Ropetus

Wait, ropetus, I am confused, you said he should not summon with Mortimer but summon with mortimer instead?

Brainfart... Of course I meant Sebastian.

The point about taking the Dogs is that they are cheap (2 body parts to make a dog cost exactly the same amount of SS so you can just as well buy them) and you don't want to waste your Master's Actions to summon dogs when you could summon Constructs (Sebastian can fix up their numbers when needed). They're also most useful early on when they can utilize their speed to reach areas your other model's cannot.

Dogs are cheap Corpses but they are also Graverobbers and have For You Master so you can use them to fetch Corpses to your Master. Necropunks cannot do this. Still, I think a mix of them is good for cheap models: after all, you cannot support too many Necropunks effectively as both Leap and Flurry are Control Card hungry.

-Ropetus

Shame you don't want Belles. They have a lot of synergy with McMourning, Luring enemies to his melee range so he doesn't need to waste that many Actions to walk. It would be a nice themed Crew if you add Canines: An animal clinic with the vet, his assistants, some patients and their former owners ;P.

Canine Remains should be a great addition for your Crew. They are dirt cheap and thus great targets for the Nurse's Massive Dose. They could also be used with Killjoy: you know they're going to get Sacrificed so why not summon Killjoy with the last Action? Same applies for Bete.

Summoning with Mortimer is a waste of time. He needs 2 Corpses and his whole activation to summon a (generally not very strong) model. He is much better digging those Corpses for McMourning to use. If you want to summon with someone besides your Master, try Sebastian instead.

-Ropetus

Guild are a bit screwed in Treasure hunt as they only have Perdita and Peacekeeper for speedy options (the rest are all only average speed). However, they have a lot of guns, making it difficult for their opponent to hang around in the middle with their Treasure. Sonnia can toss a Flame Wall on top of the Treasure, which means a model picking the treasure up will suffer 6 Wd (3 for moving there, 3 for the Action to pick it up, and possible 3 more for moving out of there) and make sure the Treasure doesn't get stolen early.

Arcanists have the Cerberus for a speedy Treasure snatcher, although I don't think it's possible on first turn. The Steamborg is also quite fast with Knock Aside to hunt down the Treasure, not to mention December Acolytes who can start in the opponent's half of the table and hamper their tactics.

Marcus is great for this scenario. He can hire Silurids so the same applies as with Zoraida (minus Obey). He can use Wild Heart (Hare + Serpent + something) + Blinding Strike (Charge a friendly model) + Walk + Interact for 16" of movement and pick the Treasure up. Next turn Wild Heart (Hare + anything) to move away 16" or move 8" and hand off the Treasure. Sadly he cannot Reactivate his own Beasts since Alpha only works on enemy models but it's one of the best ways to get the Treasure back if your opponent manages to steal it (Here boy! Fetch the shiny treasure to papa!).

All Factions and Masters can compete in this Strategy with proper Crew selection. The same does not apply for Slaughter if your opponent plays 'point denial' (which they will if they're sensible). The best bet when you get Slaughter is often get your Crew where their objectives are (the middle in case of Claim Jump or Treasure) and deny them their points or force them to confront your Crew. It is still almost impossible if they have Reconnoiter since then they can just play the 'run away and avoid fights' or 'play like a weasel' (I'm really starting to like this phrase!) and have a great shot at scoring at least 2-0 from Strategies.

-Ropetus

Doesn´t silurid not also depend on Terrain, while they need a Swamp or something?

They need a Water Terrain piece or another Silurid close by to avoid suffering. As long as you move them as a pack you will do fine, and also gives you nice options to use their mass packtivation abilities.

Silurids are argueably the best troops Marcus can bring. They synergize very well with him: equaling or even beating his speed, are ace in hit'n'run attacks, can throw a ton of attacks if needed and are a prime target for Pack Leader.

Jackalope is a no-brainer. It costs only 1 SS to field and keeps coming back after killed. 3/4/4 (when Charging) is significant damage table for a model that cheap.

Molemen are nice for area control scenarios but suffer from being so slow. They are good damage sinks with Defend Me! Trigger of Marcus. I don't think they're not so good for Marcus overall since he relies so much on speed.

Waldgeists are also good. They are fairly speedy and the toughest of all Beasts (Armor 2 is ridiculously good) so are good targets for Defend Me! They're no pushovers in melee and the ability to move forests is great fun.

-Ropetus

Ok, so the next time my opponent draws Slaughter for their Strategy I should toss all my Crew on their face and not "play like a weasel". Check!

Oh wait, that makes absolutely no sense...

You're seeing the problem in the players, I see it in the Strategy: if the objective encourages hiding your crew and "playing like a weasel" to win something is wrong with the scenario. You can't blame players for acting in the most effective way they can.

This is the exact reason I don't like Slaughter. It's very tough to accomplish unless your opponent cooperates and doesn't actively deny your chances to kill their crew. Scenarios that force both Crews to take an active role lead to much more interesting games, Slaughter does not meet this criterion.

It is also one of the reasons I left GW a long time ago: since all games were about killing the opposing army, the most important aspect turned out to be 'point denial': you concentrate only on making sure your opponent gets no significant VP by only throwing a few cheap units in the harm's way and concentrate your points in extremely tough unkillable units which you hide somewhere. When the objectives of the game are not tied to killing your enemies, the game turns much more active as you can't deny your opponent all points by hiding your whole army.

-Ropetus

In this game you don't just "kill the entire enemy crew". Your opponent still controls their own models and if they have a Strategy like Reconnoiter he has no reason to fight you at all. Therefore they will do their best to avoid every fight they can. This is especially effective if their Crew is much faster than the Crew which drew Slaughter (like Lilith or Marcus vs. any Ressers).

One Terror Tot in your deployment zone can be countered with those units. However, take say three Tots and Sprint them in different corners of the table. Good luck catching all of them before the game ends with Pandora intercepting enemies (and she's great at that). Actually, if your opponent gets Slaughter, your Master is expendable since the 2 VP condition is having only enemy Master alive. You score 0 VP if they sacrifice their Master to waste enough of your activations so you run out of time to kill all their Minions.

It is easy to point out Slaughter is much harder than the others:

Assassinate: Kill enemy Master.

Slaughter: Kill enemy Master + all enemy Minions.

Those two are not in the same scope at all.

-Ropetus

I agree that Marcus could use some buffing. The main problem with him is Action management: Marcus is the only Master without a real (+1) Action. Instinctual is nice but when the extra Action basicly has to be used on Wild Heart (preferably cheating with a :tomes ) to function at all the extra Action feels kinda wasted. The second (0) Action is not that great since most of the others are not that good: Feral is a joke, Pack Leader is nice at times to get activations in fast, Stare Down can be killer but requires another successful Action and can be avoided if you have a larger model. Using Blinding Strike and Feline Speed is usually not worth it since you have to give up Bear, Eagle or Fox to use them. If Tiger gave him Melee Expert it would buff him a lot since he could combine the extra Strike with Stare Down.

His spells are also not very AP efficient. Primal Flame is almost always a waste with the suit requirement. If it was a (0) Action and/or a bit easier to cast (like 12) it might get used sometimes. Alpha is effective if your opponent has a beatstick like a Mature Nephilim or a Steamborg running around but otherwise not worth sacrificing your Master's entire activation. Howl is a nice buff for 1 AP but very situational as not many Crews focus on Wp based attacks (at the moment, Seamus, Hanged, Zoraida and Pandora Crews are big on those), and it suffers from the flaw that it leaves Marcus himself vulnerable.

Marcus is an interesting, fun and challenging Master to use. However, he really feels a bit lackduster compared to the others.

-Ropetus

assuming you probably don't want to cast Ice Pillars on turn 1

Why? Turn 1 is when you will most likely have a free AP to do so from Casting Expert as your others spells will be out of range. Cast it through Ice Mirror for a nice range. It is later when you might have more important Actions to take and have no AP left for Pillars.

It is a very rare situation when placing some impassable terrain near your deployment zone is not useful.

-Ropetus

Nice read. Just a shame for me the Guild Master is a Construct guy, that's the only area I don't really like about the Guild. Ah well . I hope we get some nice options for the other subfactions in the new book though.

Kirai sounds like your basic Resser Crew summoning forth more minions to do their bidding. Spirits are a nice twist, as are the gorgeous models.

Might Colette's crew be the first non-Masters to have Use Soulstones? She sounds like a blast and I imagine she has a lot of indirect trickery instead of pure brute force.

The Dreamer is a wonderful concept. From the looks of the model (the kid on its shoulder) I guess he can shapechange into Lord Chompy Bits, by falling asleep or something. Sounds truly Neverborn and should look great in combination with Pandora's Crew.

And Hamelin turning into a Master, nice. Character evolution sounds cool, perhaps other models are getting new profiles as well (Avatar Pandora?). However, Ophelia is not mentioned, is she not a Master? It would have been nice to have another Master option for Gremlins.

-Ropetus

Also, where can I find the Malifaux Hat store?

You should ask the Mad Hatter, I wonder if there was one in this world ^^.

-Ropetus

I'm really hoping they would compile all the Erratas and FAQ to the new rulebook. Should make referring to them much easier.

-Ropetus

But Arcanists do have Sabotage, which our group has had to limit to one per game per crew to slow it down.

Yes, Sabotage is too easy if you can target any terrain feature and your opponent doesn't have any chance to guess which tree they have to defend. It becomes manageable if you limit the amount of terrain pieces it can target to 2 or 3 central features (such as buildings) on your opponent's side. After all, it makes no sense if you can claim 2 VP by sabotaging a random bush which just happens to be there ;P.

Besides, most Arcanists are not fast enough to claim this Scheme on surprise, except Marcus who really needs the help anyway.

-Ropetus

A Terror Tot horde can be great depending on the Strategies and Schemes. Imagine this: you have Reconnoiter and your opponent has Slaughter. Just spend all your SS on Tots and use their speed and size to play hide-and-seek with your opponent. No chance they can catch all of them before the game ends. Pick Schemes like Breakthrough and Hold Out and use Lilith as a guard for your deployment zone.

For a general all comers Crew, I think you will definitely need something else as well. The Tots are just not tough enough to win a battle on their own.

-Ropetus

Slaughter is really hard in multiplayer games, because if RAW, then you have to kill 2 or more crews! My group just plays that you only have to have one crew wiped out, whether you did it or not, to get the points.

It's difficult, but no more than any other scheme.

Uh, Slaughter is an insanely tough Strategy. Just compare it to Assassinate (which many already find a very hard Strategy compared to the rest). With Slaughter, you have to succeed in Assassinate AND in addition kill their entire Crew as well. Good luck if you're facing an evasive Crew such as Lilith, Marcus or Gremlins. Good luck catching all the little speedy bastards before the game ends.

Multiplayer games should be playd so that your Strategy targets only one crew, same to your Schemes. We have played this in a fashion that your Strategy targets the Crew to your left while your Schemes target the Crew to your right.

We have also removed those dull objectives. Slaughter because it's Assassinate++ and far too easy to spoil, as Natty pointed out. And Bodyguard because Assassinate already exists for the same thing. Also, everyone will pick it every time anyway so this way we get more picks for those actually interesting Schemes (we find it extremely dull if its possible to win the game simply by turtling your crew in an impenetrable defense and ignoring your opponents).

-Ropetus

I also just noticed Bette's double crows triggers. Another good combo for this. I am assuming that if you flurried you could potentially empty sombodiess hand calling the Slit Jugular Trigger on every attack. Haven't played Bette yet.

To make it even more ridiculous: Get a Steampunk Arachnid Swarm, cast this spell on it and Paralyze everything you hit with its Melee Master.

-Ropetus

It does not ignore Armor. Weapons don't do that unless it says so in the description.

At the moment, the only thing Magical affects are Spirits: Models with the Spirit characteristic suffer only half damage from non-magical weapons. Magical weapons and spells inflict normal damage on them.

-Ropetus

Question (since I don't have the book in front of me atm), does the ability only work on enemies or can you likewise stack the deck for yourself?

It does not specify defender. I think it might actually be better used on your own models. You have much more control over your own discard pile and this could potentially allow you to use some of your control cards twice during the turn.

With Deliver Orders this could be used to prepare two high cards for a decisive Strike: put the lowest card of the three on top to cast Deliver Orders on your Master, then you have two high cards on the top of your deck for an insane attack flip for your next Soulstoned Charge (Lady Justice, Perdita) or Flame Burst (Sonnia) to bring some serious hurt on your opposition.

I think this is the only other way besides Leveticus' Death's Lessons or Zoraida's Crystal Ball to know what you will get from a Soulstone Flip.

Looks like Distract has a lot more use than I thought, in a sneaky Malifaux way .

-Ropetus

Aye, in certain situations it can be good. Like I said, situational. One issue with it is that you deal no damage when you mess their deck so the cards need to be really low to hurt your opponent more than inflicting some Dg.

However, is it an ability you would regularly spend a medium-high :masks card from your hand? At least I think I would much rather use that one for Obey, Execute or Trigger Happy.

Of course, as a first Action after they have just discarded three aces from their hand it can be devastating, but even then their first Df flip will enter the discard pile after the combat duel so they have a chance to get 2 cards on top of their pile before that.

Situational.

-Ropetus

While the distract may not be easy to get off all the time, I see that + a gunslingers control being a very worthwhile addition to the Guild's masters.

It's not only the fact that it is hard to get off at the right time. It's more about the fact that it takes effect on your opponent's discard pile which they have a lot of control over. Exactly how often are there 3 low cards on top of your opponent's discard pile? Even then, your opponent will know what is coming.

Not worthless, just highly situational.

But still, they should be really good in games. Especially against those pesky Neverborn who can be so hard to catch otherwise.

-Ropetus

They indeed seem to be very fine models. Their attacks are very accurate and there's nowhere to hide. They're self sufficient in melee with their "push freely out of melee" Action so you don't really need to commit into protecting them (since they can already hang back behind terrain, far away from melee threats). They have a great Wp score as well and simultaneous activation is always nice to have.

While hard to hide from and very accurate, their damage output is very lackduster compared to all other Guild models. Without a :rams on the attack flip, you will hit, but like your opponent cares since you will only tickle them. Almost unavoidable damage is still a good thing to have.

Also I'm not sure how good Distract will really be. Unless there are three low cards or a Black Joker on top of their discard pile, I think just damaging the opponent is better in most cases. It requires suit as well so you most likely won't be able to use it when it would be good.

-Ropetus

In some situations he's better than the Poltergeist (when your opponent is a swarm rather than having one big minion you can distract.)

How? Poltergeist has two Rst: Wp Auras to use against hordes of enemies. And is much better at casting Pandora's spells too.

The point is not that the Child cannot do anything. It's that anything it does, every Master can hire something that does the same job much better for the same price or cheaper.

-Ropetus

Or you could just play the ability in a way that makes sense and is clearly supposed to work: The errata only replaces the effects of Link but not the limit of only 1 model linked to and the duration.

Bending of wordings and taking advantage of obvious typos is behavior typically found among 12 year old GW gamers. I have always thought this game has a more mature community.

-Ropetus

It's useless.

Thanks. Exactly what I thought.

I would like to see some better rules for it. The model looks kinda fun but with that statline I don't see myself ever fielding it and jeopardizing my Crew.

-Ropetus

Ah, You're talking about Pandora vs. Perdita compared to Pandora vs. anyone else. My point was that it's quite similar for Perdita vs. Pandora compared to Perdita vs. anyone else. Versus others Perdita can be very self sufficient thanks to her Immune to Influence and insane Df, not so much against Pandy. They both usually have extremely solid defenses against most enemy attacks, but not against each other.

Besides, I would be more worried about Lady Justice: A bunch of Guilders affected by Blind Justice is much nastier than Perdita.

-Ropetus

I can't help but look at this model's statline and wonder what is it supposed to do. Has anyone ever found any kind of use for the Child? Does it have some secret combo I haven't realized? For me it just keeps looking like an insanely useless model.

It is very very slow. It's almost useless for casting Magical Extension with unsuited Ca 3. It has an average weapon for a Totem which means its a joke that might sometimes do a point of damage. It's defenses are also nonexistant with abysmal Wp and Df. It has Harmless, which is useless since the model is not a threat anyway.

Misplaced sympathy is a strange spell, but requires suit and requires you to have high card in the bottom of your discard pile (so you pretty much have to cheat your first Duel which costs you the card you will just gain back...). Using it against opponents is a waste since they most likely have a useless card in their hand.

Paying 3 SS for this model seems insane to me. Any Master can get their own Totem for (at least) 1 SS cheaper and they will actually do something useful. Viktorias can hire it for 2 SS but when they can hire Student of Conflict instead for 1 SS more (if they cannot afford that, they should take more SS anyway...). If it costed 1 SS I would not hire it, since it's still useless. Even at 0 SS I would hire a real Totem. If it came for free with a bunch of Soulstones it could be considered but still...

Is this model really totally useless or am I just missing something?

-Ropetus