Keegantir

Updating it to include both G&TBoy's and mine. Seamus - 75 Marcus - 100 Sword Vik - 80 Hamelin - 45 C. Hoffman - 90 Lady J - 75

Because it is a push not a place, so the model must have a path that it can follow to get to where it is going.

Sword Vik kills a Belle (+5) and Whirlwinds to Seamus (-10). Seamus - 75 Marcus - 95 Sword Vik - 80 Hamelin - 45 C. Hoffman - 90 Lady J - 85

You can measure melee range at any time, including during your opponents turn and during movement.

Not in my opinion. If you want the ranged option take the Trapper. If you want a hitter, take Taelor. If you want resilience take Von Schrill. If you want healing take the Librarian (I rarely play without one as the heal hits both Viks). As far as activations and leaving a Vik out there. The Student of Conflict gives fast, but is usually left behind. Sending a Vik out is usually a suicide mission, but it is worth it if you take enough out. I am wondering how he does on hand management, as this is crucial with Viks. High Masks should be kept for Whirlwind and nothing else. Low masks can be cheated in, in certain situations, then adding a Soulstone to win the duel. Add that to the paired swords and the 2 attacks turns into 4+. If you had the action for Sisters in Battle, you are doing 20+ damage on the suicide run, which is usually enough. This is some core strat. I use this as a model, then modify it depending on the situation. First turn I will move up Sword Vik and SiS the Sword Vik up, who can attack twice, or move 3" (this puts her in the middle of the board first turn) and attack once. If I am using the Student, it always double moves first turn. Second turn, you can companion them all, Fast the Gun Vik, move her up, SiS, SiB, Melee Expert if something is in range, then Sword Vik can get out there. If you are more than 18" away than you are in a corner of the board, so she will get to things. If you play Viks conservative, you are probably going to lose. You have to play fast and hard with them. One or both of them are going to die, just take out as much of your opponent as possible in the process, which is usually enough. Viks typically play a game of attrition. Most other crews get to a breaking point after you have taken out so much. Viks don't have that breaking point until their last model is dead. 7-8 stones is a must. I tend to stay roughly together, but the Ronins can easily outpace your crew, especially to tie up crucial models or areas. The ability for the Ronins to move 14" and get 2 attacks along the way can be great if the situation requires it. I will restate it because it needs to be said over and over. You win with Viks by playing hyper-aggressive. Some situations require you to be a bit more conservative, but those are the exceptions, not the norm. In a Viks crew, everything is a threat and nothing is essential. Using a Vik as bait, knowing that it will get her killed, is acceptable if you get as much or more out of the deal. All in all, tell your buddy to keep at it. The Viks are awesome, but some people need to learn how to play aggressive with them to get the most out of them.

Your poll left out the option to play with the model anyway. Personally, I do not care how a model looks. I play this game because the ruleset is fantastic, and it is fun to play, not because the models looks good or bad. The game would be just as fun for me if we were playing with empty bases with a name on them. While I acknowledge that it is different for you, and that is perfectly fine, I just wanted to point out that your poll is missing what I consider to be the best option by far.

Not going to join the argument here, just wanted to post average damages for those theoryfauxing in the conversations. Average Damage of the Trapper on hits, from flipped damage (no cheating on damage): :-fate:-fate: 1.64 :-fate: 1.9 Strait: 2.49 :+fate: 3.18 So, with a :-fate:-fate on all damage flips, you would have to hit 7.3 (8) times on average to do 12 DMG. With :-fate on all damage flips you would have to hit 6.3 (7) times on average to do 12 DMG. With Strait flips on all damage flips you would have to hit 4.8 (5) times on average to do 12 DMG. That is not counting stones, hard to kill, or any healing, but it is also not counting any cheats for any potential striat flips. That is also not counting how many times you would have to attack to get that many hits. I only bring this up because people always expect negative flips to equal min damage, when even with a :-fate:-fate you are only doing min DMG about 65-70% of the time. That is the majority of the time, but when you are hitting 10 times about 3-4 of those attacks should do more than min DMG.

I run 4-6 with him in situations where they are better than Rats (which is not always).

Don't be surprised if in some future clarification the rule for buried gets changed to add "end all effects on this model prior to burying it." This change would get rid of negative effects, but would also stop all of these unintended consequences that are allowing for some very interesting work arounds of the rules.

In addition to that, in response to your Hamelin question, Hamelin makes all friendly insignificant models lose the insignificant characteristic. So, his crew can interact with objectives that insignificant models are restricted from interacting with.

Personally, I would switch Hamelin to: Hamelin the Plagued $50 - Hamelin Box Set ($35.00) - Malifaux Rats ($9.00) $100 - Rat Catchers ($16.00) - Obedient Wretch ($9.00) - Malifaux Rats ($9.00) - Malifaux Rats ($9.00) - Malifaux Rats ($9.00) $150 (This is where he is finally realistically playable) - The Stolen ($18.00) - Malifaux Rats ($9.00) ONE Set of the Following: - Desperate Mercenary ($9.00) - Desperate Mercenary ($9.00) - Desperate Mercenary ($9.00) or ($151.00) - Canine Remains ($14.00) - Canine Remains ($14.00) or ($154.50) - Terror Tots ($15.00) - Young Nephilim ($16.50)

Personally I start many games with Canine Remains instead of Rats. They are better by themselves, and they turn into Rats when they die. The added benefit is that they all activate individually, so lots of activations. With Rats, if you keep them spread out, you can activate them separately. Killing them with the Rat Catchers does give you extra activations as well. Add in the Wretch and a couple Stolen and it is hard to not out activate your opponent.

As I just posted in the other thread that is like this, that is about half of what you need to start. In addition to that, you need 6-9 more Rats (for an ideal total of 15, as getting 12 out in a 35 point game is not that unusual), 3 more Stolen (as getting 4 out is a 35 point game is not that unusual), and whatever else you want to finish him off (4-6 Canine Remains is nice). I would not recommend Hamelin to a new player because of his model count, and how he plays. The same goes for Levi, but a little less so.

Yes, Flock is involuntary, and it chains from Rat to Rat, so it is possible for all of your Rats to activate together, across the whole board. You should have 6 Stolen (Though you will rarely use more than 4), 15 Rats (Though you will rarely use more than 12), then what ever else you want to add like 6ish Canine Remains, Desperate Mercs (number is up to you), and whichever other models you decide to try (he has more options than most of the masters in the game, there being 24 things that he can take).

I am missing the can't in this case. Levi has a can and a can't. The can't is in regards to totems, and the can is in regards to what he can hire. That being said, I think that Levi's can will trump the Widow Weaver's can.

The more I see Levi played, the more I disagree with that. Especially with the ability to use Collodi, but even without it, Levi is nearly on level with, if not actually on level with, The Dreamer, Hamelin, Kirai, Lilith, and Hamelin. Even without Collodi, he is nasty in the hands of a good player. Add Collodi and his crew is pretty much broke.

Where does the rulebook define what a global term verses a specific term? There is a common abilities list, but that is only for quick reference, and to save space on a card, not to differentiate them from abilities that are not common. There is really only one argument for the ruling the way it was ruled, and that is that the spell does not specifically say that it gets the ability, only that it can use the ability.

A stuffed toy that is often made very cutesie. Such as: Or:

Magicpockets, I know that this is just a friendly discussion, and I have not seen anything here that is even remotely close to an attack. I am just enjoying the discussion. People have different play styles, and I know that I am not as experienced with Hamelin as many of you are. I just want to put my thoughts into the mix. I want to say that I acknowledge that Hamelin is powerful. With that said, if he is the strongest master, it is not by much over Pandora, Dreamer, and Kirai. I have not complained against every suggestion put forth, only the reduction to Voracious Rats, and the cuddle to Bully. For the change to Impetuous, I was only pointing out that it does not change Rats damage as much as people think it does. One thing that the on damage does do, is that it increases the chances that a high card is on the top of the discard. For Nix, I was pointing out that it is a global issue with the game, as more than just Nix has that effect, and fixing it globally would be a better option. For making Malifaux Citizen a cast, I agreed. I agree that a change needs to be made to stop an infinite turn, though I still think a global change would be better, like a turn time limit. Turn time limits work very well in other games. I even included suggestions, like putting a limiting range on Nihilism. While I would prefer a 14" range, I no longer think that 12" would be too low, after reading other people's comments. I also suggested that Void be made a draw from the top of the deck only. No one has really talked about this so I do not know how others feel about it. I will point out one thing about high cards on the top of the discard. This game is not played in a vacuum, and a good opponent with do a less important action, while you have a high card on top, thus burying that high card. After reading what people are saying in this thread, I am starting to be ok with the suggested Bully change, but I still cannot agree with the suggested Voracious Rats change. That is the one change suggested that I feel does not bring Hamelin down a little, to put him in line with other top tier masters, but instead brings him down below that level. I have said it multiple times that I believe that that change would reduce him to a level below Levi and Viks.

I do not have time to answer everything right now, but on your first point, it is a 36" board (many objectives are in deployment zones), and covering 28" of it requires being in the center of the board, which happens less than 50% of the time in my opinion. If you can force your opponent to not reach the center, than his 14" is not going to reach the objectives back by your deployment zone. Once again, I am not going for neutering Hamelin, but toning him down slightly by making him worry about overall board positioning. As far as rats go, who cheats on dmg with Rats? As much as Hamelin is card starved, are you going to waste a card to do one more dmg? Also, it is not a 25% increase on the flip, it is a 0.25 damage increase (0.28 to be exact and that is only when going from a strait flip to a , any other twist change is less than that). For a damage profile of 2/3/3 :-fate:-fate: 2.28, :-fate: 2.4, Strait: 2.62, :+fate: 2.9, :+fate:+fate: 2.92

Which is why I believe that it is a good suggestion. It is a change that brings his power level down some, but does not cripple him, as some of the other suggestions would (like 4" Voracious Rats). I was thinking more like 14 , but 12 would not be too far, I think. Anything less than 12 would cripple him though. One thing is that this only affects schemes and strategies that insignificant models cannot interact with. The biggest thing that this will do is prevent swarm lists from covering the whole board taking objectives, but will instead limit the action to within 14" of Hamelin and/or Nix. As far as the range on Voracious Rats, I don't think there is anything that anyone can say that will convince me that reducing Voracious Rats to 4" would be a good change. As I said, keeping within 6" is hard enough, especially against a good opponent that knows how to take out Rat Catchers, if it is reduced to 4" Hamelin is going to be reduced to a level below Levi and Viks. I will also restate that I believe that Nix's to flips is a global issue. There are multiple models that give a to all flips, thus a slight change in the rules to say that SS flips ignore twists will fix that better than changing all of the models that do it. As far as the to DMG from Impetuous, I think people overestimate a positive twist on DMG with rats. Each positive twist with Rats is only about .25 extra damage per attack, on average. That averages out to 1-2 extra damage a turn. Take it or leave it, it is not doing that much. Bully not affecting masters is something that I don't like, but I could deal with. I am still undefeated when playing my Viks against Hamelin, and the only thing that has given me trouble is when my Sword Vik gets made insignificant. Take that away and I will have little to no problem with Hamelin.

The title of the thread is Henchmen Upgrades, not Minion Upgrades. I would agree if it was the latter, but the word Henchmen only has one meaning in this game. I realize that I may sound like I am coming across as attacking, but that is not my intention. I am honestly trying to find out what is being misinterpreted, as I may be missing something.

Personally, I do not see how this poll could have been interpreted in any way other than like Hamelin.

I want to start by saying that these changes would reduce Hamelin to a fun game caster, and no longer a tourney caster. If these changes are implemented, I cannot see using Hamelin over Levi or the Viks. 1. The problem here is that because of Hamelin's Voracious Rats, he needs to be in the thick of things. If you allow leaders to hit him, he is going to get destroyed by quite a few masters. He may not be the weakest master, but the masters that are weaker than him can typically stay back from the front lines. 2. I could see a CC 12 or 13 for this. This change would not break him. 3. This is a flaw of the system, not of Hamelin. Other models can do this as well, so a global fix should be implemented, not a local fix. 4. Why? Are Rats really doing that much more damage because of the on DMG? I don't see it. 5. No! This is the one thing, especially with suggestion 1 that would break him. As it is I lose rats from them being outside of 6". Against an average opponent, this change would not do much, but against a good opponent, who knows how to cut apart Voracious Rats when it is 6", this change would neuter Hamelin. 6. I can agree with that, if that is even true. Again, this is more of a global issue than a local issue, and a global change to use soulstone may be better. So, two of your six suggestions are global problems, not problems of Hamelin himself. Another one of the suggestions would not have that much of an effect, and are not making Hamelin that much stronger at all. One change I can agree with. Finally, two of the suggested changes would break him in the opposite direction. If you want the a suggestion that I think would bring him down one notch, but not enough to cripple him, and it would even speed the game up slightly, is to make The Void draw from the top of the deck only. I have seen people not cheat, when they should have, only because of a 12 or 13 on the top of the discard. I have also seen people think about cheating for a long time, because of the card on the top of the discard pile, slowing the game down. Another change that I could see, but do not really like that much, is to limit Nihilism to a specific range, like 12" or 14". This would prevent models from getting objectives on the other side of the board from your main force. I had a game last night where my Canine Remains were destroying evidence about 18+" from Hamelin. If my opponent sends over models to tie up the dogs (which he did), they are less things that Hamelin needs to worry about, and the dogs are no slouches when it comes to gang raping something (which they did). If they had to stay within 12" or 14" of Hamelin, to be able to destroy the evidence, it would have been a different game.

Reduce means lowers. 0 does not reduce up to 1.