Malicte

Agree with Mindshred here. For its cost, you've got a very durable model that is significant, and providing mobile cover is great for the sisters who are relatively fragile. Loyalty to the Coin for a crew as killy as the Viks won't let you down, either.

It's like Kadeton says in his post above. You'll find that in the Outcast faction that there's virtually every playstyle in the game covered, and no other faction can really say that. The other thing, and I want to highlight this from Kadeton's post, is this: Malifaux is a game where, obviously, you don't run a fixed list. You tailor what you bring in any given game to what the strategy, schemes, and opponent are. The thing is, you know what the opponent's *faction* is, but no more. You don't know what crew, what master, what upgrades. If you're planning to choose your crew based on opponent, like Guild does, you've got an issue where you may choose something to deal with a summoner and be left high and dry when they instead bring an elite heavy beater list, or something similar. With the Outcasts, you've got the ability to tailor your crew to the Strategy and Schemes first. You'll always know what those are, and then can always make sure you've got the right tools to do any job. And the Outcasts really do have tools for every possible job.

I've seen some success with her as a Resser. As an outcast, though, I really only see one reason to bring her as opposed to a different master: Turn 1 bury slingshot. It's entirely possible to have Rusty grant Reactivate to a DE, bury it with a DM, and then have Tara unbury both the DE and Killjoy. Hell, it's possible to stone for cards, plus gin cards up with four aboms before merging them to guarantee a good hand. You can even throw fast in there for giggles. This is horrifyingly strong at the end of turn 1 in the opponent's crew. Is it enough to win a game, since it's pretty all-in? Maybe. I've won with it before, but I've lost games when it didn't work. As far as being fast and scheme heavy, I don't know why I'd really want her over, say, Misaki with Torakage, or a summon-heavy Leve list with Mech Rider, in a competitive environment. If you really want to take great advantage of her fast bubble you really need a lure or other forced move to pull in an opponent's model, and that probably means a Performer or Oiran. Belles are obvious when you take her as Resser which is why that works so well, but that's simply not the case for Outcast Tara. I feel like any way you go though, it's a lot more effort to make it truly effective than virtually any other master having to approach the same issues.

Awesome, thanks for the input!

Flesh Constructs, too. If you're running a Seamus fear list, especially one with, say, corpse explosions, it's pretty easy to drain your opponent of cards by forcing a high number of duels. Flesh Constructs are good enough without reactivate, but with they're nasty.

My thought here would be simply, "how it compares to Freikorps Trappers, Hans, or Katanaka Snipers." I just don't think it stands up that well at cost compared to other options. That said it's a discussion for another thread, really.

Quick question about something that came up in a recent game and we weren't sure how to proceed. Willie has two abilities, Dropped Load and Wheelbarrow of Doom, that both "Place a blast marker" or "Place a number of blast markers". These abilities then inflict damage to everything touched by the blast marker. Most Freikorps have the Freikorps Armor abilitiy, which among other things grants, "this model may ignore damage from effects". Is "a blast marker" the same thing as "a effect"? My opponents insisted that it was not, and so we went with my Freikorps taking the damage. This seems weird to me, since it would also mean that Willie's Ain't Nothin' ability wouldn't ignore his own blasts. So, in this case, are the two effects equivalent? Should the damage have been taken or ignored?

I think the best answer to this is, when setting up the game, make sure you discuss terrain with your opponent. Whatever you guys agree is the case for individual bits of terrain is then what you play it as. Personally, if there is terrain tall enough that it's not climable in an average unit's wk, I probably would not want it to be climbable at all, and may suggest to my opponent that is just be made impassable.

The best advice I can give is that stated above: Don't overbook, and bring a water bottle. You'll be much happier. There's days of stuff to see and do, and you'll always end up leaving wishing you'd had another week. As far as Malifaux, I'll be around the vast majority of the con looking to play pickup games or in Wyrd events, and when I've done this in previous years there've always been people around to play, virtually any time of the day. I know last year there was a night or two when people were playing more or less all night for the achievement league.

I agree that spiders are solid enough, I just wonder when (excepting when I want to blow them up or lower some defense) why I'd necessarily want one over a metal gamin in a generic 4 stone slot. Maybe with that higher df if I knew I'd be facing some attackers that ignore armor and/or h2k? I agree on the swarm though, I'm not sure you'd ever swarm one from three separate spiders outside a Ramos crew. Too expensive and situational. In a Ramos crew you're probably doing it immediately post-summon so it's less of an issue.

I definitely see how you could get more out of a Moleman, but how are you getting more use out of a spider? I tend to be disappointed in spiders.

Yeah it's all very usable, and the Viks will get their killing donwe any way you go. it's just a question of whether you want to build around a nova turn (Child, Oath Keeper, Fury) or around a less damaging but more sustainable threat (Student, Survivalist, Healing, etc.) Really personal playstyle. If you've not tried Fury + Child, Master, I recommend you try it out once. It'll change your (Malifaux) life.

Personally I've moved away from using the Student entirely, and don't even put it in my case when I take the Viks, though doing so is still a very defensible choice. Oath Keeper is automatic for me on Blood Vik and at least one of Vanessa and Ash Vik, which often nearly replaces the Student's primary value. Even buffed, ml 4 is too weak to reliably get anything done, since your opponent may be willing to spend cards to stop it, and you are probably spending them on a better unit's attacks, like one of the Viks themselves. Child effectively does what Student does, generating an extra AP per turn, by casting a buff himself. Because This buff affects all sisters in play, he's not even position-based in providing it the same way that Student is. In my mind it's either Child or no totem for me. That's just my personal preference though, and in general I think you won't be unhappy you brought the Student. If your playstyle is less Fury-based, as some are, then the Child is suddenly a much less appealing choice, meaning the Student definitely would take priority.

That seems more like it.

As far as our local meta is concerned at least, they're the go to 4 point hire in Arcanists unless you have something specific in mind. Obviously Raspy likes Ice Gamin more, but other than that, Metal Gamin are very very solid units, can Magnetism snipe enemies if they have any constructs (and a lot of factions do), and because of their stat line and Hard to Kill, can Magnetism each other without a significant decrease in durability. They're probabyl going to drop in 2-3 hits anyways, Magnetism just makes it very likely that it's 2. This makes them deceptively fast. Protection of Metal is just a bonus, in my book.

I'm with Akaean nere, I actually adore the sculpts on the metal Guards. They look much better in person than you'd expect.

If you're going with physical Malifaux models, you'd probably want to look at Guild Guard, some zombies of one stripe or another, maybe some Union Miners, a handful of Bayou Gremlins, and a smattering of "outlaw" or "cowboy" models like Death Marshalls, Sue, Convict Gunslinger, etc. This covers your low-level opposition from just about everyone but NB and 10T, and should let you ad lib most situations fairly well.

My bad, misread my card! But yeah, slow is nearly as interesting on Langston. It takes him from 3 attacks to 1, as Myth says. That all said, it's a rare day Hans "earns" his stones for me. I've been taking him less and less, since outside of situations where I'm gonna rely on controlling one firing lane he never quite seems to do enough to justify not taking something else instead.

A fair point regarding deployment, though I think a lot of people are used to playing mainly Standard. That said, Standard puts you further from your opponent than any other deployment type, so it still makes a good reference point when considering movement. Anything else and that distance is probably closer to objectives. I think Guilty are a fairly clear go-to for objective running in a Jack crew. As mentioned above, Drowned don't compare well point-wise to Guilty if you're just using them to objective run. If you're using them to increase Hazardous terrain damage from Jaakuna and Ama, pushing stuff into that terrain with Jack, locking that stuff in said terrain with nurses, etc. then you've got a very durable (if played right) low cost unit that can hand out paralyze. What's not to like?

Kadeton hits it, yes. The name of the game with Hans is control. Can he kill something? Sure. Will he? Maybe. But if you're bringing him for murder, he's probably going to let you down on a fairly consistent basis. He's too slow to effectively change firing lanes and his low end damage isn't super. His triggers? Those are much more interesting. Slowing a key target halfway across the board is a scary, scary trick. Preventing a model from making ML attacks is scarier. Remember he doesn't randomize for engagements, so cheating for the no Ml trigger on the opponent's big scary hitter they need can swing a game. It's practically as good as paralyze if you hit something like an executioner or langston.

No, because you can't target yourself with an Attack action. If it were a Tactical action, he could.

Probably better of using the (1) on a Guilty to torment it. The guilty don't need that extra AP to position turn 1 anyways, as discussed.

A guilty with a tormented target upfield pushes 3" from Daw, and can Follow Pain for 6". Not 9" directly towards where you need to go, but probably close ish. Wk 5 puts it 14 inches upfield, and you only need 12 to hit the centerline. You've still got 1 ap left to interact. Daw, Papa Loco, Montresor (with Oath keeper, scramble). Papa activates, hands Monty some dynamite. Monty gets + flips to damage. Daw activates. (0) obeys Monty forward 5, or pushes all Tormented models forward 4. Monty activates. Pushes 3". Triple walks 15" more, is now (start 6", + 5", +3", +15") 29" upfield, his front arc is 1" outside of the opponent's deployment zone assuming straight lines. Add a potential Lure to this and he could potentially go further. He's still got 1 AP left, and with a severe in hand can wreck a face for 7. He's still got a (0) pull and a huge melee range to cause some havoc upfield. Very situational but interesting. Perhaps more realistic, no Scramble on Monty still puts him the same distance with no AP left, but with his (0) pull still available. Ama or another unit can obey him to activate his "take 2 damage when succeeding on a horror duel" aura, and then drop that in the middle of the opponent's crew. This isn't even bringing up the speed buffs available through nurses. That all said, 19" upfield for a guilty is probably pushing it anyways, since that's 25" up the board, within a single average wk of your opponent's deployment zone. Probably not the best place for an objective grabber on turn *1*. Still, it's trivial to have a pile of units on or past the centerline with an AP still available.

The thing to remember about Jack and his crew is that they are fast. Really, really fast. As in, "I put my hitters in your deployment zone and claim some squat markers turn 1" kind of fast. Find the lynch pin to your opponent's crew and remove or control it. A lot of the stuff Jack brings to the party, both with Tormented and personally, has piles of hard control. Obey, paralyze, terrifying, etc. If you can identify what your opponent needs to have happen, you can focus the control there and win the game with your schemes.

Count me in.