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Not sure I understand this "or" business. (6ss cache) Molly - forgotten life, take back the night Archie - hulking leap, decaying aura Rogue necromancy - my little helper Rogue necromancy - my little helper Kentauroi ALL THE FUN

M3E: a tragically missed opportunity to make hayreddin a master... looking forward to see what they do with the new version though. Particularly McMourning's theme and Molly's playstyle

Okay, as I find time to sit and think about this I realise that the pool includes both set up and public demo again. Sigh. Proof positive that I just generate and post these things without really paying attention. I'll be more thoughtful next time. This scheme combo was essentially autotake for resurrs, and I doubt things have changed. However, arcanists access to warding rune counter spell aura is a serious matchup consideration. I also always assume I will face mage trio. Despite this I still think I would take horror Molly (arcanists can be relied on to have lots of casts) and a belle crew. I would run: Cache: 7ss Molly: Forgotten life, take back the night Madam sybelle: not too banged up Rogue necromancy Carrion emissary: generic conflux 3x rotten belles I would try to play a defensive game. This generally makes scoring things like set up, demo, and evidence a little harder for the opponent. The north and east deployment zones have choke points and the opposing zones are relatively open. I would chose one of these if I was made to deploy first. Deploying second makes it easier to position my crew for effective T1 luring so i would probably chose this option given the choice. The rather obvious plan is to lure in something for public demo and set up T1. Anticipate henchmen and master being immune, but there should be an enforcer to snag (e.g. a mage). The number of lures with + flips, sybelles upgrade and movement tricks makes this highly reliable and resource-lite. Tbh it is a bit excessive, and a belle and/or sybelles upgrade could be swapped for other things. Molly and the emissary should get me to at least 9 activations for turn 2. From here we rely on Mollys summons the emissary and the rogue to take down enemies, and maybe sybelle can peonise something but her ap is usually for repositioning. I brought the rogue for its + flips and ability to get extra ap. Without philip, any card efficiency I can get helps. The belles pull enemies out of scoring zones/away from treasure or into clusters for Molly and blasts. I would want to try and use the hazardous fountain to do some work for me, and keep in mind the option of summoning drowned. Playing this strat defensively makes us vulnerable to being swamped by an aggressive force, denying my strat points, who leave a low cost model or two behind to score theirs. The hope is that by getting 5-6 vp early we can focus on denying enemy scheme points so even if they score 4 for strat we are still up.

Its been a while, my attention is starting to turn back to 'Faux and I need to start chipping off some rust. Get me up to speed people. Game #3: Open centre with flank obstacles Opposing Faction: Arcanists Deployment: Standard Strategy: Ours Schemes: Guarded treasure, Set up, Inescapable trap, Recover evidence, Public demonstration

We had a good discussion on Molly a while back: Maybe you will find some useful tidbits within?

Have used hayreddin a few times, mostly as a medium flanker. Outside of a bit of yan lo T1 jank, i find his speed and damage output to cost ratio is what I want him for. At 6ss he is well costed. Jaakuna ubume sees a reasonable amount of play, again almost exclusively with yan lo. Molly and McM usually play too aggressive and have better crew synergies. Lure is an amazing ability all crews should have, but I normally want jaakuna for the hazardous terrain. The ability to heal her and give her armour can occasionally be fun. Easy transfer of AP due to being spirit is situationally useful. I have yet to deny sanzu effectively, but it could be useful one day. Marshal has been hired mostly because I like the cut of his jib more than for any strategic reason. He is decent in certain schemes like vendetta or the above mentioned surround them. The summon on death has actually saved the game for me before. Not used the others, draugr seem most disappointing on paper. Faced sloth once or twice ages ago when the seven were released, he was an okay area denier. Grave digger looks quite good to me, anything that positions/protects corpse markers should not be sniffed at in resurrs.

Mine used to be Anna Lovelace, Burt Jebsen, Sue, Graveyard Spirit. Then Burt put up his costs (for the good of the game)

McMourning, Mcmourning with a note book and pig tails, Mcmourning with a whispy beard to twiddle, Mcmourning with a monacle and cane... Sebastian in a slutty asian dress.

Because you gave him decaying aura and hulking leap

Hate that blood mage so hard

@Ludvig Certainly a valid tactic, especially if the blighters start spreading out. Devour on Ophelia etc. is magical xmas land to me, but maybe my hand pressure game is lacking. I think it is actively worse than using the construct's normal attack on the cheap gremlins - requires a suit and I want things to die from poison. I tend to look for the KO on the big pieces, using rancid transplant and the horde to stack big poison on a target for the expunge finisher, gets round squeal quite well. I look to turn Bayeuxs into dogs if I can, they tend to go reckless and tagging them for at least 1 dmg and poison with a canine remains, or emissary blasts is very doable. That said, this was my gg17 playstyle. Mcm's dog engine seems weaker in gg18 due to it being easier for the enemy to score off ablative minions. Will keep in mind your way next time I get the opportunity.

As others probably said: emissary, my little helper, sebastian aura, and raw speed are McM's main anti shooting tech. Emissary is particularly good into gremlins everything (shards, speed boost, blasts with extra attack triggers, summons, scheme marker drop, the thing is a monster). I find it very hard not to take McMourning with plastic surgery, moonlighting, and decaying aura (possibly in that order of preference). Get that it is a low point game though. Rafkin is such a solid model, hits so hard for cost, but i can see debate into gremlins (their threat is dispersed, their characters are slippery). I almost never take rafkin without my little helper. If the board state is right, move up aggressively toward the mid-table end of turn 1, pop MLH turn 2 now you have a potentially 4 attack min damage 3 missile that can't be attacked from range. I'm not a fan of transplant in general, stacking poison on a target is usually not problematic (plastic surgery). Possibly it is more useful now in gg18 for meta reasons, but i haven't tried it. Flesh constructs are nice, summoning them off expunge is a very strong ability, but it is not the be all end all.

I have some video reports on the match up on my channel - gg17 though. My experience is that Ramos has a strong, but predictable mechanic. His first turn is spider summon and again turn 2 if you don't pressure him. This can be countered by alpha strike. I personally don't favour this approach. A good Ramos player will hold the prof back at range and threaten with reactivating Langston. Mcm can do it, but the odds are not in his favour and you lose if you bounce. @Ludvig is spot on about activations, however Ramos will almost always outactivate mcm in the first couple of turns. Ramos will use brass arachnid to reactivate the beat stick. Typically this is langston in the first turn, joss when he dies, and scheme runners in the late game. Langston exerts huge pressure, his job is to hold he enemy off Ramos long enough for him to get summon his swarm. He does this by assassinating your master or key peices, or threatening to so you stay back and let Ramos do his thing. The counter to Langston is to hit first with mcm, an bring him down turn 1/2. My favoured approach is this: Take out Langston, turn the spiders into canines, endgame with ramos To do this, move up extremely carefully turn 1. You will be outactivated so you must ensure your important peices cannot be reached by langston such that he can make more than 1 attack. Use chaf models and terrain (note: don't just hide behind terrain, position so he can't position where he wants). If you can bait him with something throw away great. Mcm must end the turn in position to go in on him first thing turn 2. This has to be a short dance or Ramos will build too many spiders. Turn 2 consider going with Sebastian getting into 6" of langston and accomplacing to mcm to ensure the bugger never gets another activation. From here it is time to deal with all the spiders (and of course run shemes). You will still be out activated and it is likely to get worse this turn. The key is to position such that you limit incoming damage, but get your models into threat range for turn 3. Once the crews clash quality counts over quantity and the arcanists numbers begin to matter less. Give your moonlight insecticide a shake and poison the spiders up good, they are your dogs in waiting and will help you keep up with activations. The job is of course not over, as there are still Ramos and joss (and all their + flips) to deal with. Gun for ramos if at all possible, joss can't usually do enough on his own to disrupt your plans in the late game, mcm can die happy if he gets this done. Circumstances dictate however. Watch out for whatever the upgrade is that dicks with ca. It's a tough game, favouring Ramos as his abilities are more forgiving of mistakes, but its not awful.

Not sure how faction relevant this is, but perhaps we resurrs contribute more than most... Life has reduced my hobby time of late, and what time I've had this year has mostly been spent on Guild Ball. This is largely because my local group have been running a league, and it is a new shiny puzzle box to try (so far unsuccessfully) to unlock. GB is a fun game, but I ultimately prefer the mechanics and experience of Malifaux. However, playing on a chess clock is simply amazing. It basically guarentees a game will last 1.5hrs or less, which either means I can get 2 games in an evening or get back to the family with something of an evening left. Can't overstate how fantastic that is. On top of this, clock is an interesting resource and frees one up from the responsibility of agonising for ages over what is the most efficient move in a difficult situation. Additionally, having a fixed 6 (in rare cases 7) models in your team, makes for fewer interactions, generally quicker turns, and arguably a simpler game. Due to 'killed' GB players coming back on the pitch each turn attrition works in a different way from Malifaux, but heavy summoning sort of does a similar thing on top of Malifaux's other complexities. Basically, I've just found having fewer models around is quite nice. I think essentially what I'm getting at is a wish for competative Malifaux to incorporate a clock and downsize the scale of the game by a few models. More a statement of opinion than seeking response, but fuck all else of interest seems to be happening on this forum lately and my commute is all the more boring for it.

It is time for another! How would you approach this? Game #2: Shooting Gallery Opposing Faction: Outcasts Deployment: Standard Strategy: Symbols of authority Schemes: Punish the weak, Set up, Take prisoner, Public demonstration, Vendetta

I second this. There are a lot of good options - almost all those Arcanist models seem really solid for their cost, I suspect the Neverborn could actually fit some niches surprisingly well, and I've seen good things from the Dawn Serpent. The Sow with Little Gassers seems like a laugh if nothing else. I particularly like the idea of Amina Naidu, the Scorpius, Myranda, and those Razerspines, I think they would be good, but its mostly because I like the models. However, none of it seems actually NEEDED, on top of the fact McM's typical Resurr upgrade loadout is just so great. Plastic Surgery and Moonlighting seem too good to ever not take. Ditto Decaying Aura, but as taking this on a master makes me feel a little jammy. I am open to considering Guild Coroner instead of Decaying in marker heavy pools, as getting those things down efficiently is something I often feel is a struggle. A bit of card draw on the side is always nice too, now that Sebastian is less incentivized to summon. Mostly the switch out would be to ween myself off that dirty upgrade though.

For Mcmourning I used to consider the following basically autoincludes: Chihuahua, Sebastian, carrion emissary, rafkin, nurse However, i havent used him in gg18 yet, and my game plan was based around summoning a tonne of canine remains which i do not feel is as strong this year, so I don't know if these would still be auto. For yan lo: Soul porter, carrion emissary, and now Asura probably. Great thing about yan is how many options he has on account of not having a real commitment to a certain keyword/theme. Ancestors and retainers are all great, but there are quite a few of them and each tend to have quite specific roles that aren't always in demand. Early days for my Molly, but for now sybelle makes it into virtually every crew, and i try to slot Phillip in whenever I can. Her aggressive and defensive builds have quite different compositions for me. As for Chiaki, i find her great with any master and she is in my always consider list for all the ones I run (along with anna Lovelace, datsue ba, Philip, rotten belle, necropunk). Nothing else really competes with her for what she brings to a crew. Condition removal and insignificant ray on a manipulative incoporeal body are top competitive abilities. As I said in another thread, I just don't find myself taking her very often of late as having more models that can pressure by beating face has seemed to have greater probability of swinging the game. You takes your chances without her, often I find it pays off. However, in the gg18 objectives you mentioned I agree she is pretty much auto include

Necrotic machine is also a great (best in faction?) choice in frame for murder. Full points if literally anything kills her, is not immune to black blood if out of Molly's aura and can give enemy models that condition, so even if the opponent susses you there is a way to get her killed. Used as a bluff it is 2ss model that you can just run at the enemy to jam them up if they fall for the ruse, and if they call your bluff, meh.

My 2 pence: Datsue ba is an always consider for my yan lo and new spirit Molly. Extra walk for spirits, and seishin summon for chi and activations are golden abilities (healing, blast immunity and los block are good but not things that have come up a lot in practice). Having an emergency source of ignore armour is nice. The ability to summon off a kill is costly but very strong. I totally save cards for this (yan lo isn't hugely big card demanding and Molly gets extra draw). I have never used denial of sanzu, but if I were a better player I certainly should. Importantly, her abilities and status often coincide with the scoring of VP for relatively cheap cost e.g. she can take multiple upgrades for show of force, score for kills (and keep peon numbers up) in make them suffer, until recently interfere and model swing in intereference etc. Her survivability is an issue. Terrifying, def6, incorporial (great with armour) and stones are decent, her discard 2 cards on death ability is badly worded which annoys me. (Incidently i wonder if wp5 was originally to guard against sonnia). Given her status this is not enough to keep her standing against the models that will gun for her. The prevalence of good casting attacks being the major issue. Take her into neverborn and arcanists at your own risk. The art of using her has always seemed to me to be having her lurk somewhere the enemy can't quite justify getting to whilst they have more immediate pressures to deal with. I managed to keep her alive once against a very good Pandora player by doing this (MLH is an extremely good upgrade for her btw). Along similar lines, she excels as a not-quite-heavy flanker as the resources the enemy has available for taking her down tend to be more restricted and she melts light scheme runners. She is not a crazy good autoinclude, but definitely a solid model after a bit of practice. I have never used her with mcm because his thematic stuff is awesome. Now shikome are more hirable, she may even get a look in here - though I still think Sebastian, rafkin, and emissary crowd her out.

@Sagrit not knocking your list (I don't know Seamus, but it seemed fair enough to me). However, perditas obey may be something to watch for, I wouldn't be shocked to see her in this pool.

Some great responses, very interesting to read your approaches. @Nukemouse 's take on terrain and abilities that work with it is spot on. Given the open spaces and scheme pool, consideration of range attack abilities and auras take primacy over movement I'd think - although a terrain ignoring flanking entourage is worth thinking about. My thoughts: 6ss cache Yan Lo - awakening, maniacle laugh Soul porter Asura Roten Carrion emissary - carrion conflux Chiaki 3× rotten belles Canine remains North and east have the best covered approaches to the centre. I think I'd favour North as the terrain density in east promises to disrupt early positioning of my belles and asura. The asymmetry is such that I would choose to deploy first if I won the flip. Contesting show of force with guild is not my favourite approach. In my meta I expect to see 5 upgrades on a group of combat heavies, and going head to head with that ends in tears. So I won't bother, stones go into acheiving other things and the guild can have those points. The game plan is to choke the centre with zombies. As peons they do not give up points for the strat, they engage and tie up the enemy advance, and their deaths waste quality guild ap and power up yan. Who knows they may even be able to do some useful asura attacks. Asura, emissary and potentially canine all give me zombies or corpses for zombies. With 10 activations and 3 belles on + flip lures and asura's attacks and the dog lowering defence I reckon I can add to the turn 1 corpse count. Lures also counter a gunline in this pool imo. Powered up yan, emissary, and belle bunker are my main strat scorers. Chiaki, denies this for the opponent (and can be generally annoying) Belles and yan can work on plucking models put of the centre (show of force denial), chiaki has a desperation option here too. Not trying to contest show means emissary, chiaki and asura can sit back in safety or be dance nodes, as can the belles. The ability to reposition enemies is super important if going for inescapable trap (emissary can convert corpses to scheme markers, dog and belles drop if needed). Don't take this scheme if you see guild investigators. Yan has the best potential for entourage, given the terrain and the price on asuras head. Footsteps upgrade would improve chances of slipping bone ascendant in on the crucial turn, but I'd be confident enough without. Canine or belle as the sucker. Facing sonnia would really change things and we'd have to lean pretty hard on the emissaries tricks to close the gap. Would be a rough game. Hoffman could be problematic as I don't have anything that deals with armour. Nellie would be nellie.

Okay! Game #1: The dreaded quite open table Opposing Faction: Guild Deployment: Standard Strategy: Public Executions Schemes: Eliminate the leadership, Undercover entourage, Inescapable trap, Show of force, Take one for the team

Good evening. Malifaux is a complex game with many skill requirements, one of them being the ability to quickly select an effective crew for the game at hand. The best way to hone this skill is to play lots of games, begin to notice patterns, and learn to judge and use the right tools by trial and error. For most of us this happens gradually, and eventually we will become decent players. In the immortal words of Ms K. Wilkins "Ain't nobody got time for that". So we spend an inappropriate amount of energy on list building and theoryfaux. However, if we are going to do it, by the power of Grey Skull lets do it properly! Terrain is a massive element of Malifaux, and something that gets totally neglected in "hey guys, what do you think of my list?" or "Help! What should I bring to this scheme pool?" conversations or forum posts. Ergo, vis a vis, concordently... every now and then I'll post up an opposing faction, scheme pool and table for us to puzzle out. Will be interesting to see how different Masters and player styles approach the same game.

As a core crew idea before seeing scheme pool and terrain this looks okay. You probably want a bigger cache if you are taking Toshiro. Personally, I'd drop the Night Terror and an upgrade or two (not Awakening) on Yan and hire something like another belle (much improved chances of luring an enemy for a kill, chi, and corpse), or just keep the stones as Asura and Toshiro can give you a decent number of activations T1 anyway. Agree with @thatlatinspeakingguy. Think of the 6 cards you can filter, damage you can prevent, or triggers you can hit vs that one chi. Killing hired models is so Ten Thunders, bleh.

Where it is at: Asura roten, maniacle laugh, and lots of zombies (Kentauroi or emissary help muchly). 2 chi turn 1 is plenty. Asura's turn 1 zombie is pretty much equivalent to goryo's seishin.