Hi All,
This is my first post in the Forums so I'm probably picking the wrong thread to start out with, regardless, here goes.
I've found Leveticus w/ Rusty Alyce, a full SS pool, and some extra Abominations very effective against Belles. Anomaly (a2) on Abominations is excellent at shutting down any up field Belle's ability to lure your models (blocks all suits on Ca actions). Like MonkeyKing says, Ca8 is nothing without the suits. For example, using Abominations as cover forces a Belle to lure them first, getting them that much closer to walking in and having Anomaly shut down the Belle's luring. Once you get a Belle locked up with an Abomination just shoot into Ml with Leveticus or Alyce. Either you kill the Belle and solve your problem or you kill the Abomination and leave a scrap marker behind to get raised into a new Abomination. Leveticus, in particular, is built to fire into these types of Ml battles as Unmaking either hits your opponent or hits your Abomination and triggers a Ml action against the Belle. Win! Win!
In addition, when facing Belles I've found that playing Leveticus very aggressively up field tends to make him the target of these lures first. Basically, if the resser player doesn't target Leveticus first he can use Unmaking to de-animate at least one Belle each activation. While that sometimes means I lose a number of activations during the game from my master (due to him being buried or otherwise tied up) it also means that my necropunks (and other assorted scheme runners) are free to do their thing unimpeded. Plus, Leveticus just loves turning Belles into new Abominations and Channel pretty much negates HtW.
Personally, I agree that Ca8 on a 5SS model is too high. That said, I haven't had an experience yet were, win or lose, having Belles on the field made the game unwinnable. Generally, it was tactics, or lack there off, that made the difference instead. With the right amount of terrain on the field and the right crew against them I've found that Belles can lose their effectiveness quickly.
Toodlepip!
<gets lured away>