Virtus

Against which masters do you guys like going for minimum 4 damage bleeding disease on turn two?

I'm a Hamelin main, so these are my thoughts: I would pick Hamelin and have Nix with him. With Guard the Stash, Hamelin can Obey models into position if necessary. Eliminate the Leadership is hard against Hamelin and you can Killjoy bomb their leader if you want. Accusation is hard against Hamelin if you position well because Nix and Hamelin can choose not to get accused and you will have peon rats everywhere that your opponent can't accuse. I'd pick Leave your Mark and have Nix do it. Search the Ruins won't be bad with Rat Catchers with this strategy because they can drop schemes then get Obeyed into position for Guard the Stash. If I know I'm facing Guild, I'd try fitting in some Crooligans for the Mist.

14 hours ago, hydranixx said:

Yesteryear, I would have agreed, but this is GG2017. The community and meta is developing dramatically; I'm not sure if anyone can be labelled 'best player' in Auckland let alone New Zealand. 

That's not to say your post is wrong, only that the game is growing in our humble corner of the world and that our meta is becoming more healthy. The rest of your post is entirely valid, and so much richness comes from the oddities. Last night's game exemplified this; Seamus throws his own spleen at 2 Rat kings and a Rat catcher and blows it up, fishing for the 5 damage, but they all passed their tests, and one of them puts Tail'Em on Seamus.

It was exactly the type of narrative that I love Malifaux for, and that I think all new players appreciate about it. 

Speaking of Tail 'Em, one of my last games against Gremlins had Tail 'Em and Frame for Murder in the pool. Looking at the schemes, I assumed my opponent would pick FFM on Francois, so I planned ahead and threw Crooligans in my list thanks to Hamelin's Sewer King upgrade. Sure enough, I saw Francois in my opponent's list so I went with my assumption and counterpicked with Tail 'Em. I ended up being right, Crooligans were putting in work with Tail 'Em on Francois, and my opponent ended up killing his FFM target himself so I couldn't score more points. It was awesome.

I almost always take Nix with Hamelin, mainly to have Infectious Melodies in my list without taking up Hamelin's upgrade slot. I've been playing with Hollow to really get a feel for it. It's been fine at 2 SS because in my eyes I view it as either making my crew more aggressive, or use those two points for another rat.

I believe Hamelin's reputation as a NPE is unwarranted. He's a Master known to use multiple insignificant minions and only has a cache of one SS. Once opponents face an experienced Hamelin player that isn't taking forever making rats, then the idea of him being a NPE tends to go away. Thankfully, I've only had one person complain about Hamelin to me, and they eventually got over it because I ended up playing against him multiple times with Hamelin. Personally, I consider my opponent purposely not playing a Master to the best of their ability a NPE, but I digress... 

'The Piper' and 'The Plague' tend to be auto-include upgrades for Hamelin. One for Obey/ no-charge aura, and the other for ranged blight. If you're really worried about Hamelin's reputation as NPE, I'd suggest leaving one or both of those upgrades off.

I view Hamelin as a VP denial Master. I look at the strategy and schemes and determine if Hamelin can stop/ hinder my opponent from most of them, then play around what he can't mess with. Another option for you may be to make sure the strategies and schemes are hard for Hamelin to deny.

What are some of the most popular Frame for Murder targets for each faction?

Does Augmented Jump allow Von Schill to jump over tall terrain such as a building? If so, would you subtract the height from his charge distance, or would he only be able to charge over Ht 2 and under since he is Ht 2?

2 hours ago, Adran said:

Focused +1: This model may remove this Condition when declaring an Action to
gain a number of + to the Action’s duel and damage flip equal to the value of the
Focused Condition removed.

When the trigger tells you to take the action again, it is a new action. Focus does not apply to any new actions generated by the action. 

I wasn't sure if it was a new action because it says to take "this" action again.

Right, but retaining the positive modifier would help.

Edit: I know damage flip triggers off of focused actions retain focus (like a focused Pipes and the Haunting trigger), so I was wondering if this was similar.

16 minutes ago, Freman said:

Don't you only count the suit of the card you actually choose to use for the summon? I saw people talk about flipping double criticals at some point and the same question popped into my head.

If you flip a 10 and a 10 you still only count one or the other, not both. That's why you have to burn a soulstone for the second suit.

If you flip a 13 and a 10 on a model with Critical Strike you still only count one of the  for the +1 damage, any others having to come from either being built in, stoned for, or coming from an ability like Bishop's Adaptive.

I understand that. Please allow me to rephrase where I'm coming from.

Say you are on a turn you want to make two Stolen. You look at your hand and only see one card which is 8+ with either a mask or a tome. Every other card is less than the 8 required to hit the TN. You aren't worried about flipping into the black joker for whatever reason. So you tell yourself that you can focus before you 0 action, since that will be your only time to do so. You declare using focus for Lure Malifaux Citizen and soulstone for the suit that you need and try your luck at flipping well. You aren't worried about missing the Mesmerize trigger because you have the card required in hand to get it. Say you don't flip lucky, so you use the card in your hand to get Mesmerize and now you have no 8+ card in hand left for this extra action. Here lies my question. Would the focus I just used carry over to flip into any 8+ required, or am I supposed to save the focus before and declare using it now?

I have a question on Lure Malifaux Citizen. If I was to focus or soulstone for a plus flip and hit the Mesmerize trigger, would the trigger retain the modifier? I'm assuming yes because Mesmerize states to take "this" action again and "this" action had a modifier.

Anyone else having trouble with Gremlins? I'm thinking about running Scout the Field on a Specialist, outactivate them turn 1, then obey walk the Specialist 3 times with Hamelin and focus shoot a slop hauler on the Specialist's activation. Cheat in a severe to kill him and have two blasts. The problem with this idea is that the Specialist will probably die at the start of turn two since the Gremlin player will probably have Trixiebelle. 

Can you walk off or be pushed/moved/placed off of the board?

Do players just flip one card to determine who deploys first AND what side they want, or is it to choose either who deploys first OR what side they want? Or are they two different flips altogether?

I want to get Lady Ligeia up there, then companion into Papa Loco, but it seems difficult with positioning and winning initiative before one of them dies.

Hamelin was my first Master coming into Malifaux, and has always been my favorite. I'm glad to see interest in him.

I have never once felt like I needed Hannah. I'd recommend getting Killjoy instead if you're looking for an expensive model. But if you're looking for something more tricksy, I'd recommend running a Friekorps Specialist for his tactical action that can remove slow from your summoned models. It's a 1 action that Hamelin can Obey and get off without requiring an additional card. A fun trick is to make a Stolen or two with Hamelin, then make Hamelin Obey the Specialist and do the tactical which will kill the Stolen, then enemy models within the Stolen's aura have to pass a few TNs or get paralyzed. It's a solid way for the crew to eat at your opponent's hand.

Edit: as for the rat problem, I've personally never found it to be much of an issue due to the fact that there are four poses for the rats, and you're usually making a rat king out of the bare minimum of four rats. So either position them properly, or when you're summoning rats, just check to see what poses are nearby. This isn't foolproof, but it helps a lot and it's easy enough to track the few times you'll have the same posing rats next to each other.

I understand that focus doesn't carry over to multiple attacks through something like a charge, flurry, or rapid fire. But what if I use focus on an action and hit a trigger that requires an additional flip? Would the additional flip(s) retain focus? This question is in regards to Hamelin's 0 tactical action to make multiple Stolen off the Mesmerize trigger as well as the Pipes trigger which deals damage. Thanks for the help!

57 minutes ago, Manxfaux said:

I've had a some success using Hannah to copy 'The Shirt Comes Off' early in the turn to catch a bunch of models and drain their hand/deck of some decent cards, then using the Emissary to put it back on VS who goes later in the turn and catches another bunch of models that, more often than not, have to top deck those Horror checks. It won't always work but it's pretty easy to pull off.

I'm also experimenting with the Scion in his crew and taking more Freikorpsmen to increase the model count and the amount of models that can become dangerous when using the her attacks. Something like: VS + upgrades, Scion, Trunk, 2x librarian, 2x Trapper, 2x Freikorpsmann.

IMO, that's the best way to abuse 'The Shirt Comes off', but I  don't like it because it generally means VS is playing with less than the magic number of 8 activations a turn.

I too have been testing Scion of the Void, and I think he fits well. He gives attacks against WP for the rest of the crew, and 'In the Blink of an Eye' is what VS and his crew needs to be tricksy. Get two actions from him, unbury him, then heal him back up.

I usually play something like this:

Von Schill (Cache 7)- Engage at Will, Survivalist, Oath Keeper/The Shirt Comes Off
Steam Trunk
2x Freikorps Trapper
Freikorps Librarian- Oath Keeper
2x Freikorpsman
Scion of the Void

I'm thinking about picking up Jack and his crew. While researching, it seems to be that Lady Ligia needs some help to be worth her cost. Has anyone tried the Hodgepodge Emissary with her and given her the Companion trinket? If so, how useful has it been?

Are you allowed to run multiple copies of an upgrade on one model? I'm curious to see whether or not Jack Daw may run multiple copies of a specific curse, since the curses don't specify rare limit or Limited.

3 minutes ago, solkan said:

How do you question the intent on that sequence?  There's a reason why, when two triggers would resolve at the same time, the defender's trigger goes first even though for General Timing active model abilities otherwise resolve before defender abilities.

If the defender manages to run away somehow so you can't make the triggered attack, you don't get to make the attack.

I wasn't sure if they resolved at the same time because the Rat King's Overwhelm trigger states "immediately."

Do templates from blasts go through hard cover such as buildings?

Would a Gremlin with Squeal trigger escape a Rat King's Overwhelm trigger? I believe rules as written (RAW) it does, but rules as intended (RAI) it shouldn't. Just want to clarify. Thanks!

How much value do you guys generally get out of a Rat Catcher? Personally, I mainly use his actions to walk, interact while engaged, 0 action and moldy cheese a rat. Or focus and moldy cheese a rat king to get that 8 to reach the TN. I don't usually attack with him. That being said...

I've recently been trying to focus on charging with rat catchers but generally don't find it all that useful. Automatic triggers are nice, but starting at Ml 5 isn't that reliable. Although a neat trick against Gremlins which squeal is that if you do Catch and Release trigger and place the rat right behind them, they can't squeal away and make you waste your second charge attack. Catch and Release is triggered on success whereas squeal is triggered after damage has been dealt, and since our trigger is automatic, they may waste a card in their hand to get their trigger for nothing. Rusted Shut trigger is nice. Quarantine trigger is what it is. If you charge a model with blighted two on turn two (you just have to blight somebody once on turn one), you can do minimum 4 damage on a charge- assuming both attacks from the charge hit. Meh.

So, pretty much, I don't see why Rat Catchers are rare 2.

How much mileage have people gotten out of a Freikorps Specialist in a Hamelin crew? I've recently been keen on running him with Scramble along with another Malifaux Rat instead of either 12 points for three Crooligans (along with one point for Sewer King) or 12 points for Killjoy. Crooligans and Killjoy are good, but they make it more obvious what my schemes are.

My current list I like messing around with:

7 SS Cache
Hamelin- The Piper, The Plague, Sewer King
Nix- Hollow, Infectious Melodies
Freikorps Specialist- Scramble
The Stolen
Rat Catcher
Obedient Wretch
Malifaux Rat
Malifaux Rat
Malifaux Rat

The idea behind this list is to not only remove slow from your summoned models, but to also give them 3 AP with Infectious Melodies. A fast Rat King charging with 1 AP charges on blighted models (through something like Nix's 0 Tactical action) is awesome, especially since the Rat King will probably have + to attack flips on turn one. I feel like 7 soulstones is important for Hamelin, because he can use them to draw into suits his crew needs, spend a stone for a plus flip, or spend a stone for Mesmerize trigger. Thoughts on my lists appreciated. Specifically looking for input on what my activation order should look like.