Necromorph

Very nice general section there Sandwich.

I have a couple questions on specific crews, though.

1- Last time I played the Dreamer I used a Stolen based crew, and it worked (barely), but it kinda felt like an uphill struggle to keep things organized, and it seemed like he was more than willing to discard cards to stop me from using (1) Abandon. You mentioned briefly that identifying and locking down Terrifying models was a key to succes with Rats, but what happens when everything (or damn near) is Terrifying? The first game I played against the Dreamer (we tied) was a mess because my goddamn Rats and Catcher kept running all over the place.

2- The Ortega's...We all know them, we all hate them, but I feel they are one of those crews that you just have to know how to beat if you're going to be successful. I'm trying to wrap my head around how the f**k Hamelin would take them out. They have range on you, they can abuse Companion like none other, and they have retarded damage output. Even with Devoured and Covered in Rats, I don't really see the Rat Catcher standing up to their punishment, and if Hamelin could get into range to spam (1) Understand the Soulless, then he would be in range of all of their guns as well and would be nuked quickly. ...Oh and lets not forget (0) Shrug Off.

Most other crews I can figure my way around, these two (Ortega's in particualr) I feel need some clarification, as they seem to comprise two playstyles (Morale Spam and Keep-Away-Nukefest) that are strong counters to Hamelin. Feel free to toss some ideas out there whenever you get the chance, I know you're still working on completing the tactica, but I'm in no rush.

Yeah, and because of that, Hoffman is really the only choice, as without a Toolkit, it would be too hard for Ramos to cast his :tomes:tomes spells and he would probably just slow you down.

Damn, yeah, I just see "Construct" yay! Oh wait....goddamn you Levi!!!!!

I see some possible counters with all of my crews...thankfully (As I play against the Dreamer often, and if he ever takes an Alp bomb I'll have some Idea of what to do).

Levi - In addition to throwing in constructs with blast damage weapons into the crew, Levi and Alyce can take care of them. Push Levi up with (+1) Necromantic Sacrifice, then (0) Desolation, which will drop all the alps to 1 wd. Then move alyce up, not on top of them, but close to some of them. Yes she'll take a little damage, but then she can use (0) Bag of tricks - Booby Traps. This forces the Alps to move away from Alyce or die during their activation and can move the bomb, or disrupt it entirely. As I said, you could also take a construct with a blast weapon and hit the bomb with it after Levi's (0) Desolation (or Ryle, even if he does weak dmg, he can gun down damn near the entire bomb if they're all at 1 wd).

Hamelin - ...Ummm...Irresistable Lure. He'll take some damage, but he can always come back, and you can take the whole bomb out in 1-2 casts, thus wrecking your opponents primary tactic for the game.

Von Schill - Specialist+Detonate Tanks = Dead Alp Bomb. If they bomb another model (say a strategically placed decoy, hehe), just activate the specialist and target your own model with the Flammenwerfer.

Yes, Hoffman is looking to be the more and more appealing choice. If only for the fact that you can still take a lot of constructs through Levi's hiring, and Hoffman can buff and support them very efficiently.

Ramos is still appealing to me for some reason, but if you used him with Levi, I would go for a pure summoning list with lots of SPA's and Spider Swarms. I would just have them flood the enemy and use the inevitably dropped scrap counters to make more models and keep a Desi on the table. In addition, Ramos can heal the constructs like Hoffman, and he can fill the role of support offensive caster with Electrical Fire (not the greatest spell, but it's solid).

Hoffman, however, can work with just about any constructs Levi brings to the table, though he lacks summoning and offensive capabilities. I'm not sure what I would run with him though, here's a couple silly little lists I came up with on the fly.

45ss (7ss Cache)

Hoffman - 4ss cache

Levi - 0ss

Alyce - 8ss

Guardian - 7ss

Modile Toolkit - 3ss

Ryle - 8ss

Mechanical Rider - 8ss

Hooded Rider - 8ss

45ss (6ss Cache)

Hoffman

Levi

Alyce - 8ss

Guardian - 7ss

Mobile Toolkit - 3ss

SPA x4 - 12ss

Ashes and Dust - 13ss

I keep taking a Guardian and a Toolkit for Hoffman is to keep him alive and casting happily, so he can wade up midfield to support the offensive constructs. In the first list, he would stick by Ryle, with Levi and Alyce supporting as a fire platform. The second list would work similarly, but would see more of a focus on the constructs, and less on ranged damage (perhaps a bit obvious, lol).

Any other fun list suggestions out there for either Master combo?

Edit: /sigh, Ignore the Toolkits in both lists, I'll have to think of something else to throw in.

So some of the people in my gaming group are looking into doing some brawls for fun soon, so far many of my friends only own 1 crew as they've only been into the game a couple of months. I have 3 crews and a bit more time in the game than them, but the problem is I don't have any compatible crews for brawls. I will be getting Collodi when he comes out, but that's some time away, and I don't need to do a brawl to get Collodi into Levi's crew.

I have Levi and Hamelin (and Von Schill, who isn't compatible), and while they can brawl it up together, they are limited to Alyce, Nix, Canine Remains, and Stolen......not a very diverse list, and I think it would get boring rather quickly.

I've been looking into either Ramos or Hoffman as possible brawl partners for Levi (I could use Nico but we have a Nico player and I don't want to tread on his turf, so to speak).

Does anyone have any advice on which of the two would be better to pair Levi with, or any experiences Brawling with Levi in general?

Very nice, man. Looking forward to the rest.

Well...I finally got that game in against Seamus, and those who posted earlier were right, he is definitely a bit more of a pain than Nicodem.

30ss

Seamus- Madam, 4 Belles, Hanged, Copycat.

(Shared Contain Power, Bodyguard, Holdout)

Hamelin- Nix, Wretch, 5 Stolen.

(Shared CP, Bodyguard, Hamelin's Scheme)

The first few turns were uneventful, my hand was horrible, and when I did manage to draw cards, they were low. I don't think I saw a single card over 8 in my hand until turn 3. I kept trying to spam abandon on his crew, and he happily discarded cards. Not only that, but he wouldn't cheat anything because he knew it would let me draw, unfortunately, this made the game very slow for both of us. Finally managed to start getting cards in turn 3, and managed to nuke down 3 belles, the Hanged, Copycat and Madam on bottom of turn 3 and 4. Sadly, I lost track of time a little, and thought turn 5 was turn 4, so I didn't have a chance to really stick it to Seamus before the game ended. When it ended, he had Seamus and a belle left, and I had 1 stolen, the Wretch and half a dozen rats on him, but didn't get that extra turn to burn them down.

The game was a draw.

Had I remembered it was turn 5, I could have made the rats into a ratcatcher and manuvered them to his deployment zone to deny him his Holdout VP's, but yeah, I suffered a minor spell of retardation and forgot what turn it was.

I feel if I had played a rat swarm he would have cleaned the floor with me due to Lure's and Terrifying checks. As it was, he played rather intelligently. His refusal to cheat, and eagerness to discard cards to prevent Abandon from going off really slowed me down, but at the cost of denying himself some offense. In addition, he was smart to lure my stolen off to a flank and kill them to prevent their -2wp pulse from effecting too many of his own models.

All in all it was a very interesting learing experience for the both of us.

Ashes and Dust...

That is all...for now.

Edit: Damn, should read all the posts, lol...Wodschow beat me to it.

Haha...yes yes, it's an abomination...the leg is supposed to represent their "Hobbled" ability that only lets them take 1 walk per activation, lol.

So, I drew this at work with a very very very dull pencil, and then took a pic of it with my phone....as if I couln't do anything else to make my already mediocre drawing skills any worse, lol! If you can guess what it is, and what the broken leg signifies I'll give you an e-cookie.

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From a purely, "Kill Seamus" standpoint, no, Von Schill will have a damn hard time pulling it off. As far as just winning games against Seamus, I don't see the 'korps being any worse than anyone else. You're more manuverable and longer ranged. Just don't pick Assassinate as a scheme, lol.

Yeah if anyone pulled that loop in any kind of competitive setting I would have them disqualified and/or lynched publicly, lol.

Surely it will be fixed, but for now yeah, just pretend it's not there.

Awesome review Sandwich.

I particularly agree on the Nix points. My first couple of games it seems like everyone said "I gotta kill Nix first!" and he would just get nuked before making it through a couple of turns. Now I just keep him back and support, he's much better backfield and alive than rushing up and dead.

One thing to note about Rat Catchers is yes, they are a core part of your damage dealing strategy (synergizing with rats, etc) but they will be hard to keep alive against Lure/Obey heavy lists (Seamus, Pandora, etc) and are very vulnerable to Morale Duels (/cringe @ Dreamer crews).

Also, if (or should I say "when") you get the most important models in the opposing crew to become Insignificant, you can spam Irresistable Lure, and do some serious damage. Yes the 0/3/6 dmg may look a bit chancy, but hey, even if you do get a weak flip, that Insig. model can't attack Hamelin!

Looking forward to your full Tactica, Sandwich, would love to toss some ideas back and forth now that I finally have all of my rules/list comp. f*ck ups and questions sorted out with Hamelin's crew.

If you're going in a more "shooty" direction, convict gunslingers can add some extra firepower to your list.

Levi just doesn't impress me. He is pretty easy to take down, and a lot of his crew is insignificant.

Eeesh, never thought I'd see Levi make this list, lol.

He's not exactly hard to win with, he's just a bit more complex in his rules, and the diversity of his crew, thus takes more time to master his nuances. His starter crew is mainly insignificant, but he can field a remarkable amount of models from "all" factions which are not insig., thus giving him a tremendous amount of variety that can be tailored to any playstyle. However, knowing what models to take vs. certain masters takes some tough learning, and can make him seem underwhelming if he's used incorrectly with poor crew selection.

As for killing him easily, it's not really that easy. The only crews I've seen take him down easily are Perdita and Sonia (austringers+family nuke, and Advaced Counterspell can be ugly)...and maybe the dreamer due to his ability to get behind levi and kill his waifs, but yeah. Being able to get close, deal with Levi's damage output, and take care of him and 2 waifs in a turn isn't quite as easy as it sounds every game.

If played by a very skilled person (not that I am, but I've seen it done) Levi can be nigh unstoppable vs. a lot of crews.

On topic, from what I've witnessed, the 3 crews I'd say are:

Lady J

Viks

Marcus

(Ramos doesn't seem all that awesome, but I've never seen him played so can't speculate).

Levi is a solid master to run Jack and some Hanged with. I don't know if I would compose the whole list out of them, but I've had some good games using them.

Jack combined with Bete and Alyce makes a damn nice "force discard" list, and/or adding some hanged with jack can make a nice distraction/debuff crew for Levi, giving him free reign to wreck face.

Can't lie, Levi (Well more importantly his abominations/desi) and Von Schill were the reasons I got into this game.

Hamelin is another bonus....and ofc I'll be betraying my roots when Collodi comes out but hey, I can indulge a bit, right?

While I'm sure if Levi was a Guild Employee, such benefits and rights may be extended to his employees. However, because he operates far from Guild control, and the underside of his business is highly illegal...something tells me noone would say anything if a Steampunk Abomination missed a yearly physical, lol.

Hmm...something like this had crossed my mind while fiddling with random lists. Question though, would anyone consider taking Von Schill? I know he'd be 10ss and if you don't take any other 'korps with him he looses some synergy, but he does have one of the best ranged dmg spreads in the game, he's fast, and has use ss.

The question you would have to ask yourself is quality over quantity as you couldn't take both Von and Ryle. I only ask because I already own Von Schill and he can be a beast.

I had 11 by the end of a 25ss game, if I had been playing a 35ss game it would have likely been 15+ lol.

I was also wondering this, my cards don't say that they are rare at all.

Ashes and Dust

Alyce

Nix

I guess this is a question, not a guess, but it's something a couple of guys at the LGS have been discussing.

Does the fluff (not models obviously) for LCB or Collodi draw from Stephen King's IT? I know neither are c.lowns, but Collodi is dressed like a c.lown sorta.

Granted if there is it would be an extremely loose connection, but the whole eating children/feeding on emotions/fear thing and the fact that they're both neverborn (i.e. not from Earth) kinda reminded us of IT a little.