madaxeman

What's classed as a "full cache" for Ramos ? 

Me and some friends want to start playing malifaux. I really love 3 masters of this faction: Rasputina, Colette and Kaeris. I wish to make a play test with all of them before buying a box. So i would like to know pros and cons of this masters and maybe some crew examples to play at 50 ss. Thank you for your help

Seconding all of the above - spend $50/£30 on a box set each, and then another $20/£15 on a 3-pack of related models that look cool and you've seen mentioned a lot on this forum or pull my finger, and give it a go.

There are, what, almost 50 possible opposing masters you could face in each game, and close on 30 different objectives you might be trying to achieve in each game too, so the idea of having a play-test or two and seeing if you like one master is kinda (sorry to say!) a bit of a nonsense - as the opponent and the scheme pool will make each game you play very different anyway. 

If you "like" 3 of the crews, you already have your answer - just go with it and start with one of them - and as Raspy is the only one on sale at the moment that will come with all of the 2.0 cards you will need to play in the box, for me she's your clear winner already. 

Your alternative is spending $20/£15 on 2 packs of arsenal cards and trying to play a game with counters of a ruleset you haven't yet tried - and then you'll duplicate all of the cards when you buy the figures anyway, so that's going to probably be wasted money! 

I don't tend to hire a killable model anymore. I get that it's two Scrap and all but I have had success with this.

1. Take Ramos with Electric Summoning

2. Activate Ramos, summon the EC

3. Shoot it and cheat up or down, do moderate damage

4. Summon the spiders you want

5. Walk once

This came up when trying to play in a 35ss game where the resources were thin and from there on I have experimented with it in 50ss games and I have never really regretted it.

I believe this is called the Magic Math.

A lot of Tomes though...

Anyway, this "first move sequence" with Ramos is a key part of starting him, so definitely fits in this thread!

Any other sequences people can suggest?

I played against Silurids last weekend for the first time, and that 7" (0) action leap on whats seemed to be a fairly-easy-to-get card was amazing. It's 2 markers per turn in the end-zone and getting away from most threats for a middling card. 

What about a Waldgeist for denying the opponent the chance to place markers? A 4" melee range and a 40mm base is an awful lot of the table tied up with no interacts possible t the enemy.  

Thanks for "TO"'ing it Mike (or "organizing and umpiring" as we call it in the historical gaming world..!)

My first taste of doing the whole "cook up a list on the fly" thing, and I got to play against 4 masters that I'd never faced before too.

The end outcome of both of the above wasn't that great points-wise (!!), however hopefully my incompetence wasn't too painful for my opponents to endure!

Reports to follow .... 

tim

I guess I'll try to get better with Ramos and mei in the mean time. I had a hard time with mei trying to use the rail workers instead of metal gamin though

That might just be because Gamin are better :-)

It's Johan.

Rare-as-hens-teeth condition removal, all wrapped up in an MS&U tank that carries Bleeding Edge Tech and a Relic Hammer....?

I'm struggling to see when not to take him. 

I've never seen cojo as fast. I find him very situational, in scheme marker strategies, or turf war he is pretty good. Otherwise he is so so. I live him as a myranda shape change more than a hire. Imbued protection adds some survivability, but at that point he is a 10 point model, and he just does not do enough unless schemes abound.

Yep - this was in a marker-rich environment. Ideal for him.,  

After almost 5 games ever (of Malifaux, not even all of them with Mei Feng), Mei Feng and her Rail Crew take to the competitive table at Gertfaux in Bristol in February of this year!

It's all on the turn of a card as Giant Robots take on Resurrected Irish Labourers, Little Green Men try to avoid falling into an industrial threshing machine, and a 4-legged man wearing a dress tries to avoid being run down by a big Willie. There is even a metal horse with it's own colony of self-detaching sub-zero temperature haemorrhoids with bad attitudes.

What's not to like? 

Read the full reports at  http://www.madaxeman.com/reports/Bristol_2015_1.php

OK, after one successful trade (UK-California!) here's my stuff:

Have: (Arcanists/Dual faction)

Rail Golem

Marcus

Cojo

Sabretooth Cerberus

Razorspine Rattler

Myranda

Large Arachnid

Slate Ridge Mauler x 2

December Acolyte x2

Moleman x 3

Raspy + all Frozen-heart upgrades (see below)

Wendigo

Ice Golem

Hoarcat Pride x1 

December Acolyte x 2

Upgrade Cards:

Pack Leader

Skinwalker

Gods Domain

Trail of the Gods

Feral Instincts

Hunger Cry

Armour of Dec

Shattered Heart

Child of Dec

Cold Nights

Dec Pawn

Armour of Dec

Sub Zero

Would like:

Rogue Necromacy

Guild Hound(s)

Hmm Metal Gamin.... Always good!

On the flip side, Cojo is FAST when he wants to be, so might lose the Gamin - and 2SS is 2 SS in a crew that seem to need a lot of suits for 2-suit triggers

I used Marcus last night (second time ever) and got some great value out of a Cojo + Myranda + Marcus combination against an opponent trying Line in the Sand and that one where you have 5 markers on the half way line to fight over.

Cojo with Imbued Protection, working under the WP buff/debuff aura, effectively re-activating each turn via Marcus' 2AP action and using all of those APs (and his freebies APs action) to smash loads of enemy models and scheme markers out of the way was truly brutal ... gaining DF +1 for each marker made him almost untouchable most turns, and created a massive no-go zone in key parts of the board. Using the extra 1MI action from Myranda as well on him was the extra bit of filth. 

I also was surprised with the Waldgeist - first time I've tried them. I expected their 4" attacks and the blocking ability of the cast forests to be the good thing, but simply being able to conjure up a 4" engagement range on a 40mm model was their best skill - pretty close to making them into "Chatty Trees" in terms of instantly denying the ability to interact across wide swathes (a 9.5" diameter circle!!) of the table.

Sometimes, I just accept points are being scored, and funnel my efforts in preventing other schemes from being completed. 

This pretty much sums up where I seem to find myself each time I have come up against Distract - I always seem to have better things to do with my models rather than spending a turn getting out of engagement range, and then another turn using both of their AP to get rid of distract.

If the enemy sticks 3 distract on my models (using at most 6 APs in total), my mindset tends to be that I've given up all 3 of those VP's.

Getting the distracted models killed I guess is a possibility but, using 6 APs and 2 models for 2 turns just to deny someone a VP that they can then get back by spending 2 AP always seems a tough call.

Ok - I can see that sometimes there are easier options... But maybe ask the same question another way - if your opponent starts handing over distracts, what do you do about it? Just accept that VPs will be scored?

It's usually on frontline models who are in combat already, so pulling them out of engagement range often defeats their primary purpose in your crew.

distract seems a pretty good scheme - a 1ap action that forces your opponent to then spend 3 aps (disengage/walk out of engagement range then a 2ap removal) to stop you scoring - thus preventing them doing other things.

Unless the opponent has a "chatty"-type ability in their crew, is Distract almost an auto-choose each time it appears? Is the best bet to match Distract with Distract and aim to win on the other 2 strays and schemes?

"Hi darling, how do you fancy spending 2 days in a sauna in an airport hotel near Gatwick whilst I play toy soldiers" 

Good luck with that one... !

Claws first - chain attacks are fun!

Imbued Energies- more attacks!

Smash, for scheme marker removal schemes and strats. Otherwise not - why get out of combat ??

Never got much use out of vapour, but I've not played vs many shorty crews. Oh, and Sonia always seems like she has targets who are on fire already....

I'm in. Any event that involves driving down the A13 ("Trunk Road to The Sea") to get there works for me... 

Will the schemes and strats be published in advance ? 

Will be working on the text this weekend, but here;s a teaser... 

I've just been buying stuff that looks cool, and now have way too much - but having done my first comp the other weekend with a 100SS pool and pre-announced schemes and strats, I found that having to plan for this arrangement was actually a really good discipline that I wished I'd done earlier. 

Or, put another way, having done the "what 100SS of models do I need to have a good go at these dozen or so strats?" exercise I realised that I've already bought a lot of stuff that I'll rarely ever need to use.   So, try and build a 100SS pool of models that can do most strats and you should be OK ! 

When I get round to doing the match report I'm hoping to try and explain my thinking behind the 100SS pool choice and how it mapped onto the strats in the report.  

Yep, great fun and many thanks for organising it. 

As a newbie, having to pre-pick a 100 SS pool and knowing the schemes in advance was a massive help - otherwise I'd have been really struggling to work out what on earth to do to conjure up an army list between games, which would have greatly slowed down what was already a very tight schedule on the day.

Looking forward to another one..  

There should be 4 more being written up after this weekend.. 

Mei's box set has lots of synergy in terms of sharing models ... but I'm not sure from your post if you wanted two masters to play against each other, or two box sets that can swap models between them to make more interesting crews.

If it's two matched pairs you are looking at, I'm not sure two Arcanist masters is the right idea 

Johan is an MS&U mercenary in an Arcanist crew - can he use the MS&U specific "Bleeding Edge Tech" upgrade? 

Reading the rules I can't see why not (page 72, "A model may only have upgrades of the crews decalred factionj, regardless of the models faction"), however it's not an option in the online Crew Creator.  

Johan does something different in the crew - condition removal, which is sometimes incredibly important, and also his impressive area-heal for MS&U models. 

His beat-stickery is a bit of a bonus really.

Given his support role, I suspect that he may well be the better model for Combat Mechanic as well, as he is less likely to be fighting early doors, and less likely to be killed as a result.

If you do as above and have 8 left... well, that makes the core crew very, very hard to kill.