Hateful Darkblack

My new headcanon: When Nicodem falls asleep, he dreams that he's a little boy again, and also a Neverborn, and that's who The Dreamer is.

Looks like a fun Crew! I see you're going for the Launched Piglet Killjoy-Bomb trick? It's a nice one. In answer to your rules question, only the Glowy target gets the Regenerate and Trust the Glow Abilities. Wong doesn't have Magical, so he doesn't gain the other things.

Would a taller model be able to see it anyway? It seems weird, but I think it may be that, RAW, a Ht 2 model standing on top of a Ht 0 marker blocks LOS for Ht 1 and Ht 2 models, but not Ht 3+. Which is weird. I'd love to be wrong.

Apprentice Wesley Takes Brewmaster from -3 Wp aura to a -4 Wp aura, which just makes him all the better. And, can copy that Obey. AND And, is an extra life. Apprentice Wesley is great! Old Cranky Sheesh, talk about a kit. Card cycling, Wp and Df bonuses, Soulstone regain, and a ranged attack! Plus, weirdly, he can take Interacts even though he's a Peon! Old Cranky is really a strong model. Penelope Ties into the whole Odyssey reference thing, which is nice. Penelope is surprisingly good at biting, but if you use her for that much, you're probably not using her right. She's amazing for speeding up pigs and moving them around, and keeping them from going berserk. She also has From The Shadows, but from what I've seen that mostly just gets her killed. All the same, Penelope adds fantastic mobility to Pigs. Voodoo Doll Zoraida's primary combat mechanic. It kills stuff. You can also use it for buffs. It costs 2 AP, which is a lot, but it's got great offfensive potential. It doesn't get summoned every game, but it gets summoned many games. Skeeters They seem like they're good support for Som'er, but I haven't played them. Little Lass I actually don't know. I heard she's great for carrying Lead-Lined Apron and then dying and passing it to Mah Tucket? I've never used her. Young LaCroix Giving free Upgrades to Ophelia is nice. The guns are nice. But the Young Lacroix and kinda optional -- you can play her just fine without them. They also have a low Wp, which means any opponent with Obey can take them over and use them to blow stuff up. It seems like she's as good without them as with.

A lot of times, there are extra suits just so that the model can have the same Ca stat for multiple actions.

Okay, I'm headed to Garagefaux this weekend, and will be taking Leveticus and trying out a Path of Bone Assassinate Crew. (My theory is that Yin and Valedictorian will help a lot with debuffing enemy Masters.)

Saw this on the Arcanist thread and thought it was a useful exercise here too. Here are my thoughts on the various Arcanist Totems! (In roughly descending order of rating.) Hollow Waifs (Leveticus) The top-rated totem for me. They've got decent defenses, they're slow, and they don't do much other than wander around with a creepy glassy stare. They're really not models so much as extra lives for Leveticus stored up in models. I have never ever considered taking any other totem with Leveticus, because they're free and absolutely necessary. Stolen (Hamelin) They can turn into more rats. They can be Paralyze bomb card-drainers. They can spread Blighted and use Bleeding Disease if you don't mind failing. They act as extra lives for Hamelin. They cost a (0) action and an 8 to summon one, or a (0) action and a soulstone and an 8 of a suit to summon two. They're fragile as heck, but so useful. Definitely an auto-include as well. Well, you could get away with not hiring one, but you'll always want to summon them and never consider hiring another Totem with Hamelin. Shang (Misaki) I play against Misaki more often than I play Misaki, and Shang has risen in my opinion every time. Healing Misaki and providing Rush of Magic means that Shang is really, really handy. He's easy to ignore until you realize how good he is. Then he's a prime target so much, because he dies fast and helps the Crew in multiple subtle ways. I think that any model that provides more card flow is a winner, really. That may be the secret key to winning Malifaux games: stack luck in your favor. Steam Trunk (Von Schill) Oh, little luggage, how I love you. Having a Steam Trunk means your (0) action is never wasted. It's a utility piece, and opponents rarely have the time to attack it, and meanwhile it's buffing the rest of the Crew as long as they stay in sort of a loose bubble. It's not an auto-include, but I've been grateful every time I've hired one. Karina (Tara) She used to be the model everyone complained about as underpowered. Now she's the core of the Tara Summoning Engine. She's got a decent shooting and is a generally good piece, though maybe a little too expensive for her stat line. I can't imagine taking her with anything but her free Summoning Upgrade, since it's very good and puts some use on the piece. Bash on the Head with a Rock is funny, but I have never heard of anyone using it successfully. At this point, she's more like a very expensive Limited Upgrade for Tara, in model form. You hire her to play Summoning Tara, and you'll probably be hiring other things to support that (like Rusty Alyce or Nix with Melodies to boost and destroy the summons, or at least Obliteration Symbiote to unbury them again.) Lady Ligeia (Jack Daw) Sometimes amazing and sometimes not! She's optional. Against a shooting Crew, she dies fast. Against a melee Crew, she drains a bunch of enemy AP to kill and makes them all vulnerable to other attacks. Like a lot of Jack Daw models, she works well when bunched up with about two other models to get ripe and brutal synergies. She's a really nice model and can really tank well against melee Crews, but she can draw a lot of enemy attention, for better or worse. Malifaux Child (Any) There are a lot of Masters who do well with Malifaux Child. Tara can always consider him for extending magic. Jack Daw, too, can get some good results. Really, any Master with a lot of good Ca actions that isn't reliant on another Totem. The problem is, most of the Outcast Masters who have a lot of Ca actions are reliant on other totems. Student of Conflict (Any, but especially Viktorias) Student of Conflict is a solid model with a good melee attack. It's a little slow and you really want to use its (2) Action more than anything else, which requires constantly chasing your other models to the frontlines, huffing and puffing and shouting "Wait up! Hey, guys, wait up!" The problem with Student of Conflict is that whenever I take her, it's because I'm planning some kind of impractical combo move, whether it's Outcast or hired as a Mercenary. Viktorias don't *need* Student of Conflict but she can be handy. With most other Masters, Student of Conflict will help, but I get suspicious of myself whenever I'm making big plans for how I'll use it. How about you? Which do you love and hate?

I don't play ten thunders often so the last time i played them was a proxy before the model came out. They were great. Reasonably fast super cheap objective grabber. They tarpit will (durable for the price and great at disengaging strikes.) Condition removal probably comes up no more than once or twice a game but it can turn the tide of the game when it does. Once you get used to the fact that they don't do damage (outside of McCabe loaning out a saber) they are great models.

What all of this means: The Piglet can get an amazing six attacks in a round (two from each Pigcharge, plus two more from the Rampage trigger), but only if things work out and you plan it well. The limitations about having to charge mean that Piglets require a lot of planning to use well, and you're always playing a numbers game with your suits, the angles of your charge, and the threat of losing control. You often send out Piglets far afield where they might go crazy. If you time your activations right, you can turn it to your advantage, but all the seeming chaos of Piglets really means that you want to do more planning.

Oh wow, okay, cool. That makes sense, though it's ambiguous. (I know Lady Justice shuts down Finish the Job.)

The strategy is Headhunter, so when a model is killed, the killer places a Headhunter Marker within 3". Lady Justice has an ability that says no Markers get placed when she kills someone. Does this mean that she drops no Headhunter Markers when killing? I am pretty sure the answer is that she doesn't drop a Headhunter Marker when she kills something, but I wanted to check if there was some kind of exception.

You're correct. And this is why Piglets are amazing.

Totem and Peon are different things, though they often overlap. There are non-Totem Peons (Malifaux Rat, Pigapult) and plenty of non-Peon Totems. There's an Enforcer Totem (Karina) and even a Henchman Totem (Huggy). You can only hire one Totem unless you have an ability that says otherwise.

One flaw of a Wiki is that it can be wrong. One big strength of a Wiki is that anyone can fix it! Please, please, if you see something like this and you're sure the Wiki is wrong, fix it! It only takes less than a minute and makes the game better for everyone.

You can't start a charge when you're engaged. (Unless you're Von Schill or something.) Your opponents get a disengaging strike if you Walk (with the Walk Action) while engaged, if you're leaving engagement. Everything else is pretty much fair game. You can Walk or Charge through an engagement area and out again without worrying about it.

I generally use the metal Abominations. Combined with the plastics, that's eight model sculpts available, which seems like plenty. (I also paint names on the bases, and name my Abominations after Dwarves and Deadly Sins). That won't work in a year or two for new Abomination users, but it works great for me!

@SpectreEliteGaming: Yeah, I've noticed! I think you and I play the same Crews mostly, and I suspect in similar styles, but often have different ideas above the table. I find that too much tailoring to my opponent in a tournament setting can be distracting: one of the things that I've found has improved my tournament game is to make simple decision trees for Crew Hiring. ("Hire a Mech Rider, Ryle, and Ashes and Dust plus two Abominations for card cycling. If Murder Protege is on the table, or I need more runners, switch Ashes for two Soulstone Miners.") When I try to get really complex with Crew hiring, I often shoot myself in the foot forgetting something simple. I agree with your assessment of Levy and Daw, for sure! Daw is slippery and fast, with a lot of Crew synergy and not much damage output, and he can get overwhelmed if he's too close to the thick of things. Leveticus has very strong and consistent damage, doesn't need to worry about staying alive, doesn't actually care too much about Crew synergy so much as just taking really strong models, but relies heavily on his Crew for speed and objective running. They're totally opposite but play similarly. Especially if you hire Ashes and Dust into both Crews. I plan to get more comfortable with Taelor as anti-Summoning tech. Right now, my main anti-Summoner strategy is to melt the Summoner, and summon a bunch of stuff myself. I often take Johan with Jack Daw because he's so handy. I rarely bother to take Johan with Levy: Levy shrugs off conditions, and most of his other models have a rebirth cycle that'll clear off bad Conditions. (That's bitten me a few times, like losing Lazarus to the Hanged, but live and learn.) In a casual game, I try to make my decisions while pretending not to know what my opponent is hiring, even if I actually do. Casual gaming is also a great way to experiment with models that I still want to learn, so I'm much happier to experiment and learn and lose.

Yay Mason!

Yeah, the reason why I was asking about this in the first place is because there seems to be a balance issue at low Soulstones. I think that Summoners are well-balanced at 50ss. They take a little getting used to if you're facing them, but so does each Master anyway. At 20-35ss, I think that Summoners have an advantage that is problematic. Honestly, though, I'm not particularly interested in trying to convince others of this. Mostly what I was looking for is ideas (from others who agree with this notion) for rules that could tilt the scale back in the other direction a little bit, but not too much. And so far I've seen several good suggestions!

Okay, next question: Hollow, Infectious Melodies, or both?

Durza, that's a great question! I'm assuming that a single simple mechanic is going to work better than a list of different ones. However, I think we should make that simple mechanic in a way that keeps in mind all those possibilities and doesn't break the game for any of them. (Some people have said that creating such a rule is hard - and I agree with them! Some people have said that it's intrinsically impossible or not worth trying -- and I disagree with them!)

If you try to take an invalid action, it gets cancelled and you don't spend the AP.

Also, how often do you take Hollow with him?

Okay, here are my impressions of Nix tactically: He's the one non-Summoner in an all-Summoning Crew. He's great at spreading Blighted. And can do some late-turn damage with Bleeding Disease. He dies every game I've played him. (Except that one time when he led a 20ss in a summoning-allowed Hardcore game). He dies every game, but he sucks up a lot of AP on the way. He keeps healing back up and reducing damage and whatnot. He's pretty good at attacking. Especially attacking models with Blighted. When he gets in the thick of the battlefield, though, his defenses fall down fast. He's got a bunch of defenses that slow down his demise, but none that really stop it. He's pretty fast what with the Incorporeal and stuff. So, what is he? Is he a counter-flanker, eating up enemy scheme-runners and preying on the weak? Is he a sacrifical tarpit, dying but wasting a ton of enemy AP to make it happen? Is he a late-game assassin, bloating foes up with Blighted and then dropping them when they get enough? Do you get a lot of success with him? If so, how? Where do you put him? How do you kick ass with him? Do you play him with a Hamelin Crew or does he fit in with some other Crew instead? Thanks!

Actually, Von Schill (with Engage at Will) and Leveticus together also looks promising. Leveticus and Rusty Alyce both would get a lot of benefit out of a second (0) Action. Ooo, and Riders in late turns too!