hydranixx

Has anyone used any of the Students (Steel/Sinew/Viscera) with Sandeep? We could easily solve their mobility issues since Sandeep gives them a teleport. I know they're usually not great hires, but they genuinely seem like a lot of fun if you know what you're up against so you can pick the right one. Also a few people on the other boards are pointing fingers at Sandeep as being the strongest of the wave 4 masters. Are there any more insights from our Sandeep players about his perceived strengths and potential weaknesses?

I hadn't thought of her as anything except a 1 dimensional blaster to be fair, lol. Shows my ignorance. I'm aware she gives out Armour and plays with Paralysed a bit, but 90% of her focus seems to be on throwing spells at enemies and blowing them up. To his defence it could work for Rasputina. With a 7ss cache and Essence of Power, every attack can secure those triggers. I guess it mainly depends on one's target priority and how well you create your Ice Mirror network. Just not against Mei Feng... lol. Leap Aside + Vent Steam is disgusting.

Mei Feng seems every bit as good in Thunders as she is in Arcanists. Some of the newer releases in particular have closed the gap (if it ever existed). There are a handful of really potent tools that Arcanists offer her, such as Howard Langston (steam cloud tag-team), Mech Rider and upgrades Seize, Reservoir etc. But she gets a lot from Toshiro + Komainu, Shadow Emissary and upgrades like Recalled Training and Wings of Wind that Thunders have to offer. Thunders also have better guns than Arcanists, so her crew can be built to happily trade fire with Gremlin or Guild while she vents steam for them. I feel like Mei's greatest strength in Ten Thunders is the raw diversity of the faction itself. When you declare Ten Thunders, your opponent usually has very little idea what you'll be bringing or who your master is. Compare that to when you declare Arcanists, as your opponent knows you're very likely to have Constructs and/or Armour/Hard to Kill in your crew, so it's much, much easier to prepare/tech against Arcanists once they're declared than Ten Thunders. I think Mei in Ten Thunders is probably ever so slightly stronger than in Arcanists nowadays.

The few times I've played against Rasputina it seemed Snowstorm was her only auto take material; when it was missing she really, really struggled when put under pressure. Acolytes, Silent Ones & Ice Dancers are very, very high up the priority list as well. Everything else to taste. The player I've faced off against most often swears by Essence of Power and spamming Ice Gamin (8 of them..) 8 seems excessive, but has anyone here toyed with Essence of Power for Rasputina?

I also dislike discounting models, and I want to believe the Eternal Flame is a viable option. I mean, Wk6 + Armour 3 + 40mm base on a 2ss model is nice... But to be honest, its stats and abilities are not enough since none of its actions are consistently worth taking. I hear some people get some value from Eternal Flame with Purifying Flame on Kaeris but with Grab and Drop (which I play 90% of the time with Kaeris), Malifaux Child is just so much better. The Malifaux Child actively contributes to the Burning engine, by giving up to 2 models Burning per activation (and having 1 AP free to walk or heal)... as opposed to the Eternal Flame which requires a target to already have Burning on it to do anything i.e it needs your Burning engine to come from more expensive models or Kaeris' activation itself. If Eternal Flame had a 0 action or an ability to put Burning on itself, it would become much more attractive as an option to drop markers or auto heal itself. Yeah, Fire Gamin are awesome. They're made of glass, but their damage is really high for their price. There's not many 4ss models that have access to Blasts, let alone 4 separate ways to add Burning to enemy models. I've found them most useful against Ressers. Their attacks become surprisingly accurate since undead & spirits have bad stats, and the many sources of free Burning are particularly nasty against Incorporeal and Hard to Kill. Their Blasts are also a godsend if you find yourself up against walls of chaff models; their stats are usually terrible and your opponent will rarely want to cheat for them. You should be able to win the duel by 6+ and secure the Blast. If you happen to get a Tome in the duel, you also apply Burning to everyone caught under the Blast too, which is fun for clearing out all the Seishin hiding next to Kirai and hurting her at the same time.

You don't have to match each base to each card though. When you're spamming models, it would be impossible to keep track of which card is for which mode. Thus: If there's a condition on a model, just put a counter next to its model. If you're counting wounds on a model, just put a dice next to its model to show how many wounds are left. Easy.

I feel that. It's a diverse game with so many appealing elements. It is difficult to narrow down the choices. The more you look, the more flustered you'll get. If us humble Arcanists in particular look good to you, and as you say, you're interested in Ironsides, Mei Feng, Ramos and Kaeris to varying degrees, the good news is that many of these masters share a similar model pool; Johan, Rail Golem, Gunsmiths, Soulstone Miners etc. They also happen to each share 2 or 3 core synergies of M&SU buffs, Construct interactions and the Burning condition. When you like a handful of masters that share a model pool, it makes the budget stretch much further.

That's Malifaux for you. Cheap for the initial investment, but addictive and expensive when you decide to delve deeper i.e to buy a little of everything haha One idea you could try is to use Vassal, or borrow another player's Mei/Ironsides crew to play test both before deciding which to buy. In my heart of hearts, I'm a Mei player, and I love everything about her. I know you'd have a lot of fun with her. If you were to go with her, as I say, Mei's crew, an Effigy and Mechanised Porkchop are all you'd need to start having a solid base to play with. However, if you wanted to collect more of the faction but at this stage buy only one crew box, I would recommend Ironsides first. Her models are simply more accessible in the faction, since Kang (Mei's henchman) is a Ten Thunder pure and you can only use him in Arcanists if Mei is your leader, while The Captain (Ironside's henchman) is very popular for a variety of leaders. If you're asking which is the most different from Ophelia, well that's a little tough, but: They're both fun choices, and they're both different enough from Ophelia that you'll be satisfied with whoever you buy if you're looking for something new.

Another win secured for our Righteous Werewolf Man, versus Guild. Almost my entire crew had to die for it, but victory at any costs is worth it. Glory to the M&SU.

First off, Rasputina is probably one of the single most specific masters in terms of what minions are optimal with her (Frozen Heart models) that don't necessarily mesh well with other masters. Most are not nearly as specific. Many minions are exceptionally good and/or versatile, such as Rotten Belles in Ressers, Trappers in Outcasts or Austringers in Guild, which can happily find a place in over 90% of crews that faction wants to play, and indeed even in other factions. Some masters allow cross-faction hiring, so for example, one could field Nurses for any of the 7 Resser Masters, as well as Zoraida in Neverborn or Jack Daw in Outcasts as part of their special hiring abilities. This is in addition to Mercenaries, like Johan or simple dual faction minions like Railworkers, which happen to be good and accessible for more than one faction. Are there specific minions you like the look of?

Surely one could play Dreamer with Restless Dreams relatively cheaply? He doesn't appear to need the same summoning pool to work with, and has a more straight forward goal - shoot with Dreamer, shoot a little bit more with Dreamer, then bring out a massive demon to eat some face, then shoot again with Dreamer for good measure once it goes away. Such a goal fits well with players with smaller model pools. Could Restless Dreams Dreamer be played with minimal investment?

The trick to using Candy is, don't make Candy a healbot. Why am I spending 9ss + upgrades for a short ranged, suit dependent 1/2/3 healing flip? Pretend she doesn't have a heal, and you'll get a lot more mileage from her. In fact her spells actually all have low stats and low damage. So in fact, unless you're actively fishing for Wail's trigger, Alright Already, or using spells from upgrades, pretend she doesn't have any spells at all. Candy's real strengths are all on the front of the card. Her Manipulation 12 is decent. It's not a huge number, but it still works well enough with all the WP debuffs you're handing out. It's a big incentive to activate her last, almost as big of an incentive as her next two abilities: Sweet and Sours combine to make your opponent's activation order incredibly delicate. Alright Already, Incite and Melancholy can be used to force or disallow activations to your advantage. That's essentially why she costs 9ss. You really, really want to be getting a lot of value from Sweet and Sours when you play Candy, or else you should probably just spend those 9ss elsewhere. Timing and positioning Candy where her auras are the most harmful to your opponent, for their last activation this turn, or for their first activation next turn, are really what makes or breaks her as a Henchman choice. Casting Expert would be really useful if you wanted to actually cast her spells, but you should focus on her positioning more than anything else. Often the best option is to cast Wail (for the trigger) or Melancholy with your free spell cast, then either double walk or single walk into the target's engagement range and going defense stance.

Yeah, McMourning is a tonne of fun from what I hear. The good Doc also has one of the more aggressive forms of summoning. He's similar to Levi with those 2 for 1 trades; "I'll take one of your models and replace it with one of mine": - Put poison on things - Kill things that have poison on them by dealing damage equal to the poison on them - Summon free giant zombies - Forgot to kill things that have poison on them? - Poison kills things that have poison on them anyway - Summon free zombie dogs - Focus on scheme marker shenanigans and win games. - Acquire more free zombies. Have you looked at Anna Lovelace? She also makes more zombies when she shoots people, because awesome. In all seriousness, Anna's really good. She's also a Freikorps and fits well in many crews. The Nurses you speak of are a prime example of a good model that fits in many hiring pools and is thus a great pick up for budgetary reasons - very popular in many Resser crews while at the same time very good to hire across factions with Zoraida and with Jack Daw.

Well, there's so many good choices, it's going to feel like you're cutting something, somewhere, no matter what. As mentioned, Taelor and the Ronin come from Hired Swords and they're exceptional. If you were going to cut the Viks, Vanessa loses a lot of her appeal as well, as her main synergy is with them. In my opinion, you should either get both or neither. I'm not sure you need a second box of Abominations. You're unlikely to hire many of them, if any at all, so it's rare you'd have 4 on the table and need to add another. Cutting Vanessa and cutting Abominations should make room for Ashes & Dust, or the Emissary, or some other big swinger.

You're right, Sorrows are flimsy against Casters. Sorrows die very easily against Rasputina if you position them badly. That's the trick, keep them safe until you're ready to strike, then throw them into the scrap. Most Casters can't shoot them once they're engaged with models, Rasputina included. Rasputina is probably the toughest match up since she also has blasts, and her crew is immune to horror duels. Even then, she's very slow and so are her models, with mostly Wk4-5. Your Sorrows, on the other hand, can cover over 8" with Misery Loves Company, then interact or cast it again to move to someone else. You can usually keep them out of sight until it's time to commit them. Putting them directly onto Rasputina is a good option since she can't cast very well in Melee, but failing that, even just throwing them into the scrum with her Ice Mirrors can be worthwhile to stop her casting through them. Learning to work with Sorrows is important if you want to get the most out of Pandora's WP based damage. If you can get experience with playing them against Rasputina, you'll be excellent with them against anyone else. Most of the other options you mention actually work really well with Sorrows and I wouldn't recommend replacing Sorrows with them; I'd suggest playing them together. Try 2 Sorrows, Widow Weaver and an Insidious Madness. It's less than 25ss, so you still have plenty of room for other models like Teddy, Iggy or Bishop if you want them. But once that core of Sorrows, Widow Weaver and Madnesses sets up, they make any WP duel really hard for your opponent to pass, and really painful for them to fail. At that point in time, Pandora can then freely use Inflict to cook everything at an even rate or focus on individual models with Incite & Self Harm to fry one particular enemy at a time. The Poltergeist can often still be a good option, but is not as important to Pandora as her Sorrows are. His aura is only 2" (doesn't reach as far as Misery's 6") and he doesn't have Misery Loves Company like the Sorrows do. This makes positioning even more crucial with him. If you mess up, people are well aware of how strong his aura is so tend to focus him down quickly. Since he's Ht3 with a 50mm base it's hard to hide him. He's often outshone by Primordial Magic, which is cheaper and easier to benefit from, but he does have a place in some games as well.

Agreed, Arcane Emissary seems absurd with Mei Feng, and if you were willing to delve deeper into Arcanists, then it becomes even more of a worthwhile investment. I can't comment too much on it though, or on Sparks, as I've had no playtime with either. Mind you, Merellin does ask in particular for a 'small box', so perhaps that discounts the Emissary/Mech Rider/Rail Golem by virtue of size/cost. If this is so, the most synergistic choices would probably be Arcane Effigy, Mechanised Porkchop or Sparks, and I'd probably rank them in that order. Sparks would appear to work best if a source of scrap (Porkchop) is also in the crew to provide for him, whereas Porkchop itself is less dependent on other choices. If you could get both, that's dope, but if you could afford only one, I'd go with Porkchop. He's a standalone contribution: buff Mei's mobility with the Wk6, free scrap marker, and his massive 50mm base for her to teleport onto, and then also buff her attacks by giving her that +flip to attacks for the turn when she charges from him. Fun fact: Mei's threat range with Porkchop is about 25". (Walk, drop scrap, Walk again, then Railwalk to the far side of the scrap, then Railwalk to the far side of Porkchop, then charge 7" with the 3" Engagement range). Even if he dies before she can activate, you can still use the two scrap markers he drops to get Mei 23" - 24" in one turn while securing a charge. Most people aren't ready for models to cover the same distance as a Pigapult in one turn, and I can assure you, it's fun!

I agree, 2 masters is usually plenty to work with, though I could see an argument for 3 or 4 masters as well. I guess it depends on how big one's model case is lol. I think if you're going into an event and ensuring you playing only 2 masters, you're probably setting yourself at a disadvantage if you don't include Colette, Ramos or Marcus as at least 1 of your 2 masters. They're all force multipliers, and are relatively flexible, while remaining very good at what they do. I'd posit that between the 3 of them, you incidentally also have the 3 best 2-master combinations Arcanists have to offer. For my purposes, I work exclusively with Ramos, Kaeris and Mei so far, and I find them adequate for any combo of schemes or strategies that show up. I often focus more on points denial and countering than points acquisition. Were I to pick only 2 of them, it would be Kaeris and Mei, on familiarity alone. Neither of them are particularly rated, so I guess I like to play Malifaux on hard mode... haha

The Arcane Effigy is the best 4 stone purchase Mei Feng could ever make, and since you're interested in Collodi and Ironsides, you can use him with both of them as well. (I'm not sure how good he is with Ironsides; I assume he's at least a decent pick. I know that many Collodi players love bringing in both the Arcane Effigy and the Brutal Effigy (guild) in particular, so there's definitely multiple options for what he can do for you.) But for the question at hand, why for Mei? Everything on Arcane Effigy's is perfect for her. Even if you only ever played Mei, I still would recommend the Effigy in 9/10 games. - Firstly, he's a cheap, reasonably mobile construct, so he can help her Railwalking. - Secondly, he adds a buff to her attacks, which is particularly significant because she attacks a lot with her triggers, often upwards of 4 or 5 attacks per activation. He comes stock standard with Accomplice, so you aren't delayed an activation by having him buff her before wanting her to go in swinging. - Thirdly, the buff he provides happens to be "add Burning or force a discard", per attack, which adds synergy to Mei's Claw attacks as it gets stronger if the opponent has Burning, and other pieces in her crew also work with Burning to one degree or another. - Fourthly, he can remove conditions that plague Mei or her crew. Mei herself is immune to slow & paralysis automatically (which is extremely underrated), but even so he can help by removing negative conditions like Burning or Poison, or even specialised conditions such as Brilliance or Adversary. Other small boxes I could recommend (I presume you aren't looking for other crew boxes, otherwise, as stated, Ramos & Kaeris are perfect pickups) would include Mechanised Porkchop or Rail Golem. They can go with her regardless of whether you play her as an Arcanist or as a Ten Thunder master, and add substantial buffs to her mobility and damage (Mechanised Porkchop) and a tanky fighter that can make good use of all the 's you accumulate (Mei won't usually need them) (Rail Golem). Mech Rider's good, but you literally wouldn't have any 4s constructs to summon so I can't recommend buying it unless you were happy committing further to the faction. Simply by adding the Porkchop & Effigy to Mei's box set, you'd have a very good base to work with. You could easily run that as a 50ss crew and get results. The fact that both models could be used with other masters you're interested in (Wong & Collodi, respectively) is a further reason why I recommend them for you

My first instinct is to say, easy there tiger. You've just picked up 2 new masters; it's going to take you a little while to get familiar with them. One risk of increasing your master pool so substantially when you're new to the game or a faction, is that you may find yourself inundated with choices. I know that sounds counter intuitive at first; in a game like Malifaux, how could more options possibly be a bad thing? But my genuine feeling is that if you pick up too many masters at once, you could spread yourself too thin and might not get an in-depth understanding for each of them individually. Everyone here knows of someone who owns all or almost all the masters in a faction, but gravitated only to 1 or 2 of them and exclusively play them, while the rest sit on the shelf gathering dust, sometimes still on the sprue.. There's just not enough time in the average working week to play everything... That said, if you do get to play like 4-5 games per week, then you can very quickly get some solid game time with each master. In particular, Vassal is awesome for that, if it suits you. I'm no expert in Outcasts, but my experience with and against Leveticus is that he's easy enough to pick up with the waif + anchor mechanic, but has a really high skill ceiling, owing to the complexity of his hiring pool. I honestly think one could exclusively play Leveticus for a year and no two games would be exactly alike, particularly if you have quite a lot of undead or constructs models to hire in from other factions. Again, as Freman points out, Rusty Alyce is an exceptional henchwoman, and performs well with other masters as well as with Levi himself. Between her, Levi and their thematic pieces, you also have some fairly unique summoning options - summoning Abominations as a byproduct of killing enemies as a great 2 for 1, not to mention Desolation Engine or Ashes & Dust dying and becoming two pieces. Leveticus, as stated, really thrives when you have a deep 6 stone + model pool. I think you've already got a decent arsenal to work with, between Johan, Hannah, Sue & your Trapper, but you could easily expand that with most of the medium/high priced options in Outcasts. You could even opt to add tough, mobile anchors like Soulstone Miners and Hunters if you go Pariah of Iron or control pieces such as Dead Doxies if you go Pariah of Bone. Food for thought.

Agreed, Finish The Job is great in and of itself, and 80-90% of the time when you summon them it's literally just for them to die for scheme markers. But on occasion, their melee-bulletproof ability and 6/6 stats make them the right choice for summoning into enemies too. If there's a big blob of enemies you wish to tie up, not necessarily kill, then what is better or cheaper than Drowned? Those triggers on their melee attacks are exceptional at disarming your opponent, as well, it's just a pity they require crows.

Even so, the threat of two potential casts of Whispered Secret is intriguing.

I wonder if the once-per-turn stipulation on Whispered Secret would apply to both Molly's version and the Malifaux Child's version of the spell if he copies it from her i.e could they both cast it, or would one not be allowed to cast it if the other already has attempted to cast it this turn?

A single copy of his Unmaking attack? Even if it hits (you're Ca 4, so it's unlikely) he's probably on a double or triple negative flip for damage and can't use Levi's upgrades. I don't see why that would be worth stones paying for, even if it didn't prevent him taking his two free Waifs.

She is indeed, and I think its worth paying Merc tax for her everytime. Every faction has multiple masters and crews that find Anna to be of fantastic value. She's similar to Johan; that genuinely good all rounder Merc that almost all players should acquire. She certainly gives more to Ramos than a Gunsmith ever could and I couldn't recommend her highly enough.

There are some websites that sell individual models from box sets. Gadzooks Gaming, I think? Shipping to Aus probably kills it though, unless you wanted to a get multiple goods from them and split it to make it more worth it. But honestly, Railworkers are well worth the effort. They get fantastic value from even your low cards and they hit far harder than any 5ss model should. With their Df trigger and Armour, they can essentially make any incoming 4 damage attack instead become just 1 damage. Anything higher, you just take it on the chin and let it get blocked by Hard to Kill. Bleeding Edge Tech in particular is really nice here since they get to heal back above 1 wound just for activating.