Adran

Its the power of it combined with Undying that truely make it brutal. It on its own is nice but almost all models can still harm it. Its powerful, but all it does is mean you need to use 2 AP to hit the model rather than 1. (so is comparable to mass distribution of slow).

I would advice you to try what you have first, before buying new models. Whilst I think the rail golem is a great arcanist model, he might not combine well with Rasputina, especially at lower point levels. See if you can get a game with Snowstorm and with the Blessed, as see how well you find those models. I've yet to try the metal gamin, but I don't personally rate the Ice Gamin so I wouldn't be surprised if the metal gamin were better. You might play Rasputina very differently to me, and find the Ice Gamin amazing. Just remember you only win games by getting VPs.

I would have assumed that the rail worker can choose to use his 3" weapon range at the end of the charge. My guess would have been that you do the move part of the charge, and then you resolve the strike part of the charge, which will include picking the weapon option. I don't have any rules to hand to back this up. I am pretty sure that his activation doesn't end though. That isn't a charge rule its a rule that applies to some bonus charge actions. He doesn't have any AP left normally, but he could still do a 0 action, or he might have been made fast...

The Wicked doll card itself says that this model may be summoned by the create voodoo doll action.

The only down side to that is it is pretty card intensive to do. That means its not consistant. It also has the risk of making a very static group (of death to be fair) which will just be ignored by your opponent whilst he gets his own VPS. There are times it will work and be great, especially for missions where you are defending an area. Other times you won't get enough targets to blow up. I Like Marcus, and brought duplicats of the rattler and the Sabertusk, but they aren't the best choice of Beasts for him (although can make good targets for Myranda to transform into at times). For looking at playing Marcus competatively I would listern to the recent born on the bayou podcast, and look at some of UKRockys posts into his list selection.

What I would like to see is a second special force made availible to each faction, and a fleshing out of Horrors. I think each other current henchman has a good selection of minions, but Molly is still very restricted. I wouldn't object to each new special force appearing in its own starter box with a story inside it, rather than 1 big book connecting them all. The expected existance of Hannah as a figure this Gencon does make a big book more likely.

Its probably bad form to quote yourself, but it stands very strongly in context. That way you get 3 Viktoria actions and still a Manifest (all) action. The first Viktoria can even complete a manifest requirement. Its a shame about not getting the placement choice that the writing implied, but with the arguements the wording seemed to cause, the ease of this is probably worth it.

Not if they are shared stratergies

Wild heart is Marcus's salvation. It allows you to get a decent damage profile, turn your extra 0 action into a melee attack or a charge, help him move, give him paired increase his defense. With it he can easily charge and kill one seishin and then kill 2 others with his general AP. (Ok thats actually a fairly rubbish turn for a Master, but he can probably kill a couple of important minions with 3/4/6 magic damage) I would typically want to cheat in a tome as it lets me do 2 important things. The 3rd effect is really handy, as your default is probably one of the extra 0 actions and the +2 damage against Kirai. I would consider Df if I'm expecting to be left in the middle of the enemy, or paired if I am runnign a signifigant assasination run. Surge is a great way to cycle cards from your hand, and its well worth aiming for. I would happily cheat up to about 8 tomes to get the extra effect and card swap. How did the game go anyway?

Do you have to pick just one crew for the whole event? Do you know what Stratergies you will be playing? The biggest problem with your initial list is that you probably won't get any of your models past the middle of the table. Which is pretty bad at reconnoter, Distract, Plant evidence and Destroy the evidence. In a fixed list for December related models I would strongly suggest the Blessed, as it can actually move. I would consider the acolyte, but its often not that much use, and doesn't have Frozen heart. If you have something like Destroy the Evidence, look to fit in Snowstorm. There is no other way to get to your enemies deployment zone with most of the crew.

For learning the game I would focus on using multiples of the same unit as it reduces the things you need to learn at once. It might not be the most effective crew out there, but Lady Justice and 6 death marshalls will mean you only need to learn what 2 models do. Its not that bad a list either. A little slow but can certainly but the damage out in both melee and range. Otherwise pick what you like, you have a good range of the Guild there and can field several very different lists

You can typically play a good game by pitting one of the starter boxes against another. You will need a rules book (or the pdf on this site), your models and the cards they come with, a deck of cards each (you can use normal playing cards) that contain 2 jokers and some counters. There are a few masters who are a little harder to understand, but they aren't that much harder, so the best suggestion is get crew you like the look of and play with that for a few games. After you have got the mechanics of the game, you might want to expand you crew size. Most starter boxs let you play around 20-25 soulstone games. There isn't a standard game size, but ranges up to 35 soulstone are fairly common. Even these typically don't have more than about 6-8 models a side (although a few crews will have more)

Its a 1 action that gives a tome to target model, so it can be given to myranda.

The Mercenary Trait allows the model to be hired out of faction. So most masters could hire Taelor because she is a mercenary. Enthrall will all Zoraida to hire any wp4 or lower models out of faction. She may still only have 2 models with the mercenary trait from out of faction even if they have wp4 or less. 2. Henchmen have 1 card. They use it if they are leading the crew or not. Edit There are 2 minions who have been upgraded to master status so far. The Minion model is different to the master model. The correct card comes with the correct model, so buying Hamelin the Ratcatcher will get you the Minion card. Buying Hamelin the Plagued will get you the master card

In many ways once they are on the table Marcus doesn't care if they are a beast or not. So feel free to add gunsmiths and convicts as you wish. The only trouble is Marcus can actually hire from all 6 special forces (just) so you need to consider that carefully when you pick minions.

Since the rules manual there hasn't been much of a change. There is a slight change to the buried mechanic, in that the end of turn will still effect buried models, but thats unlikely to affect your crews. As a general rule most of the new models compliment existing models rather than outright replacing them. For example there is a witchling handle out now that can improve witchlings. So lots of crews use book 1 figures still, but alongside newer figures. New things you might not know about. You can play happily without them. Henchmen - can be used as either a minion or a master. Have restricted hiring if used as a master. Special forces - you are limited to 1 type of special forces in a crew, and no more than 2 special force models unless you include the head of the special forces in your crew. Avatars- A upgrade/progression for a master. You can attach one to your master for 2 ss. then during the game if you have achieved certain things you can change into the avatar form. Its by no means essential to own, its more a step sideways in power than a step up. New Faction Ten Thunders - is made up of a mix of models from different factions. A dual faction guild/ten thunder model can be used either in a guild crew or a ten thunder crew. The dual faction masters have a list of models they can bring regardless of the faction they are in. Basically you can still play your existing crews under the rules you knew 2 years ago and they work fine.

Killjoy is a friendly nephlim so Lileth can brood mother him. Or so I was told. I've just looked at the cards and he is a neverborn with black blood, but not a nephlim. Sorry for the error

Lileth herself does very little to aid a grow list so don't get trapped into thinking that she only does one thing. At most she might add 1 or 2 blood counters. IO think the other masters would do better leading that sort of list anyway. Both from a Fluff and game point of view. She is perfectly capable of leading any group of Neverborn to sucess. She is fast, good in combat, high defense with movement tricks and mobile cover, what more could you want. One of my Play group is doing very well using Lileth and collodi sometimes with Killjoy as well. You can easily make a list with what you have there using Lileth to compete in any of the stratrgies and against any other crew. The only thing I think you are really missing for 25 ss games is cheap signifigant minions. But its largely Reconoter when they would do best. And every master struggles with that at 25 ss

If you are woried about Spirits then magic damage and area effects are the two things to look too. I know Seishin can be sacfificed to prevewnt area effects, btu he only have so many Seishin. Also most of his models can attack Df or Wp and ignore armour. For Reconnoter you need Signifigant bodies. Willie can put out huge damage with his blasts, so is virually a garenteed Seishin sacrifice every time he activates. His Snares are also pretty good as no one knows when they are going to go off, so its very hard to sacrifice to prevent. Kaeris does well with blasts and magical damage, as well as multiple shots. I would imagine she is another auto sacrifice a seishin. And she can then still probably shoot another 4 of them and cast a spell. Marcus or Mei would be my masters of choice. Marcus gets the magical damage which is pretty good, Mei gets her whirlwind to attack multiple targets. She also has the melee spell with blast damage. Normally I would look to cheap signifigant models like molemen, btu they aren't good against the spirits. Fire Gamin might be your best choice as they hurt when you hit hit them. If you are using Marcus then Night terrors are pretty good. Killing the lost love is always a good thing as it makes the player worry about kirais summoning a lot more. Hope the adivice helps.

Mimic, closely followed by assimilate

Cheers for the reports, its always good to read them. I feel your pain about writing them later, I'm trying to write up my Sun sea and soulstones and already can't remember half of it a few days later. I know we've discussed the Lzarus link before and that this is from memory, but you can't get Lazarus to link on the first turn. Its good to see what the Lazarus Duet can do though. Glad to see that you feel that Cassandra is a better use of points.

No. A Master can only be connected to 1 totem at a time (unless the rules for that totem say otherwise). So if Zoraida is connected to a primordial ooze, she is not allowed to summon a voodoo doll. If the Ooze is removed from the game some how then she can summon the Doll.

Myranda has always looked like she should be great. My personal experience with her is that she didn't meet up to it. Mind you I've not used her for at least a year. Her Furious cast and animal instict should be a good combination. You just need a beast with a good spell to copy. And preferably a second reasonable spell if you don't get the number/suit for the good spell. Her ability to get the stats of any one of several beasts should be good. Dream combinations of her starting as a cerberus, using the 2 headed attacks, then dropping into her normal form for Meleee expert and finally turnign into something like a shikome or a mauler to finish off looks like such a good combination. Typically though you would have been better of with the original beast. There are so many potentially awesome combinations out there, but they all just seem to involve such a convoluted couple of turns that they aren't consistant. At some point there will be a combination that turns her into amazing, I'm sure of it, I just haven't found it yet. The current nearest is turning into a raptor, beasting Rasputina and adding an extra 3 casts of Decembers curse a turn. I want her to be worth the stones, but my personal experience is that she isn't quite there.

I'm hoping that increasing the number of special forces out there will reduce Von Schills prevalence in every faction. But the fact that any crew lead by him is probably better if it had the Viks in just says they are worth at least 13 soulstone. Interestingly from the Brawl rules we got a rough cost of them at 15 soulstone (the difference in soulstone pool for a crew hiring them as a second master, and one not hiring them) which was seen by most as too expensive, its a fine line they walk on.

Sorry, I was sure I'd written an answer to this thread. For Guild crews You can't go far wrong with the starter boxes. My suggestion to flesh out the Ortega crew is probably to buy the Witchhunter box as well. The Witchlings are a great 4pt model, and Sammual Hopkins fits the look and feel of a pistol shooting crew. In all honesty, all the guild figures work well with all the guild masters so there isn't a wrong choice. With regards to the other crews - you have a nice range of Neverborn and 10 Thunders to choose from. Leveticus is always a bit of a tough one to suggest buys. About the only universal advice is get a canine remains as you are going to want a second waif and that is th echeapest way of garenteeing it will be there. Both Lazarus and the Rail Golem wil work well with him. I don't think there is anythign Vital you are missing. After you have played a few games you might find things you're struggling with, but I would play with what you have to start with and get an understanding of it first