Hateful Darkblack

Sent in my votes! Thanks for doing this!

Wicked.

Wow, what gorgeous terrain! It was hard to pick between these.

Oh, now I'm even more excited! WOO!

More and more, it feels like Leveticus can get some really interesting combinations that end up acting like miniature versions of other Masters' core crews. Leveticus can hire Rat Catchers and Obedient Wretch and Nix and become kind of a mini-Hamelin with more firepower. Leveticus can hire most Puppets and Vasalisa and become a mini-Collodi who just can't be killed for good. Leveticus can hire a bunch of Guild Constructs and become a mini-Hoffman with long-ranged attacks instead of a power loop. Leveticus can hire a heap of Belles and become a mini-Seamus. Leveticus can hire up Ama No Zako, the Drowned, Jaakuna, and some Belles and act like a mini-Jack Daw, setting up bogs of models to drown the enemy while crushing with curses as needs be. Leveticus can hire Performers, Coryphee, and Mannequins and act like a mini-Colette. He probably wants to throw Vasalisa in on that to give some Prompt-like effects. And you know? I suspect he'd do fine with any of these. Really, Leveticus relies on his Crew for a few things: to drop Schemes and gather objectives for him, to anchor his Waifs, and to get a second kill each round for Reckoning. He takes care of hunting down key targets and doesn't need anyone to defend him, which leaves him a lot of other options to put stuff together. It's a fun thought! The nice thing is he can take a lot of models that already synergize with each other, and as long as they can do the things Leveticus can't, he'll actually do pretty well with it.

Thanks! 96p, I added Valedictorian. I'll try it out soon. Cruso, thanks for the suggestions! I have all those models (since I was planning to use them with Jack Daw). That looks like nearly a whole Crew's worth of combinations (Belles/Jaakuna/Drowned/Ama No Zako), but sounds like it could be a lot of fun. How do you get your VP with that setup?

Great questions! So, a duel can be a different kind of duel for different people. When someone shoots Pandora, it's Sh test for them and a Wp test for her. So that would make Fading Memory happen and she'd get a push if she won, but not Misery to do damage to the model shooting her. Poltergeist wouldn't give someone a negative twist to shoot Pandora, since it's a Sh duel for them and not a Wp duel. It would give them a negative twist to resist Pandora's spells. Yes, Pandora picks what AP action she uses for Self-Loathing and Self-Harm, not the target. That seems like a nice list. You may want to consider adding a few more Sorrows to increase Pandora's damage, but it'll depend on the match and what you want to do.

Thank you Kadeton! I added the Dead Doxy. Excellent point about Undead vs. Constructs. How huge is the Teddy + Metal Gamin in play? I haven't tried it yet myself.

It's okay, folks. The Desolation doesn't need to force Wp duels for paralyze to scare you.

404'd!

Very nice! Think you'll use The Guilty?

Played a few games with Vasalisa, Stitched, and Coryphee. It's a really solid combination. Vasalisa provides the mobility and control that Leveticus lacks, while Leveticus annihilates things like he does.

Undead Options Pariah of Bone is a very solid option for Leveticus, and I think it’s often underrated. While Leveticus doesn’t use Corpse Markers as much as he uses Scrap Markers, adding Undead opens up a number of very nice crew options, and can help with many Strategies and Schemes. You’re also likely to have a lot of undead models around if you play Outcasts as a faction, since several other Outcast Masters (Jack Daw and Tara) also hire a lot of Undead models. Necropunk Necropunk is an undead-construct and as such can be hired with either kind of Pariah. It offers the same things here as it does for Pariah of Iron: a fast objective-grabber with some very good (but not unstoppable) options for attack and resilience. Crooligan Another option for undead objective-grabbing. The Crooligan starts further upfield, has some great defensive tricks, and gets a free place when it Interacts. Choosing between Necropunk and Crooligan depends on preference, on the exact schemes and strategies used, and on what terrain is on the table. Both are about equally good as objective grabbers (which is to say really, really awesome), so it’s good to remember both when you need objective grabbers. Bete Noir Bete provides a very nasty murder option, which can be especially useful if you need a second model killed after Leveticus kills one (for Recknoning, for example.) She can also appear out of nowhere for schemes like Distract, Cursed Option, and Deliver a Message. Her attacks are vicious, and she also fits in really nicely with Leveticus’s general mood of death and rebirth. It’s important when you’re playing with Bete Noir to keep a card on hand so she can cheat and succeed on One With The Night. I generally take my lowest 10+ card, name it Bete, and keep it in the back under all the other cards. I don’t use it, just keep it in my hand, unless I’d be using it for something so important that I’m willing to let Bete die to get it, which probably means something that gives me lots of VP. Otherwise, I keep Bete The Card in my hand, ready to be used when needed. Bete makes a so-so anchor for Hollow Waifs: she tends to disappear a lot, so she’s not reliable, but if you know what you’re doing you can often make it work. Rotten Belle Another favorite. Rotten Belle is durable, has Pounce and a decent but not exceptional melee attack, and most importantly has a very very powerful Lure ability that can yank allies and enemies alike to wherever you want them to be. Belles are great for pulling enemies into range for Leveticus to Unmake, for messing with enemy VP generation, and for adding mobility to your own Crew. Always handy and a bargain at 5ss. The only problem is that they cost 5ss, which is 1ss too little to use them as an anchor. Ah well, can’t have everything. Dead Doxy A recommendation by the unstoppable Kadeton! Somewhat similar to the Rotten Belle, but it costs 6ss, so it can be used as an Anchor. The Dead Doxy has a very solid melee attack, she has Pounce, and when she dies she gives another model Fast. Her Take The Lead doesn't have the high Ca or long range of the Belle's Lure, but she can move both herself and the target, and she can push the target in any direction, which is some nice flexibility. Valedictorian A suggestion by 96p. With a Walk 6 and Flight, Valedictorian can move quickly to get objectives, or fall back to act as an anchor. She has potent melee abilities that let her put out a lot of damage. Some other likely Undead include the other Iron Zombies, the Flesh Construct, the Dead Rider, the Pale Rider, the Hanged, and Izamu the Armor. It would be kind of funny to make a Leveticus Crew of all “The” models: The Valedictorian, The Hanged, The Drowned, and maybe even The Guilty and The Nothing Beast, and maybe Izamu the Armor. I don’t see any particular synergy there, though, except for a lot of use of definite articles, but it’s a thought.

Construct Options Many Leveticus players prefer Pariah of Iron over Pariah of Bone because Leveticus’s Crew mostly uses Scrap Counters. There are several very solid Construct choices for Leveticus to hire. Here are a few favorites that many players find to synergies well with Leveticus. Necropunks The Necropunk is a very nice objective-grabber Construct. It can move quickly with (0) Leap, which leaves it options for a Flurry or for Deliver a Message. It has surprising resilience for such a cheap model, since it can heal itself and has Hard to Kill, and it gives a Leveticus Crew a way to bypass terrain obstacles. The Necropunk is too cheap to be a babysitter for Hollow Waifs, but it’s a favorite for grabbing objectives. Mechanical Rider This model is seeing a lot of discussion right now, because its late-game resilience, attacks, summoning abilities, and Scheme Marker manipulation bring a lot to the table for any Crew. Leveticus is no exception. The Mechanical Rider is a little too fast to be a good anchor for a Hollow Waif (since the Hollow Waif may have trouble keeping up), but it’s still an anchor option. She can summon a lot of different kinds of models likely to synergize with other Construct options: Mannequins to work with Vasalisa, Metal Gamin to support Teddy, Steam Arachnids to reduce Df for Stitched Together. She’s got a lot of good attacks, too. She’s a solid choice and often a favorite for Leveticus. Teddy Teddy is a huge expensive model, but has some very nice synergies with Leveticus. It can act as an upfield anchor for Hollow Waifs. It’s got a very brutal attack. The Teddy gets free attacks when enemies fail Wp duels nearby, and Leveticus’s ranged attack is resisted with Wp duels, so Leveticus can fire into a fight where Teddy is fighting and end up triggers some claws one way or another. Another option with Teddy is to hire it alongside some Metal Gamin to increase its Df from 3 up to 6. Vasilisa A Construct Henchman for Leveticus. She compliments Leveticus because she offers a lot of things that Leveticus can’t do: mobility and scheme control. She’s an incredible objective-grabber, which can help you accumulate VP while Leveticus is busy crushing opposition. If you hire Vasalisa, though, you’re pretty much committing to hiring a lot of Puppets so that her abilities aren’t wasted. Since you still want anchors, this will probably mostly mean Stitched Together and Coryphee, which still work very well with Leveticus. Playing an all-Puppet Leveticus crew is a little surprising and offbeat, but it can be a lot of fun. Ryle A suggestion from drool_bucket. Another Construct Henchman. Ryle has a really good ranged attack, healing abilities, speed, and durability. He also synergizes nicely with Lazarus, giving Lazarus access to a powerful ranged attack. Soulstone Miner Another suggestion from drool_bucket. The Soulstone Miner is a cheap durable anchor with a strong attack. It is especially good at Stake a Claim, which is a Strategy that often gives Leveticus trouble. It can just pop up and start claiming enemy territory on Turn Two, which is a big bonus for Leveticus. Some other likely Constructs include all the Iron Zombies, the Flesh Construct, Hunter, Stitched Together, Coryphee, the Hooded Rider, Metal Gamin, Steam Arachnids, and most of the Effigies.

Core Crew There are a few extended options across the Outcasts that you may want to consider (the Freikorps Strongsuit, Ama No Zako, Vanessa, Killjoy, Freikorps Librarian, and Hans are all popular possibilities), but for the most part, the Outcasts you’re going to want to hire are his core crew. These are detailed below. Hollow Waifs Leveticus’s extra lives. These mostly feel like a manifestation of Leveticus’s resilience and movement, more than models in their own. For the most part, that’s accurate. Keep them safe. Usually, Hollow Minions want to be hiding behind cover, but close to the action. Each one needs a babysitter. Don’t underestimate them, though! I’ve had a game recently where a Hollow Waif killed the enemy Henchman after I’d lost all of Leveticus’s anchors, and they gummed up the works enough that I managed to win the game on Schemes. Hollow Waifs have a really weak attack, with a miserable Ml 3, but a decent damage spread of 1/2/5. They have a strong Df 6, though, and a Wp 5. When they’re not hiding and waiting for Leveticus to explode out of them like a geriatric chestburster, they most often end up accomplishing things through their defensive trigger. They can do a damage to anyone who attacks them and misses! It’s not much, but it can grind down opponents trying to kill them, especially if you use Defensive Stance and To the Aether Return to increase the chances of getting the damage. They can surprise opponents. Their Wk 4 is plenty enough. Those 4 Wd last longer than you’d expect. You can make an opponent have to work to kill them. But mostly, they really are just extra lives for Leveticus. Abominations Abominations are more like some sort of toxic industrial byproduct than a model. I rarely hire them, because I can reliably count on them coming into play anyway. They have an okay melee attack. It’s got a decent Ml 5, with a built-in trigger to heal and a crow to summon an Abomination when they kill something. The damage spread is 1/2/4, though, which means they won’t often kill an enemy. It can’t hurt to charge with them, though, since they do a lot more harm just by hanging out near enemies. Mostly, what Abominations really want to do is walk up to an enemy and sit there. They make enemies take an easy Df test to avoid damage when they move up, which can be painful if you use it toward the end of the round when your opponent is likely to be low on cards. Worse, enemy models lose their suits and can’t use (0) actions when within 2” of an Abomination. They have an action (Vile Reclamation) that seems terrible at first but is really handy when you get used to it. They can damage a nearby friendly Construct to draw a card. They’re most likely to use this on each other, or Ashes and Dust (who can die and come back), or Lazarus (who can heal up). When you get enough of them, the added card flow can be a life-saver. Abominations die a lot. Their Df and Wp is 5 and they have only 4 Wd, and they like getting up close to enemies, which means they’re often getting killed. They can do damage to opponents with Unmade, and they can heal themselves with an automatic trigger on their melee attack, but don’t get attached. You’re not going to keep those Abominations for long. That’s okay. Make them gum up the enemy while they last. If you can get four of them in the same place, the story changes completely: They can then turn into some sort of rotting clockwork-and-carrion Voltron, bringing out a Devastation Engine which does massive melee damage and can spawn more Abominations. They’re not fast, they die easily, they’re not very good objective grabbers, and they don’t attack well. But deployed well, they can drain enemy resources and debuff like crazy, and help with getting more cards. Desolation Engine Another core crew member that I rarely hire. The Desolation is more of an urban legend than an actual model: a threat to scare opponents into spending their AP killing Abominations. That said, if one does come out (or if you decide to hire one) they’re pretty nasty. They have melee expert, a really nasty attack that can heal the Desolation Engine or make more Abominations. They pulse out damage with Industrial Nightmare and Desolate Supplication. They can use Consume to heal up, which is a decent use for Abominations, or a quick way to cycle Ashes and Dust if you need to do so. Their defense is only 3, and they don’t have the Unmade trigger that most of Leveticus’s Crew has. But they’ve got 12 Wd, and Hard to Kill. They have a few ways of healing, and when they die they leave behind two Abominations, which might make it easier to bring back a fresh Desolation Engine to avenge its fallen compatriot, or, failing that, just hang around accumulating cards and debuffing nearby enemies. Rusty Alyce Leveticus’s Henchman and Protege. Rusty Alyce is a little fragile for a 10 ss model, but she has a few decent defensive options. She’s got the Unmade trigger that much of Leveticus’ crew shares. She’s got Bulletproof 1, which helps in a firefight, and she protects herself and nearby models (which usually includes a Hollow Waif she’s babysitting) from Charges with her Snares ability. She can also spend Soulstones to get positive twists or prevent damage, which is often the best way to slow down an attempt to murder her. Often, though, you’ll want to leave her behind some cover, and let her spend her time sniping targets as she can. The biggest defense for Rusty Alyce is typically the threat of her counterattack. It’s often good to leave her to Activate late in the turn, so that she can cut down anything that comes too close. She’s two two very nasty attacks. Her melee attack has a melee of 6 and does a whopping 2/3/8 damage. With a Crow, she can get the Face of Death Trigger (discard up to three cards to get positive twists on damage) or the Desolate Warping Trigger (summon an Abomination when killing opponent). It’s generally not a good idea to throw her forward in melee, though: use this attack to make an opponent regret coming too close. Her more likely attack is her Clockwork Seeker. This has a strong 6 Sh, with a range of 12, and a very nasty 3/4/5 damage that ignores hard to wound. With an upgrade, she can get Desolate Warping for this attack too. She’s got Rapid Fire, so she can take a lot of shots and likely drop enemy models. Rusty Alyce also has some nice crew support options. With her upgrade From The Aether, she can make Scrap Counters (for more Abominations or for Ashes and Dust mobility) and she can summon Abominations from Scrap Counters. She also has an odd little buff/debuff, Burn Out: It gives a friendly Construct Reactivate, but reduces them to 1 Wd. This can give a last-minute push to win the game, can make sure a doomed model goes out with a bang, or can be used on Ashes and Dust to help it cycle (Ashes and Dust can’t use the Reactivate, but reducing it to 1 Wd makes it easier to kill.) Ashes and Dust Ashes and Dust is another strange model that fits in well with Leveticus’s crew: brutal damage profile, strangely fragile and not at the same time, with a cycle of death and rebirth that really works better the more you understand it. Tactically, Ashes and Dust is actually mostly a very expensive flanker and objective-grabber. It’s fast and has plenty of activations, and likes to stay close to table edges. It’s a lot nastier than most objective-grabbers, though. It’s pretty funny to watch Ashes and Dust gobble up an opponents fast fragile objective grabbers that try to hide in the same kind of places. Ashes and Dust has some very nice defensive tricks. It can’t be Charged due to choking wind. It’s also immune to Conditions due to Amalgamation, but that also means that Ashes and Dust can’t benefit from positive conditions like Fast, Reactivate, or other buffs. If your opponent hunts down the Ashes and Dust, you can lose it easily. It’s got a Df 6 and Wd 9, which is solid but falls apart under concentrated fire. On death, it splits up into an Ashen Core and a Dust Storm, which can then combine to make a new Ashes and Dust. If an enemy kills either of these, you can’t get Ashes and Dust back, though the models are still decent on their own. The best way to keep Ashes and Dust alive is to make sure he dies on your own terms. Keep it next to the table edge, so that it can reform quickly. Try to kill it at the end of the round, ideally after the enemy has run out of Activations, so you can bring it together safely again. Don’t leave it out in the open. Several members of Leveticus’s core crew can help that happen. Leveticus and Desolate Engine can just sacrifice Ashes and Dust with a (0) action. Rusty Alyce can reduce to 1 Wound and then finish it off herself or let a Hollow Waif or something do it. The idea is to kill it off at the right time so it can reform safely. Ashes and Dust is really, really fast. It can jump up to 10 inches onto a Scrap Marker with a 7 or better card and a (0) action. It’s Swift, so it’s got three actions. It’s got a walk of 5. You can cross the table pretty quickly with Ashes and Dust. If you give it Scramble (which brings his cost from 13ss up to a monstrous 15ss), that makes it insanely fast: In theory it can move 28” in a turn at this point, if everything’s set up correctly. Ashes really, really prefers to stick to the table edges. When it splits up, the Ashen Core goes into base contact (and gets its Upgrades). The Dust Storm starts in contact with a table edge that’s at least 6” away from the enemy deployment zone. You want to get them reunited by the end of the turn so your opponent doesn’t have a chance to kill either piece — keeping to the edge is the best way to make sure the parts can unite quickly. Ashes also has a very solid attack. It’s a Melee 7 with 2 melee range and a 3/4/6 damage spread, with a trigger on crows to summon an Abomination if you kill the enemy. With the speed Ashes can bring to bear, it makes short work of most opponents. Ashes and Dust is really Scheme-dependent. It is great at Outflank, since it sticks to the edges and can split up and occupy both sides of Outflank at the end of the game. Ashes and Dust is a big liability if Kill Protege is on the table: it’s guaranteed VP for the enemy, so don’t hire Ashes and Dust if Kill Protege is there. The two split up pieces are actually both good pieces on their own, but far more fragile and limited. Usually, their sole purpose is to reform and make Ashes and Dust whole again, but if that’s not possible, both models are still quite useful on their own. The Ashen Core has no move and a Df 1, but has Armor +2 and Hard to Wound 2, and only 6 Wd. It can give a Construct model Fast, and can make nearby models take damage (with Polluted Wasteland and Industrial Age.) But it’s totally immobile and kind of a sitting duck. The Dust Storm can act as an anchor for Hollow Waifs, and it’s more defensive. It’s got a Df 7 and Wp 5, with a built in trigger to do 2 damage when attacked, and Hard to Wound 2, but only 4 Wd. The Dust Storm has a very nice attack: Ml 7, 3/4/6 damage, and range 3 (a little better than the full Ashes and Dust), with a trigger on crows that pushes toward the Ashen Core, which is probably where you want to go anyway. The Dust Storm can heal with Corpse or Scrap Markers (the only piece of Leveticus’s core crew that uses Corpse Markers). Most importantly, when it gets into base contact with an Ashen Core, it can take a (0) to Initiate Reformation, which gives the Ashen Core a little more armor and summons an Ashes and Dust back at the end of the round. Lazarus While he doesn’t summon any Abominations, and technically he’s part of the Freikorps, I definitely consider Lazarus to be part of the Leveticus Core Crew. Lazarus makes a really good anchor for a Hollow Waif. He tends to stay out of trouble himself, he’s really hard to hurt and really good at repair, and he’s big enough that a Hollow Waif can hide behind him. He’s not very mobile, with a Wk 4 Cg 6 and no special movement tricks, but he can get where he needs to go. Lazarus has a low Df of 4, but Armor +2 and Self Repair to heal as a (0) action with no other cost. Because he often hangs back and gets cover, he ends up quite survivable. Lazarus can use a (1) action printed on another Construct within 8” (friendly or hostile) as a (0) action that requires a 6 of any suit and is resisted with Wp. Usually, this means copying an attack from a friendly Construct, but there are a lot of possible tricks with this, depending on what you and an enemy are playing. Keep an eye out for ways to do terrible things with this. Lazarus has some very nice basic attacks. His Grenade Launcher has a Sh 6, a Range of 12, and does a lot of damage, with blast counters. Worse, he can discard a card for Auto Fire to get three attacks with it, which is a more flexible version of Rapid Shot — he can shoot multiple targets with this. Lazarus also has a decent melee attack, Bayonet, which has a solid damage profile and can drop blast masters on a trigger that requires an extra ram. Most often in a Leveticus Crew, Lazarus acts as a solid sniper, finding a well-protected place to shoot down enemies, keeping a Hollow Waif safe, and deterring any attack with his resilience, self-repair, and nasty counterattack options. Hodgepodge Effigy Technically, the Hodgepodge Effigy isn’t part of Leveticus’s core crew, but it’s so very useful that I take him every time. The Hodgepodge is too cheap to be a good babysitter for Hollow Waifs, but it can bring two very nice things to the table for Leveticus. First, it can give Leveticus Loyalty to the Coin, which lets Leveticus regain a Soulstone whenever he kills a model. Since Leveticus is often spending a Soulstone and then killing a model, this really extends Leveticus’s ability to keep attacking. It’s also handy that Hodgepodge Effigy is an Accomplice: You can activate Hodgepodge at the start of the round, buff Leveticus, then let Leveticus Chain Activate and blast things before he disappears again. Second, it’s got The Mist, which gives soft cover. This is a great way to screen your models from ranged attacks, especially if you have to move through open terrain. The Hodgepodge Effigy has decent mobility with a Wk of 5. It has several ways to keep safe: a Df 6, The Mist, Hard to Kill, and Armor +1. Most enemies can kill it with three or so attacks, but that’s a pretty significant investment just to kill a 4ss model, so many opponents just grumble and let it live.

Avatar (This spot reserved for Avatar) Leveticus’s Avatar rules are still in beta. Most likely, it will give him more Ht and movement (which is always handy), and lets him hire Horsemen, and protect them (which can be important as they are fragile during early turns). One option to consider is to take the Avatar, no other Upgrades, and hire all four Horsemen (Dead Rider, Pale Rider, Mechanical Rider, and Hooded Rider). That leaves no other Soulstones for anything else, including other Upgrades and Crew, which means it’s just five riders (and a few Hollow Waifs tagging along.) During the game, though, Mechanical Rider and Leveticus are likely to summon more models, so the activations will start ramping up. It’s also a very imposing proposition and a wonderful visual effect, so it’s a fun and viable crew choice if that’s what you want to do. But, of course, these rules are still in Beta as of the time of this posting (4/29/2014) so this might change entirely.

Upgrades For the most part, Leveticus will generally want to use his own Upgrades, rather than Outcast generics. It’s possible he’ll get some benefit from Scramble (which speeds him up), or Tally Sheet (which draws cards when he kills people, which is often) but for the most part, he’s got such good Upgrades that he’ll usually want to keep those. Pariah of Iron / Pariah of Bone Leveticus’ two Limited Upgrades, and they do similar things. Pariah of Iron lets him hire non-Gremlin Constructs from any faction. (This means no Lucky Effigies or Pigapults or Whiskey Golems, but everything else is on the table.) Pariah of Bone lets him hire non-Gremlin undead from any faction (This means no Stuffed Piglets.) Both cost 1ss, which is the extra cost you’d pay for a single out-of-faction Mercenary anyway, so it’s well worth the Soulstone cost. Cheated Fates Joe on the Cheated Fates Plus Flip (a great resource) describes Leveticus players as “going both ways” because they can switch between these. That's pretty accurate: often you'll be picking to go one way or the other with Levi: "undead or mechanical". These upgrades aren’t actually all that necessary. Leveticus works really well with his core crew. But if you have an Undead model or construct that you want to work with, you can. An interesting thing to note is that some models are both Undead and Constructs, so Levi can hire them either way. These include all the Iron Zombies models, the all-important Necropunks, and the durable Flesh Construct. Many players prefer Pariah of Iron over Pariah of Bone, since Levi and his core crew use Scrap Markers and don’t get much use from Corpse Markers. The truth is, it’s mostly a matter of preference. He’ll work fine with either of them, and you’ll get some really interesting combination options. He’ll also work fine without either of them, just using his core crew. The advanced version of this is “Choose your Pariah options based on the terrain, opponent, Strategy, and Schemes.” It’s pretty easy to get struck by decision paralysis if you try to optimize too much, though, and it’s often more beneficial to play with a Crew that you know and like, than to try to come up with new exotic combinations every game. The basic version, though, is “Choose your Pariah options based on comfort and mood, and you’ll do fine.” From Ash This is one of Leveticus’ bread-and-butter Summon Upgrades. It costs 2 soulstones. This one Summons an Abomination from a Scrap Marker. It’s handy! It synergizes well with Rusty Alyce’s From the Aether. You can use this to bring back Abominations from the Scrap Markers they drop. You can use this if you have a lot of Constructs, to bring back Abominations as your guys fall. You can use this on your enemy Crew as you kill them. This adds a lot of staying power to your Crew, keeping a steady supply of Abominations and increasing the chances of getting a Desolate Engine into play. Personally, I don’t take it that often. It’s a (1) action to use, and I’m usually using most of Leveticus’s (1) actions killing enemy models. To The Earth Return Leveticus’s attack boost. This costs only 1 Soulstone, and gives the Unnatural Wasting trigger, which requires a ram and does damage equal to half the opponents remaining Wounds (round up) if you get moderate or higher damage. This is a great way to crack open a high-wound enemy model. It’s handy if you want to have Leveticus kill big enemy models. You’ll want to make sure you can cheat damage to use this — it’s less useful against an opponent with Hard Cover, or with Impossible to Wound. But being able to cheat in a 6 for moderate damage and do 7 damage is kind of a thrill. I take it quite often. Desolate Soul Leveticus’s other Summon ability, and the one that I take most often. This adds a trigger to Leveticus’s Unmaking, that requires a Crow and summons an Abomination if you kill a target. It costs 2 Soulstones, but it’s worth it. Turning enemy models into Abominations is a nasty tactic, and one that you’ll get plenty of opportunities to use every game. This is one of the places where Leveticus’s Soulstones often go. You generally know when you’re going to be able to kill an enemy model, because Leveticus does such consistent damage. If you don’t have a high Crow in hand, you can spend a Soulstone to gain an Abomination, which adds to your activation advantage. Note also that Rusty Alyce can take this Upgrade, which gives her Clockwork Seeker some Abomination-making too. Since Rusty Alyce does a lot of damage with her attacks, this can be a way to generate even more Abominations. It’s a little expensive at 2 soulstones, especially if you also take From The Aether, but there’s a lot to be said for spamming the board with Abominations.

The Basics The simple version of Leveticus’ core mechanics: When he dies, he gets buried instead. (Unless he dies while buried, of course.) He can then unbury in base contact with any of his Hollow Waifs, but only if the Hollow Waif has another model of 6+ soulstone (generally called an “anchor” or “babysitter”) within 6” and LoS. Leveticus has very few Wounds for a Master (8) and he can burn through those Wounds to make his attack better through an Ability called Channel. He really likes to burn through those Wounds, and the easiest way for him to get them back is to die and come back again. He can turn enemies (and, with an Upgrade, Scrap Markers) into Abominations. He has a ranged attack (Unmaking) with a fairly mediocre damage profile (2/3/4) but he can often cheat that damage flip, and the damage can’t be reduced and ignores Hard to Wound and Hard to Kill, so it’s a very consistent level of damage. Mobility Leveticus’s mobility is deceptive. He’s got a Walk of 4 and a Charge of 5. Often, especially at the beginning, he’ll need to spend an AP or two to walk up to get in range to attack an enemy. But his mobility is actually a lot better than that when supported by his Crew. He can hop around the board between turns, summoning a new Hollow Waif with his (0) Sanguine Evocation and then Sacrificing himself, only to show up elsewhere between turns. This leads to an odd kind of mobility, where the rest of the Crew can move around, and Leveticus can hop between them to be where he’s needed every turn. If he’s not going to do this, Leveticus also has another movement trick. As a (0) action, he can sacrifice a friendly Undead model and jump into base contact with it before it goes away. This sounds like a very expensive kind of Mobility, and it can be, but two of his Core Crew are built to work well with this: his Abominations keep appearing all over the place anyway, and Ashes and Dust can come back from being sacrificed fairly easily. It’s still an expensive trick, since Leveticus can’t summon a Hollow Waif on a turn when he does this, but it can be very handy. Resilience Leveticus has a very strong Wp of 7. His Df is only 5, but he’s got a built-in trigger that does 1 damage if he wins a Df duel. He can discard a card to raise that by 1 with Entropic Demise if the enemy is close. This gives a little bit of discouragement for enemies to attack. Really, though, Leveticus’s incredible resilience is based around his cycle of Pariah’s Soul and to some extent Sanguine Evocations. You can’t really kill him unless you kill his Hollow Waifs and/or babysitters. Attacking Leveticus is still a useful tactic, since it reduces his Wounds (which he uses for Channel) and if you can kill him before he activates, denies Leveticus an Activation. Since Leveticus can usually kill a model every Activation, killing him first is a good value. It’s rarely worthwhile to try to keep Leveticus alive. He wants to die and come back. That’s how he heals and grows and moves and survives. The only time you really want to consider keeping him alive too long is if your anchors or babysitters are all dead, or you want to send him somewhere that his crew isn’t. Offense Leveticus’s offensive options are a bit terrifying. His main attack is Unmaking. It’s got a Ca of 7 with a built-in tome, it’s resisted with Wp, and it’s got a gun icon, so he’s affected by cover and shooting into melee. It only does 2/3/4 damage, but that damage ignores Armor (and Armor-like abilities), Hard to Kill, and Hard to Wound. Usually, it’s got an added positive twist from Channel, so he can often cheat in higher damage. With a 7 Ca and a positive twist from Channel, Unmaking almost always hits the target. Unmaking has several very good triggers. There’s a built-in trigger that gives a (1) melee action to the target if he hits a friendly model. This is handy: it means that Leveticus can shoot into melee without much guilt. On a mask, he can give the victim Slow, which occasionally matters if the victim somehow survives Leveticus’ attack. Ezryder points out Power Leech, another trigger for Unmaking that means the target can't prevent damage with Soulstones. With this trigger, Leveticus can kill a Master or Henchman in a single activation if all goes well. Leveticus also has a melee attack, Death Touch. It’s got a Ml of 6 with a built-in Crow, and it’s resisted with Df. He can use Channel with this attack, too, and should. It’s got two triggers, both of which require a Tome. The first, Face of Death, lets him discard up to three cards to get a positive twist on the damage flip. The second, Desolate Warping, summons an Abomination if the attack kills the target. The damage spread for Death Touch is wide: the attack does 1/3/8, but since he can get positive twists from Channel and Face of Death, Leveticus can almost always cheat the damage up. (The only exception to this are targets with Impossible to Wound. Leveticus probably will have trouble with these targets, and may need to grind them down a bit to kill them.) Leveticus can do a little bit of damage to opponents with Unmade and Entropic Demise, too. He does a point of damage on a Tome (built in for Df) when he wins a Wp/Df duel. If an enemy is within 6” of Leveticus, he can discard a card to increase this damage to 2. Most of his core crew has Unmade as well, and he can increase their Unmade damage as well. This doesn’t add up to much damage, but it can soften up attacks and make them hiss a little bit and sometimes hesitate to attack. Summoning Leveticus can summon. Most of his summoning happens through his upgrades (see below) but he has two summoning abilities on his card. First, he can summon a Hollow Waif as a (0) action. This also sacrifices him, which means he’ll use up a Hollow Waif coming back, so this Summon mostly will just break even. Breaking even isn’t that bad, though. If he dies without summoning a Hollow Waif, he’ll lose one of his precious Waifs (he starts with two, and can only summon one by sacrificing himself, so he’ll never have more than three. Summoning one brings a fresh unwounded Waif in, and gives him more options for where he comes back. Second, he can summon an Abomination on a trigger from his Death Touch. With Upgrades, he’s got more ways to Summon Abominations, so over time they will often start cropping up. Strategies and Schemes Leveticus does fine at most strategies. He’s great with Turf War, good with Reckoning (he’ll kill a model every turn, you just need someone else to kill the other), and can do the others (though he’ll benefit from some good objective-grabbers.) Some Schemes scream out for Leveticus to take: Make Them Suffer is a natural choice because of Leveticus’s killing potential. Outflank works really well with Ashes and Dust. Assassinate is a pretty reasonable choice too. Other Schemes give Leveticus trouble. Kill Protege is way too easy for the opponent to use against Ashes and Dust. Vendetta has trouble since Leveticus often lacks mid-cost combatants. Distract is difficult because Leveticus likes killing enemy models so much. Most of the Scheme Marker-based choices (Plant Explosives, Plant Evidence, Breakthrough, Protect Territory) require Leveticus to hire objective-grabbers to take care of, and often those objective grabbers can’t act as anchors. Still, Leveticus has plenty of hiring options and can grab very good models to meet most schemes. Activations Leveticus often gains a very big activation advantage during play. His core Totem is free and he can have two or three of them. During play he ends up killing enemy models about once a turn, and he often ends up spamming the table with Abominations. Ashes and Dust uses up a few Activations too. Often, this means that you’ll have two or three activations at the end of the turn over the opponent. This is great if you can keep it: You can maneuver Hollow Waifs safely into the open to set up Leveticus for a respawn the next turn, you can cycle your Ashes and Dust safely, you can run objectives, or you can just kill the enemy crew as they run low on cards. You won’t always have the activation advantage, but usually you will. Deciding when to activate Leveticus is a tough choice. If he’s threatened, you want to activate him early so that he can drop some apocalypse and disappear. If not, you may want to keep him ready throughout the turn. Leveticus does a great job of claiming some territory and wiping out anything that comes into it, so having him there as a threat can make opponents hesitate to approach. Rusty Alyce often likes going last, if you’re hiring her. She’s a little fragile, so she doesn’t want to open herself up to attack, but the threat of her gunshots is often enough to keep her (and the Hollow Waif she’s probably protecting) safe. Hollow Waifs can act whenever. If you’re going to bring them into the open, do it after the opponent has gone. If opponents are hunting and you want to keep them safe, you can activate them, use their (0) to get their tome for Unmade triggers automatically, and do some Defensive Stance. Crew Hiring Leveticus has a lot of difficult hiring choices. He really uses a lot of Soulstones (to get the triggers he needs, and for defense to stay alive if he hasn’t activated yet), so you want to keep some in reserve. He often needs good cheap objective-runners, but he also needs big pieces for Anchors. He’s got a lot of Upgrade options, and all of them help him do Leveticus-y things better. He has the largest hiring pool in the game (101 according to the awesome Rathnard’s count). Don’t panic. Seriously. The worst thing you can do while hiring is to get confused and try to come up with some new perfect combination and end up with a ragtag crew that doesn’t synergize well, and even worse if it has insufficient or no Anchors. If you’re not sure what to do, you can probably just hire the core crew and you won’t regret it. Spice it up with another Anchor that you think will work well. Always hire two Hollow Waifs. They’re literally free, and Leveticus needs them. Don’t consider other Totems. It could be that someday someone will come up with an exotic Leveticus Crew build that benefits from some other Totem somehow, but I doubt it. His Core Crew (see below) is really good with him. Consider them. Learn to love them. Bring in other models when you think they’ll work well, but remember that the Core Crew is good. Hire three anchors. If you hire fewer, you lose mobility and increase the chances that you’ll lose your anchors and therefore lose Leveticus. You can experiment a little with which anchors to hire: the Core Crew includes some great options, but there are other good choices to pick, especially if you have a model you want to try. Save some Soulstones. Leveticus can burn through seven in a game without blinking. Three is a bare minimum. Next up: Upgrades.

I was a little surprised that there wasn’t already a Leveticus tactica on the forums here. I figured I would take a shot at one. I'd also like to link to an essay I wrote a few months back, Why I Love M2E Leveticus. Much props out to all the badass Leveticus players I’ve learned from. Especially drool_bucket and Lucidicide, who are premier players who really know their stuff. Leveticus is a steampunk necromancer, a scavenger who recovers stray parts both dead and mechanical and salvages them into horrible new creations. He’s quite a departure from most Masters, in that his mechanics revolve around the fact that he’ll probably die several times and keep coming back. He also has the dubious pleasure of having the absolute largest possible hiring pool of any master in the game. Playing against Leveticus the first time can be a shock: he’s easy to kill but keeps coming back. His attacks almost always hit, do decent to huge damage, and bypass most defenses. He jumps around the board. He summons by killing you, and his Core Crew models all have unusual mechanics of dying, being reborn, being created, and combining together. Once you get used to him, he’s still very dangerous and potent. His resilience and his mobility all rely on odd crew mechanics: to come back from the dead, he needs a Hollow Waif, plus another model to anchor the Hollow Waif.

Each model must match the prereqs for the cards it's given. And the Upgrade must be for the Faction you hired into. So if Sonnia hired Papa Loco, Papa Loco could get Family Upgrades and Generic Guild cards, but not Witch Hunter upgrades. If this helps: Models don't really know what Master they're "supposed" to be with. They just know what's on their card, and their faction.

I've taken Ama No Zako with other Outcast Masters, but not with the Viks. In my experience, Ama No Zako tends to do her own thing: she's fast enough to grab objectives and can eat enemy objective-grabbers (especially short ones) so they'll stay away. She also does well just on the front lines pounding face. So I don't know if she has any specific synergy with the Viks, but she's so good at working on her own that I suspect she'd do well with any Crew.

I believe Gaining Grounds allows you to use Minion Hamelin as Master Hamelin, despite the base size difference?

Rusty Alyce is a very solid Henchman Summoner. And Ashes and Dust does plenty of summoning too. But Ashes and Dust would be terrible for this, because Ashes and Dust likes to stay at the edges, which messes up Turf War.

I would like to be able to buy VPs directly from Wyrd, both for tournaments and casual play. I think $25 per VP is fair for casual play and $50 per VP for tournament. Wait, no, that's the dumbest idea ever. Please disregard.

Wow, these are some really helpful combinations! I'm going to be trying a combo soon: Levi + Vasalisa + Stitched, Shadowy, Hodgepodge, and Coryphee, with Mech Rider in the mix for Arcane & Mannequins. Kind of a death puppet gang. For Recon & Scheme Marker games. I'll post how it goes.