Ensiferum

We both had only one requirement when we Manifested. I find Zoraida's requirements to be a little tough, especially if you want to have them out by turn 2. I only got to cast Crystal Ball twice, the second time at the beginning of turn 3 before manifesting. If you plan on manifesting with 2 requirements at turn 2 you have to go out of your way and play it close, probably using your good cards. But coming out on turn 3 with 1 requirement is usually easy.

I don't often post battle reports but since this one involved 2 Avatars, I felt it might interest a few people. I was very eager to try out Zoraida's avatar, and having a game against another avatar seemed like the perfect occasion. It was a 35ss game, so nothing too fancy because we wanted to concentrate on the (many) new abilities of the avatars. Crews: Zoraida + Bad Juju + 2x Stitched Together + Doppleganger + Insidious Madness ( + Voodoo Doll + Wicked Dolls off the table) = 32 ss + 2ss for the Avatar of Fate = 34ss Sonnia + Guardian + Bishop + Witchling Stalker + Santiago Ortega + Hunter = 35ss i think with the Avatar of Conflagration The Game: We set up in a plain-like terrain, inhabited only by a lonely farm and a few trees around it. Nothing fancy but it only served to make the following fight more epic. Both crews were on a reconnoiter mission (probably got an anonymous tip that the (hopefully) dead peasant had a stash of great value lying around). It was not by chance that two excellent magic users met each other in such an open terrain. Someone must've planned this. Immediately on sight, both masters knew they had to off each other swiftly and without mercy, but they also picked the highest targets to eliminate, Sonnia being afraid of what the Doppleganger might do, and Zoraida knowing for a fact that Bishop's legendary fists would pose a major threat to her well-being. Both crew faced each other for a fleeting moment (even though there wasn't much to face with a hill and a forest in between them but let's keep it fancy). ROUND 1 Zoraida won the initiative and started the hostilities by making a cute voodoo doll resembling oddly Mr Bishop. By pure coincidence at the moment she was done, the poor guy started turning a little green... Fortunately for him Sonnia was standing closeby and prevented the Hag from taking control of him. After that the crews advanced on each other, keeping a safe (and healthy) distance between them. A hunter was coming around, ready to jump on the doppleganger. But the roles were soon switched from hunter to hunted with the apparition of a giant mud golem coming from the very ground not so far behind him. ROUND 2 With the Doppleganger bringing Ill Omens to Sonnia Criid and her crew, Zoraida managed to take the initiative again... to give it to Bad Juju. The oversized mud heap swiftly charged in the back of the hunter and smacked him in the face, leaving dirt and grass all over the metallic body of the robot who still eluded its destruction. The Hunter replied by taking a swing at the Doppleganger who was innocently standing by. Not quite happy to be hit and after turning a few colors, the ganger changed one of her arms into a giant mud arm very much like the ones Juju was sporting and punched its agressor in the face (again) who avoided the strike. A little further, near the forest, another fight was taking place. The weirdly shaped Insidious Madness floated around and landed near Sonnia and her pet Witchling. He then proceeded to erode the sanity of his neighbors by sending them into a Psychopathic Episode. Using that distraction, a nearby Stitched Together who felt lucky went ahead and gambled his life. The Witchling Stalker, preoccupied by the strange pictures playing in his mind of naked magicians performing various tentacle-oriented spells on each other, completely tanked his gamble and died (once is all it takes... play carefully). Seeing the result of this first gamble, the psychopathic d-bag turned towards Criid who, in addition to being hurt from her pet's demise was ALSO seeing disturbing pictures in her mind. They played, she lost, and the bet took a toll on her health. Zoraida was feeling pretty good about how things were going at this point and, being a master of fate and all, she felt it was about to go even better. ... Well she must have smoked some bad mushrooms that morning because everything went to hell at this point. Bishop came around and punched the Doppleganger in the face so hard her face transformed into a bloody pulp... oh wait that wasn't mimic, that was her DYING. But he now standed in the middle of an angry mob of Neverborns. Zoraida decided he'd have to pay for what he just did but then again, bad mushrooms for breakfast and she decided it'd be good for him to be unable to cheat his fate anymore even though he'd already done his deeds for the moment. After that she tried to take control of the 2nd Stitched Together so he could gamble with Bishop but completely tanked her spell. She then decided to leave magic aside for a moment, transformed into a crow and moved away. The Voodoo Doll attempted to take control of the Stitched too and managed it. But the gamble was largely won by Bishop who proceeded to kill the Stitched. But the bag of candies and various disease carrying unidentified objects wan't going to leave it at that. He came back and gambled again with Bishop, only to lose once more and go back to dying alone in his corner of shame. After that Sonnia did her part by offing the annoying nightmare standing near her and broadcasting its PG-99 pornographic mind channel and spreading fire on whoever was in sight. ROUND 3 So after the mitigated results obtained till there, Zoraida decided it was time to raise the level and unfolded her crystal ball to peek into her opponent's fate. She saw that luck was about to strike the next action Sonnia or her crew would attempt and decided it would be nice if said luck (aka Red Joker) was happening on something useless, so she Bewitched Bishop. She then invoked her highest powers and manifested herself as the Avatar Of Fate herself (using lots of magical cosmetic surgery in the process). She still had a little energy left after the change to throw a box of sewing at Bishop (Pins and Needles), expecting it to fail but waste the ennemy's good fortune. Surprise, luck was on both side that round (flipped a 13) and the spell went through, succesfully scratching Bishop. The ranks started to be thinner on both sides and while Bishop and Bad Juju exchanged hand-made autographs on each other's face, Sonnia burst into a fiery hell of combustion and conflagration to become her Avatar. Much to Zoraida's surprise, said Avatar really had a LOT of punch. Bad Juju got badly hurt and the last Stitched Together died (only to come back of course !). But while keeping Zoraida entangled in a bloody fight, Sonnia was sending her minions around the farm to find the hidden treasure, leaving her and Bishop to handle the situation. Before dying, the Stitched bag'o tricks managed to steal a few kidneys from Santiago by gambling and took them with him to his grave, laughing. ROUND 4 Things were getting more intense and Zoraida's initiative, until then at the top, started to falter and she barely managed to grasp it that time. She quickly manufactured a Wicked Doll and sent it lose, then went Scrying into her ennemy's fate. Unfortunately there wasnt much else she could do at that point. Bishop and the Juju kept fighting but now Sonnia was fully ready and unleashed a fury of flames severely wounding the mud golem who almost became solid clay. She summoned pillars of fire that blocked and burned everything they touched, making the battlefield a very dangerous place for Zoraida and her last minion (the wicked doll having been burst into flames). ROUND 5 This time Sonnia got the initiative, even with Zoraida's ability to improve fate for herself. Criid kept burning everything in sight and wounded Zoraida, but still couldn't finish either her or her golem. Bad Juju killed Bishop at last but was separated from Sonnia by walls of fire. Zoraida started panicking and threw her whole sewing kit at Sonnia, effectively placing her on the brink of death but the Avatar of Conflagration survived using her cache of handy soulstones. The Guardian in all that was, as was said earlier, scouting far away from the fight, and so was Santiago. ROUND 6 Sonnia went first again and almost burned Zoraida to death, but the young (old) lady managed to keep some of her skin burn-free by covering it in soulstones. She then returned the favor by killing Sonnia with a needle in her forehead. The mud golem managed to get a charge on an unaware Santiago and almost killed him but Ortegas are tough and Hard to Kill so he survived, bleeding from several large cuts. On the good side for him, the mud in his wounds made nice cheap band-aids. The skirmish ended there, Zoraida winnin because she managed to stay alive and her ennemy didn't. But too badly wounded, she gave up on finding the treasure and decided it was probably bogus anyway and she'd have to talk to her informant. END Thoughts: Zoraida: So this was my first game with Zoraida's Avatar. It was very interesting but i noticed that the Avatar feels more like a sidegrade than an upgrade. She does get casting master and she also gets a very handy attack spell, as well as a few interesting abilities but she loses the extraordinary mobility of the old Zoraida as well as Bewitch and Proper Manners. Since i played a lot with those talents and spells i kinda missed them on the new one but i guess i'm not used to her yet and Sonnia's Avatar kinda made me panick and shoot needles everywhere. I do like the healing talent though, comes in very handy and spamming it each turn to get some good cards helps. Sonnia: An excellent caster, one might argue easier to use than Zoraida maybe, that becomes an excellent Avatar. Her pillar of fire talent is insane ! 6Dg that you almost can't prevent or stop really hurts. Other than that she has a better casting than Zoraida's Avatar, which made me sad and keeps her counterspell that also hurts the caster... In short she was kind of built to kill Zoraida and if it wasn't for a large stash of soulstones and a lucky break when my Stitched Together gambled with her and hurt her, i don't think i would've survived the game ! The game: It was an awesome game, VERY close one too. We both made some critical errors at some point or another that in the end balanced themselves. Having 2 Avatars fight each other really was cool and it showed the meaning of Casting Master. To clarify, we didn't have enough models to win by Reconnoiter but we had both taken Bodyguard and Grudge, and since i killed Bishop (who was my grudge) and Sonnia while keeping Zoraida alive that gave me 4VP vs 2VP (he killed my Doppleganger).

Silurids may not look like much but believe me they're worth their 5 points. They're among the fastest minions you can get and used properly they're quite hard to kill. Use them for objectives, not for attack, unless it's against small targets that you can hit and run (they do that pretty well). They can withstand shoot very well if you use them correctly, but they're still very light and will get slaughtered by most melee oriented minions, so be careful. If you're playing an objective oriented game, like treasure hunt or destroy the evidence, pick them. If you're going for assassination, pick something heavier (Bad Juju is good but he tends to draw a LOT of firepower).

Actually... uhm. I could've climbed. Somebody just made it clear. It's on page 35 of the rules manual. I can climb and if i fall short, i just mark the position where i am. I think if i get a rat up on a building then (0)Writhing Mass then gets the rest up there too. Soooo yea. My mistake! Next time i'll know for sure! Still, it's not a bad strategy to make some sort of bunker up a building as it forces the attacker to plan his move very well or have all his models dying one by one. I'll see how it goes next time ! It was nonetheless a great game and i can't wait to see Lady J take her revenge, this time by going in there and cutting some heads... just don't cut rat heads!

Hm well that's what happens when you settle on rules without consulting the book. Thanks for the heads up.

Oh right sorry, i'm adding it here and in the OP. http://wyrd-games.net/forum/showthread.php?t=18577&highlight=hamelin

First battle report ! (Not my first battle though) 40 points On my side: Hamelin + Obedient Wretch + Nix + 2x Rat-Catchers + 2x The Stolen + 6x Malifaux Rats Opponent: Lady Justice + Lucius + 2x Guild Guards + 2x Guild Austringer + Drill Sergeant + Death Marshall + Lawyer My Strategy was Contain Power, so Lady Justice had to die >:| I also picked Plague On Malifaux (for the fun) and Stake A Claim. On the other side, LJ had Bodyguard on her, Frame For Murder (not announced) on a Guild Guard and the Strategy was Distract. The first few turns, nothing really happened. Basically my opponent knew he was going against a quite resilient crew and decided, since the strategies were what they were, that the best course of action was to take half his crew (Lady Justice included) and climb up a building, to safety. The rest stayed on the ground, shooting from afar. I was not too happy about that because Rats aren't renowned to climb tall buildings (Ht4) with their (-1)slow and 5 Spd. Which meant that not only my 4VPs were safe and sound on top of a building but also my opponent's extra 2 VPs were in the exact same spot. So turns 1, 2, 3 and 4 were mostly about Stolen getting shot or sacrificed (i wouldn't want that job), a few Rats spawning and Hamelin making as many targets Insignificant as he could. The situation didn't look good. My main meal was sitting on a platter way to high for my swarm to get and i couldn't send anyone with enough movement up there since it would mean certain death upon arrival. With that, my Plague On Malifaux scheme was going nowhere since the Guild was not anxious to shake my hand. I did get a kill for that but unfortunately it also was the Frame For Murder of my opponent (what a coincidence !)... Anyway we come to Turn 5 where the action happened. As i was desperately trying to catch up to a Lucius running away with my 8-or-so Rats, the ennemy Lawyer made one of my Rat-Catchers run away in fear of the law arresting him for possession and use of deadly homicidal Rats. So he ran, making for the closest table edge which also happened to be near the building from where Lady Justice was taking cover and raining bullets on whatever came in sight (mostly Nix for some reason). Seeing that man-rat hybrid stinking old cheese must have triggered something in her head because she jumped down the building and cut off his head, triumphantly watching as the body was being eaten away by Rats. The game stopped for me. Lady Justice was on the ground. Not only my 4VPs but also the opponent's 2VPs were stading in the open, about 14" or so away from my 8 hungry Rats. I could NOT make any mistake as next turn she'd be back up on her roof safely, my certain doom tagging along. The Rats turned around at once, forgetting about Lucius (who climbed up the building in a hurry), and moving towards Justice. Of course the Rat that was spawned from the ex-Rat-Catcher served as an anchor point for a LOT of (0)Writhing Mass, bringing my rats less than 5" away from the target. My second Rat-Catcher came nearby and slaughtered them all to make brand new ones, but this time most of them already in melee with the target. Nix came along, placing himself less than 2" from Justice to engage her and popped (0)Emptiness. The game was getting tense. Lady Justice, so close from climbing back up to safety was now swarmed with angry yellow-teethed writhing little beasts. I activated the newly spawned Rats. First thing 3 of them (who weren't in melee) did was to sacrifice themselves and get me a new Rat-Catcher. Oh but wait ! 3 sacrifices ! Nix likes sacrifices ! So to thank them he gave to 3 of their Rat buddies (0)Unconscious Behavior. So my 4 Rats left then started biting at Lady Justice. She had a (-) and the Rats had a straight because of (0)Impetuous. They dealt about 4 wounds but she used up most of her soulstones, keeping only 2 of them on the initial 5 she had for the fight. She was still alive but it wasn't over. My newly summoned Rat-Catcher still had to activate. The Guild tried to shoot him down but with Armor+2 it wasn't that easy and he lived to activate. Upon activation he slaughtered the rats and spawned new ones. He also tried to give the new ones (1)Vermin Frenzy but my best friend Black Joker decided it was time to show his ugly face. After all, he'd kept quiet on both sides for the rest of the game... Anyway i could then activate the new rats to take another bite at Lady Justice, bringing her to 4 wounds left and 1 soulstone remaining. Everyone had activated. Everyone except one Stolen i'd summoned that turn. He went for a (1)Bleeding Disease on Justice but in a last effort she used her last soulstone to overcome the feeble mind of the child and survived. Everything was then played on the Initiative of Turn 6... which i won. Hameling and the Wretch activated, the Wretch cast Bleeding Disease, killing Justice and Hamelin trotted off whistling to the deployment zone of my opponent to contest his Strategy. The game stopped there, we didn't check to see if my one Rat holding the Stake A Claim building would survive and bring me 2 VPs so we decided the game would be considered won by Hamelin the Plagued 2VPs versus 1VP for the Guild. Thoughts: Hamelin is not that easy to use and you need to know how each model is supposed to work in the crew in order to accomplish anything (thanks to Sandwich and his awesome Tactica about Hamelin! http://wyrd-games.net/forum/showthread.php?t=18577&highlight=hamelin), but once you understand how everything goes back to the Rats and getting more of them, you can do some pretty awesome things. The Rats are MVPs. With the help of Nix and the Rat-Catchers, they're EXTREMELY fast and dangerous to ANY model. With the help of Hamelin and the Stolen, Nihilism stays in play and the Rat-Catchers become quite the tanks with Armor+2 and Ruffian. In short, awesome crew with a very specific gameplay based around Rats and how to get them to their targets. Only problem was the building. They can't climb it (it was Ht4). I didn't try to see if i could have made it crumble by eating off the walls but even then it would have taken way more time than i had with 6 turns. Also Hamelin's crew has NO RANGE until you get some Blight Counters out there. It was quite comical to see the Guild bunched up on top of a building, trying to fend off a swarm of Rats. If i hadn't had Contain Power i would have had an easier time trying to win instead of waiting for my opponent to COME DOWN >:|

Very nice thank you for the clarifying ! EDIT: found it in the rule manual on page 19... it's called blight TOKENS. As for the pipes yea you're right i looked again on page 18 of the manual and it isn't said that simple duels have a defender. I guess i thought since it was triggered from an attack it'd mean the target was defending. So i had my 40 points game today against Lady Justice and as i thought that tactica helped A LOT. Before that i didn't even understand the extent of the rat's power. They are truly fearsome. I found out one thing though... one counter to Hamelin or more like his rats, depending on the strategies. Rats can't climb buildings. So basically what my opponent did was climb on a building, stay up there and shoot me. I was in a bad spot since my strategy was Contain Power and one of his schemes was Bodyguard. It's only because Lady Justice was bored and killed a Rat-Catcher that she came down and allowed my rats to quickly swarm her. Is there anything to counter the fact that Rats can't climb?

Hello ! First off, very nice read. I just got my rat catchers and obedient wretch and i'm about to go for a 40 points game and i'm sure what i read will help a bunch ! I have a few questions though. I kept looking and looking for the answer to this one because the question seems dumb but i don't find it anywhere so i'll just ask: Why do you say Blight Counters add 1 Dg to the Rats' damage? I don't see anywhere written that weapons placing blight counters on models deal +1 Dg. The only thing Blight counters do is work with (1) Bleeding Disease to give additional Wds to the target, but this isn't applied on any strike. I just can't find that anywhere in the rulebook or the cards so i turn to the forums ofc Another thing is, you keep saying that the pipes are a work-around to "Immune to Influence" but there also, from what i understand in the rulebook, it is not: Immune to Influence states: This model is immune to Wp Duels where it is the Defender. Pipes are an attack and the trigger to make the model insignificant is a Talent that requires a simple Wp Duel, in which the target IS the defender. Hence, the target is immune to the trigger. Also same problem against Ryle and his "Breach Psychosis" which is even more powerful. I read that and i was like "Damn that makes those guys really annoying to Hamelin since he HAS to kill them in order to neutralise them". And then i went through the Stolen card: they're the answer. Not only for (all)Abandon, which doesn't require any Duel, but mainly because of (1)Succumb. They remove the troublesome abilities until the end of the turn and the spell requires a Df Resist Duel, which means "ItI" and "BP" cannot prevent it. So basically the work-around Talents that prevent Wp-based abilities from doing anything to some targets is to get the Stolen to successfully cast (1)Succumb on the target, THEN cast whatever you need during the turn. I'd say Rabies can help with this too, as well as No Humanity. That's it I just want to know if i'm going the right way or i've just been missing stuff !

Thank you for your answer . Ok for the LoS. Someone else asked the question about reconnect being able to target a master and a rule marshall answered it was not possible, so i guess you can't target a friendly either, right? I mean since voodoo doll's conduit states "non master enemy model", if reconnect can't go on a master it shouldn't go on a friendly either...

Hello, new on these forums but i've been reading them for a little while now. So i've come upon a weird question while reading the voodoo doll's V2 card and i haven't found any answers yet on the forums. It's about the reconnect spell. Does it do EXACTLY the same thing as Conduit or just the parts without the nominated model? I guess what i'm asking is: is a nominated model the same as a targeted model? Conduit says: nominate non-master enemy model [...] when this model is SUMMONED. Does this still apply to reconnect, since the voodoo doll is already in play and it's using a spell? Also does that mean reconnect can target friendly models? And lastly, does the poison apply on the new target when voodoo doll reconnects? Many questions i know but i want this clarified because it can change the way i use this model