Myth

Yeah, I wouldn't say it is anything to build a crew around. Staying more than 1" from your friends but within 3" makes for some tricky positioning. On the other hand, the Twins aren't bad bodyguards for Dreamer in the first place, since they can recover health so quickly. So I can see times when you might want to make use of it, but I wouldn't go out of your way to try and make it happen.

Well, a model with Black Blood could do splash damage when the Dreamer sends attacks towards it. Though you'd want to make sure Dreamer doesn't get hit by the Black Blood himself. I think Lelu and Lilitu are the only Nightmares with Black Blood built in, though a Black Blood Shaman could hand it out to someone like Teddy. (And, for that matter, could provide it to Dreamer so he isn't harmed by the splash damage. Though he'd lose the buff if he ever woke up Chompy.) Stitched Together could potentially trigger Rotten Contents when hit. And, for that matter, could gain Reactivate if they get dropped to 1 Wd. (And could potentially heal above 1 Wd as soon as they Activate near the Dreamer.)

That's absolutely correct. I totally thought it was an Attack Action! With that in mind, there might not be any minions Collodi has access to that can damage multiple enemies at once... I suppose there are some who have triggers for bonus attacks, though.

Ok, so I finally got the chance to try the Collodi + Black Blood Shaman combo. (The combo: The Shaman gives Collodi Black Blood. Collodi makes the Shaman his Personal Puppet. When enemies hit Collodi, they take Black Blood, plus the Shaman can take a free action to cast Black Blood Pustule to explode more damage out of Collodi while healing and/or buffing Collodi. Collodi spends his turns Creeping near enemies and then using My Will to command the Shaman to spam more Black Blood Pustles, with the +Flip making it quite easy to succeed with the triggers he wants. More Bonuses: If the Shaman is close enough, the damage he takes to use Personal Puppet will also spread out Black Blood. If Collodi has Strum the Threads, when he takes damage to gain Fast, this also triggers Black Blood. Same for any puppets that the Shaman has given Black Blood!) And man, it was awesome. In one turn, the two of them took Francisco and Perdita from full (with 4 Soulstones for DR) to dead (with no Soulstones), without either of the Ortegas getting any resist duels to even try and stop it. And, in the process, the wounded Shaman and nearly dead Collodi healed to full. (With the Brutal Effigy ensuring that the Shaman got lots of healing, and the Clot trigger on Black Blood Pustule patching Collodi up quite nicely.) Now, my opponent didn't really expect it to be quite that devastating, so if they were up against it again, would likely try and keep their distance. But Collodi and his friends can be quite fast, so that won't always be as easy as it seems, I suspect. I didn't bring along any other Nephilim to really take advantage of the destruction, but might look into trying that going forward. I did have Nekima along, operating rather independently on the other side of the board, but might bring her more into the mix along with the True Mother upgrade to really benefit from all the Black Blood mayhem going on. Edit: One small correction, as the Brutal Effigy's healing boost doesn't help the Shaman, since the Black Blood Pustule is a Tactical Action. On the other hand, that means the Shaman can cast it on himself, which I hadn't even realized, so that should work just fine!

Those are generally what I use it for. If he also takes the Threads of Fate upgrade, he gains an Action where he can give himself Armor, so could potentially pass that out as well.

So I wasn't very impressed with them when I first read about them. I also have not had much success using Zoraida in M2E. So when my local group started up a Malifaux League for a month (with a lot of new players), I decided that a good challenge would be trying to make a Poison-themed Neverborn crew! This meant Zoraida, a bunch of Wicked Dolls, a Performer or two as a Merc, and at higher soulstones, a Widow Weaver. It didn't take first place in the league, but actually ended up performing really well. The idea was to swarm the enemy, leading to them getting covered in massive amounts of Poison, which Performers could convert directly into damage via one of their attacks. Zoraida could also hand out a decent amount of Poison via Hex Bag, and the voodoo doll went well with Performers who could easily pass along Paralyze through it. I wasn't able to set up the full poison shenanigans all the time, but there were a few opportunities where I was able to wipe out some big models with it. What I found more relevant was that the Wicked Dolls were pretty great at dealing with many schemes. Their teleport triggers made them good at moving around the field. Especially with schemes like Distract and Cursed Object, their numbers made it very easy to hand those conditions out en masse. And in return, they were so cheap on my end, that if the opponent put those sort of conditions on me, sometimes my best solution was to just kill off the dolls myself - especially since the Widow Weaver could bring them right back with her upgrade. Or, if enough of them fall, she can bring Teddy out to play! I'm not sure I'd use them on a regular basis, but I have ended up a bit more impressed with them than I used to be. They aren't very durable, but Df 6 means they don't always drop when simply casually targeted. Accomplice and teleporting gives some nice utility, as does their healing (0) - and the buff it gives works quite well with Zoraida. So I think they do have their place in the faction overall. I should also note that in the course of the entire league - something like 6 or 7 games in total, with my crew featuring 6 Wicked Dolls in just about every game... I never managed to make use of "Crawl Away Home". I believe I successfully got the trigger on an enemy exactly twice - both times after the model had already gone, and thus the debuff was meaningless. So that was kinda disappointing.

Black Blood Shaman can do a 1" Pulse out of any model with Black Blood (which he can himself hand out to his friends.)

Ototo also, notably, is a Henchman with Hard to Kill, which can be quite powerful with Nexus of Power in play. (As it makes you essentially unkillable until you run out of Soulstones). So you could hire him and Taelor as mercenaries and have a very dangerous front-line force (especially with Obeys to churn out extra attacks or movement).

I haven't tried it yet, but I've been looking at Silent Ones as an interesting option for her. They bring some ranged capability to the Neverborn, and also bring healing and terrain generation. As well as a paralyze ability that can go well with the Voodoo Doll.

No, the limitation is tied to 'Horror duels' directly, not to 'Terrifying'. "A model that passes a Horror Duel may continue to act normally. Additionally, the model is considered Immune to Horror effects from the model that generated the Horror duel until the End Phase of the Turn." Thus, if the Widow Weaver uses her Exhale Terror on a target, and they make the Horror Duel, they could then attack her freely on their own Activation without worrying about Terrifying. But it is important to keep in mind that the immunity is tied to that specific model, not to the ability in question - so if a Doppelganger used Mimic to copy Exhale Terror and use it on the same target, they would still have to make a Horror duel, as they don't have immunity to Horror caused by the Doppelganger. This is often where you find the full power of some models that negate Horror immunities, such as the Hanged or Pandora - if a model has its immunity taken away, then dealing with Widow Weaver can become even more of a challenge, when she might force you to make 3-4 Horror duels in a round.

I've had a lot of trouble getting good use out of him. He kinda has the problem of having a very scattered focus. He is a ranged attacker, but many of his abilities (Disillusion, Black Blood, Deranged Laughter) involve getting close to the enemy. He's got From the Shadows, so you could try and have him deploy somewhere where he can shoot key enemies on turn 1 - but that usually just gets him killed due to how fragile he is. I get the sense he is supposed to work by hanging out in cover and shooting enemies, who can't shoot him back without dealing with the cover, and can't charge him due to Disguised, and so just have to spend the turn walking towards him, where he can Disillusion them away and shoot them again. But in practice, I've never been able to make that happen, and putting him in cover just gets him trapped due to his lack of Unimpeded. He's got an ok melee attack, but it isn't really his strong suit. From what I've been told, those who have had success with him have done so by using him as a bit of a 'counter' piece - don't ever deploy him forward, but instead have him ready to move in behind your crew and make use of the Shotgun and Disillusion. And Disillusion does seem like the strongest part of him - the Push can be very useful if you have models with Pounce nearby, and the trigger is a very strong one. But the range is so short that I've always had trouble with it. I think the big thing is that in the previous edition, it was very obvious how he was supposed to be used - he was a fast, mobile short-ranged attacker, who could bounce in and out of cover and harass the enemy. But his current version doesn't really have any focus at all. He's not particularly durable, he has a mix of up-close and ranged capabilities, he relies heavily on triggers to truly have an impact... It isn't even that he feels useless for the cost. His stats aren't terrible, his attacks aren't terrible, his abilities aren't useless. But nothing about him really stands out, and given some of the other models you could get insead, I can think of very few lists where he would actually be worth taking.

You know, I think you're right. I've been using him with Collodi (since Luck of the Draw is crazy good with Hard to Kill models), and I was going on the opposite assumption, but based on the description of flips and duels in the rules, all the cards you flip for positive or negative fate... are indeed cards you have flipped, and any rams can count for Luck of the Draw. So if you've got some Defensive on you, you can rack up quite a bit of healing!

Right, but I think regardless of what Master might cause a big loss when first playing the game, you would likely have received many of the same responses. Again, I've seen similar comments made for just about every Master - even ones I don't consider among the strongest. I've seen someone go up against Zoraida and have their biggest models auto-paralyzed via Voodoo Doll shenanigans, and basically just give up - but I've also had plenty of games with Zoraida where there just aren't the resources to make that happen. I've seen talk about Lynch's 'Final Debt' ability being the most broken power in the game - but I've played him a dozen times and only found it useful on a handful of occasions. In the end, every Master - and crew - is generally capable of being awesome in some fashion. And if you get blown out by that - whether due to not expecting such abilities, or poor luck with cards, or a bad scenario or matchup - and ask about it, I think you'll usually get told two things. "Yeah, that Master can do that"... and "But here are some ways to deal with it." I don't think anyone is intentionally misspeaking when they say, "Yeah, Perdita is a killer Master and can be really terrible to face." I think they just usually don't recognize that you can swap in just about any Master in that sentence and it would still be true. "Oh yeah, Pandora's not fair to face. And McMourning. And Seamus. And Sonnia. And Rasputina. And the Viks. And Hamelin. And Somer. And Ophelia." This isn't to say that every time you face any Master, you'll end up wanting to rage-quit the game. Just that, in the end, most every Master has the potential to do something crazy, and especially for a new player, or with a new crew, having one of those experiences might come across as 'rage-quit-worthy'... even if it could happen to anybody. And to a large extent, I think everyone's 'worst Master' comes down to their own experiences. I consider McMourning overpowered because of how overwhelming he was the first time I faced him - even though I've seen him lose every time since then. I have an irrational fear of Kirai because of some of her early beta forms - even though I've also tabled a Kirai crew in a single turn. And I've got very little fear of the Brewmaster after seeing him lose hard every time I've played against him - but I've also had others swear that he can be the most infuriating debuffing Master in the game. This isn't to say that, with this advice, you will necessarily go up against Perdita and wipe her out. You could go in, with all this new info, and still get blown away. It does happen. But I don't think one can necessarily point to the Master as the culprit - sometimes games will go for you, and sometimes they won't, and there are a ton of variables that go into that.

Right - but remember that people also say that about Lynch, and you know first-hand that doesn't translate to him being an auto-win against all opponents. I think a lot of it does come down to Perception. If you play against the Viks and have them table you by halfway through turn 2, you might think they are unstoppable - but another opponent might land some key shots against them on their way in, and finish off the main Viks, and thinks they are a pushover since the rest of the game is a cakewalk. I think Perdita is more powerful than some Masters, sure. But that is generall on the weaker Masters, not on her. I think she is on par with the top level of Masters in the game - but that top level, in my opinion, consists of about 75% of Masters in the game, if not more! I think the Masters who are below the curve are the exception. And I think Perdita, like Lynch, is capable of both blow-out victories as well as crushing defeats, but isn't any more unbalanced than most Masters you will face. She is strong, she has a solid crew, but they aren't the highest damage crew or the most durable crew or the most plentiful crew. They do a lot of things well, but are only really exceptional when it comes to their synergy - and that can be a weakness in the wrong mission, or as the game goes on and models are killed off.

I could see that being interested. Even without being spammed, having a handful of Wastrels who Lynch can really power up via aces could be a nice addition to his crew when playing Ten Thunders. For the full Wastrel list, Sidir might be a good addition, as someone who can jump in and help keep them alive against big enemies - and who makes a good target for them if they end up spamming Castoffs for healing.

Df 7 and Wp 7 are great! But she also only has 10 Wds, and no other defensive abilities. If you manage to run her out of cards, or are attacking her with models that have good accuracy themselves, she can go down fast. She can invest in some defensive upgrades... but they tend to be expensive, and using up spots she wants to spend on more important things. She's got an attack that is high accuracy (especially with upgrades). Damage is not very high inherently, but the right triggers can boost it. On the other hand, Armored or Incorporeal enemies in Cover are real trouble for her, since Trick Shooting only lets her bypass one of those. The big advantage of the Ortegas is mobility and synergy. But that can also be their biggest weakness. Her crew can do a lot of chain activations at the top of the round - but if they don't finish off everything in sight, that leaves them exposed to a lot of enemy activity in return. And if the game becomes a war of attrition, late game they start having a lot of those mobility and companion abilities 'turn off' due to not having anyone left nearby to use them on. Especially in missions where the schemes and strategy demand they spread out. Turf War is great for her, but Recoinnoiter can really stretch her crew thin. And I've found that is often the key to taking them down. Use the terrain to your advantage - not just for cover, but to split them up and limit their mobility. (Most of their free movement effects say Push, not Place, which means they can be blocked by terrain or models.) Focus on the key pieces early on - take out the Enslaved Nephilim, and anyone carrying Diestro or Hermanos de Armas. Often that is Francisco, so you also remove his buffing ability by taking him out. It is also important to use the right tools at the right time. If Francisco charges in, but has his Finesse ability active, you don't want to blindly swing at him and just miss a bunch. Instead, take Focused attacks on him - or come at him with Ca attacks. Or wait until the next round and finish him early. Without Finesse, he doesn't have much keeping him alive - indeed, most of the Ortega Enforcers have high Wds, but only average defensive stats, and few special protections. Sure, they can also buy Lead-lined Coats, but that's taking the cost of each model up to 9-10 SS, which is getting expensive. Again, I think the Ortegas are a solid crew. But they've got weaknesses just like any other crew.

I think Candy doesn't get it directly, but can hand it out via a trigger on one of her attacks.

Bishop does sound like a good match with McCabe. He's not a great Sabre target since his built-in attack is very similar to it, but he looks like he would be a very effective target with Nimble. A Nimble Bishop and a Reactivating, Sabre-Wielding (somehow) Luna... that's a pair that can fly across the board and do some very bad things to vulnerable parts of the enemy crew. Especially since McCabe probably isn't far behind and you can bring along a pack of Guild Hounds who also have the speed to keep up.

See, I've actually found it to be the opposite! On paper, she seems like an easy buy - you are just about guaranteed to get back your cost in Gupps with just 2 turns of laying eggs. But in practice, 9 SS is a non-trivial investment for a model that isn't actually good at anything - who isn't especially durable and has a lackluster attack. Which, again, isn't unreasonable, since she is bringing you free models - just a little disappointing to see in the field.

I've tried her once and had trouble making good use of her. I feel like she really needs to be in a list with some other big targets to buy her time to do her thing. It does feel like trying to get more use out of Nourish the Young - to boost your other models - is a big key. The main issue with that is simply speed and positioning. Her Wk isn't bad... but she doesn't have unimpeded, despite it being pretty common on other Swampfiends. (Presumably less for balance reasons, and more because they just ran out of space on the front of the card.) She also tends to be a bit of a card or Soulstone drain in order to power her Gupp generation. Overall, I definitely feel like you could build a list around her. But... you kinda need to do so. Compared to other Neverborn Henchmen, who are often very effective in just about any role, the Spawn Mother is really only a good fit in certain lists.

I actually tried out this at one point - prior to Wave 2, so it was mainly Hungry, Juju, some Waldgeists and some Illuminated. Hungry and Juju can lead the charge and keep coming back, and the other guys aren't exactly easy to deal with either. It was fun to try out, though probably not something I'd try on a regular basis.

So, I'm one of those who hasn't even bothered assembling my own Poltergeist. The main issue for me isn't that the Poltergeist is bad, it is just that it is expensive. I'd rather have a Malifaux Child and some points for upgrades, rather than dumping a bunch of points into something that isn't easy to keep alive. That said, I think it certainly can be usable. The big thing to realize is that its purpose isn't so much taking actions, as getting into the midst of the enemy to debuff them. Magical Extension is nice if it can cast it, but I think a more potent use is to hide it behind terrain until the right time, and them make a 12" incorporeal dash to get near some important enemies and cover them in its Aura. And if you can time it to do so after those models have activated, you can follow up by having Pandora or Widow Weaver or someone who hits them with something that causes Horror Duels, or shuts them down in some other way. (Or just, say, bring Bishop along to punch them to death.) Speaking of its mobility - it is speed 6, incorporeal, and a minion, so it can also help with objectives. It is a bit pricy to make that its primary purpose, but that gives it something to work on while you wait for an opportunity to really exploit it. As far as its survivability... as I mentioned, keeping out of sight is always a useful trick for someone with good speed and Incorporeal. In addition, it is a Woe, which means Pandora can use Martyr to soak damage from it. As can Iggy, if you bring him along. If you also have access to healing - such as with Candy - that can go a long way. The downside of this is that you need to stay somewhat clustered yourself, and even if all your models are heading for the same place, you may have some timing issues with trying to keep them positioned in the right spots at the right time. Regarding Candy's use with Pandora, I find her to be a pretty great all-around model. She's got 3 AP, which is really nice for her cost. She has Manipulative to help stay alive, but even without it, has decent Df and the ability to use Soulstones. As for what she does herself, she has a couple different options - she can help out with healing the crew. Or she can try and position herself near key enemies and take advantage of Mood Swing to punish enemies with Sweets and Sours. Her attacks aren't very accurate, but if you have debuffed enemy Wp, they don't have to be. And she has a 3" melee range which is great for just causing interference in the enemy ranks. The key is not to rely on her as being the best at anything. If you can't set up a paralyze via Sweets, don't stress about it - just have her do whatever useful thing she can do, which might simply be moving around and healing, or might be locking down models for next round. And when you do manage to trigger a Mood Swing / Sweets combo, it can really cripple an enemy crew. I like her best in a Woe-based crew, where her healing can really boost the effectiveness of Martyr. One of the weaknesses is that both of these models - and several others in Pandora's crew - really benefit from waiting to go as late in the round as possible. While also being kinda pricy, making it hard to really outnumber your enemy the way you want to. So to some extent, you want to keep aware of this limitation, and either find some cheap additions that can help boost your crew size (like Alps, for example), or try and remove vulnerable targets early in the game to gain the activation edge in that fashion.

Yeah, being aware of how to make damage tracks really work for you is definitely important. There are certainly models out there who can do decently by just swinging away. And Hungry can be one of them, in fact, if you have Rams to cheat in or Soulstones to burn in order to get his Envelop trigger. Similarly, if you've got Brilliance on an enemy, the Illuminated can go to town - even without Addict in the picture, min damage of 4 is where models really get scary. But if you are just throwing around attacks whenever you get the opportunity to do so, the damage will take a bit longer to add up - especially when things like Armor come into the picture. This is why Illuminated are, in turn, very difficult to deal with. An elite model can certainly past them quickly. But if they go up against some average models, who are struggling to do 1-2 damage a hit, and you recover several points of health each turn... there aren't many great ways to deal with them. Rasputina can unload a scary amount of damage - but only if she's getting her upper damage track. You don't have to make her miss, just get her within 5, and that negative flip can often shut her down. Not always - with any of these guys, you can always just try and hope you get double moderate on a negative flip, which isn't common, but does happen. But usually, if Rasputina wants to land her top damage, you want to force her to Focus to get it, and spend valuable AP making it happen.

Nope, you are totally right. I remembered it only worked vs Df, didn't realize it also specified Ml only as well. It is true that getting the most out of Illuminated or the Darkness can require good cards for triggers or for cheating. Unless you have Brilliance up, just running in and swinging away is usually just going to produce some weak hits, which aren't going to be any scarier than any other generic minion running in and taking a swing. This is one reason why, even though I almost always take Woke Up With a Hand, I don't make too much effort to save my cards for the end of the round just to have a powered up Final Debt. Similarly, if I'm halfway through the round and don't have anything decent in my hand, it might be worth it to have Lynch activate and Mulligan so I can get some decent cards when it counts, rather than wait until the end of the round for his bonus. Of course, sometimes you can stone for cards, and mulligan, and draw bonus cards, and still end up with a terrible selection. Not even Lynch can always avoid the whims of the luck gods. Though at least with Expert Cheater, crappy cards can be great for bluffing and tricking opponents into wasting high cards when they don't need to...

Hungering Darkness's main attack is still vs Df, so he remains vulnerable to having his activation ended early. Nonetheless, with Envelop, he can take out more than half of her wounds in one swing. The Illuminated, even with only one attack, can also do decent damage with Flay or Focus. And note that in order to get his Freeze trigger, he needs to be spending Tomes or Soulstones. Rasputina is similar to Hungry - she's a low Df model who relies on her extra defenses to keep her alive. Once out of resources, she can fall pretty fast.