Memnaelar

Basic interesting question that springs to mind: Can you use Growing Injustice to attach the Emissary's Curse? If so, I think that increases its viability considerably. I didn't see anything in the text that prohibits that. It's an unattached Curse upgrade. I could see wanting to swap that in enough to take this upgrade (and no longer take the Emissary)

It's a (1) action. I think Wyrd might have seen a problem with a (0) giving 5 free AP in a game. ;-)

The card I am looking at makes the "give Oathkeeper" ability a 1-action.

Ah, good point. Missed that in the excitement. Still, really nice.

Yes, the upgrade lets him divide his charge attacks among anyone in range once he completes the initial movement of the charge. So you could theoretically charge a model, gain LOS on another model within VS's melee and attack both. Or, if there's a third model in range, charge model 1 but throw your knives/punches on models 2 and 3 respectively. (the verbatim post above missed the line of the upgrade that does this) Oh, and yeah, the exact wording allows him to take a Cursed Upgrade - no specification that it has to be a Jack Daw Cursed Upgrade.

My top three favorite upgrades, in no particular order and without any real thought as to how powerful they are: 1) Hamelin's Plague Pits. More Blighted is more wonderful and frankly, the idea of his being able to run plague pits all over town is thematically very satisfying. 2) Leveticus getting a power that makes him something other than a beater 90% of the time. It lets him demolish enemy scheme markers as devastatingly as he does enemy models AND oh, side benefit, it gives him his only means of replenishing Waifs. People are going to *hate* facing this one, but what I like is that it gives Levy both an added safety if you screw up early and lose a few waifs as well as some reasons to be used in more marker-heavy pools. Just great. 3) Von Schill amuses the heck out of me with his new clockwork arm. He can now charge into a pair of models, punch both of them out of melee with him, and then shoot them both with plus flips. And then burn Oathkeeper if he wants to make a second charge and do it all over again with another pair of models. And then give himself back Oathkeeper afterwards if anyone's still standing. Just the picture of that motivates me to play Von Schill, who's usually lowest in my interest list. But yeah, Tara sure does look neat.

Parker: 1) Yee-haw! Parker's six-shooters can ignore Armor and he can also apply a Lure(!!)-range condition to a target with a CA that lets one model in range get a free pot-shot with a targeted attack at the condition-holder whenever it takes a Walk or Charge Action and ends up in range at activation's end. The condition-holder can hand over a Soulstone to Parker to remove the condition. Insult to injury, Parker also adds Slow on a trigger. 2) Parker can reduce one damage source by two for a discard which totally freaks out friendly Minions and gives them + flips to Melee and Shoot (awesome). Parker also gets some cheap condition removal which is re-usable if he's focusing solely on his bandit buddies. Parker's Burro Buddy: Becomes a Bandit when he hangs out with Parker, gets to draw a card every time he hands out a tricket, and lets friendlies discard their upgrades to let you draw a card and, if the discarded item's a trinket, place an enemy scheme marker.

Vikkies: 1) Vikkie of Ashes can heal everytime she gains a Condition from an enemy and gets a 0 to share Sisterhood with a friendly Minion for a turn. 2) Either Vik can choose to take this one. That model may start buried and can choose to bury again in subsequent rounds if they kill a model and discard a pair of cards. All friendly sisters, even if this model's buried, then get a 0 action that lets them discard a card to unbury a friendly Sister model. Sadly, no Chain Activations afterwards. Levy: 1) Levy can discard any number of cards to discard one Scheme within 8" and LOS of him. If he manages to discard more Scheme Markers than he has Waifs in play, he gets to Summon a new Waif. 2) The Levy-Bomb! Whenever Levy buries, he pulse 3 blasts all models with 2 points of mean, irreducible entropy energy. Losers who die to this damage (except Peons) summon Abominations to replace themselves. Unfortunately Wyrd foresaw a world where Levy always made Hamelin cry.

Tara: 1) A pu-pu platter. Gives you + flips on all flips when you're at 0 cards, lets Void Wretches Void Maw for a (1) action, and gives her a short-range CA attack that lets her do damage = to the round number, and heal herself that amount on a trigger. (1/round) 2) Upgrades that are Tara-only upgrades don't count towards her count of 3 upgrades. She can discard said upgrades to be refunded their SS cost. Also she gets a short-range front-card power that targets one enemy model every time she activates (wink-wink) and give it a condition that deals 2 damage to that model when it's buried, lets Tara draw a card and ends the condition. So, two extra cards and 4 damage a turn if you plan appropriately. Very nice. Hamelin: 1) lets him place 3 50mm plague storms after deployment anywhere on the map including very close to the opponent's deployment zone. The zones apply Blighted to model who activate or act near them and need an Interact and a discard to be removed from the game. Oh, and Hamelin can move them around the map if he feels like burning his own cards. 2) Every Turn, Hamelin can target two Rats within LOS. Hamelin can then place Scheme markers near each and then sacrifice said rats. The possibilities are... nice.

I snuck a look at the picture of all the cards since I can't wait for my order to come in. As a bit of penance, I'll post a summary of the powers for the rest of the list in a handful of posts. Von Schill: 1) Gives you an Enemy Target condition that auto-applies to anyone you attack and damge that gives your models with Oathkeeper +flips on all duels against the damaged model until their next activation. A 0-action also lets you target a friendly Freikorps model and attach Oathkeeper to them (no restrictions apply) if there are two or fewer models in your crew with Oathkeeper currently on them. 2) Lets you target enemies pushed or placed within 6" of VS with a Clockwork Pistol shot (with a free plus flip), lets you split Charge actions against any models in range, and also gives you an amusing Clockwork punch attack that does minor damage BUT has an auto-trigger to place the target within 6" of VS. The combo is pretty clearly called out on the card by the Arm's power name. ;-) Jack Daw: 1) If you attach an upgrade to a model, you heal a damage. Additionally, you get card drawn when a model you've Cursed dies. 2) If a friendly Guilty dies or is sacrificed, you get to attach a Curse that's not currently in the game (on Jack or an enemy) to Jack. Likewise, if an enemy with a Curse dies, instead of reattaching the Curse, you can go ahead and summon a new Guilty in base-to-base contact and remove the Curse from the game. So Jack gets his own small version of summoning. Hooray!

I'm a fan of Hamelin's Plague Pits -- very thematic and potentially game-changers in area-control schemes. More stuff to pull your hair out about as a Hamelin opponent which, of course, won't endear him any more to folks.

Actually, I'm a bit more intrigued by Aether Shackles. It doesn't specify under To Dust that you have to discard Friendly scheme markers. Even if I'm not wanting to replenish Waifs, the opportunity to discard cards to remove Enemy Scheme markers within 8" and LOS is pretty amazing. Is there anything I'm missing about how discarding scheme markers works? I don't have the rules available to me to see if "discarding" scheme markers only applies to Friendly scheme markers by default but if it doesn't... Wow.

Nobody's started a thread and it'll perhaps make more sense to break them down into individual discussions, but has anyone seen anything so far at GenCon or some other preview of what our Masters are getting that they're particularly excited about?

I'd love to see more 3-4p story encounters in Chronicles as those are great on gamedays where we have limited mats and plenty of interest. I don't even care if they're particularly wonderfully balanced, so long as they're enjoyable. Previews of upcoming content are always welcome. I'd also enjoy some designer notes talking about the fluff and maybe giving some hints to caulking in the gaps there, to go along with the always cool additional fluff stories.

I just want to hear more from people using him effectively before he's a buy.

Thought experiment for you *good* Outcasts players: Under what circumstances would you play Hamelin against Reva? What models or tactics do you utilize to make up for the fact that, at my first blush, he seems to be about as poorly suited to face her as a Master can be? I ask because I was just talking it over with a friend and it seems like Reva's ability to drop corpses in the back field puts a lot of pressure on Hamelin to not do his normal rat shuffle if he had that in mind and he seems to be poised to give her a LOT of corpse markers with his normal crew/tactics.

Nope. They're not scheme markers, they're special "Evidence" markers.

Hello, Paint Scheme. But do I want to paint Rusty as his Morty, I wonder...

So, I'm a relatively new player and haven't had the chance to deep-dive into the lore of Malifaux as much as I'd like, but I'm weirdly intrigued by the University of Transmortis. Have there been any actual appearances of Von Schtook (as opposed to letters, references, etc.) anywhere in Wyrd canon? I did a forum search and saw the "Leveticus is Albus!" fan fic (which seemed both hilarious and possibly dead-on) but otherwise, I have no idea if he's just a peripheral lore figure, potentially another Master in disguise, a possible future Master, etc. Anyone have any further information on him? edit: Corrected the spelling, redid the search, and it seems like there was a lot of speculation about him two years ago and that it's been a bit quiet lately. I take it nothing much new has turned up? I mean, if Wyrd *wants* to drop any new hints here, I'm not going to complain. ;-)

Indeed. Back from GenCon and already boxing. My order's already in the mail and I'm thrilled. I'll also say that the week *before* GenCon, Wyrd sent a replacement piece to me when I was certain that it'd likely have to wait until after the Con given how busy they were. Really, really happy to be supporting this company.

Particularly if you plop a Hanged next to him.

I think it's the discard-to-attack element that really needs consideration. Draining those cards when your opponent wants them elsewhere will make for a painful round or two of trying to kill him. I'm not sure that he'll always be optimal but he's not an auto-skip for me now.

Likely true, but I think it at least sucks up a ton of resources to deal with him. Plus, pairing him with Jaakuna can make for a pair of good tar pits or one *especially* nasty tar pit.

WUT. Well, Montresor was my first painted model and my worst. Because I figured I'd never play him. Time to get the paint stripper and put him back to work.

*whistle* Is that 1 SS or 2? Either way, that's really nice and will definitely at least open up the option.