SoulGambit

That depends on how you measure value. How many scheme markers for Benny does a WP need to drop, in addition to either taking either 2 AP to kill or scheming out from your bubble, to be considered worth it? As it stands, you can expect each WP to drop about three markers for Benny (two on T1, one on T2) or four if they die in his aura. Fly With Me would change that considerably. It allows you to, T1, drop a marker, Fly With Me, drop another marker. Then, after Benny activates, Hamelin lets them drop a third marker. T2 they can drop another 1 or 2 Markers, plus their death. On top of that, now they can Scheme or operate up to 17" away (up from 13"), not counting Moldy Cheese, or they can effectively scheme twice with the first marker being 8" away and the second 4" from that.

Try and move your bubble slowly towards the center of the board (possibly off-center if there is a dense cluster of objectives). Benny should generally be moving and summoning turn 1 and possibly turn 2.

Hey everyone. I was looking at the Chemist pursuit in Under Quarentine, specifically it's level 1 ability Chemical Weaponry. Flask of Fermaldahyde 's range is listed as 1 (Claw) with the thrown quality. Is that an error of some sort or can this attack be used in melee with the Thrown Weapon skill? Can Flask of Fermaldehyde (or more accurately, I guess the Alchemical Toolkit?) Receive Weapon Mods? Presumably they would have to craft it themselves since other people don't count it as a weapon except while being attacked.

I use Winged Plague in most strategy / scheme pools where them dying won't immediately advance the opponent's victory points. However, they are definately Benny's buddy and I am not sure I would take them without him. They tend to not do well in matchups where the opponent benefits from their death due to things like incidental summoning, or in matches where the opponent can realistically bust your bubble directly. They are fragile and pillowfisted, but Hamelin makes them 3 (potentially 4) AP in a crew that chews through AP like water. Try moving them up with the bubble, dropping scheme markers for Benny, and protecting themselves with Terrain / positioning, until that moment they fling out 13" or 18" away to drop relevant scheme models or tie up a model much more expensive than themselves. If they survive turn 1, they will have dropped two markers for Benny, and if they are near Benny they threaten a third even if they die. By end of turn 2, they have either tied up the opponent's big hitter or have dropped another 1-2 markers for Benny. If they survive until turns 3-4 they are probably in scoring position and can dive any undefended part of the board. The opponent can, of course, kill them. In fact, it is pretty likely that the opponent will kill them. Your goal is to make that take enough AP away from things that really needed that AP for something else. If the opponent kills a Winged Plague with cards and AP that could have killed Hamelin, OW, Nix, or Benny, that is a Winged Plague well spent.

Oh! Fwiw, this did get me to look at and listen to Harlefaux for the first time.

IMO, planting four markers via two Winged Plague is too card intensive to do reliably. It's better to just know that you have the capacity to convert 10+ cards into an AP on Winged Plague, which usually lets you free up an AP on another model. You usually only want to do this with one Stolen, since the other two usually want to make Malifaux Rats (and thus Rat Kings) Fast. In general, my goal with the Benny Bomb is to get two Rat Kings with 2 AP worth of attacks each into the enemy's face at the end of Turn 1. You can get Rat King activations on Turn 1 by actually hiring two Malifaux Rats. Give two rats you did not hire Fast with Stolen. Use Hamelin to reposition your Rats into two distinct clumps. Then activate the Malifaux Rats you hired and use their actual AP to Tangle together. Since the Replace effect happened during an Activation, you continue that Activation with the two remaining AP. You make up the extra tokens you can't place with shenanigans (Emissary, Prospector, sacrificing a Rat King, etc) or you pitch one of your Stolen for two Malifaux Rats. This has a conservative nonlinear strike range of about 18" plus some base sizes, with terrain potentially limiting its range. It can go farther if you are using the turn 1 Rat King -> Rat Catcher trick. The opponent can, of course, kill the Malifaux Rats you have hired to stop this. You will not stop an opponent who has a list made for diving your deployment zone T1. However, killing your Malifaux Rats is almost always a bad idea. Use terrain to hide them from ranged and make the enemy work as hard as possible to get that kill. If the enemy killed both of your hires, that just means you have two Fast Rat Kings next turn, and you probably have those Rats back, too. It also means they didn't go for someone actually important, like Benny.

Don't count on forcing through warning shot vs Df 6+ enemy models? There are usually important models that are Df 5 or less in my experience, and draining a high card from the opponent on defense is pretty important. If you are really worried about it, Pride Aura can do a lot to get Hans' shots through, though I admit next to Hans is not usually where I want Pride. Also a 1 stat deficit, unless you are counting cards, is going to be about a 46.15% chance to at least tie, and a 53.85% to at least tie on his Stat 6. Doesn't include jokers because I am lazy.

Hans is amazing. Hans solves problems. He looks at an important model you want to be not effective, and then Hans makes that model not effective for a turn by applying Slow, Staggered, and/or Stun. If you don't have a ready target, his Tomes trigger gives you pass tokens. And, yes, he can deal damage too and sometimes it'll even be 4/5/7 damage and feel great, but that is a rare occurance. In Leylines he is phenomenal at denying markers, between Daze, Stagger, and Pass Tokens.

Make a triangle with two markers and Benny, with Benny at the top. Put a marker 4" to Benny's right and Benny's left. Put another two markers above Benny 4" apart. Note that a Marker must be within 4", not completely within. As long as it is grazing the aura by a hair, it applies. 4 or 5 markers are f a r more realistic and have enough leeway to account for most but not all terrain.

You can actually fit up to 6 scheme markers if they are perfectly placed.

Bleeding Disease requires a huge investment, is intensely telegraphed, and has predictable vectors. Compare: Seamus, who will personally deal about as much damage from his 4/6/8 Damage Gun than Hamelin + Nix + OW will from bleeding disease and can do this in a highly unpredictable way against any target. Kirai can do similar through Ikiryo and her summons. A good McCabe counters Hamelin, not the other way around. Stick the mirror on McCabe for Life Leech, as well as the Hard to Kill Upgrade. Be careful with positioning. You use McCabe + one other beater to pressure the bubble while the rest of the crew mops up. Samurai are a good choice.

I presume Hamelin, Nix, OW, Midnight Stalker, Ashes and Dust? Or Malifaux Rat Spam?

Tara, easily.

So, picking your master is based on approximately six factors: Your goals/familiarity, what you know about your opponent as a player, the strategy, the deployment, the scheme pool, and the enemy faction. Worse, your decision is based on an intersection of these factors that often reverse or significantly change the outcome! Lets take a moment to look at Reckoning (a Strategy Hamelin is traditionally bad at) against Ressurectionists (which is a faction Hamelin has significant problems against) and see how when you are facing Ressurectionists in Reckoning Hamelin is at minimum a top two pick, if not the best pick. This is because Hamelin has a hidden ability on his card that isn't printed: Hamelin dictates what your opponent's crew must be in order to win. Ressurectionists are difficult because anyone who is across the table can and probably should reach for Datsue Ba and Manos. Lantern of Souls is going to shut off the card draw from Malifaux rats plus a few other things, and Datsue Ba means that Malifaux Rats are just Onryo that don't know it yet. However, both of those models have a significant disadvantage in Reckoning in that they are Henchmen, meaning that is a lot of Reckoning Points. Worse, one of the things Hamelin brings to the table in Reckoning is the fact that he can just eat Masters and Henchmen, meaning that they are not safe, and Manos definitely can not operate as freely as he may want to. A Ressurectionist (or any faction, really) playing into Reckoning is either going to go for a small elite crew who can kill a lot, or include more "combat schemers" who can function independently and complete schemes normally, or go with pure scheme runners around a combat-centric core. A Ressurectionist is likely going to favor Seamus, Yan Lo, McMourning, or Jack Daw. You are more likely to see Seamus or McMourning into scheming pools that require a lot of mobility. Jack Daw is almost always going to play that small elite block that prefers schemes they can complete while killing you. I'm not familiar enough with Yan Lo to really comment. Outside of Datsue Ba and Manos, your big worries are Drowned, Jaakuna Ubume, Goryo, Dead Rider and Kentauroi. Of those, Dead Rider and Goryo are the most accessible out of keyword. Lets say they are Jack Daw. 20ss is a long way out of the way for Datsue Ba and Manos, for the privileged of feeding you Reckoning Points, so you probably won't see those. You'll see Jaakuna, Drowned, two Hanged, maybe a Crooked Man, and maybe a Goryo with GST if they want to be cheeky. Whisperer on Jack Daw, Jaakuna, Drowned, Hanged x2, and Goryo with GST is about what Jack could afford. A Hanged would probably be dropped for something that gives more scheming potential in this case. Except... you a) know your opponent is going to field that and b) know that if they don't field basically that or something like it, then Hamelin can overwhelm them. Against Jack Daw you really need aoe, Focus, and anti Terrifying. You can also be reasonably confident they don't have anti demise. So something like Hamelin, two Rat Kings, Obedient Wretch, Hans, Hodgepodge Emissary as well as Ashes and Dust can work. Purchasing Malifaux rats in place of a Rat King is also a solid play that lets you have vermin early, but runs the risk of the Goryo. This is a small elite crew, but both A&D and Rat Kings can switch hit to being scheme runners when you need it. Most of your models are capable of two-shotting most of Jack Daw's Crew, or one shotting after some Pustulent Tumors. If they pick Seamus, Whisperer and Carrion Emissary will quickly follow. He desperately wants Focus +2 from his Crew, especially in Reckoning, so lets say two Nurses follow that. Dead Rider and Goryo + GST are the biggest anti Hamelin models that don't run into the henchmen issue and... we are at 48 Stones. Practically speaking, that probably means down GST on the Goryo and/or a Nurse. The other issue is, even two anti Hamelin models doesn't really feel like enough, and you still don't get anti demise without feeding Hamelin points. So as Hamelin, what do you do? First, you are going to have to bite the bullet and hire Henchmen--specifically, you really want Nix and you want Pride. That is going to introduce some serious unreliability into Seamus' peekabo tactics thanks to lowering the maximum damage to 6 instead of 8, and forcing Seamus to cheat last is going put some serious pressure on his hand. Expect Seamus to want to go first and immediately delete Pride before Pride can go, so Pride is going to need Soldier for Hire. Emissary is excellent in this matchup because he requires at least 3 AP to kill, even in ideal circumstance, and he supplies a significant amount of healing. Obedient Wretch, who is going to survive through sheer force of Stealth, will bring us down to 18 Stones. We need a huge cache because of our Henchmen, so we are looking at Hans with Soldier for Hire, Rat King (*maybe* two), Ashes and Dust, or Malifaux Rats. Lets say they pick McMourning--now you are in trouble. Dead Rider, two Kentauroi, and two Nurses is a fairly standard McMourning core that leaves McMourning with 11 Stones and is going to put a pretty solid krimp in your style. I would probably equip then Kentauroi with the Whisperer to capitalize on the card draw and give them a defense against Bleeding Disease. I'd also swap a Nurse to Rafkin, putting us at Rafkin, Dead Rider, Kenrauroi + Whisperer x2, Nurse, and 5ss. This list is very fast, heals a lot, and can swap between focusing down one target with poison and pumping out the AoEs to keep the rat population down. Hamelin immediately takes Obedient Wretch, Hans, Hodgepodge Emissary, and Johan Creedy. From there I'd either say two Rat Kings and 6ss or one Rat King, Nix, and 6ss. Henchmen are always a risk, but you desperately need aoe Blight and McMourning isn't so great at putting someone like Nix down. Hans tries to Stun + Distracted the Kentauroi with their Df 4 to keep them pinned down (seriously, Stunned *really* ruins their day). Johan is on emergency poison removal duty. Hamelin tries to isolate models that have already gone using lure before letting his crew have their way with them. In all of these matchups, except possibly McMourning, Hamelin has the advantage. The Ressurectionists can't bring their strongest anti-hamelin tech to bare without putting themselves at a serious disadvantage. Rat King are simultaneously anti schemers, schemers, and beaters. You draw a lot of out of keyword and versatile models, but Outcast has a lot of strong models in the elite beater category to draw from. You could argue Leveticus is better in all of these cases, and that might be true. However, its close enough that familiarity and scheme pool are going to tilt things in one direction or the other. In contrast, if you try to play Hamelin into Ressurectionists on Cursed Idols you... ... ... Good luck.

Hamelin gets a lot of discussoon because he is difficult to master but interesting, so people are reaching out to work him over. He doesn't have a lot of play data, so he is still worth theoryfauxing. Contrast Parker. Parker takes some turning over in your head, but at the end of the day he is a solved puzzle. People know what Parker does well so discussion is kind of "uh huh, I agree with everything that was said." Hamelin we are still waiting for the lightbulb to go off on someone and them to make like, the post that helps the average player go from meh Hamelin to good Hamelin; and good Hamelin to great Hamelin.

I have also been experimenting with hiring one or two rats and sacrifcing a stolen! I have nothing conclusive yet, but it tenatively feels like a better strategy when using Benny. Having at least one unactivated rat at the beginning of every turn (hire for turn 1, have extra summons turn 2+) to get bonus Rat King activations is very strong, and you can cycle them like Kirai cycles Ikiryo. The challenges you are facing are very much the big ones for me as well: deployment, positioning, and managing 10+ Activations every turn plus Unclean Influence. I have not personally lost Hamelin in any of my games with him yet. People either ignore his bubble or spend everything on knocking out his suoporting models.

Are we confirmed for a balancing pass? Errata doesn't usually include a lot of model changea.

I played against Arcanists, Sandeep today. I lost decisively. Some takeaways: Always take Arik against Sandeep. Poison Gamin Bombs are brutal. Arik is shaping up to be one of those models where, when you need him, you *really* need him. The Nothing Beast does not counter Soulstone Miners, much less two of them. A full Tara crew can, but it's not a simple plug and play. If a Nothing Beast *is* going Soulstone Miner farming it needs to Focus, charge to keep up with the crew, attack, and get a severe to deal 6 damage, which is going to be reduced to 3. If the Nothing Beast does this on t1 and t2 it can take out a Soulstone Miner after spending at least two severe cards. If you happen to have a hand full of crows you can do it via attacking normally. It's still probably a valid pick, but if you want it to do work against the Soulstone Miners that is all it is going to do the entire game, and it might not work. AoE does counter Hamelin, so my intuition was on to something, however aoe needs to be applied correctly against Hamelin. Either you need to apply pressure to key models while incidently killing Malifaux Rats, or you need to kill Malifaux Rats in such a way that you deny Hamelin his Rat King activation. While losing Malifaux rats is eh, losing Stolen to incidental damage is bad. Stolen needs to be at the edges of your bubble or otherwise out of harm's way. A single misplay with Benny is a death sentence. Due to poor positioning I was only able to get 3 Malifaux Rats on t1 instead of the 4 needed for a Rat King. Benny really must get the equivalent of a Rat King out on t1 and t2 for his engine to be worth the points and positioning. I found myself really wishing I had more healing, and missing the Emissary because of that. I almost wonder if the Emissary is a better buy than the Prospector. In general, summoners might be a hard matchup for Hamelin because they lessen the value of Hamelin's attrition. Worth looking in to later.

It says "target or chose." The schemes you mentioned still choose the model, and you choose it as your leader designation. Unclean Influence neither targets nor chooses.

All of these are definately valid additions to an FAQ and I hope one is put out. I definately want to know, for Replacement outside of an activation, does the new model get to activate if some of its composit models have activated but not all of them. I also want to know, specifically for Malifaux Rats into Rat Kings, if the Mindless ability being removed allows the Rat King to act. [Edit: Found it in the rules, this doesnt work. It is an activated ability, not a passive one, so Mindless being removed does nothing.] My take on RAW with the other things, although it doesn't diminish the need for an FAQ and none of this is clear cut: Unclean Influence doesn't target rats, so it is not a game effect that targets or chooses a model, Turbo Rat King definately does not work. Right now RAW supports a model replacing multiple models getting all tokens on all of the original models. Since the rules for replacing multiple models modify the normal replace rules, and the way the core replacement rules are written say that the new model gains all of the tokens, and the replacing multiple model rules specifically call out Conditions but not tokens, RAW is all of the tokens are added together. I would argue this is intent because otherwise you could wind up losing Explosives Markers in Plant Explosives. The most RAW reading is that if any of the composit models have acticated a new model replacing multiple models can not activate. However, that requires an almost programming language reading of the rules and it becomes a bit counterintuitive in light that models replaced during their activation continue. I'd go with can't activate until an FAQ says otherwise.

Bigger picture is, so... Yes, I have it stuck in my head that big aoe damage counters Hamelin. It really doesn't. The enemy probably wants a source, *maybe* two in case the Hamelin player tries to get cute with Malifaux Rats and something lole Benny, but by and large all you accomplish by bombing rats is wasting your AP to give Hamelin card draw. If I need those rats to be useful, it is too easy to turn them in to Rat Kings. I use this in my games, I even deliberately bait aoe to get card draw, or draw attention off of my key models, yet I still feel concerned about it. Good AoE combined with Lantern of Souls or similar is slightly bigger problem. Otherwise, every action not harming a key support piece is a win for Hamelin. It still feels weird to lose 2-4 rats in an activation and realize that means you are winning.

Aha! I have been playing that wrong, thank you.

Doesn't Pandora choose the order since it is her activation?

Neverborn Butterfly Jump - Butterfly Jump via the Inhuman Reflexes upgrade is usually a huge advantage to the Neverborn, but for a Melee Crew Hamelin is pretty able to counter it. Malifaux Rats that deal a minimim 0 damage won't trigger it, you can clog up their models so they can't move, and Unclean Influence means you are still getting off two attacks per turn against affected models. Wrath - His bonus action will mess our rats up, and watch Sin Tokens on models about to perform Bleeding Disease. Aversions - These are good general models against Hamelin, who will have a real hard time getting close to them. Markus His Camoflage and Wings upgrades offer some nice defensive tech, but overall Markus is going to be asking how to go after you, not the other way around. Lucious Can you say 5-8 Execute Triggers per turn? Lucious does other things well, mostly Obeying their own elite models, especially Agent 76, and accomplishing schemes in weird ways via obey. Alan Reid also turns off rats in a 6" Aura as a bonus action: Wp vs 10 to take any action is no joke at 2 Wp. This comes down to who can murder the other's key models first. Pride is manditory in this matchup. Consider The Nothing Beast if you take another beater. Titania Although mobile, Hamelin's Crew can't ignore Severe Terrain. That is going to be factored in. Beyond that, although string, there is nothing particularly anti Hamelin. Nekima Black Blood males a Malifaux Rat Swarm difficult. Remember when you deal 0 damage Black Blood does not trigger. Stick to Rat Kings. Hans to kill at range and 2" Melee Beaters are advised. The Dreamer Everything will have Terrifying and the Dreamer will have pretty free reign in regards to placing Summons by targeting your Malifaux Rats. Protected makes killing the Dramer proper difficult, although Lure can help. Bleeding Disease is pretty good at killing Dreamer's bigger models. Your Malifaux Rats won't do much work, make them Rat Kings asap. Widow Weaver is going to have all of the stuffing markers they want or need. Bring Hans and Arik. Taelor is worth considering into killy pools. Euripedes Lots of shockwaves can be a pain. Malifaux Rats are good fodder to destroy Ice Pillars. Zoraida Bring The Nothing Beast and Pride to mitigate spamming Obey against your models. Be careful about bringing other powerful beaters. Pandora This is the problem matchup. The Box Opens is going to wipe out most of your Malifaux Rats and drain your hand. Grasping Tentacles lowers Unclean Influence's threat range by 4". Mood Swings can be havok on your crew. Hamelin, Nix, Obedient Wretch or Benny activating at the wrong time is almost as bad as removing their activation all together. Candy's aura is going to drain your hand further. If Carver and Kade reach your core models, you are going to lose them to Execute. Aversions also keep you from actually staying in melee with her crew. Bring Hans. Kill Poltergeist and Candy early. Making a run for Pandora herself is difficult. Hans' Tomes Trigger to get Pass Tokens is going to see a lot of work here, to mitigate Mood Swings.

Thing that somehow just donned on me: The Nothing Beast's bonus action can target Malifaux Rats, who easily have Fast. That means with a handy 5 of Crows or better you can place The Nothing Beast in base contact with a Malifaux Rat. I really need to get more The Nothing Beast reps in with Hamelin :x I also need to get some reps in without Benny. I have been deliberately taking him, especially when I know the opponent is going to "counter" the engine to get a feel for it. To date the only real counter to Benny is to kill him turn 2. If the engine makes it to turn 3-4, the engine has worked.