Wormstrum

I find him to be deceptively powerful. His crew might be a little on the fragile side, but they can be tailored to almost any situation and have a fair bit of hitting power. So far I'm 6 games in with 4 wins-2 draws-0 losses, so I think he's just fine. Just have to remember he wasn't designed as a straight up brawler. You have to play the missions properly to win with him.

It gets even better in a brawl if you pair her with ramos for the mobile toolkit. On topic though. Even at 25 I find the three big c's are really all you need. Performers and mannequins can be ok, but for being required to drop 6 points on them they don't do as much as I'd like. A typical strategy as colette should revolve around hit and run tactics with the coryphees using cassandra's dance partner and colette's illusionist for movement shenanigans. Making doves/soulstones when you can and denying people board position is basically what it boils down to. The biggest thing to keep in mind though is that colette's crew needs each other to succeed. Once one part falls down the rest usually isn't far behind.

Yeah, their speed is what deterred me from fielding them as well. For the same point cost I love the silurids. That being said if you built for a slow moving Marcus crew I think the kitties would fit in well. Its just unfortunate you can't keep stacking hoarcats to devour larger and larger targets. I want to see 4 hoarcats eat Nekima.

Even without the +2cb I've seen Johan go absolutely ballistic on people. Cb5 isn't terrible, especially given that most melee specialists typically have only 5-6df save for a few models like lilith and the coryphee duet. But yeah, without a M&SU member he does cost an extra stone. Because of that I'd say its a toss up between Johan or the miner depending on how much you want to have 1 more ss in your cache.

So last night I had a rematch against the dreamer player from my earlier posts. Strategy - Shared Distract Me - Marcus, Jackalope, Shikome, Cerberus, 3x Silurid, Moleman Assassinate: Dreamer, Sabotage Opponent - Dreamer/LCB, 2x Stitched, 3x Daydream, 3x Alp, Coppelius Assassinate: marcus, Kidnap: the Silurids (unannounced) Turn 1 - Dreamer wins initiative and flies across the board then dumps his crew in front of my deployment zone. LCB takes some swings against Marcus and misses. Marcus activates and pack leaders the cerberus almost killing LCB between the 2 of them. Other models activate and beat each other up a bit. Last activation a silurid uses self preservation and pushes to LCB and manages to finish him off. Turn 2 - Dreamer wins initiative and gives Marcus a on his defenses then fails to disengage from the models around him. The shikome activates next and takes him out. Coppelius eats a silurid and makes an alp to replace one I had killed earlier. The remaining 2 silurids break away from the main fight and go take care of the sabotage. Marcus gets poked to death by alps and stitched gambles. Sitting on 8 vp at the end of the turn I was confident thinking that with an unannounced scheme I had a win in the bag. Turn 3 - Coppelius and the alps kill off most of my remaining minions, but the shikome and silurids return the favor by taking out a stitched and a couple more alps. At this point it turns into a game of tag with the silurids and shikome running away. Turn 4 - More running, nothing dies, coppelius makes a replacement alp to get back up to 3. Turn 5 - I run out of board space to keep out of range of the nightmares and have to try and make a stand. The silurids kill 2 of the 3 alps, the stitched loses his gamble duel and dies to his own ability. The shikome charges coppelius and hits him for 3 points. Coppelius activates and finishes off the shikome. The stitched using its does not die activation gambles both silurids to death. Game ends in a draw at 8-8. I feel this game went much better than last time. Reaching 8vp by turn 2 was nice, and reducing the dreamer crew down to just 2 models felt good. I still need to get more models so I can have better options against this crew, but at least I'm getting a better grip on how to use what I do have.

Its too bad you don't have 1 more point or Joss would be perfect for this role. That being said Johan is another good melee beat stick. 6ss for a magic weapon that can flurry for 3/4/6 (+1 if you hit a tome) is pretty solid, especially with his other abilities. Out of what you listed though I'm most partial to the convict gunslinger. He's not really a melee model, but his damage potential is so crazy he's a good choice for any crew. Another option would be Taelor. She doesn't have as much damage potential as Johan, but with hammerstrike and knockback she can easily push people off of 'Tina. Also, she has menace which could be used to prevent people from charging 'Tina in the first place.

I thought the gupps sounded amusing, if not a little on the squishy side. Not sure how well they'd do with marcus leading since my first impressions were that zoraida would be the best for taking full advantage of the spawn mother and the spawning pool. But I'm interested to hear how it goes

I agree. Usually I don't get much out of the bunny other than him being a distraction to waste enemy action points. That being said it was really just a hail mary last ditch pot shot kind of deal as I was about to get tabled anyway. If I hadn't gotten super lucky on the damage flips the game would have gone 8-6 Perdita instead. However, I did get lucky, and now Perdita hangs her head in shame at the mention of bunny rabbits

So today I finished painting my crew and managed to get 2 more games in. Game 1 - Shared Distract Me: Marcus, Shikome, Cerberus, 3x Silurid, Moleman, Jackalope Assassinate, Primal Source - 4ss cache Opponent: Perdita, Nino, Samael, Ryle, Witchling Stalker, Austringer Bodyguard, Kill Protege - Shikome, 5ss cache Turn 1 was largely uneventful. Until Nino activated and triggered 3 times against my shikome, killing her. Marcus then charged nino to engage him and samael, but flipped a black joker for damage. Turn 2 was more of the same, with the guild guns taking down a silurid, and marcus swinging twice on nino to kill him and get a credit towards primal source. Turn 3, more bad luck ( I swear my fate deck hates me) as after marcus finished off samael to complete primal source, perdita's crew managed to kill everything but marcus, my moleman, and the jackalope. Things were looking bad. Turn 4. Marcus wins initiative, pokes perdita for 2 and uses stare down. The jackalope then leaps, and charges perdita. She flips a 5 for defense giving me an even damage flip. Apparently this particular jackalope just watched monty python, because he flipped a red joker followed by a 12 of tomes. Perdita takes 6 damage and dies to the totem. Unfortunately the remaining guild models aren't as amused as I am and I proceed to get tabled. Final score is 8-6 Marcus. All hail the mighty Jackalope! Game 2 - Shared Destroy Evidence Me: Marcus, Jackalope, Shikome, Cerberus, 3x Silurid, Moleman Eye for an Eye, Grudge - Ice Gamin, 4ss cache Opponent: Rasputina, 3x Ice Gamin, Silent One, Snowstorm, Essence of Power Kill Protege - Shikome, Tina Scheme, 8ss cache Turn 1 was mostly positioning until Marcus' activation came up. I decided to play hyper aggressive with him and managed to charge raspy turn 1 as well as put 4 wounds on her. Turn 2 I won initiative and Marcus proceeded to free the beast all over raspy's face. She died quickly. Rest of the turn was fairly uneventful. Some pot shots were taken against Marcus in revenge and he took 3 wounds. One silurid destroyed the neutral objective. Turn 3 the game continued to devolve into a giant melee between marcus, snowstorm, the gamin, the shikome, and a silurid. After everything had settled my grudge target was dead, and almost everything in the fight was between 1-4 wounds away from dead. Turn 4 the moleman finally joins the fight and punches snow storm in the face, killing him, as well as marcus and one of my silurids (shatter 4 ftl ><). One of the gamin tries to attack the shiikome and misses. She responds by moving to the edge of his range and finishes him off. The resulting shatter finishes the other gamin and my moleman, leaving my opponent with just his silent one to fight against an untouched cerberus, my shikome, and 2 silurids. We decided to call it there. Final score 6-0 Marcus. So since finishing my paint jobs I'm now currently 2-0 with Marcus. Liking the beast master so far. And the reactions after beating somebody with him are just as rewarding as the victories themselves. Also, Perdita getting owned by a jackalope was priceless

Wasn't aware it was a 1" range at the time. In all honesty it wouldn't have mattered much. Coppelius and LCB were both more or less untouched and all of my remaining models were about to die. But I'll keep that in mind next time.

So tonight I got to proxy a list based on what's in my paint que. Fought The Dreamer in a 35point shared slaughter. My schemes were Sabotage and Grudge on an Alp. His were Kill Protege on the Cerberus and Eye for an Eye I fielded: Marcus Jackalope Silurid x3 Shikome Cerberus Moleman His crew was: Dreamer/LCB Stitched x2 Coppelius Daydream x3 Alps x3 Going in I knew it would be rough. My model selection was far from optimal for dealing wth the nightmares and they were immune to my howl/roar shenanigans. That combined with the fact I would basically be starting 10 points down due to the stitched does not die ability and it was an uphill battle from the start. Won't do a full report, just some of the key moments: The worst thing that happened was turn 2 I lost initiative and LCB managed to just barely make it into range of Marcus and tag him with a claw strike which triggered onslaught as well as hitting the red joker for damage. Marcus took 8 dg followed by 4 damage even after prevention flips on both >< Losing my master turn 2 was rough, but I kept going and managed to take out a good portion of his models in the following activations. Downed 2 alps, the dreamer, a daydream, and one of the stitched. Turn 3 I lost initiative again and bad things happened. The remaining stitched picked on my poor wp4 silurids, the remaining alp tied down my moleman and another silurid who both only had 1 wound left forcing them to pass. The cerberus put 4 points on LCB but then got cut down immediately after, and coppelius paralyzed the third silurid before it could reach my sabotage target. Turn 4, another failed initiative flip and coppelius almost killed the shikome, but left her with poison 2 which killed her before she could activate and get the sabotage objective. Decided to call it at that poiint as everything was either dead, or about to be dead. Totaled everything up, and the models I did take out managed to keep him from getting the full 4vp on slaughter as well as denying him eye for an eye. Final score was 5-2 Dreamer. Overall I feel I did alright. Aside from some absolutely horrible card luck I managed to hold my own. Adding to my collection of models to draw from when hiring would help a lot, and if stitched didn't have that damn rule it would have been a much closer fight. Looking forward to next week when I should have my crew fully painted.

My only concern with the silurid marcus list is that papa loco says hi. Really, any list with even moderate AoE will tear through silurids like nobody's business, and they aren't quite as replaceable as zombies and the like. It sounds like a fun list for fluffy social games, but not something I'd be likely to field against the local power gamer. Although the idea of somebody attacking a gupp only to cause the whole crew to leap to its rescue does amuse me.

Luck of the draw can be a bitch. Statistically, something good should have come of dropping 2 shikomes on Seamus, but if the card gods have it in for you there's not much you can do. I do agree with taking a step back for the sake of keeping it fun and civil though. No sense in winning if you don't have fun doing it. And yeah, collodi v hamelin is a rough match, since both pretty much hard counter each other. Edit: Question on your shikomes, did you charge then use a fast action, or did you use +1 Nimble, Charge, Fast? May not have meant much depending how far away they are, but if it was the first option, you could have possibly gotten an extra attack each by using nimble to close distance and then using 2 general ap and fast for 3 attacks.

The only master I've played with so far is Colette (though I should finally get to start playing Marcus next week) and I love her. She can be a bit rough to learn, and she's very unforgiving if you don't pay attention. But if you have even a slight grasp on her movement shenanigans and general unwillingness to die, then you can at least claim a moral victory by annoying the ever-living **** out of your opponent. Starting out, like others have said you'll want a pack of doves and 1-2 packs of Coryphees depending on how important it is to you that you have a model to represent the duet. Beyond that the options are a bit limited. Usually when people hire outside the showgirls theme they pick up a nasty slow model like Jack Daw, Johan, or Killjoy and then taxi that model around using Colette's disappearing act to deliver them where they need to be (except Killjoy, who they deliver by flying a dove into the enemies and saccing it to summon him)

Any ruling on my question? Considering Snowstorm for my Marcus collection, but not fond of the girl on the base. Would removing her be acceptable? Or am I required to include her for tournament play?

Wouldn't the scales get removed from play once lady j went down? Other than that it was an interesting video. Hope to see more.

I dunno about hunting partner on a duet. They're already fast with to both attack and damage flips. All hunting partner would do is add another which seems like overkill to me.

I would probably send the shikomes straight for Seamus. Once he's stuck in melee with them he really doesn't have many answers to deal with it. No magical weapons, no offensive spells that can be used in melee. His best options are to sit in melee and hope for instant kill triggers on his bag o tools, or he can try and undead psychosis and try to get a belle close enough. Even if the shikomes do get pushed away from psychosis they can always just start casting guarantee fate and then run away from seamus. If both shikomes can land it that's an automatic 4wd at the end of each turn. Meanwhile, marcus and the rest of your crew can be picking off seamus' minions while he has to deal with the 2 shikomes.

All I have to say about the shikome is using it to give a cerberus hunting partner = pure awesome. Between fast and three headed he can put out 5 attacks in a single activation that will all have to attack and damage flips.

I would drop the third gamin and then consider also dropping the golem for snow storm. This would give you considerably more hittting power and also net you an extra 2ss for raspy.

What about removing parts of the model? (i.e. Removing the lady from Snowstorm's base)

The only reason neverborn exist is to breed silurids for marcus crews....

Fight fire with fire. Or in this case undead with undead. Field Shikomes and Night Terrors against Seamus. They're both spirits which makes them immune to terrifying. Coupled with their mobility they become a real threat for Seamus and his crew. Also, constructs like the Coryphees and Steamborg are immune to terrifying as well. You might also consider building a "shooty" Marcus list. Field things like Razorspine Rattlers, Myranda, Snowstorm, Silent Ones,etc. The wonderful thing about Marcus is how adaptive his lists can be. Just have to take advantage of his hiring options.

I would recommend picking up at least one Shikome in addition to your Silurids. Another model I love having around is the Moleman. Keep him within 3" of marcus to shield from shooting and charges. Some other models to consider: Student of conflict - Because marcus + fast = win Snowstorm - Marcus ferals Snowstorm, Myranda furious castings with animal instincts using Snowstorm's spells. Nets you 6 highly offensive spells Waldgeists - Very nasty if you play a board using forest terrain Night Terrors - Wonderful low cost objective grabbers, and fairly resilient given their cost Steamborg Executioner - Pinchy melee goodness. Also puts out a 3" aura that gives soft cover to your models if you're up against lots of shooting. Also, keep in mind Marcus has access to all the standard Arcanist models, which can create some interesting combinations.

Definitely looks more sinister with those pointy fingers. Me likey