geistwald

Only if you win the initiative flip, otherwise your Miner is toast.

In your average game he has a good use of all 8 SS. However if you play something like plant/destroy the evidence, you can build high model count crews of silurids, night terrors and whatnot, and run Marcus with fewer stones.

Silurids yes, but not the 5pts Silurids you plan to use in your crew, those are just Gupps. I'd consider the Rattler, I think it suits your theme. And you could use a Waldgeist or two with minimal sculpting/conversion, like smaller versions of Bad Juju.

As far as I know, Kaeris can't go with Leveticus, and Leveticus can't go with Ramos or Rasputina either...

Hello! All models you listed and you like are viable options, don't listen to revelations of the do-this-now never-do-that style. Try to proxy all of them and play a game or two before you decide. But you asked for advice, so my 2 cents are: For a 25 pts starter I'd buy: - Marcus - Jackalope - pack of 3 Silurids - pack of 2 Night Terrors For a solid core of 30-35 pts I'd buy additionally: - Kaeris - Student of Conflict - Gunsmith - pack of 2 Waldgeists - probably McTavish I don't think the starter boxes would be good bets in your case, but that's only my opinion.

- The card system has multiple layers of tactics and strategy: you have to adapt to the rules, but you also have to play a card game of bluffing and calculation. Therefore the so-called luck factor spices the whole thing: you can be down on your luck, but you can be sure your opponent won't flip the red joker two times in a row. The objective-based approach adds another important layer, so does the rock-paper-scissors style of different crew builds. - The objective-based approach means that no game is lost until the bitter end of the sixth turn, but you also have to play attention when you seem to have the game in your pocket. Much more fun. - The game is fairly competitive, in a good sense. Malifaux shows that power gaming isn't annoying by necessity. - The game itself is comparatively cheap, because you don't have to make new investments to go with the stream, you do it to broaden your horizon. - And the most important thing: Malifaux seems to filter the gaming community. All who stay in the game for a while must have a basic understanding of all the previous aspects, which makes higher quality a common denominator.

Since you like the idea of silurids and McTavish, you'll have a good use of the 'guide' action. Silurids don't have scout per se, so people take leap+frenzy for a no-brainer. But Dgraz is right, charging in and pushing+leaping out can be much more effective. So McT and his large base are best friends of your punkish frogs. Not speaking of waldgeists and their mobile forests, if you're lucky enough to flip a suitable encounter.

In my experience Alpha is much more useful than that. Big juicy targets are one thing, but the spell practically cancels two activations on the opposing side, which is huge in a game so objective-oriented. Speaking of the much needed ranged support, consider McTavish with the potential of 3 gunshots with a range of 14" and Hunter. Plus Wrangle Critter is gold in a crew like ours, just think of the dozens of different options. Even your lawyer moves 5 inches before Furious Casting. Is it beautiful or what.

Hoarcats are tutorial-level easy to neutralize, and they're too expensive to find their strength in numbers. They are slow, their nice melee capability is volatile, and devour is hard to use (or upright useless) vs most opponents. Okay probably this isn't the most constructive answer you'll get in this thread, but my best advice is: don't frustrate yourself with them

1/2 of his avatar form seems to perform as the alternate sculpt, since McM himself doesn't change a lot, no extra legs or so, same base size. He just gets the flesh construct v2.0 and the new card of course.

In my opinion the avatar of Marcus is kind of a safety valve. You don't always want it to manifest as early as it can, sometimes you don't want it to manifest at all. But you pay 2SS for an option to save your skin when you're between hell and high water. (In that respect it's the same as av. Kirai, for example, and the direct opposite of av. Ramos.) So I don't think it's well worth building lists around it, or looking for special synergies. Just use its obvious strengths in the endgame, if you have to.

Thanks for your thoughts, it's refreshing to read posts like that after all the "drowned sux bring multiple shikome" wisdom.

The shikome is okay with Marcus, but it's not expendable by any means (unlike anything summoned by Kirai) and its threat range/angles get seriously reduced. Since you have many options if you need raw hitting power in your list, proxy the shikome a few times before you buy it. Not an auto-include by any means.

Just what I thought. And how about casting Black Death 3! times in the middle of a crew completely made of spirits

Sure, the Stolen isn't spirit anymore... my mistake. As for the price of hamelin+nix, they seem to allow the absolute necessities. 4-5 seishin and the lost love cost 10-12 ss, so you can pay 17 for h+n if you play from 30/35 ss. But you're right, there are more trusted ways to spend those stones, I just wonder if anyone ever tried this idea on table

Not sure if it's the first thread on this matter, but my search-fu just failed. So... Kirai is the only non-outcast master who is allowed to use Nix , granted she also buys Hamelin. The combination seems to be mighty expensive and un-effective for the price, but the possibility can't be accidental. Okay you gain five significant seishin (nihilism) or extra actions when Kirai casts any summoning (gorge on pain), and you get access to nice de-buffing abilities. Still, I'm not sure if it's worth trying. Did anyone use Kirai with Nix? (Or with the Stolen, for that matter.) If you did, how did you manage to make it work? Thanks for sharing your ideas or experience!

And you can pick Zoraida with the silurid posse and waldgeists. That's why I'd recommend to start Marcus with the stand-alone Marcus blister, the Zoraida box and a blister of waldgeists, thus one gets two excellent crews of 25 SS for a fair price.

I think it's exploiting all the possibilities that requires a solid investment, but if you play the models of your liking (you'll probably do), you'll need the same size of an army transport that you'd need with any other masters. What hits you budget-wise is the special model selection of Marcus, so you can't swap 2-3-4 pieces and play another master right away. But that's an arcanist thing, really. Weakness: altrough I consider him somehow unobtrusive, so far he's the only master I won a tourney with

I'd go either with silurids or night terrors, not both. Especially since you'll want all three of your tadpoles, if any, on your roster. But something like this can work at a push: Marcus w/ 8SS | 3xSilurids | Night Terror | Shikome There you can proxy one NT->Shikome and voila, you already have your crew.

You can have as many hunting partners as you wish, however it's a (0) action, so you can make only one model per turn per Shikome your hunting partner. And yes, once you've made Marcus HP, he remains so until his prey dies.

For 2 points less, you can hire a Silurid, leap, and hit your opponent 2-4 times. Also, you don't have to burn your precious cards for shape shifting this way. (PS: with this combo, you have no AP left for Clawshape, so Myranda has Cb4 and pathetic damage output... The Jackalope hits harder.) I know that's what you do when you already have Myranda in your crew, but still...

If you go that way instead of charging, you gain one inch... But okay, it's a matter of taste I guess. For me, "mobility" is the last thing that comes to my mind touching Hoarcats.

How do Hoarcats add speed? They have the same Wk/Cg as Gamin, and they are only 1/1 pts faster than Ice Golems, but Golems have 1 more Rg on their Talons, so it's all the same. Hoarcats don't have Scout, Leap or any ability to deal with distance and terrain. In addition, Devour have a total threat range of 6, which isn't exactly earth-shaking.

The Lawyer also seems to do a lot for the Shikome, however I'm not sure how to cheat all of them into a list of 30 points. Possibly: Marcus +7 SS, Jackalope, 2x Shikome, Lawyer, Moleman ? But Censure helps nailing the prey to the ground, while Defense gives HtW2 to the Shikome.

Thanks for the info. I tried to read through the mentioned thread, but haven't found anything about the extra models required to play, e.g. how many extra goblins / piglets / etc. do I need in addition to my crew. I don't really like to put empty bases in play because I don't have a third, fourth or seventh pig in my case. Does any thumb-rule exist like 1,5×(goblins in crew) hit the board in your average game? Anyways, I'll try the following: 2 mosquitos, 1 warpig, 1 whisperer, 4 gremlins, 2 piglet, 4 ss. We'll see...