moxypoo

CougDyver gave some good Arcanist advice, and I think Raspy could have a good matchup depending on the strategy/scheme pool. Just keep in mind that Levy can use his (0) action to teleport 10" and proper spreading of Hollow Waifs allow him to appear in many different positions. Therefore, it's difficult to stay out of his line of sight while still interacting in the game. One major thing to consider about Levy is that he's scary. He can kill models at will, and that provides the Levy player a powerful psychological effect during the game. As gamers, we tend to get attached to our models since we lovingly build and paint them, and we don't want them to die. This often leads to people trying to play very defensively around Levy, and I can say that this is the number 1 way to lose against him. Levy is good at 2 things: killing stuff and not dying. If you allow Levy to dictate the pace of the game, you will almost certainly lose, especially because his crew tends to work like entropy - they slowly replenish themselves while grinding down the enemy. Therefore, the best advice I can give is to put the Levy player on the back foot as quickly as possible. Whether you attempt to alpha strike him or score lots of early VP, making Levy reactive instead of active is absolutely the best way to win against him. Another great way to do this is to eliminate Hollow Waifs when the opportunity arises. This will limit Levy's mobility and both his offensive and defensive capabilities. The most important thing to realize is that you will lose models, and controlling which models he kills can be the key to victory. For some Arcanist specific advice: Ramos tends to do very well against me, because he can win or stall the attrition war with spiders, while forcing Levy to react to plenty of big beaters. Raspy does well too, because she can dictate the pace of the game by blasting everything across the board.

Justin mentioned that the Scion wouldn't be seeing anymore major changes, so I think it's safe to assume we'll only see small tweaks on stats and things like that. Like the rest of Tara's crew, I found that the Scion works much better when used with finesse. A lot of other crews can be used like a sledgehammer, but think of the Scion more like a scalpel. The Scion is a support piece that can perform many roles, so find a specific job for it during the game, and it should complete that job well. However, since it's a very flexible model, you'll often be able to switch up its job in the middle of the game if its original purpose becomes defunct. HD does a great job listing useful combos with the Scion a few posts above mine, so I'll speak in generalities. Front line damage dealer. When using Focused attacks, the Scion can put out a solid amount of damage and has a number of useful triggers. Returning Home means you don't have to take return hits if you don't want to, and the Scion can fuel the discard cost with it's own triggers. Scheme runner/combat support. With Blink and The Hollowing the Scion can move around the board quickly, but keep in mind that it has to follow a friendly model. The Hollowing allows the Scion to pop up and support any of your scheme runners that might be engaged and can help with numerous schemes. Toolbox. Whispers from the Nothing allows your models to use the Scions useful actions while it's buried, giving every friendly model access to its toolbox of triggers. I think this has been shown to be the least powerful use, but the option remains. Maybe you really need a Void Wretch to Focus and pop something for 7 damage while drawing a card. There are certainly lots of other uses for the Scion, but these are the main ones that I use it for. I think the issue most people will have when first playing with this model is that it does a little bit of everything, which makes you think it should be doing everything in a game. The Scion works best in my hands when I have a specific job for it in mind rather than trying to make use of all its actions and abilities.

I've found that playing Jack is an exercise in presenting your opponent with two types of choices: bad or worse. Ideally, you want to set the board up in a position that your opponent cannot do anything productive with his/her AP. Jack's crew has a lot of control elements such as moving enemy models, making it really crappy to be near his models (hazardous terrain, etc.), preventing your opponent from cheating (either directly or by forcing them to discard), and directly punishing enemy models for performing certain actions (Curses, etc.). Depending on the strategy/scheme pool, you can utilize a combination of these elements to lock down specific models or even areas of the board. Jack can perform well at most schemes, though I don't prefer him for killing based ones; however, his crew selection will vary greatly depending on what you're trying to accomplish. For example, with Writhing Torment his crew can be surprisingly fast. I tend to like him for Turf War, Squatter's Rights, and sometimes Reconnoiter. He's actually pretty good at Spring the Trap and Plant Explosives with Last Whisper. More than a lot of other masters you want to think of Jack's crew as a toolbox in which you have to select the correct tools for the job. I think making everything Tormented is a little bit overrated unless you're looking for very specific interactions, and it's perfectly possible to run non-Tormented models with Jack. Also, be wary of any model with a built in to its attack as it will ignore Oldest Magics. He also tends to perform better against melee crews, since a lot of his crews debuffs are short range auras. Hopefully, Spectreelitegaming will be in at some point to give you better advice!

So that means Tom's entire list would turn into a single Rat King! Hooray! I'm going to have to try this with a completely straight face sometime to see how my friends react...

I wonder how many Rats you can pack into a 3" radius to turn into a single Rat King? Fear my Rat Swarm!...er...maybe just the one Rat King then...

Hateful Darkblack is correct in my opinion; it seems to be better to tailor your list to the objectives at hand and use models that you know well than attempt to guess what your opponent is going to bring. There are some general things you can almost always expect like ranged models with Guild, but beyond that, I think it's too risky to guess what your opponent will bring. Of course, if you know the player well then you can make some good guesses what he'll bring (my Arcanist friend uses Ramos almost exclusively for Reconnoiter, for example). My mentality is that no plan survives contact with the enemy, so I want to bring a crew that can complete my objectives with minimal interaction with the enemy crew, while disrupting my opponent's plans so they score 1VP less than me. For this reason, I tend to gravitate towards control crews since they make it easy to run the game at the pace you want.

Wyrd why must you make amazing things I want to buy? I will not start Neverborn...I will not start Neverborn...I will not start Neverborn... Also, Kaeris looks seriously awesome, as do the rest of the models in that picture. I'm continually impressed with each new plastic release.

You absolutely can win with no model on the table, which is just one more reason why this game is so awesome! I've only ever pulled this off once: I scored a bunch of VP and then suicided all my models into my opponents' models to hold them in place and force them to kill my guys before dropping scheme markers. It was very satisfying!

Well said! I got the same reactions, but for me it was Judo/Brazilian jiu Jitsu/weightlifting. My name comes from my high school basketball coach constantly yelling, "You guys play like Molly-poos, cause you ain't got no moxy!" We had no idea what it meant at the time so we just shortened it to moxypoo and referred to each other like that.

Haha thanks Dirial, now people at work are looking at me funny since I'm laughing so hard...

I’d be an Abomination – specifically the new plastic one with chainsaws for hands. I mean, who’s going to argue with a guy with chainsaws for hands? No one. That’s who. It would make wiping after using the toilet difficult, but would you really be concerned with personal hygiene if you had CHAINSAWS FOR HANDS?!

Thanks for the comments, and I'll be sure to take them into account if Wyrd wants puzzle submissions for the next issue! I'm not sure what difficulty 3 means either, actually. That wasn't me.

When I submitted the puzzle, I sent a Vassal screenshot. They must have shrunk and condensed things a bit to make it fit onto the magazine page - the centerline runs through the center of all the models shown. Next time I submit one, I'll make sure to include description of the model positions in the blurb about the scenario. For the Reckoning point, it doesn't matter whether there are any previous models killed, since the Ice Golem is your opponent's last model If anyone wants the solution, PM me and I'd be happy to send it to you! Here's the original image for anyone interested:

Great Chronicles! Haven't gotten the chance to read through the entire thing, but so far it's all really good! Of course, I'm not biased at all...

I know I should just drop it, since "blaming the victim" is such a poisonous (I like that word, need to use it more) topic, but I have to point out that just because an analogy is there doesn't make it a good one. This is an example of reductio ad absurdum. Also, you're comparing a situation entirely in a person's control to one that is completely (or almost completely) outside their control. In a tournament setting, it is entirely up to the individual whether he/she wants to give away information pertaining to crew composition during the tournament (outside of someone digging through your bag - something everyone here seems to agree is wrong/cheating). Whereas, in a case like a robbery the factors leading up to it are almost entirely outside your control. Now, I agree that an air of suspicion is not healthy for a tournament environment, but I highly doubt a few individuals performing pre-game scouting would be severe enough to create this environment. Additionally, according to Hateful Darkblack (and a few others), it's not even that necessary so it probably won't become widespread.

I absolutely wouldn't want people to be driven away from the hobby either! There are few enough of us as is. This does raise the question: how much benefit does having prior knowledge of your opponent's crew help you? Malifaux seems to be balanced enough that it's not a huge deal, but I'm sure there are differing opinions out there.

No, I'm saying that if someone starts asking you about the crew or models you're planning to run during the tournament, then you shouldn't tell them if you don't want them to know. Simple. I've had lots of people (read: potential opponents) try to ask me about my favorite techniques at martial art tournaments, and I didn't tell them. If I did tell them, it would be entirely my own fault that they had knowledge of techniques that I preferred. @Icemyn. THere's a huge difference between criminal activity and what we're discussing here. If someone just wants to chat about the game, that's great! Have fun talking to them without giving away what crew you're playing - it doesn't take much to subtlety steer the conversation awaty from that topic, and if asked directly, you can always respond with something like, "I'm sorry but I'd rather not discuss what model's I'm planning on using during the tournament."

I think one issue is that you're trying to create a subjective, unenforceable policy. We've established that simple observation is perfectly fine, no problem there. However, outside of admission, it's impossible to determine whether a person is simply having fun chatting about the hobby or actually trying to gain information about the opponent. I can understand your attitude (though not the rudeness) towards Specter; he admitted he does something you consider unsportsmanlike-like. Since they're your tournaments, you have the right to turn away people you don't want to participate. However, if a player chooses to talk about the crew or models they're planning to use, isn't it their own fault that their crew selection isn't secret anymore? You could always choose to NOT talk about what you're going to use during the tournament if someone asks you.

So what if he simply sat in the corner and observed what was going on in the room? Or maybe walked around once to observe what was going on? Would you consider this sneaky and cheating? Aaron said on the previous page that he'll often pull out models he has no intention of using specifically to deceive his opponent - would you consider this sort of behavior unacceptable too? The reason I ask is because I have exactly 0 time for tournaments, but my group of friends plays a lot like Specter describes. We're all very competitive (probably comes from the career path we're in) and most of us try to squeeze out advantages. For example, I know my one friend loves Nekima and the Dreamer, so whenever he declares Neverborn, I always take some models specifically to deal with Nekima and the Dreamer. They also know that I'm best with Leveticus, so they always gear up to take him on when I declare Outcasts. I'm just curious where the community draws the line since I may have time to play tournaments in the future.

Welcome to this side of the breach! To answer your question, Wyrd has discontinued their entire metal model range, so if you come across an old metal one that you may need, grab it! All the new plastics seem to have relatively stable stock, though there are a few crew boxes that can be difficult to get sometimes (Hired Swords and Lady J's off the top of my head).

Ausplosions, I'm curious as to exactly what behavior would cause this response from you. As Specter mentioned, he's not sneaking around digging through peoples' bags...so I assume "scouting" involves either sitting quietly in the corner observing the room or walking around either observing or interacting with people.

Thank you for the kind words Icemyn; I can say the same for you. You do bring up a good point, and I may have been misunderstanding your stance. When you say it like that, I do agree with you.

This is another great piece of advice. Along these lines - killing Levy before he activates during a particular also really helps.

Doesn't have to be pro sports. My high school baseball and basketball teams did the same thing. Even the most recreational martial artists I trained with did this. The comparison was made to highlight the fact that competition often includes things that Specter pointed out. I understand that mini-wargaming is a hobby, but a tournament is inherently a competitive environment where the goal is to win. Like I said, you don't have to like it; you don't have to think it's sportsmanlike; but it does happen, and it isn't cheating. For example, what if I see a beautifully painted Lady J crew, and i genuinely want to admire it and learn about the techniques used to paint it. It's a bad thing that I match the guy/girl with the awesome crew in my head for future reference?

I don't mind at all! From your post I can tell that you're in the wrong mindset for fighting Leveticus. According to your post, you're focusing on killing him and A&D permanently, which is generally a waste of AP. The key to beating Leveticus is to limit his options and always play to the objectives. For example, opportunistically killing his Waifs greatly limits his mobility and offense; he can't use Channel very effectively if he's scared that he won't be able to come back. If you're going to go after A&D, make sure you can also kill one of the pieces after he splits. I find that players often spend a lot of effort to kill A&D only to ignore the pieces and let him reform - he doesn't actually put out an enormous amount of damage for his cost, so keep that in mind. Hitting Leveticus hard and fast in the early game will severely constrain his options for later objectives. Also, get in the mindset that you will lose models. Leveticus is one of those masters (like the Viks, Perdita, or Lady J) who can kill models at will. Don't play too defensively, because that plays right into Levy's hands. Don't needlessly sacrifice models either; try to bait the Levy player into killing a model you want him to rather than making the best tactical choice. Lastly, always play to the objectives. In my experience, people who are unused to playing against Leveticus try to get into a slug-fest with him, which is inadvisable. Rather, focus on scoring your objectives and not on gunning for Levy's crew. My friend CougDyver plays Arcanists and does well against Levy with Ramos and Ironsides. If you PM'ed him, I'm sure he could give you master specific advice. Hope this helps!