Necromorph

How I'd always played it. It's a single, unmodified and unmodifiable flip per model that touches him.

Huh...so is there any way we could make it any easier haha? ...Well at least he has to work for it now :whistle: . Just seems a bit odd that the master who IMO gets the biggest power increase (not saying he's op or in line with top tier masters or anything, but his avatar is a big power boost, pure and simple, unlike other avatars) gets the easiest manifest requirements. Nico can manifest beginning of turn 2, but you have to waste a lot of resources having punk zombies kill canines and basically waste a whole turns worth of movement with those models. The avatar you get out of it is pretty cool, but doesn't compare to the boost that Ramos gets.

Bingo, that's how I reasoned it. Depends though, cryptic rule wording has caused issue before...RM ruling to put the issue to bed would be best.

Seems a bit too easy to me. I've read it as you have to summon 2 spider or 2 ec ever since I got the book, and I've read many times. Doesn't mean I'm 100% right, but an RM clarification would be nice. I know there was a thread about it a long.time ago, but I don't recall having a RM ruling.

Yeah, I've never really had too much of an issue with them...unlike another 5ss model out there . Ive seen the annoyance in slaughter though, but its far from insurmountable.

Wow....so when its in play with one wd left and you kill it again, it still triggers dnd....thus remaining in play? When I read the updated wording for the ability I was under the impression that if you killed it, it would remain in play with one wd and recieve reactivate, but doing another 1wd would kill it (like an improved hard to kill). I figured that change would fix all the complaining about stitched....maybe they need to change the wording again .

A friend of mine bought all 3 terraclips sets at Gencon and is finishing putting them together. The really cool part about it is if you mix all the sets together, you can get damn near every terrain type. You have buildings, walls of various height, water, multiple levels, surfaces of multiple materials (wood, stone, brick, etc). You can also leave a few open areas and put some tree stands in for that kind of reference. As for non terraclips, yeah, anythign 3-5" will work, trees, buildings, hills, rocks, etc. To be honest, our LGC has a lot of older terrain from mostly 40k and Mordheim (the Mord terrain is great because it still has a malifaux kinda feel to it, but some of the pieces are a bit big). For example, our forest terrain peices are usually 5" in diameter, but some are small or strangely shaped. It workes though.

Besides the fact that Levi uses Alyce, Levi and Hamelin can't take any of the Outcast Mercs (desperate Mercs don't count because they're 2ss for everyone). Gremlins can only hire McTavish. You could make the argument for Viks, in which case it makes a little sense at least. However, (this is all just speculation and I know none of the Outcasts have a chache, but just to put it in perspective) Hamelin has a cache of 0. Dreamer has a cache of 5 (as Calmdown said, it's pretty much a given or something is wrong). Now, I realize they are both very powerful masters, but I would put the Dreamer a bit above Hamelin if I had to rank them on a scale...yet he has a 5ss chache and Hamelin has 0. Similarly, you are getting 2 masters with the Dreamer, just like you get 2 masters with the Viks, but the Viks have a 0 cache (not saying they or Hamelin need a chache) but something seems a bit off about that especially given the Dreamer's power level. To tie it in, the same could really be said for Nekima if she became a Henchman...the hell would a model like that be doing with a cache when other things have limited or no caches. I'm not saying it's not balanced in other ways, but if you're trying to justify the ss chache of masters, things like that kinda throw the whole thing to hell.

Since we do a fair bit of bulls**ting and take lots of breaks and whatnot, our games typically go around 2-3 hours, but if we're practicing for a tournament we can keep it to under 2 hrs. I once played a 7hour game...Yeeeeaaaahhhhhh, was a rough one, haha.

Ahhh, my bad, Omen, misread it like a champ. Still though, I would say that once the end of that turn has passed that they would be gone, and lose their chance to come back. If the Stolen or Waif came back on the table, well, they could do whatever, but neither will be doing much w/out their master on the table.

Nah, they'd be gone. There is no way to make waifs or stolen without the master on the board, so you don't need to worry about the master popping back up on later turns.

Honestly that's the only list I run him with. Levi, ashes and tons of SPAs, and maybe a dog for a 2nd waif. I've seen lists that squeeze alyce in, but then I find I can't take enough SPAs,or the canine for the waif (I know you don't need the canine, but I play defensively with levi and always like to have it). To be honest thought, he has little to no synergy with anything other than the SPAs, and I know I've seen lists that take him with other things and maybe only 1-2 SPAs, but I feel like its a gamble to expect the other SPAs to pop up where and when you need them. As for ashes' performance, I've never had a problem with him wrecking face, and I have yet to have it permanently removed from the game. It makes a great one two punch with a desolation engine. The only thing I would say is to keep an spa in position to move backfield a bit if possible. If the core drops in the.middle of an enemy crew its over, and you need to be able to pull it back with contort (or toward the table edge that the storm popped up on). In that way, I would advise caution when using it. Ashes is definitely not a tank, and woth df 5 and only 8 wd it won't be sticking around if its in a bad position and the enemy makes a point to kill it. I use it as a buff bot / manipulation tool while I set up levi and the Desi. When an SPAs or Desi is in a position to contort to, without too much fear of retribution, I warp him in and smash something. Ashes is a little more complex than it seems and you really have to be careful when you decide to bring it into the fight.

Yes, Rami was misprinted with the wrong weapons on his Dumb luck, this is obviously a typo and the correction can be found by following the link in this thread: http://wyrd-games.net/forum/showthread.php?t=19972

Yeah, forgot she came with a bunch of little dolls...don't own her myself.

I think the problem is this. Yes, you CAN take horde crews with lots of masters. However, the only crews that will perform reliably, in the majority of the strategies, with a horde setup are probably Hamelin and some ressers like Kirai and maybe Nico, and Collodi. Sure, you can take any master, and spam that faction's least expensive minion to boost model count, but will it be effective except in very rare circumstances....no. Personally, I think Hamelin and Collodi are the best for this (kirai is in there, and can pull a horde off better than most, but not as well or as widely across strats as the others). Collodi, however, is currently limited in what models he can field. As for Hamelin being a negative play experience...yeah, he can be. The more I've been playing him at the LGS, the more people are getting used to his crap and are much less effected by it. Sure I get a "That's so f-ing stupid," every once in a while when I pull something really nasty, but how many other masters are there in the game that can pull that kind of reaction? Playing Hamelin against new players will be a negative experience (keeping in mind the skill of the Hamelin player) but Hamelin is one of those masters that you just need to play against a few times and figure him out. Yes he manipulates you, yes he gets in your head and yes, he forces you to change the way you play, but he is far from unbeatable.

EDIT: Dammit, beaten to the punch by Magic. (*psst* Magic, check your PM's :whistle: ) While I'm busy harassing you, what do you use the alps for? I was thinking sitting on objectives and abusing cover with Tarkeppe (spelling?) could be pretty annoying...erm, uh...effective. /startrealpost: I'm sure others will weigh in, but some other models that work great with him are, Canine Remains Guild Hounds Night Terrors Sorrows Terror Tots (situationally) Desperate Mercs Yes, the core list you mentioned is his standard. However, the more I play the more I reserve the standard rat swarm / catchers list for certain strats. Sometimes having quicker, independent models like canines or NT's can be more useful, and they can turn into rats and thus catchers anyways if you keep them near Hamelin. As for rats I would keep anywhere between 12-15 for the most part, so you should be pretty much set. 6 stolen should be fine, so you're on the right track there. On that note, the more I play, the more I find myself not taking multiple stolen in my starting lists, especially in slower paced strats as you can be pumping them out for a (1) every turn anyways. It really depends on the strat and what you need/like, though. As for totems. The ones you listed are fine. I would add the student of conflict to the list, giving fast to certain models like nix, or an objective grabber can be awesome. I have yet to try the effigies with him, (or Crooligans) but I probably will be in the near future...maybe others have tried them and have some thoughts. Although, as you say, the Arcane Effigy seems very useful to me, especially (but not limited to) when you want to manifest his avatar. That extra cast could come in really handy for meeting manifest requirements. A great way to play around with crews is the crew creator on Malifaux.com. I've been messing with it a lot, and it's nice for masters like Hamelin and Levi to show you all of their options in 1 big list so you don't forget about models. (Ex. I never thought to use sorrows until I saw them on the crew creator, and even then it took Magic pointing out uses for them for me to really get it, sometimes stuff falls through the cracks and you forged it exists/is even an option, haha).

Hamelin isn't necessarily undead, but he is a walking plague...I guess that's close, haha. He can take a few undead models though...don't know, depends on how much you want to stick with the horde theme or the undead theme haha.

I suppose she probably does. She doesn't absolutely need one, but it would prolly be advised, so yeah I guess shed be out if you don't wanna buy anything extra.

You can do quite a bit with him. As far as buying models goes, some good ones are , Rats and rat catchers are a given. Canine remains and guild hounds Night terrors Sorrows (found out some tricks with these guys thanks to Magic) Desperate Mercs Yeah there's a bunch more, and all of them are very low ss models. Id say just play around with him a bit and get a feel for what you like, and if you want to talk strategy, send a message to Magicpockets or myself and we can help you out.

Pandora, Zoraida (I believe), von schill, nicodem, Marcus maybe...uuuum, I'm sure there's more out there.

Kirai and hamelin have lots of cheap options to build swarm lists. Dreamer can as well, thogh I think hamelin and kirai can pull of a huge swarm much better.

Thanks elril. I'll reveal more about his abilities when I get the writing bug again. As for the equipment he's got, I was going to touch on it briefly in a follow up, but you raise a good point and ill make sure to add a larger chunk of his background. Hell, maybe ill slow it down and do a multi part story with a section more focused on his past and the events leading up to the bar fight.

Well, I finally caught up with the whole story...took me a while, haha. Very nice work, E. I like the scope of both factions' inclusion in the story. As others have said, I like that both sides are portrayed about equally. The characters are original and well written....Can't think of anything that really stands out that needs fixing. Keep up the good work, look forward to reading more.

Still toying around with his alliances at the moment, hopefully I'll get something written soon. Waiting for something to break my writers' block, haha.

Good catch. Makes sense now. It has never been an issue where we've had to look into the closing phase like that. Didn't know that you resolved effects in activation order....usually there isn't a conflict of abilities like that. Good to know though.