retnab

Thing about Henchmen Hardcore is you need your 4 models to all be doing some killing or support. I'd say go all out on the Frozen Heart theme, or all out on the Beast theme. Mixing them probably won't go so well. If you're going to go the Beast route, maybe something like: Game 1: Sabertooth Cerberus + Imbued Energies Games 2 & 4: Myranda + Seize The Day, Sabertooth Cerberus, 2x Poison Gamin Game 3: Marcus, Myranda, Sabertooth Cerberus, 2x Poison Gamin, +23ss I'm not a Marcus player so I'm not really familiar with the beasts, but something like that probably.

I think my standard Henchmen Hardcore list would work as a pretty good base for this. So it'd be: Game 1: Ice Golem + Imbued Energies Games 2 & 4: Snow Storm, Ice Golem, Ice Gamin, Silent One Game 3: Rasputina, Snow Storm, Ice Golem, Ice Gamin, Silent One, +19ss of things to fit schemes and playstyle

It really depends on what your schemes are. However, having said that I find myself taking Behold way more than Command so far. The Visions giving so much Interact control gives something that may not appear strong right off the bat but wow they're great. For example, you can summon in a model with Visions of Wind to Interact the turn it's summoned, then have it take a walk action and then use Sandeep's (0) As Your Deed, So Your Destiny to Interact right away - with the option to do it while engaged, or with a push for even more distance on it. Just think of having Set Up, summoning in a model with Visions of Wind with the above actions (taking the do it while engaged trigger) and summoning a Visions Of Fire model who (1) Interacts while engaged with the model. That's two Scheme Markers by the model in question, which you can do from really decent distance away and probably pretty late in the turn too for some basically guaranteed VP.

It looks like the Sandeep summoning card has a typo, the first category should have a cost of 8 and the second should be 9, they're written as one more right now.

Like the others have said, if it's Frozen Heart it's probably good with her. In no particular order, you should look at getting the Wendigo, Ice Dancers, Silent Ones, December Acolytes, and Snow Storm. With that you can have a really solid crew! Mech Rider is nice for throwing out new Ice Gamin, but it's not a crucial piece like the Wendigo and Snow Storm probably are.

Ooh! RoF came out for download way earlier than I expected, gonna buy that PDF right now Thanks for getting it on so quick!

For point one, nope! They're not Mercenaries, because they're Foundry models Mei Feng can hire them as if they were her faction. Point two, that's a really hard choice. I feel like I play Ironsides better, but Mei Feng flying up the board is really fun to do.

What BFOmega said. Kaeris' box isn't too bad with her either, Fire Gamin are nice mobile Constructs with a Burning inducing ranged attack. Plus The Firestarter is always a good scheme runner.

I kind of love all of our options for the 2nd round, they all sound pretty fun. I got in a game today vs Resser Tara for the Trickster (I was Rasputina, seemed appropriate), won 7-5. One step closer to another named Frozen Heart model!

I haven't done the Academic side of him yet and try as I might I keep having games where he needs the Visions upgrade where I really want to try the Commands upgrade, lol. The Visions upgrade is really nice and while it's not killy it makes schemes much easier to complete yourself and harder for the enemy. His Incorporeal upgrade is very nice, especially with someone like Howard (I had a game against the Viks where being Incorporeal let him charge through some models in the way and take out some back line models), Unaligned Sage seems nice but I haven't tried it. Arcane Reservoir and / or some way of drawing more cards seems basically mandatory, I've done AR and brought Sue in all my games so far for the 8 card hand. His summoning is pretty flexible but the penalties on the upgrades can really be a pain. Wind upgrade seems like it should always be for a Metal or Wind Gamin, they don't mind the penalty as much at least. Hope you have fun with him!

When she releases Amina might be an autoinclude as well, her abilities and passives are pretty incredible with Ironsides' Hand Picked Men.

Don't forget the Arcane Effigy as well, it's a great piece especially with how many attacks Ironsides can pull off.

Under Ironsides no, but they are pretty good 5 pt options, especially with Mei Feng and Ramos.

I can't say I see much synergy between the Gunsmiths and Ramos, besides just raw ranged damage numbers and a bit of durability. My standard shooter for Ramos is usually Sue, mostly due to Hurt for more cards in hand but also his min damage 3 (after crit strike) and Sh5 with built in .

I always take Arcane Reservoir, better chances of getting that 11 he loves to have.

I won a game battling over the Child last night with Sandeep vs the Viks 10-8, it was an extremely scheme heavy pool (I took Convict Labour and Leave Your Mark, my opponent took Take Prisoner (Sue) and Leave Your Mark). I took Sandeep (Arcane Reservoir, Enlightened Soul, To Behold), Cassandra (Practiced Productions), Kudra (Free Of Mortal Shackles), Howard (Imbued Energies), Sue (Imbued Energies), and an Ice Gamin. My opponent took a standard Vik crew but with a Trapper as well. He placed his Trapper 2" away from the Child and in my concern that he would get to the Child before me I spent turn 1 moving the Child very deep into my deployment zone with Sandeep's summons and the rest of the crew helping out. That made most of the Stalkers walk to me turn 2, so I managed to kill 3 to my opponent's 1. After that he began murdering me, though an Incorporeal Howard reached and killed Vanessa. While he was off killing I got 1 Leave Your Mark point (Cassie ran to do it and Sue took care of her after that) and max Convict Labor points. At the end I only had Sue left while he still had 5 models, so he maxed out both his Schemes but since I got 6 Strat points to his 2 (we went to turn 6 and he spent the last two turns getting the Child over to his deployment zone) I still took the victory. Pyromaniac child here we come!

What Ward do people bring when they do a single Oxfordian Mage? I typically bring the Nemesis Ward so it has access to all its ranged triggers on all attacks, but I'm thinking if I do single Mage with Sandeep I might do Blood for the option of doing work in melee too. I find I basically never bring the Doom Ward, which I know is silly because that's just leaving behind Regen +1 but I like the other buffs the Mages get more.

Pretty sure PullMyFinger's wrong there. It clearly states that an ability taken with Beacon can't be taken by someone else via Beacon, not that they can't be used again at all.

I brought Sandeep with Visions to my game with the Trickster, figuring the summons who can Interact right away or while engaged would be very useful. However because everyone was clumped together randomly in the middle the game was a bloodbath from the first activation and Interacting barely happened at all. Be aware that you won't be reliably given space *to* interact in that encounter. Still uncertain who I want for the Man, I kind of figured Kaeris or Mei Feng to get there fast. For the Child I'd agree Rasputina sounds good.

And it was my first game on the first day too! What are the odds It wasn't even an impressive score either, we both went 3-3 because we had a scheme heavy pool with the Trickster's encounter and from turn 1 it was just a bloodbath so nearly no scheming even happened. The Trickster was interacted with only once in the entire game and I couldn't cheat when I did it, got the suit that let my opponent move her away and that was it haha.

So, not to be that guy, but I had a draw today. Lol, how do we report it? We were both Arcanists playing Trickster if that helps.

Question, for the schemes are we using the ones from the rulebook or Gaining Grounds?

The description the Self Righteous Man has is definitely the best, it's a shame I don't much care about the beast side of Arcanists though. I'm fully intending on playing all 3 story rounds but I'm leaning mostly towards the Trickster currently (plus the Trickster setup just sounds way too fun and wacky not to try).

The full list of ability names, though maybe missing something from book 4, are as follows (made into a quote so people can minimize it, I know it's a huge list):

I've actually made a full Word document fully detailing all the abilities she can Understudy up to parts of Ripples of Fate (I was a bit bored... it's 11 pages long). Not sure if I'm allowed to share it on here though, what with it having the Ca's and TN's and such.