]

As someone who started with Neverborn but has recently painted up a stack of Ressers (or should that be a crypt of Ressers?) I'm really looking forward to seeing this thread develop.