newsun

Unless they hang way back Kirai should be able to get 2-3 models in to "kill Bill" or Hina t1. With Seishin and I'm assuming you have 3 that's six possible free walks for say two Shikome and Ikiryo. That's not counting Datsu who might make a charge or get a free Onryo depending on where things line up. You can replace all those minions and Ik so fire and forget is acceptable most likely.

While you can get away outside of keyword, I'm not sure I see why with Kirai in this case.

10 hours ago, hydranixx said:

I double down on this - 1, 2 or 3 Soulstones are plenty in most pools for Molly, but sometimes reaching for more can make sense. I've been taking 5-6 in pools with Assassinate or Detonate The Charges or Harness The Leyline - and sometimes even more in pools with multiple of these. With a few Soulstones at hand for the  trigger on her One Last Question, she's extremely consistent at securing Detonate and Harness as she can pop a couple Scheme Markers down near the end of turn 2 without much prior 'set up' at all, for an easy VP. As long as Molly survives, it's also fairly easy to force the 2nd VP  on turn 5 too. Another quick note: if you're taking Harness The Leyline, Archie's a great target if he's on the centreline as he'll ignore the Slow that Molly hands out as part of One Last Question. 

 

Now that I've had a few dozen more games under my belt, I figured I'd voice some more of my thoughts. Generally my core remains: Necrotic Machine, Archie, Dead Rider, and at least one Crooligan (often two, and sometimes three). 

Here's my thoughts on some of our available choices we have with Molly:

Minions:

Crooligans will always show up. Triple Crooligans are completely viable (and a complete nightmare to face) in Scheme Marker heavy pools. They're just brutal for destroying Scheme Markers and the hopes and dreams of your opponent. 

Night Terrors can be superb in some pools. I think that they have a higher skill ceiling than Crooligans; they are harder to use, they are less forgiving if you make a mistake, and they are obviously 1ss costlier, but they have huge potential when you play them well. Abusing their free pushes is the key to making their 5ss cost worthwhile. They're good enough to summon when I bring the Marshal along. They remain prime candidates for Molly's Constructive Criticism.

Punk Zombies are summons only in my books. They just don't do enough to justify 6ss.

Outside of Forgotten keyword, the only other minion I typically bother with is a single Rotten Belle, which I feel is a great inclusion in Reckoning. Yes, Lure is nowhere near as good as it was in 2nd, and 6ss feels bad for just one Action... But Lure is still an incredible tool to have available in Reckoning. Molly's not normally the first master you'd think of for Reckoning, but I've found Lethe's Caress has the potential to be brutal enough in Reckoning that she's sometimes the right pick - and when I do pick her for Reckoning, a Rotten Belle is starting to become a staple. 

Enforcers:

Archie may as well be Molly's second totem for how much of an auto-include he is. Always hire him. Always.

The Forgotten Marshall remains a high priority pick for me. He always brings The Whisper upgrade; not only does it increase the chances of finding a to summon with, but it also helps enable his attack triggers. As an added bonus, the card draw reward for killing models synergises with his self-heal reward for killing models, which itself synergises with his Hard To Kill - in my mind all of this further streamlines his role as a damage dealer. If he's a couple inches shy of shooting the right target, or if he gets stuck in combat, I won't hesitate to use Molly's Free Action to give him that a 2" push and Focus. 

Rogue Necromancy is a sometimes bring. He's good enough to bring frequently, but has some big weaknesses and shouldn't be the first go-to. If I do take him and the opponent clumps up, I like to reach out with Projective Vomit rather than commit him early; because once he's committed, he dies fast!

Dead Rider, I hire as often as I can, and when I hire The Forgotten Marshal, I always bring Dead Rider. He offers much needed mobility through Ride With Me, which is especially important if the Marshall becomes locked in combat; he can try to use Pine Box as a last resort, but I'd much prefer him to reach out with his Peacebringer. I try save my Fate Tokens for a big ol' whack with Revel In Death, looking to trigger Spinning Scythe, or occasionally Soulfire.

Henchmen: 

Phillip and the Nanny is a sometimes bring. They're very painful for your opponent if they declare a master that hands the Focus condition around, like Shenlong with their He's Starting To Make Sense aura. If they also had the same trigger as Molly has on One Last Question to place a free Scheme Marker they'd be terrific, though admittedly they'd probably be too good. With Chatty and the anti-Scheme Marker trigger on One Last Question, they're pretty good in denying options for your opponent in a Scheme Marker heavy pool, but are they worth as much as two Crooligans, who already do an amazing job? Maybe. Phillip and the Nanny has a lot of moving parts and a lot of layered rules, and you need to remember each and every one to get the most out of them and ensure they were worth hiring.  

Vincent St Clair is another sometimes bring, for one reason: he's terrific against summoners. Abuse Rapid Fire with his Sanctified Crossbow, which features two fantastic triggers (including one that auto-kills a Summoned models), coupled with the ability to ignore Friendly Fire, Incorporeal, and Hard To Wound, and he becomes an absolute machine gun against summons. He's very hard to shut down with Agile, and a trigger on his melee attack to shoot with his Sanctified Crossbow even if engaged. He can blow up Corpse Markers at range, which can be situationally great against summoners like Asami or Nicodem. Rapid Fire also slightly synergises with Molly's The Gorgon's Influence redraw mechanic. Being card hungry, suit reliant and very killy, he would definitely benefit from The Whisper.

Mortimer is yet another sometimes bring. Specifically, you would pick him to abuse Fresh Meat and promote the movement of your crew, especially in the early game; pop a Crooligan into play half way up the broad with From The Shadow, and Fresh Meat it. If you do this, make sure you're exclusively hiring Undead to get maximum value. Mortimer's Grave Robber can be used to provide Corpse Marker ammunition for Archie to throw. Bonus points if you get a free Mindless Zombie, and use it as ammunition for Archie to throw instead. Everyone appreciates a Zombie being flung in their face. 

Anna Lovelace, who is admittedly a pretty rare pick for Molly, does shows up occasionally. Basically she's just taken as anti placement trick tech. In particular she's nice against Asami. One of Asami's key attributes is that she lets Oni place themselves whenever they charge, and much of her crew hand out healing and Focus to one another (or at least, the Asami players I play against do). She also uses Scrap and Corpse Markers to fuel her summons. Anna can shut down all of this very efficiently in a bubble around through her auras and Grade Assignment. 

Where is Manos?

14 hours ago, SoulGambit said:

Asura and zombie hordes works great with Reva, but I wouldn't hire MZs directly. Take Asura along with a Shieldbearer. Smack her up the field, and expect to drop two to four stones on MZs the first turn, summoned near the center of the board. Have a corpse Candle move twice and use their bonus action to get all the zombies moving. Now your opponent has a problem at the top of turn 2, since 4+ MZs supported by Asura are a legitimate problem for anyone. They threaten to scheme because of Asura, they can threaten markers, and in a pinch 4+ MZs can do some real damage. 

You can even follow up with Anna Lovelace and/or Carrian Effigy (which gets you 5 MZs turn 1), and/or Toshiro. If you go this strategy, I would make sure you have Toshiro, Blasphemous Ritual, and/or Killer Instinct to recycle the Corpse Markers that MZs drop, but not necessarily the MZs themselves!

I had considered summoning them in. This is about putting pressure on something by forward t1.

This way you will have a pack of five threatening 16+inches turn one. 

3 hours ago, Graf said:

Don't you think this will have a lot of problems? If you loose Asura all the Zombies will be Insignificant again. They only have a 1/1/3 attack. So no scoring and no killing.

Lovelace can still explode them and they are attack points for Reva, but this much looks like huge overkill to me. Especially with 2 zombie summoners. 

I understand they are cheap, but I don't see what you intend them to do while you have only a limited amount of other models which can do actual work. Care to elaborate? 

Mostly send waves of zombies to swarm and scheme a bit they are easy to replace too. Lots of stones to keep key pieces alive. Reva should be able to attack all over the place.

Will it be good, dunno. Just looks interesting and probably fun.

Have not tried it though this looks interesting for the corpse game to me (might want killer on Reva instead)...

Zeva (Resurrectionist)
Size: 50 - Pool: 9
Leader:
  Reva Cortinas
    The Whisper
Totem(s):
  Corpse Candle
  Corpse Candle 2
Hires:
  Mindless Zombie
  Mindless Zombie 2
  Mindless Zombie 3
  Mindless Zombie 4
  Asura Roten
    Grave Spirit's Touch
  Anna Lovelace
  Carrion Emissary

11 hours ago, TomResser said:

That make sense!

But how does it work without dany?

And what is the job of  Gravedigger in a Seamus crew? Schemerunner?

 

Turn one focus blast then scheme runner makes sense. Depends on the build. If you have Bette or golem it's also an easy way to get them back on the board.

Some good points.

Do those running sloth use ride with me type of effects to get him in place or simply double walk up turn one?

While this is doable unsure the situation where spending two ap to pass one ap is worth it.

Mostly this. Also how are you going to keep him center if z can activate last for claim jump? She'll simply walk him away if not already charging with him into one of your models.

20 minutes ago, Graf said:

Seems like Seamus needs a pinned guide thread a lot 😅.

Totally, the advice is good though scattered amidst many threads now.

9 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

It was pretty amazing!  Toshiro popped out a few Ashigaru, which were really good. Molly and Toshiro hand out focus like candy, so the Ashigaru had plenty of focused attacks.

Toshiro's aura was usually not relevant, since he was spending an action summoning each turn, he wasn't in a position to aura until turn 3. That was still extremely useful.

At one point I had an Ashigaru charge a mature nephilim and use focus, getting the nephilim down from 7 to 2.

Then Toshiro activated and moved into range, and commanded another focused attack. Double positive to the attack = one dead nephilim.

Grave golem provides quite a challenge to anyone trying to control the centre. He is a must for me in any game that involves fighting for the centre (any claim jump, some harness the leyline matchups). I gave it Grave Spirit's touch for the bonus action, but regen 4 was also devastating.

Grave digger is the synergistic glue that held the team together. It is worth using with Toshiro alone or Grave Golem alone, but just felt hyper efficient when paired with both.

The downside? Toshiro is VERY resource hungry. Turn two I drew an extra eight (kinda) cards with Molly and still ended the turn out of gas. (Only kinda because I had to cheat on some of her lost knowledges).

I'd be very concerned taking grave golem into Neverborn for fear of Zoraida. If no second Masters I guess this mitigates this risk after master reveal.

3 minutes ago, Thedeadclaw said:

Would you recommend Yan Lo or Von Sctook next, after I fill out Kirai and Molly? Are there any versatiles That are must haves?

Dead Rider is good most of the time though you won't hire always. Yan Lo is good next since Manos is a solid piece in keyword for that master.

The good doctor is also strong, though I don't have many games with him.

I find it strange you think Rez > Neverborn

27 minutes ago, marke83 said:

People confuse "op" with "can't be dealt with".  However, I don't know about that 2ss increase. It won't change the power level on the field, and Archie really has too many good abilities piled on against certain type of crews. Removing mask from leap's casting could be enough as someone already suggested. It's still a substantial nerf, maybe even too harsh for an enforcer.

He would need a reliable bonus other than leap if he loses the built in mask.

The cheapest way I play malifaux is by only buying one of each box for my main faction and try not to collect too many from the other two I'm not playing currently.

It's just as likely that other models are undertuned or as pointed out don't fill the same role. I agree unless rezz are winning more than other factions by including Archie he's just very good at what he does.

People are often going to like a killy model in a model game. Especially when they can get all over to do it and be fairly survivable.

One tactic against him that can be situationally useful is when they have cheated already to hit you is to cheat really low to put them on positives which becomes negatives. Won't always come up, but it's something to do with low cards.

He might also end up being one of those models you have to let run amuck and simply focus on your schemes and pick off the rest of his crew.

Get the app.

Some second Masters and combinations are extremely strong. Kirai as second plus almost whoever. Zoiraida as second with dreamer is getting tons of models and replenishing hand along with Z handing out lots of actions via 2ap obeys.

Unsure if it's a problem with two Masters, those combos or other fixes such as ss cost in keyword.

4 hours ago, marke83 said:

Kinda funny Seamus "needs" focus. If things were a bit different, I'd prioritize focus giving lower. Redchapel Killer is a very good ability, but comes up so rarely due to the nature of effective Seamus crews. Focus is always useful on top of RCK too, but perhaps not as vital.

Everyone pretty much loves focus, Seamus just wants to use his 2ap for positioning or maybe scheming then the other two to unload with focus shots as much as possible. Hitting straight damage with his track is juicy.

Yes.

4 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

But yes, ideally you deal with it at faction stage, but you can only own so many crews.

Well I always assume all the models released unless someone states otherwise. Malifaux is so cheap compared to most model games.

While the idea you've already committed to McM puts an active constraint, is it maybe getter to start at the faction step and is there a master who is best into 10t to begin with? 

5 hours ago, marke83 said:

Yeh, Molly was good into Dreamer today again, but I think forgotten minions are next to useless against him. Just easy kills while not achieving anything.  Dreamer's minions are so much better. Crooligans are probably alright tho.

When I've run Molly, I only start with one crooligan and use Marshall to bring more to field.