benjoewoo

Outcasts can hire many of the non-master Resser options for manipulating corpse markers, given so many of them are undead. I put in Leve because he's the master who would do it that way. I have to disagree that malifaux is just building the crew you want to accomplish the schemes and playing around your opponent, at least as a general maxim. Meta as a gaming scene term describes players' game piece selections to better compete in a given field of players. Players may use the idea of building for schemes, but they're generally tooling for their opponent to best support chances of winning--by winning I mean have fun or to win in VP. Otherwise model variety would be rather pointless except for power ramp. You should have to consider your opponent may play an unorthodox master. Seamus fills that role in Ressers. One of the major selling points for Outcasts as a faction is each master operates very differently--excluding ratjoy. Nellie does that now in a much more major, and imo concerning, way for guild. If you choose not to tool for Reva and your opponent takes her, he/she should get a benefit for you choosing not to prepare. In the last few posts or so several people have listed multiple options for every faction to deal with corpse markers specifically. That means no faction can complain there are no answers--they're choosing not to use them in the event Reva is picked. If you picked those options and your opponent picks Kirai, then you incorrectly read your opponent. It's part of gaming to surprise someone with a dark horse pick or game new options in picking meta. Doesn't mean Reva should be Cuddled because she requires putting in special tech for her.

I think that's a good idea. I only know a few off the top of my head but here they are. I think one of the new gremlins models can eat corpses or some kind of marker to heal Wds. Universal Option: Aionus Guild: Lady J Arcanists: Emissary, Mechanical Rider Ressers: Spare Parts, Corpse Bloat, Muahahah, Philip, Carrion Emissary, Nico, Seamus, Reva, Toshiro, Archie TT: Toshiro, Asami Neverborn: Lilith, Emissary (I think his 50mm markers are blocking) Outcasts: Leve (Toshiro, Archie, Philip)

Yes, they would. I've put some examples below. They assume the ability reads, "ClockWork Dress: Enemy models may not end push or movement effects within 8 aura unless that effect was generated by a Walk Action or Charge Action. Models which would be illegally pushed or moved into the aura stop at its edge." Example A Rotten Belle friendly to Anna Lovelace is positioned with full base in Anna's 8" aura. Rotten Belle attempts to lure enemy model, also fully within Anna's 8" aura. Lure may succeed, but no movement will result because enemy model would end a movement effect within the 8" aura. Example B Rotten Belle friendly to Anna Lovelace is positioned with full base in Anna's 8" aura. Rotten Belle attempts to lure enemy model whose base is partially in Anna's 8" aura. Lure may succeed, but no movement will result because the enemy model is still affected by Anna's 8" aura. Example C Rotten Belle friendly to Anna Lovelace is positioned will full base in Anna's 8" aura. Rotten Belle attempts to lure enemy model whose base is fully outside of Anna's 8" aura. Lure may succeed, and the enemy model will move, stopping at the edge of the aura positioning the enemy model as close as possible to Rotten Belle within the enemy model's Wk stat. We know the above examples are not what happen, however, with the current wording of the ability, which references the source of the push or movement effect. Therefore, source matters. The ability references that enemy models may not end push or movement effects within the 8" aura. Provided their push or movement effect would push or move a model, friendly or enemy, completely out of the 8" aura, then it would be a legal push or movement and result in actual movement. This has 0 effect on whether the move is successfully cast, and does not affect any triggers unless those triggers require the target to actually move.

There's also 40mm+ models that sit on top of corpses so as to deny their use for the most part. I've had that happen a couple times. Asami turns all corpse markers into extra turns of activation as well for her summons.

If you didn't include the exception in the text, friendly belle lures would be unable to lure enemy models within the bubble. The exception as worded applies to source, considering the previous two items in the list are references to sources as well. The "unless that effect was generated" portion of the text also indicates the ability refers to source.

Very true. I forgot each one has different pushes for 8" or so. However, a note is that if the target model has any portion of its base parallel to Anna's base in reference to lateral lines to the Titania minion, the push will still fail because the far back most edge of the base will still be within 8" of Anna. Bad description of positioning, it's difficult to describe without a diagram--envision a grid and use lines perpendicular to how the models "face" each other, assuming you always point the models facing towards each other.

"ClockWork Dress: Enemy models may not end push or movement effects within 8 aura unless that effect was generated by a Walk Action, Charge Action, or a model in this Crew. Models which would be illegally pushed or moved into the aura stop at its edge." If the push from the enemy model would end within the 8" aura, it cannot occur based on that reading because it just says "enemy models may not end push or movement effects". Doesn't say that the enemy models may not be pushed or moved within 8 aura, and thus would include effects that push or move models friendly to Anna Lovelace. Titania's minions can push you 8" in total, but must do so between 2 separate melee attacks via trigger. Assuming the push wouldn't get the model out of the aura, each push would separately fail for not pushing the model entirely out of the aura. . Gravity Well seems to lend credence to this interpretation because it specifically addresses enemy models placing into the aura area. The difference in conceptual issues between clockwork dress and gravity well indicate the latter addressed going into the aura (both of which are 8) while the former addressed moving within the aura.

Math was comparing Seamus and Reva--Reva can hit 3 times against Df or Wp while ignoring defensive triggers depending on the stat she attacks. She can also avoid Defensive stance by targeting Wp and potentially ignores armor with a 2 SS upgrade. Seamus can shoot against Df only and doesn't have those advantages, though his raw damage output is comparable and arguably as efficient, if not slightly more.

Anna Lovelace. 9 SS henchmen with a min damage 3 shot action stops 6+ SS of models from dragging you in. Not a panacea, but very effective.

You already own Seamus, so that's 1 master. While nurses are very popular on the boards for him, I have found I more often than not drop the nurse hire, because I need my AP to do other things to get VP. If you are comfortable not having nurses, you don't need McM to bring essentially nurses to Seamus. If you get Kirai, you'll need to get spirits, most of which are in blisters. Ironically, when I run Seamus I tend to run him with belles, Sybelle, and then a bunch of spirits, so I don't think you're in trouble here. When I say spirits though, I really just mean Datsue-ba for seishin summons, Jakuuna because she can lure and is a good tarpit albeit squishy, and occasionally shikome or Izamu--for my purposes they may as well be the same price point because at 8 SS I'm dropping an enforcer for a minion or dropping an upgrade to get to 10 SS. I almost always take Datsue-ba because her 0 can make Jakuuna much more mobile, generate activation control with Seishin, or help block LoS for Back Alley via the Seishin's ability Enslaved Soul. Kirai is also a very strong master with very deep strategy and mechanics. As you improve in resser play, you can go from the relatively straightforward Seamus to the much more nuanced Kirai. If you decide to get a 3rd master, Reva wouldn't be bad. She's straightforward like Seamus, and she'll largely get by without having to increase your model purchases. I think if you get those three, you could get away with just buying the spirit blisters you want for Kirai, including at least Datsue-ba, and buying Yin. Yin is great with Seamus and Reva at basic play and good for advanced play as well, given her Wp based duels for Seamus and her Ca/Wp debuff for Reva.

He and I use many of the same tactics, and view Vincent very similarly--an upgrade platform who can occasionally shoot. My opinion of Vincent is rising--his ability to target Df, Wp, or Wk with Corpse Bloat equipped makes him a real variety pick. At 9 Wds he's not likely to die at range from most single model activations, and a stone for a mask almost always ensures he can get out of LoS or range for any follow up attacks. However, his card otherwise still leaves me wanting--the Corpse Bloat into Fast trick can be nice, but it's gimmicky for marginal benefit compared to another henchmen doing something better. Vincent gets me fast and card cycle assuming the Emissary converts the corpse to a scheme marker while Datsue-ba gets me 2 seishin and fast, giving me extra distance and activation control. Philip can competently compete if the shield bearers drop a corpse marker via dismember (any crow) and Philip uses his 0, usually irrelevant in early Turns, to get the trigger and eat scheme markers for 4 cards drawn, 2 cycled.

Going more back on topic--my comments on Hamelin then seem off base. It seemed an appropriate comparison given the information I understood, but now I think differently. As to defending Reva from the cuddle bat again, recently played at a local tourney. First round was vs. Viks, corner deployment, strategy was interference, Viks took search the ruins and show of force, Reva took inspection and convict labor. Tied because I was one activation away from winning on time. I would have denied Search the Ruins, but had the game gone to Turn 5, I'm unsure I would have maintained the lead given I lost my Emissary and Viks had only lost Vanessa and student of conflict. Tie was 4:4. Second round was vs. Perdita, standard deployment, strategy was guard the stash, Perdita took Frame for murder on Papa Loco and Hunting Party, Reva took Frame for murder on Emissary and Hunting Party. I won because Carrion Emissary RJ'd damage against Perdita, which double blast into Nino for 4 damage--Perdita SS only prevented 1 damage, leaving her at 3/4 Wds, and she in a last cry killed Emissary in 1 activation. Reva was able to finish off Perdita using 3AP to finally hit her and discard a corpse marker for her 4/5/6 track--Df/Wp 7 is no joke--and used her 0 to kill Nino. The unusual event went downhill from there because no Perdita or Nino leaves a Perdita crew fairly toothless. Score was 10:4. Third round was vs. Asami, CLOSE DEPLOYMENT, strategy was Headhunter, Asami took Detonate Charges and something else (did not score), Reva took Detonate Charges and Quick Murder (Jorogumo hire). Asami player made the mistake of moving Asami and crew up the board as much as possible so she could set up her own attacks for devour, Jorogumo, and flicker tricks. But, that was a lot of AP to get to me, and I was able to put Asami, who only has Wp 5, to 1 Wd Turn 1 with Reva--blew my whole hand to do it, but by this point it was pretty clear Asami's summons didn't have the ability to finish my people off. Turn 2 Asami healed to 5 via her marker discard, Reva attacked with all 3 AP to finish her, 0 teleport. Vincent actually did something by solo-killing my Jorogumo target--the +2 damage from built in trigger is pretty nice if it works, and Jorogumo are not very good defensively beyond Df 6 (might be 5, but I attacked 3 times between a repeat trigger and a severe flip somewhere in there). A very important note was I deployed back from the center line, knowing the schemes didn't allow for scoring without getting close to or engaging the opponent, while my opponent deployed as far up as possible. Score was 10:3. Of those 3 rounds, only one was an actual landslide for play, mostly due to the Asami player not being familiar with Reva and unlikely familiar with Raspy. I wasn't familiar with Asami, but I play Molly, so I understand generic summoning tactics. Asami probably shouldn't have used 2AP Turn 1 to walk and then summon a Jorogumo into my team. Additionally, telegraphing schemes by dropping 2 scheme markers on the center line for detonate charges (convict labor seemed unlikely given close deployment) really hurt Asami's AP efficiency. Decaying Aura is also a pain if your master depends on healing and SS not to die. Finally, and most importantly, the terrain set up was a bunch of low Ht buildings, fences, and some mesas that measured < 2" but we defined as Ht 2. It was a perfect storm for Reva to murder oncoming units as it was close deployment, strategy and schemes prevented scoring without being near enemy models or interacting with them, and my opponent's local Reva player, in my opponent's own words, was not very good--not saying that Reva player is bad, but he/she never utilizes fast tricks, Corpse Bloat, etc. to attack a variety of defensive stats while generating greater AP efficiency. In hindsight I probably would have lost the Viks game had it gone to Turn 5 barring bad decisions by Viks or lucky flips/hands for me. Perdita match was unusual because Emissary getting RJ damage on a master was just luck--Perdita figured a negative flip wouldn't result in 6 damage coming through after SS prevention. Reva offers more damage, yes, but potentially less efficient. Does this mean Seamus > Reva? Not necessarily, because Reva can attack from further away and can ultimately do more damage. Seamus has to move to be within 10" of an enemy model to shoot. He's also much easier to hit than Reva, but the balance is he is one of the most resilient masters in the game for his uncapped healing ability. Reva's healing is not capped either, but it's much harder to trigger, heals half the amount per instance, and goes against her maximizing her range. Different masters with different very different play styles--in GG 2016 the difference may not be as noticeable or pan out as much as it does in the core rule book schemes, but they are more efficient for different strategy and schemes pools. I was playing against a Nellie player and we agreed to play Reva v. Nellie, but once we flipped the strategy and schemes I noted I would much rather have played Seamus to give me access to 2 of the schemes that were much less favorable for Reva--they were Leave Your Mark and Catch and Release. I don't want to fight over whether Reva is strictly better than Seamus, but I bring up the point above, based on max damage calculations, because if Reva's damage efficiency is compared to Seamus, a mostly middle tier master, I'm happy. It means Reva does good damage, but she isn't at a meta destroying level.

The Hamelin cuddle was not from 1.5 to 2. It was my friend's note of what happened to Hamelin on his release during 1E I believe. I brought it up based entirely on 2nd hand knowledge, so I could be full of air on that, but it was a sticking point to my friend at least, who felt the cuddles, while needed conceptually, went too far. I don't want to see that happen to Reva so early, considering crew building can easily create bad match ups for her.

A point on the Hamelin, Leve, and Ratjoy changes. My outcast main friend and I were talking about the cuddle process and what it could mean for Reva. Hamelin was very powerful initially, and saw some rather major cuddles. He was then non-viable competitively outside of the ratjoy combo in M2E. Leve was good outside of ratjoy, to the point that people complained outside of his use of ratjoy. Ratjoy certainly exacerbated the situation, but it didn't single handedly tip Leve into the "need to cuddle Leve" status. Ratjoy saw a cuddle in which Outcast masters could utilize the combo, and then Leve saw a cuddle because of his near invulnerability to most masters--his bury mechanic made him inaccessible to some factions, and nearly so for others in a pre-Aionus meta. In the Adepticon report, the winner played against a Hamelin player who ran Ratjoy, so Hamelin had better activation control, but still lost to the winner's non-Hamelin ratjoy set up, which I think was Viks. I only point this out because both players were high level and Hamelin, the thematic choice for ratjoy, couldn't beat out another "more" optimized version using a different Outcast master. Now that ratjoy is only viable as it once was for Hamelin, maybe he'll be more competitive, but we haven't seen the results in major tournaments yet. Reva faces a similar situation in facing the cuddle bat. If Cuddled, will she become non-viable competitively, and will she be worthwhile to play in casual? I have yet to see a Hamelin player despite traveling to tournaments--my outcast main friend almost never plays Hamelin because there's always a better master for the strategy and schemes pool. Fetid pointed out that Reva currently competes for Seamus' spot--assuming this is true, would anyone play Reva over Seamus if she saw a cuddle? She has strictly inferior scheme marker dropping abilities, cannot travel as far, and has inferior summoning outside of ugprades. Her one advantage over Seamus is her ability to attack from greater safety--~21" compared to Seamus' 10". If you cuddle Reva's range, why take her over Seamus--ever? If you cuddle Reva's damage, why take her over any other master? Most importantly, if you cuddle something about Reva that's perceived as overpowered, how will you balance it? Reva essentially does 1 thing, and that's reach out through corpse markers for her Ca actions, upgrades included. Why would anyone play her if that ability of hers is barely better than her above average charge?

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Heroes never die! For a price....and that price is eternal servitude to Ressers. Death is no excuse.

I don't think it's necessarily that he's a terrible model on paper. The issue is that his primary form of damage dealing does not favor how Reva will want to initially build her crews. Looking past that, the manipulation he brings to the table just isn't as good as what other henchmen can do for Resser crews. Resser henchmen are more or less expected to bring good manipulation, so having the 0 to prevent reduction and prevention is expected (not the particular text, but some form of manipulation on the enemy, usually a 0), and Vincent has something that can be good, but will often just duplicate a combination of upgrades for half his cost--he lets other models capitalize on it, but is that worth the added 4 SS in cost? Considering I could get different effects with similar damage that doesn't have a chance of shooting my own people, I don't he'll often make the cut unless I find later I've just been missing out on an aspect of his play. Entirely possible, but atm I can't see it.

In my local meta one player often plays Von Schill for his casual 50 SS games and really enjoys taking trapper across factions. He's also playing Arcanists in slow grow, so as we expand, he'll probably take gamins or other models that have armor. One model with Armor +1 and 5 Wds will essentially require 3 attacks from Reva unless she hits at least one moderate or pitches at least one corpse marker--I'd rather save the third AP, moderate damage card, and/or corpse marker if I can help it for 2 SS. Unless I know I won't see damage reduction for melee attacks or Ca actions, I can't afford to not take it because Reva really needs to kill a model a turn or at least do a lot of damage to a beefier model. Reva will often want to fight the beefier models as well, because she's the primary fighter--everyone else sets her up really. For my build, Pram is unlikely to see a ton of action--I don't run a lot of movement manipulation other than slotting in Blood Mark or using my belle's lure on Philip. Possible, but schemes would have to really favor the idea. I may beef up uses on Blood Mark as I gain more experience with Reva in the current environment, but my view is that if the scheme pool supports tons of scheme markers, I would probably consider Seamus or Molly first. Seamus puts down more markers than Reva with the Bag, and Molly can literally summon markers--plus Molly probably uses Philip better than Reva in such a situation. Philip is there because he can use his AP to shoot or set up a sweet 0 chain when he's not eating scheme markers for card draw--Reva plays with a 5 card hand due to her summoning mechanic. He is unlikely to move much as I see that list, because Haunting Cries says he generally shouldn't get closer than 10" to the closest enemy model.

I wouldn't buy Crooligans in blister form. I'd buy the Molly box because you get Molly, who will want all of Seamus' box models other than Seamus and CCK, and you'll get Philip & the Nanny, who's currently exclusive to the Molly box. If you find you absolutely hate Philip, you can sell him and probably recoup most of the cost of your box. I wouldn't, though, because he can be a powerful control piece and is difficult to get back without buying another Molly crew box. Necropunks are good scheme runners. But, I often rely on Seamus to score 6VP on my schemes because he's incredibly mobile and often only needs 1 AP to attack with his once per turn .50 flintlock. You're running Sin Rep, so he can attack more than once a turn at range, but Seamus can also use an AP to drop a marker for Leave Your Mark and effectively ensure you score Undercover Entourage by back alley-ing Turn 5 to the enemy deployment zone, out of reach and with most of his wounds. You need a little more staying power--Sybelle is an average fighter amongst henchmen, and CCK shouldn't be considered reliable killing power--4 min damage is great, but it's Sh 4 vs. Df, which has an average value 5 across all factions. Yin, Carrion Emissary, etc. are good for that. You basically have Seamus and Bete, one of which is really easy to hit and the other situationally hard to kill. Make sure you want to keep playing Seamus. I saw your Tara bomb thread, and it doesn't look like you're necessarily committed to Seamus yet. Considering Tara and Seamus will generally hire very different models, you may not want to go buying models for him unless you're sure you're going to get the use you want from them, or you're fine with playing Tara with proxies just to mess around or vice/versa. Malifaux is considered cheap to get into, but gets expensive fast if you expand quickly. Lastly, since you're not as familiar with the game, coming back to it, I recommend working on the player skill upgrade first--not to be offensive, but player skill generally overrides model choices. Iron out what you want for in playing with what you have, so your model choices are more fine tuned. I was showing one of my local players tricks with Seamus, and when we played, I hired the crew I would normally run, he hired his crew of Seamus box plus dead doxies and Bete Noire, and then we switched crews for when we played before switching back to the crews we originally hired--so two games, with us playing each others' crews. I won both games, the first because I knew what my more basic models needed to do for me, and the second because I had better models to support what I needed to do.

Edited original post for accuracy. Looks like I was a dirty cheater in one of my games--the Df 8 in a game I pulled with one of my shield bearers didn't come into play in a duel against Nellie, who targets Wp almost exclusively except for Phiona, but it might have deterred him having Phiona attack me. Forgot it's leader only for Spare Parts. My recent games have been box only for a slow grow league, and I haven't actually been able to play the above crews. It's why the box analysis is so long and the Crews section is so short--I haven't had a chance to run them on the table recently. I also don't use Spare Parts normally, but thought it might be nice in this to make Vincent more useful. Blood Mark has its uses. But, it's not likely to be a core upgrade I take, because Decaying and Littany together more or less make Vincent irrelevant for Reva herself--his debuff applies to everyone, but at 8 SS to give essentially Carrion Emissary a more effective attack, I don't think it's worth the extra 4 SS over just ensuring Reva's attacks go through at 3/4/5--4/5/6 is the same if they have Armor +1. Carrion Emissary will serve different roles than just hitting people depending on the situation, whereas Reva is pretty much always going to use her non 0 AP to kill stuff to enable the rest of the crew. Beyond Death similarly may see play, but is unlikely to see regular play over Guises of Death for me at least because it doesn't offer as great of a threat to the opponent. The extra corpse candle is an extra activation, and you can deploy it in a safe area out of LoS for an extra activation with a potential 9.1811" reach for setting up Reva Turn 2. The text regarding using SotF while engaged is largely irrelevant to me given my play style--I'm paying 1 SS to keep an extra card Turn 1, have more activation control, and maintain a potential undeniable zone of control between Turns 1 and 2. I would use Beyond Death if I was forced to deploy closer to my opponent, or I suspected Reva would have to get into the thick of things more often than normal. The Regeneration +1 isn't going to matter much for Reva, given her squishy stat line for most beaters.

Well, the strategies for Divergent Paths will change every two weeks, and each scenario is different enough you will want to tailor your crew. Since you literally only own these models, this is your starting point and you can fine tune from there, but the advice will have to be based on the current available strategies and those that come out as they do. If you play for the Trickster (which would hopefully be your choice since we're in the "lead" for it right now), this is a fair crew. The dogs can dig up additional corpses on 8 crows so you can score VP on the strategy, and Bete Noire has the ability to pop out of living and undead things dying, including your own crew, to pick up corpses during battle. Seamus and Bete will essentially run crowd control on the enemy team, preventing them from easily grabbing corpse markers. Your belles will be a combination of set up manipulation/healing for Seamus and running your markers, as they will have the greatest mobility options between Wk 6 from Sybelle and call belle. For the Self Righteous Man, it'll be tough because you can't summon efficient scheme runners with Seamus and you have no way to mitigate the damage dealt to your own models. I'd consider getting the McM box for nurses if you're really concerned about playing this strategy. It's a tough one overall for Ressers, even if Seamus has a huge advantage in 35 SS with his ability to consistently kill a model a turn. For the inquisitive child, your fabric markers go on Seamus, Sybelle, and Bete. Not bad, since Bete can guarantee she keeps the markers most of the time with a 10 in hand, Seamus is very difficult to take down in 35 SS games, and Sybelle will by and large be outside of danger. I'd consider building a better collection for general play rather than for Divergent Paths. This period the trickster strategy really favors Ressers, but the periods that come may not. Plus, if you're just getting back into the game, these strategies can greatly skew your re-acclimation to the game. With that, Yin is always a recommended model, particularly for Seamus since he loves models that can effect Wp duels. There's also the Carrion Emissary, which has received a large buff for Seamus' purposes in My Little Helper--the upgrade is only available in Book 4 page printing or if you buy the Wave 2 Generalist upgrade deck. Carrion Emissary and Yin are out now. Hope that helps.

I suggest the doxies first, then the RN, and finally the drowned. You'll want the Philip combo first to help speed up your games to normal casual levels and then you'll want an enforcer that works pretty well with Molly in addition to being a better than average fighter. Again, I don't think you'll often summon drowned for fighting, so they can be pretty low on the purchase list as you'll primarily summon them for scheme markers.

As an additional thought for an edge for Ressers, Vincent might be more useful here than I thought. His upgrade gives him from the Shadows and a Nino push. From the Shadows him within 6" of at least one of the corpse markers--this may put him in danger, but it's ok because he's unlikely to die Turn 1 between SS, decent defensive stats, and his push trigger. Have him activate first and declare a ram suit. Use his 0 and discard one of your opponent's corpse markers to make the TN suits and see if the 0 goes off. If it does, great, if not, oh well. Use his first AP to shoot at something within 10"--your opponent very likely has a model that is within 10" of the corpse marker so he/she can get to it or pick it up Turn 1. Vincent shoots at the target and discards the 2nd corpse marker to get the ram on his shot--doesn't matter if it hits. If your opponent placed the corpse markers far apart, Vincent can attempt to walk and shoot--He can discard a corpse marker within 6" and LoS of himself for his ability, so he has effectively an effective 11.1811" range for discarding both corpse markers on Turn 1 and doing some damage. The above assumes you don't use Reva to do the same thing or some other trick. I won my trickster game last night using Reva, and between Vincent and Reva, my opponent could only pick up 1 corpse marker by sitting Phiona on top of it and picking it up Turn 3--she could never actually drop it on the Trickster though, because of Reva's 3" engagement range smothering the Trickster. In the future strategies I think a fair balance might be decreasing the max strategy VPs to 5. It prevents masters that synergize particularly well with the VP mechanics from forcing a win or tie situation in the first couple turns. I would love if Ressers got a model, particularly the Trickster, but I want both my opponent and myself to have fun. I played a box v box match on the Trickster, so I couldn't pull the Carrion Emissary/Mortimer combo, but when I explained it to my Nellie opponent, both he and I agreed it would probably be a NPE--I'd only need 1 VP between my schemes to ensure I won the game, and we would know the situation half way through Turn 2.

I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea. The format can help new players out by "leveling" the playing field so everyone can have competitive games that aren't one-sided. It's not a good feeling when you hire 50 SS of optimized crew and your opponent is running his/her box plus useless upgrades and an enforcer/henchmen to reach 50 SS and not lose stones to start. Newer players usually can't compete with veteran players on skill or monetary investment. Forcing everyone to play with crew boxes can mitigate the first a bit by having everyone to play sub-optimal crews, but since new players will likely play their box anyway, it doesn't affect them too much. For the latter, having everyone to play a crew box will prevent fully optimized crew lists, mitigating veteran players who own larger collections, but it won't really affect new players. The format may not bridge the gap entirely, but it shouldn't because otherwise newer players should see higher level play and player skill will provide competitive matches more or less regardless of crew.