About Bad Ju Ju:
I am still waiting for my extra models to arrive so I have had a moderate amount of practice with the starter box. Initially I was pretty underwhelmed by Bad Ju Ju, but with some practice have come to rather like the big steaming pile. Here are my 2 guilders on the subject:
Eternal Dixie Cup
Unless the other crew has Slaughter he is a total recyclable dixie cup. Use once throw away, use again throw away etc. Although I have yet to Eternal him more than twice. That being said, since he is such a big beat stick its nice to throw him back into the action. Plus its demoralizing for the other player
Deployment
His use is really dependant on his deployment, but since you can deploy him almost anywhere this is a good thing
The real trick is to find a place where he is:
A. Out of LOS against shoot crews (Guild goody goodies). This is so they dont just shoot him to death the turn he arrives.
B. Near enough to enemy troops to be a threat but out of their charge range, be careful if the other side has hard hitting flyers/Jumpers like Mature Nephilim or those Cerebus kitty things. This is so they have to deal with him, but can't get to him easily.
C. You want to deploy him on the way to where ever the other guy wants to go, but off the direct path. Or failing this on the way to where your opponent knows you want to go, such as when you have declared a "Stake a Claim" or a "Breakthrough". The important thing here is that your opponent must feel the need to contest BJJ's deployment due to suffering a severe VP penalty if he doesn't. The real sweet spot is where it will take them a turn to get to him without any real chance of hurting him, since that will make sure that if they survive against BJJ it will take them at least that long to get back in the action. More than a turn away and he will be too far to act as a threat/lure/diversion.
If you have done all of the above your opponent MUST go after BJJ, and this means that either his force is split or diver it entirely from its main function. Both are good for you. Since the Zoraida starter box force is the most maneuverable in the game you can exploit either situation, either by ambushing the weaker portion of the opposing force, doing a straight up objective grab or picking off exposed stragglers... and there is always at least one.
Over/Under Reaction
It is almost impossible for an opponent to give the correct level of response to BJJ. If they send enough guys to totally murder him, have him fade back and after wasting a turn or two fight a glorious first stand and maybe kill a couple of opposing models. While this is going on you should have local superiority else where. On the other hand if your opponent underestimates the threat, kill off whatever is sent off after BJJ and then either have him hold the objective or trudge towards the wherever the rest of the action is. Both of these options means he will probably be healed by the time he has to fight again. While this is going on I usually try to con my opponent into another over/under reaction while BJJ is still wounded and thus "vulnerable".
Using Landslide
This does seem like a bit of rip off at first glance, but again after some practice I can understand why it auto wounds BJJ (in addition to it being quite cinematic in having him puke out parts of himself on the enemy). There are four main cases where this spell is golden:
1. You have opponent down to 3 or less wounds but are out of attacks. Odds are any opponent can do at least 3 wounds to you, so you are better off using mudslide even if it "kills" BJJ. The reason for this is that the opponent is permantly dead and you get to redeploy BJJ and recycle that dixie cup. Essentially this keeps you from having to use other resources to clean up BJJ's left overs.
2. When facing multiple opponents its always worth your while to landslide. I will usually landslide first and then Flurry afterwards, this makes it very likely that you will kill most mid level minions with a single blow, which in turn gives you the realistic potential to outright kill 3 fresh models in a single turn.
3. Cleaning up annoying low wound explody things like Witchling Stalkers, Ice Gamin and Steam Punk Arachnids. Its also handy against any kind of hording troops like Steam Punk Abominations as they tend to be in groups and are thus quite vulnerable with any survivors becoming the target of some close combat quality " swamp luvin' " from BJJ.
4. When an opponent overreacts to BJJ, the landslide and Flurry combo followed up by a bunch of Blood Lustin' catfish men can be a nasty combo. This is especially if you get to go first, as you can potentially get 4 attacks from BJJ and another 18 from the catfish men with your opponent only getting one activation in the middle.
So between points 1. and 2. you have your plan set for single tough or multiple weak opponents, of course if you are attacked with both BJJ will die. Now that is a case where they have overcommitted to attacking him, and so you will try and draw out the fight as long as possible by forcing them to chase you for a turn or two before you pile drive in Landslide and do as much damage as possible... Then Eternal back onto the board to grab an objective/treasure/quarter/deployment zone/opportunity to kill a hard to reach critical target etc etc etc
I guess to sum up my BJJ strategy, you always want to force your opponent into reacting to him through cunning deployment and then you always want that reaction to be either too much or too little. Once they overreact in one game, the beautiful thing is that they are almost guarenteed to underreact the next and vice versa.
I read elsewhere that BJJ was overcosted, but I really dont think so anymore. Hopefully a few of you will feel the same way.
