Headcase2

Dead models don't activate so I find the outactivation problem is of a temporary nature. As for ignoring armour: still not convinced. I find I encounter few crews that have more than 1 or 2 models capable of burning through armour, and most of them will quickly go down to a focused assault from a highly mobile model or have a damage output that is easily absorbed by your protect chain. And if you're not playing Protect with Hoffman you're not doing it right, if you ask me. If your meta is 3 Colettes and an Ophelia rounded out with some Levi and the odd McMourning then I can understand where you're coming from, but if you play a lot of different opponents I think it's less of an issue. And it's not because your armour is ignored that Hoffman is suddenly worthless or vulnerable...

Last tournament I played in I used a 35 SS Hoffman list with both a Peace Keeper and a Mechanical Rider (so much better for Hoffman than the Pale Rider in my experience) plus a Guardian and 2 Watchers. First time not using at least 1 Witchling in a really long time. Anyway, I managed to keep the Peace Keeper alive in all but 1 game (Colette's bloody Mannequin Replacement), but then the Rider just picked Hoffman up and continued the butchery at the other end of the board. I'm still a big fan of the heavy hitters with Hoffman, because a reactivating Warden can't ever come close to what a Peace Keeper can dish out. Also, Armour +1 versus Armour +2 is an enormous difference. Armour-ignoring attacks are still fairly rare and if you make them priority targets your Hoffball can weather pretty much any storm. Just make sure you bring a backup plan!

Hoffman can only ignore the Dampening ability if his totem is nearby. Anyway, Protect rules. His Stalwart aura isn't that good anyway if you're playing Hoffman, it tends to do more harm than good because as soon as you activate it an opponent could spam your models with weak attacks that suddenly do 2 damage instead of 1 (hurray for the Gremlin gun line!). Once active you also can't remove it for the rest of the turn (Maintain Machines doesn't remove effects, it only suppresses printed abilities). And Disrupt Magic... well, either live without or use Witchlings I guess.

<-- This.

As for the Mannequin: yes, just pick it up and place it in base contact with the target of the link.

Hmmm... 1. Witchling Stalker: Dispel Magic, Disrupt Magic, Cb6 with a minimum of 3 damage, scout and hunter. These guys are the $$$$$$$$. 2. Guardian: Extremely hard to kill (usually), free healing, another disrupt magic, and he keeps alive what you like best. 3. Watcher: 3 points, impossible to pin down and... significant. Hell yeah. 4. Nino Ortega: Kills stuff good. Reliable and peforms well without your precious hand cards. Head shot becomes more potent when the game size increases. 5. Dunno. Depends on startegies and masters and such. The 4 above will perform splendidly regardless of... well, anything. The reason santiago's not on my list is twofold: if he gets in melee he is totally screwed and he's bloody slow unless he's near death, which makes it hard to keep him out of said melee. ---------- Post added at 10:25 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:21 AM ---------- Comes pretty damn close to my list. *smug* The reason I don't put a Death Marshal in there is because on a terrain-heavy board (which is the standard Malifaux table) the lack of hunter on a shooty model is a bit painful.

You could give them harmless anyway. They'll lose it right away when they do anything, but it still fits well with the fluff (i.e. no one cares about the random bystander, until he decides to pitch in and help the good guys). No balance issues. P.S. Great concept!

The GT last year was 3 scraps and 2 brawls.

Lucius at 25 points is rubbish unless he's leading the crew himself (in which case he can be pretty awesome with the right strategies/schemes). Anyway, to your question: if you know all strategies up front you can save some schemes for certain strategies. If you know you'll be playing Turf War or Escape and Survive you could save your Breakthrough for that. If you favour a high risk/high reward style you could use Assassinate and Raid on Slaughter. Some schemes to steer clear of, if you can: Round Up, Family Justice, Steal Relic, Frame for Murder and Eye for an Eye, and announced Grudge or Kill Protégée in extremely competitive environments. The "easy" stuff: Breakthrough, Hold Out, Assassinate, Bodyguard, Stake a Claim, (+Exterminate, Grudge and Kill Protégée). Save some of these for the tougher matches!

Also, Spending 2 cards, an (all) action from Hoffman and the 3-point attendant and 2 AP from the 10-point Alyce to gain 2 lousy SPAs within 6" of your deployment zone... not even that good to be honest.

Okay, maybe my first post didn't convey the rules behind this, but Requirement said it already: since Single Minded is an ability with a defined end point it remains active, regardless of reverting to original form, until that end point is reached or it is somehow removed (by Dispel Magic, killing Myranda,...). The fact that it's not printed on her card is irrelevant.

Technically the action fails and the AP is lost, but it is indeed considered good sportmanship to remind your opponent of I2I in most cases.

Sure, you don't need the expensive guys. Witchling spam works (although it's slightly boring). Also, I think 7 points qualifies as a "large beatstick" for most smaller games (9 point models in a 20 point list: rarely a good idea).

All I can say is: try it out. It will probably work for some strategies, while at others you will fail miserably. Personally I like the Scales of Justice (especially when combined with a Watcher), and I have to echo the comment about ss cache: Justice likes her stones, savvy opponents will try to avoid melee with her as long as her cache isn't depleted.

4 ss for some of the best minions in the game just doesn't feel expensive to me. We do have an extra-large selection of 7ss models, but many (most?) of them are worth those 7 stones (under the right circumstances).

1) It nullifies 1 sacrifice. If she gets sacrificed by two separate effects she's still gone. 2) Yes. 3) Yes.

I don't see why she wouldn't.

You can only channel (1) spells.

AR = additional requirement

It wouldn't stack, using it twice like that would be pointless.

The LJ thread is an old thread (pre-rules manual) and no longer applies. LJ is boosted by her own inspiring swordplay ability. Similarly, the Governor's Proxy gains +2 Wp from himself, which applies to Governor's Influence as well (so you test with an 8, just remember that the opposing model is considered the attacker - meaning he wins ties, but even Immune to Influence models need to make the test).

Yeah, no matter how much I want to like my pretty little Purifying Flame, it just sort of sucks. If only it had a :tomes in its casting stat... Anyway, the way to start with guild, if you ask me, is to just go with some starter boxes: they're all solid and contain models you'll want to have for your lists eventually. I'd take the Sonnia box first (duh), then Hoffman (Guardian + Watcher), then Justice (Death Marshals and some solid melee in the form of the judge) and by that time he should have a decent idea of which models he likes to play.

As a Ht2 model a Belle's LoS would not be obstructed by another gremlin (Ht1) in the way. As for "Oooo, a Girl": You need LoS from Ophelia to the gremlin you wish to move (because it says "target"), and then you just push that gremlin anywhere in base contact with her, regardless of obstructions and such.

I agree on point 1, but point 2 I see differently. A model that is targetted by Breathe Life doesn't gain an effect named "breathe life", it gains "(+1) XX expert". It's similar to the nurse's effects.

Sue can dish out burning tokens as well.