cursingbulldog

I play the Tax-man from time to time also. I usually use him to carve some corpses off of Pere turn 1. Then summon stuffed out of those. The problem i see with the Taxidermist is that he is there to make stuffed pigs, but isnt all that great at it. what he is great at is making corpse markers. If it was a mercenary I'm sure it would be in all the Nico lists! The problem is that gremlins dont do anything with corpse markers. So this guy is piling up the corpses for no reason at all. Just a chance at a new Stuffed.

 

You can use him in Neverborn with Zoraida for a turn 1 summoned teddy. Zoraida makes a voodoo doll of an enemy model. Tax-man goes reckless and attacks the voodoo doll 3 times for 3 corpse markers and 6 damage killing the voodoo doll and dropping a scrap marker. Then Widow Weaver summons up your teddy. And really, you can do this every turn as long as you have an 11+(preferably of masks) in your hand. 

 

 

 

Sammy can make stuffed piglets too, and it uses enemy scheme markers to do so. Sammy lets you get a stuffed piglet AND deny your opponent VP at the same time. Couple that with Animal Shape upgrade and Sammy just hops around the board eating scheme markers. 

I must try the Widow Weaver - Taxidermist combo next time I play Zoraida. Maybe toss in Vasilisa for some extra obeys to get the most out of those teddies.

Vasilisa and a stiched or if your playing collodi a Coryphee can work. Move up late in the turn, attack then attack and pull back the beginning of next turn.

No it's not that great really, to situational. Collodi is about the only model I put it on as he alone can flip half the deck a turn for me, though he still never seems to be the one to flip the black joker.

I haven't used Illuminated for about a month now, had a string of bad luck with them and needed to change out. The model I do rely on to much is probably gupps, I usually play keep away and go for scheme marker heavy schemes and gupps are so good at those. 

I only have 3 currently which was one of the metals i split up but as soon as they come in plastic I'll be getting at least another set. But with that I've only had need of more then 3 once or twice. 

So I've been playing alot of Spawn Mother lately in our local campaign and in regular 50 ss games and she's quickly become my favorite Henchman for neverborn. So far she's been a great points scoring models and I thought I'd share some tips and observations I've had since running her for others that may be interested.

First off her stats are fairly average which is actually right where you want her which will become clearer later.

Silent and Perfect Camouflage are great in the first couple of turns to keep her safe while she moves up into position.

Mothers Rage is great in swampfiend lists but I've only gotten to use it a couple of times due to either LOS issues, range or wanting to keep her where she is. 

The Hatching allows you to summon gupps on your egg markers if SM is killed . This is perfect for her and really plays into my strategy with her. 

On the back of her card her only attack action Menacing Talons is decent at Ml 6 and a 2/3/5 damage track. Its got a a posion trigger on the card and can gain a critical hit trigger with her upgrade. Useful but I don't often have her up in the thick of things until late in the game.

Onto the Tactical Actions where the meat of her card and strategy lay. 

First the (0) action Lay eggs. The main reason to hire her IMHO. You need to hit a TN 12 crow to lay an egg at cast 6. These egg markers can later be used to summon Gupps which are great scheme runners. They don't pop out right away which is both a blessing and a curse as they can't act yet but they also can't be killed before you get to use them. They have a 5 in Leap that only requires a mask to go off. I will almost always save a high enough crow specifically for this ability and go into the game allocating 1 SS specifically for this ability. 

The (2) Action Nesting Pool is how you summon the gupps outside of her being killed and using the Hatching ability. My use of this really depends on the flow of the game but in general unless it looks like shes going to die you'll almost always use this on turn 4. Even then its worth considering as you have to use this ability before laying eggs for the turn and if they kill you after getting another egg down they would just be wasting AP.

Lastly is the once per turn (1) action Nourish the Young. This increases the Charge Range of models in a 6 aura by +2 for the rest of the turn. This can be quite helpful but I haven't actually used this that much. This can be nice turn 5 if your gupps are in range to increase their leap. It could also be handy turn 2 as your bigger hitters are closing into melee but its best used early in the turn which removes your camouflage bonus.

Upgrades:

Protect the Young - This gives you a critical strike trigger on Menacing Talons and the ability to hire out of faction swampfiends if she is the leader. In a Henchman game if I'm planing on also taking Mctavish this is an auto include otherwise I mostly skip it. 

Hexed Among You - This lets you deploy swampfiends upfield during deployment. This can be great with Waldgiests to allow you to engage alot of units early after they charge and place their forests. If you don't have other swampfiends though its useless. 

Fears Given Form - I'm starting to like this alot more on SM. Late turn three I usually have 2 or three egg markers down and I'm going to either want her dead turn 4 or spend both AP hatching. After laying the turn 3 egg I'll charge her into range of as many enemies as I can, hopefully some that havent activated. You've then put your opponents between a rock and a hard place. They kill spawn mother to minimize the risk of passive damage and give you free gupps or either drain their hand or suffer damage to keep the gupps off the board.

The Mimics Blessing  - Only somewhat useful as you already have Perfect Camouflage. The card draw when killed though can be handy as you almost want Spawn Mother dead turn 4 or 5 and the card draw could get you masks for your gupps leap. 

Next is discussing why you are going to take her. She is best when Reconnoiter or  Interference strategies come up as her summons are significant minions and leap allows you to get into or out of engagement or into table quarters to score those turn 4 and 5 strategy points.

She is also great for marker dependent schemes like Line in The Sand. 2 gupps out on turn four can run to position and if you've got 2 masks turn 5 you only need those two models to get full points on alot of schemes. Breakthrough, plant evidence, outflank, or late game plant explosives are also all very achievable with 2 or 3 gupps. Power Ritual is a bit tougher alone but still possible. 

So here is my general game plan with her. 

Turn 1: If Reconnoiter or Interference are in the pool I'll drop an egg first action. I may also do this if power ritual is in the pool and my opponent has declared it or I'm taking it undeclared.  Otherwise double walk and then Lay Eggs. 

Turn 2: Usually double walk, either across the board for Line in the Sand or Outflank or forward for Break Through and Plant Evidence. Then Lay Eggs where most useful during these moves. 

Turn 3: Usually Lay Eggs first then charge into either a big hitter or a group of weaker models to tie them up. If I have a mask in hand I may lay this egg after the charge as long as there is no chance of her getting paralyzed to get the gupp to safely in case she goes down that turn. 

Turn 4: Almost always Nesting Pool. You need gupps to be able to interact on turn 5 and if you don't get them out turn 4 they can't do that. Followed by Lay Eggs. The only exception would be if she is low on wounds and i have a model that can easily kill her, like Mctavish or Nekima or even a gupps if she's low enough and I have a crow in hand to get a silurid out of the deal. 

Turn 5: Discard  my whole hand to get masks for leap, even some high cards. Its turn 5 people, its all about those sweet points. Whats that? ... Spawn Mother? Is she still alive? Really? Uh.... Lay Eggs and hope for that black joker? Otherwise what ever it takes to win. 

In summery keep her moving and get those eggs out across the board so your gupps will be in position to act turn 5. I want at least 2 eggs down by turn three. 3 is better. If you can only get 1 down you would have been better off just taking 2 gupps at the start of the game. Try to get your eggs in places where the gupps can get where they need to on turn 4 to act on turn 5, Ideally within 5 inches of where you want a scheme marker incase you don't have masks turn 4 or you need them to place 2 on turn 5. 

Edit: And wow this turned out alot longer then I thought it would. 

I'm thinking of taking her with the zoraida. She can put out two of her conditions a turn onto the doll and hemmed target and also twist the doll to switch targets, doll can remove conditions on its turn and Zoraida can heal it to start the process again.

I assume you mean Neverborn players. And I completely agree with everything this guy said on your cast   (as I'm the guy on the cast)

I think black blood would only go against any already in play Alps, as they need to be killed to summon in new ones so at worst you would break even for molly at least, and other summoners you would probably lose your alps but hopefully they stick around long enough to drain your opponents hand from their smother aura to at least slow down summoning.

And Nical thats kind of what I'm looking at. I think receive and gain would mean the same thing in this context but that may be up to interpretation and the timing of gaining slow which I would play as after being placed on the table and models not in play can't gain conditions. 

Lazurus is a great model to pair up with Collodi. You'll also want the factions effigies in probably this order of usefullness, Brutal, Arcane, Hodgepodge, Lucky, Carrion, Shadow, and lastly our own Mysterious which you could probably skip. Stitched are good as are Coryphee if you can find any of them. Otherwise any strong minion models make great choices for collodi such as Illuminated or models that benefit from focus like the freiscorps trapper.

I just got the Dreamer box and I'm trying to figure out the Alps and how I can make the best use of them. 

My local meta has several resser players so I can see a lot of summoning fairly frequently. Now summoned models typically gain slow when they are summoned in. Alps Feed on Dreams ability does 1 point of damage to a model that gains slow within 3 inches. I'm assuming that this damage would be applied to the summoned model. 

If this is the case I'm seeing these as possible counters to summoning, especially to a molly crew as her summons come in with health based on the same range as the alps auras. If only alps are in range they would gain the same amount of health as they would receive from the alps summoning in more alps. You would need some careful positioning to make it effective but I could see it being somewhat effective in the right circumstances.

Been thinking a little bit on these two and they make an interesting choice for a bag of props collodi list as you can get two focuses to steal for only 1 ap and I believe bag says you can steal from any friendly model, not just minions. You might want more black blood in the list so full out the rest of the list with tots and a BBS for a collodi grow list? Might speed up this list with sprint from the tots. From my basic list looks like fitting In the Twins a BBS and Lazarus leaves 4 slots for tots/effigies but would need to drop one for a marrionette or primordial magic to fit rapid growth.

It works two ways, one just like a normal duel but you are flipping both for attacking and the defending models and can cheat for either or both. Or the second is you can relent the defending model I which case your attacking model is the only one making flips and the attack automatically counts as a tie unless you don't hit any relevant target numbers

I run two or three currently but will probably drop down to one or none once bunraku come out. After that I think I will typically run 2 coryphee, 2 effigies, two bunraku, lazarus and possibly the primoridal magic. 

I can see them being useful in campaigns with the upgrades you destroy to gain fast or reactivate.

Neverborn Summoning Allstars

Dreamer

+ Dreams of Pain - 5ss

Coppelius - 8 SS

Nekima - 13 SS

+ The True Mother - 2 SS

Spawn Mother - 9 SS

Widow Weaver - 8 SS

+ Handbag - 2 SS

5 SS pool

Anyone ever take alps and copellius with collodi. The alps should work with fated an would be good models to focus with for bag of props. And with how easy it is for collodi to put out slow you could be dealing a lot of damage and summoning a lot more alps.and coppelius could throw out some healing for your strumming models.

If falling were just defined a little better. There are to options really.

1. By saying when moving off an elevation by means other then climbing the model falls or,

2. by saying falling happens when a models means of movement is insufficient to complete the change in height and end on terrain.

I like the second option as it lets incorporeal and leap safely move down by those means but normal movement requires climbing as the means of elevation change.

Props is already great, how I run collodi most of the time.

This seems counter intuitive to how defensive normally works but strictly RAW I guess I can see it. Makes defensive weaker for a fated crew and stronger for a props crew as collodi would keep defensive he steals before his activation for the rest of the turn.

I believe the wording for defensive is something like "loss this condition at the end of this models next activation." The word "this" would refer to the model the condition is attached to not to the one who took the action to give it. As far as I'm aware conditions always refer this to the model it's attached to or otherwise name a model specifically if there is a different case.

Here is my solution. All made from pretty cheap materials from the hardware store.  Shelves are fully adjustable and with the six surfaces I should have enough space for the at least all of the in faction models. Mature Nephilims wings are giving me a bit of an issue so I may dedicate a shelf just to the tallest models.  I plan on enclosing the sides in a thick styrene  and I could cut some longer rod for more shelfs if needed. 

Bag of Props Collodi followed by Fated Collodi then Zoraida. 

I usually only use 1-2 marionettes with this list and fill the rest in with effigies. I'll usually bring the brutal and hodgepodge as their buffs combo well giving healing to counter strum and letting you draw and discard and gain a stone on kills. Then I'll either bring shadow or arcane depending on if I need protection or condition removal.

Models that focus I'll have move scheme or engage with their first ap and focus with the second. Focus 2 seems a bit of a waste of ap unless they have a particularly tough model. And yes you need to steal focus from different models every attack as it gets spent. This does take a long time to get set up its key to have fast melee models to tie up blast models as the collodi ball stays fairly clumped and is slow remove up the field. If you can get a few all 5 hits second turn you should be able to steal/waste enough of your opponents ap to keep it going.

Yeah it's the 5ap, with plus flips to all attacks, 2 pluses to four of the damage flips and the built in one to the 5th that make the bag upgrade shine. With that many plus flips your damage is almost always at a straight or positive flip and you should hit the mask or crow trigger 2-3 times. With the slow and moving enemies out of position or stealing ap you can make 2-3 of your opponents activations pretty worthless.