Patzer

Leveticus is great in Recon!

Might be on the edge of thread-o-mancy here, but here goes. They seem to fit well with McCabe. Since they are immune to Slow, McCabe can shoot them in engagement with his Netgun. This can be quite handy since they can provide with some additional angles behind cover, etc. In addition, McCabe is a well documented bad influence on those pacifists. Other than that, I don't see myself hiring them a lot of times. I am in the same boat as Razhem.

Sorry, late to the party, but I will chime in. To echo what Dirial said, I also think Outcast Misaki would have had little better tech against that list. The reasons are cheaper Strongarm suit, as well as Scout the Field for the SaS and Misaki. StF will make the SaS and Misaki real threats to the Waifs, since they can speed to them and charge them without needing LoS. On the other hand, Augmented Jump and Diving Charge alone can pose enough of a threat to Leve's gang in order for quite cagey placement of the Waifs. In addition, models like the Samurai, Katanaka Snipers, Archers, and Path Finders can be a real treat to have against that crew. They all can shoot at great length, and or stay hidden. As usually while facing Leveticus, be prepared to loose models, but don't let your opponent choose freely which one. Set up really hard decisions for the up coming turn which Leveticus have to account for. Another important thing is that only by hurting Leveticus you will slow him down immensely. Chipping away 2-3 wounds really hampers his onslaught. One finial thing, Ten Thunders usually run with eight to nine model crews, with few ways of replenishing those ranks. Leveticus' crews usually contains a lot of fire power, which enables it to kill the opposing side early in order to scavenge for VP later. Leveticus will sometime have quite a hard time to reach those lofty 9-10 levels of VP, this is mainly due to the limiting crew composition. What this implies is twofold. First, don't take schemes which requires you to have a lot of models end game. Try to lock up as many VPs as fast as possible. That is, play it safe, the Leve player might have luck on his side and be able to shoot you to death in an instant. Secondly, which overlaps the first point too, play an offensive game. Both in terms of what schemes you choose and how you go about them, and you will need to try and match (preferably out match) Leveticus' fire power in some sense. Be it a Samurai fire base, Katanaka Snipers way out of Levetiucs range which needs to be dealt with, or a stalking Misaki getting into position for the next turn. Be aggressive, but don't be reckless. Set up traps, and or hard decisions for Leveticus; you will need to capitalize on those to sneak away with the win.

Any progress with the project, Otter?

McTavish is fantastic. His Hunting Screen can protect your own troops against shooting heavy crews, its movability is amazing utility. As others have said, McTavish's gun is to be reckoned with. Its trigger is very easy to use, since 6" covers a lot of ground. Gator Snack also provides with heaps of utility. Extra card is nice, the push can be a game winner, and the extra attack synergies well with things like Obey. Although he is no push over in melee, he doesn't excel there either. His crow trigger is very hard to get off, but a nice corner case. He can get some mileage out of Fears Given Form thanks to his 3" ml range too. Another corner case that is nice to have is his penetrating stench. Will rarely come to use, but you will never have to invest in it and it can provide with a heartbreaking debuff. Overall, he can fill a ton of different roles. He loves his fellow Swampfiends, and the melee oriented Neverborn loves his trusty non-randomizing gun. He is a natural fit for Lilith and Zoraida, but can work well with almost anyone as long as you bring some additional Swampfiends to join him.

Other models to think about: Katanaka Snipers' (0) gives out Slow; Sidir can dish out heaps of Slow wit Empty the Magazine; The Archers can also dish out Slow from range, but they need a suit; Ten Thunder Brothers have a Slow trigger on their Ml, just like the Archers they don't have the suit built in. Personally, I have tried Ototo a handful of times with various results. His WP is quite bad, but there are quite a lot of WP buffs in Thunders so it can be dealt with. Yet he might be in for a though fight against Ressers and Neverborn. Another thing where he struggles a bit is against beaters who can over power him, but those are a handful and as long as you can survive two hits without reaching the Hard to Kill threshold, Ototo will have a shot. Other than that, he's got plenty of cool tricks, and master-level amount of wounds. In the right situation he hits constantly and like a truck. To me, he is a "potential" Izamu. They share nearly the same relationship as Howard and the Rail Golem. One of them is way more reliable, and will constantly give you great effort. The other will in the right situation utterly destroy large samples of the opposing crew. You make a great pledge for Ototo, BigHammer!

Besides the Sow, you are pretty much set! And you could convert a couple of Piglets and a Warpig into one I guess

That is really why I want to get a Marcus crew going one day. Between all the Beasts, Mercs, and the overall power of the Arcanists Marcus can bring together some really cool crews.

Getting a bit behind on the posting here, but I will get up to pace (soonish!). At least I got another game in against a local Marcus player, who kicked my teeth in. Game was 50ss interference, with A Line in the Sand, Frame for Murder, Assassinate, Protect Territory, and Deliver a Message. Schemes I usually enjoy. I took revealed Protect and Deliver a Message, and my opponent took Frame (on a war rabbit, converted to a giant Jackalope!) as well as Assissinate. My crew: two Trappers, Johan, Lazarus, Guilty, Nurse, Jack Daw (all curses, WT and TaT) , and Jaakuna. My opponents crew: Marcus (Trail of the Gods, Feral Instincts, Arcane Reservoir), Myranda (Imbued Energies), Sabertooth, two Molemen, War Pig, Waldegeist, and a Jackalope. There were plenty of shooting lanes, but still a lot of cover and buildings around the table. All terrain were hard cover. I deployed first, spread my crew out a lot. Johan, Nurse and a Trapper had one flank. Lazarus, Jack, and the Guilty in the middle, and Jaakuna and a Trapper on the other flank. My opponent deployed the Molmen and Waldegeist at the centre, with the War Pig by it self on his right flank, the rest of the crew deployed on the other flank. In the end, I would have gotten tabled. Marcus hit me hard and quick with his crew. While I couldn't keep up with the killing. The crew my opponent composed was quite sneaky in how many activations it could produce. Myranda turned into another Tiger and Marcus casted Alpha on a bunch of stuff. This kept, to my demise, Marcus in the back of the field, which hindered all attempts of Deliver a Message. Game ended 7-0. I made a bunch of mistakes throughout the game. First being the crew. In Recon/Interference I like to either be able to replenish, or to kill enemies at a rapid rate (a man called Leveticus can do both, thus is my favourite Recon/Interference-master). Preferably the latter. My crew had some hitting power, but lacked in the end. And it couldn't match in resilience either, Waldegiests and Molemen are very sturdy if you don't have anything that can pierce through Armor. I probably should have tried to get another big beater in, like Taelor, SaS, or Bishop. Next mistake was the schemes. I took the right ones, but I didn't execute them. Jack and the Guilty should have been able to do Deliver a Message with all of their movement tricks. If Marcus had gotten a Curse on him, a Guilty (within 6" of Daw) would have had a threat range of 9" to get the Message delivered, which should have been enough in the mid field. In my first games with Daw, I have had the luxury to keep the troops somewhat together. While in Interference, that is something you cannot simply afford to do. On top of this I didn't want to overextend Daw from the get go, so he ended up not doing much at all. If I instead would have attacked the middle with him (i.e. the Molemen and Waldegeist). That would have forced Marcus to come out too, if I had put the Curses on the middle gang it would have made life harder for the henchmen-master part of the opposing crew. In other words, what became apparent for me during this game was Daw's range. To get a feel for his midrange game is pretty hard, his influence often stretches 6-8" around him. With an action spent on walking it can be as much as 11-13". Its hard to balance that while you want to influence two flanks of the board. Frankly its impossible. I made a choice where I wanted to attack with JD, and it was the wrong one (especially since the Marcus led, melee oriented ((!!!)), part of the crew would have had to travel through the no-scoring middle.... oh hindsight...). So lessons learnt. *Marcus is a tricky nasty dude that I need to play one day. *Daw's range of influence can be limited in games where the battle takes place over the whole board. Read the field, and pick the right battle. 8-13 inches isn't that big (lol). *Recon/Interference sure seems hard for Daw, but this game were far from over from the get go. I will need more practice with how to best utilize Daw's tools in those kinds of strategies.

Might be true, but when it can charge while engaged and ignore things that blocks its onslaught things get a wee bit more interesting.

She is a nice option to McTavish (a poor man's version atm, but at 2ss cheaper it is something at least). Upgrade can be a deal breaker. Nephilim characteristic is quite interesting.

Hi yall! Got another game in, will do a longer write up soon. However, I just needed to throw some praise at the Strongarm Suit with Daw. I took the SaS with Scout the Field, JD had both Twist and Turn as well as Writhing Torment. We had standard deployment, and with all the movement shenanigans available I made the SaS go 14" up the field (total of 20"). It would then charge 7", without needing LoS, which ended up killing a Mech Rider on turn 1. It did some later heroics too, but Ill save those for the full report. The potential of having a 3/5/7 damage track, with the ability to ignore reductions or get a positive damage flip is so freaking good. Its shooting attack is very accurate too, even though you will need to commit to it for a turn. Both of its triggers are very serviceable. With JD it becomes very nimble, and together with Scout the Field makes it threat anything 29" away on turn 1 (in standard deployment).

Maybe slightly since she can summon the Doves and doesn't need to invest in the Raptors. Even with Cassandra and a Raptor it is still broken in my book.

Trap Doors might be situational, but broken in those situations. I am referring to that Colette (or Cassandra, doesn't even take up a upgrade slot for the master...) can send an insignificant peon, that is the Doves (who she can summon), up to 20" a turn (they are flying so terrain will not be an obstacle), then Cas or Col will activate, have the Dove place a marker (for breakthrough, power ritual, plant evidence, A Line in the Sand, Protect territory). This is very, very, very, hard to stop, even if you know its coming, for a number of reasons. I have problems with Prompt too, but Trap Doors is just over the top for me.

Colette is a bit over the top, at least in my book. Trap Doors and Prompt are stupid good. Sure, she got some weaknesses (passive damage, sacrifice attacks, anti-trigger effects), but overall she will wreck most things and get VPs very easily.

I thought you played Leveticus, Kadeton.

My reasoning for the weak Grab and Drop is that it is such a strong ability. Even if it is only Ml 1, opponents will often need to cheat very high in order to not get hurt. Also, a lot of the models the Monkeys will run down in probably ht 1, so they will win those ties every time. All and all, I think Ml 2 would probably be too powerful. However, with The Apes on the Wing trigger, to increase the stat, would be quite a fair way to increase it! I think the trigger could be built in, since having more Monkeys around the same target might be enough of a restriction.

Great stuff, Marcus has always intrigued me. Really smart link about the opposite goal!

More or less this, I think. I think they are costed that way in order to keep the rat engine at bay. Hamelin can still make it hum without much fuzz. I like them late game, in order to snipe scheme markers, deny schemes and strategies where the opponent needs to not be engaged, etc. Another thing, in what strategies are you guys preferring Hamelin? For me he is a lock for Interference. Quite a strong choice for Head hunter, or Squatter's Rights. And I like him in Turf War/Extraction and Guard the Stash, since he got a lot of pushes. If both Distract and Cursed Object is around, there must be a lot of other reasons not to take him. He can deny those with such ease.

Rat Kings are certainly a low end 8ss model, but they are super easy to summon too. I will rarely hire them.

Here is my silly pitch for the Monkeys. Flying Monkeys (totem) Cost: 3 Rare: 3 Peon, insignificant Stat-line: df 4, wp 4, 5 wd, 6wk, 8ch, ht 1 Abilities: Flight Swarm, A crew may hire up to three of this model. Attack Actions Grab and Drop (0). Ml 1 resist: ht, rg 1. Effect as Kearis. Tactical Actions (2) Take to the Sky (as Malifaux Raptor) My thought was that they could be like the Skeeters, with more offensive power but far squishier.

Kalkris, the Guilty are really good. You will most times only need one, but two can be very useful too (don't need to run them in pairs I think). They are a jack of all trade kind of model, and can provide with a lot of synergy for your own crew. Papa Loco is more reward than risk, but there is certainly a risk. Daw and a Nurse can speed him up so darn much that he can keep in cover but still get places. The fact that Jack can copy Papa's ranged attack too is pretty darn neat. I don't know if McTavish is worth 11ss, without any Swampfiend friends, especially when the Outcasts have so many good options at 10ss. For instance, I would hire the Strongarm Suit over him any day with Daw. Rathnard, come on mate, ditch the green skin! Also, aren't you "supposed" to play Ressers this year?

I agree with this a lot too. Brace yourself everyone, you are going to get Promt post Gencon! You can look forward to that it is both by Colette and the new Nightmare crew, so you will in theory at least face two crews, which is nice!

Best "playing against Hamelin"-description I have every heard. Spot on!

I must have played him wrong then...