hydranixx

Molly's (0)s are usually too valuable for her to be using Muwahahaha. Asura is an amazing model, just probably not for this master. With Molly you should be focusing generall in hiring and summoning damaging models. You're picking her over Nicodem purely for the aggression she can bring since he's better at everything else. So, drop Phillip and the Nanny in most games (still bring him in when the strategy makes Molly a good choice and when the scheme pool still suits him) and load up on big, nasty 50mm Horrors

If you've hired Datsue Ba with Molly you're most likely going Spirits Molly, so yeah her (0) to give a Spirit a (1) lets Datsue Ba place an extra Scheme Marker out of activation. My kneejerk reaction is if you're going for all 3 Drowned it just seems too intensive. Spending all of a master's AP and throwing away your entire control hand for some Peons and future card draw seem like a tough sell. Like I'm not sure have 5 Seishins rather than 3 Seishins is actually much of an improvement, they don't really do anything for Molly and can't even get Black Blood from her either. I think it could be viable if you have a really mediocre hand (10s and under) and summon 1-2 Drowned. That doesn't use your entire masters activation but still nets you 2-4 Seishin and Scheme Markers for future turns.

The stuff of legends.

Another option if you positively know you're up vs Nicedem would be to go Kirai with some anti-Corpse tech. Gaki, Goryo, Onryo, Seishin and Ikiryo... none of your incidental summons will drop Corpses when they die. Due to Gaki actively eating them up and being cheap as chips you could even hire some. Supplement this with Sebastian holding Those Are Not Ours to sacrifice any of your own Shikome/Hanged/Drowned that you summon before they give die and opportunistically use a Corpse to summon a dog. Bring in Phillip And The Nanny to feed you cards and for Scheme Marker control. These utility pieces should be able to deny Nicodem all his best toys and let you come out ahead. Another great thing is that Kirai isn't usually upgrade-heavy from what I hear, so you should have space to sneak in a Maniacal Laugh of your own to try pinch his Corpse Markers.

Seamus has always been solid for me in the mirror match. With Sinister Rep, Corpse Bloat, Do you know who I am? He can easily get where needed and lock down Nico's stuff with high WP duels after he's spent his good cards summoning. Corpse Bloat can do a lot of work against his horde too. Reva seems like a pretty good pick as well. Your own Mindless Zombies and Candles can provide you with ways to get at his important henchmen and enforcers. You might even get some work out of her new Sky Riders upgrade to blow up every corpse on the board at once.

It really depends how much the opponent can threaten him. If they can't do much, he can play relatively close to the action, and he wants to since his auras and buffs are why you play him. Be careful of high min damage, mobile, models - they can easily squash him if you don't control the pace of the game. Nicodem projects multiple bubbles of support and threat. Important ranges to know are 6" & 8" for his Aura's and (0)s, while his raw spells have longer reach. Once you know what enemy models you have to look out for you can position him accordingly, but you do want those auras benefiting as much as possible. If you're unsure which 3rd upgrade to take, remember you don't have to take 3. Love Thy Master is good. Buzzards has some decent potential, Their Last Breath is super dependent on your crew. He operates relatively well with just Undertaker and Maniacal Laugh though so only take something you think you'll actually use. Necrotic King, you usually want it when you have lots of big damage tracks or important spells in the crew. Datsue Ba loves it. Archie? Meh. It tends to also be even more crew dependent than TLB.

They're Sh 5 (and their is Ml 5) I can't think of many 4ss models that output as much damage per average AP as a Fire Gamin. Does any other 4ss model in the game even have access to ? Do any come as close as Fire Gamin do to a min 3 attack?

There's as many opinions on how Yasunori could be adjusted as there are opponents of Ten Thunders. He's the Thunder's version of the Riders, sharing their stat line, cost and their Stubborn ability. However, unlike them he doesn't take 4 turns to be worth his price. He's worth 12ss from turn 1, so he outshines all of them. If anything needs changing, 2 fewer Wounds and removing Stubborn seems fair to me.

Well Warding Runes itself that Carlos buys strips all suits, so no Lures are getting through anyway?

Agreed. I've been pondering the uses of these specific models with Mei recently. Her new rail walking upgrade lets her reposition Lazarus with ease. Tying him up in Melee is usually the easiest way for your opponent to stop him blowing up their entire crew... But now Mei Feng can easily save him from Melee. Sparks and Mobile Toolkit give him Fast, an extra to his damage spread if I recall correctly, and to damage flips. Lazarus' (0) can steal another nearby Construct's action, which could be one of Mei Feng's actions if Sparks makes her a Construct, so Lazarus himself can use Railwalker too as long as if I've interpreted things correctly? I also second @retnab's comment about Fire Gamin. I think they're far better than most people on this forum would have you believe. Their low stats and relatively empty card space can be off-putting at first, but they are 4ss Minions with an 10" ranged attack that is often essentially minimum damage 3 (with a potential for good measure). Sometimes your opponent is Immune to burning but in 95% of cases your opponent will take the extra point of damage or spend resources removing it - both of which are good for me since I've only used 1AP from a 4ss Minion. My Mei Feng core has Effigy, Mechanised Porkchop and at least one other 50mm construct; Mech Rider, Langston, Coryphee. I'll be trialling Mobile Toolkit, Lazarus & Sparks extensively soon. I also think Carlos is very interesting with Mei Feng, in particular because the Emberling stops Burning from removing at end of turn to nearby models. If it's near Carlos, he can hold onto all his stacks of Burning between turns. By mid game he'd be permanently Armour +2 and automatically healing for obscene amounts each turn.

Oh you're probably right. I can't remember the last time that interaction actually came into play - as I say, Hanged die like flies to Arcanists so I don't even bother summoning them. A Carrion Effigy can strip immunity to Paralysis if I recall correctly, that might be worth gunning down in a hurry.

When I play Arcanists, I feel very comfortable with Kaeris in most match ups. Having Flight and Ca7 Attacks vs either Df or Wp gives her enough flexibility to always be a nuisance, and her upgrade choices can drastically her role and give her some extremely unique functions. Mei comes in when I want to hold ground and endure lots of ranged attacks. Her new upgrades should let her either go even more rambo on one key turn or to move and protect a key model of your choice but in my traditional usage she's there mainly to deny the opponent their best attacks. I basically only take Ramos when I have to. He's just not a very appealing playstyle for me. If it's Reconnoiter/Interference he's in, if it's not he's out.

Speaking as a Ressur, I can confirm this 100%. Our meta has 2 or 3 Raspy players, and a well played Raspy is a nightmare to face as a Ressur on most boards. I especially agree with her being able to get at the support models from an absurd distance. Losing Carrion Emissary, a Necropunk and half my master's wounds turn 1 makes things really bleak, let alone easily blocking off sections of the board. Even if we bring Hanged to balance out Frozen Heart, Raspy can one or two shot them. I know Raspy players are littered with good upgrades so a lot of players avoid December's Pawn, but it really is one of the single most scary upgrades in the game when most of your core crew has Hard to Wound.

Ok so that's another thing that Leveticus is definitely better at - hunting Hard to Kill models. It really sucks losing Necropunks in one shot.

To be fair that's not just Reva; all Wave 4 masters were Cache 4 and a lot of people reckon most of them should probably have a smaller Cache. Parker's 4 is fine, Titania would be sweet with 3 I think. But Nellie, Sandeep, Zipp, Reva and Asami would all still be powerful and popular Masters even with a Cache of 2. Also I thought the Death Touches All trigger doesn't get around Hard to Kill? Is there an FAQ for that?

Utility models very seldomly show up in multiples (especially when they cost 6ss). It's just Malifaux's thing: if it's a utility model, buy the box, pick the best sculpt and sell the other two. I'm pretty sure the only utility models I see more than one of are Rotten Belles.

(Btw how many Impossible to Wound models do Ten Thunders have?)

Easy counter, hire an entire crew of models that have Impossible to Wound.

And yes, Kentauroi die like flies. But they're so good on the one or two turns they're alive that they're well worth it. They provide the only two things that Molly needs to succeed in this type of build; supplemental threat/damage and mobility. They will be dead by turn 2/3 but if you play well you will probably have won the game by then too.

Partially, yeah. A Molly crew with Mortimer in it is usually tiny, at least the way I play it. Tends to be either 6 or 7 models, with a good mix of Ht2 & half Ht3 models so LOS to the Crooligan isn't lost as easily after the short models push first. You do end up in a bit of a huddle once you're finished, so if you're against blasters it can seem awful. But, remember, you can just elect not to push all your models. Each is allowed to push but they don't have to push; even if just 2 of your models take the push that's a 2 for 1 so it's good. I haven't had a lot of deployment issues. This is all very true, and I have had success with Sybelle in some of my more mild builds, and in my Spirit Molly builds. She's certainly more flexible when you're concerned with only looking after Molly. However I have found that in an aggressive Horror Molly build, every bit of AP efficiency and card efficiency is required. There generally isn't a late game with that kind of build. If the game suits the build, you can get where you need to be by the middle of turn 1, and your crew is capable of deciding the outcome of the game by the end of turn 2, sometimes earlier. It's NOT what I'd recommend to a newer player. You can get easily blind sided by all the 'gotcha!' combos and masters out there that you aren't yet familiar with. You're throwing a 10 Wound master deep into their territory at the beginning of the game so you need to know their crew very well. But... it's a very fun and challenging way to play Molly and it can be undeniably effective. Varney's podcast on s&s helped me refine the idea so all credit to him. I just tried it out and then altered it to my tastes. I'd recommend that podcast to anyone interested in learning more of Molly's options btw!

So, you're spending 15ss+ on two support models, half of these models' AP, and a 9+control card to summon a 2 wound Crooligan that can't do anything the turn it arrives? Right...

Eh. I don't really see it. There's so many good places to put My Little Helper and putting it on a model designed to Walk twice and then die just seems ok at best. Even the free Mindless Zombie doesn't really mean all that much, since your master has to be McMourning to include Myranda, and he doesn't even use corpses. Maybe if you have 2 or fewer henchmen and enforcers and she's one of them, then yeah I guess?

I double this. Kentauroi are superb. The new Little Gassers should be excellent for McMourning and I think they'll be good with Nicodem too, especially if you do opt to bring along Rafkin/Dogs/Shikome with him. I would avoid picking up only Poison-related Minions. Steering clear of Rotten Belles seems like a bad idea, and I've heard excellent things about Dead Doxies with McMourning. Rogue Necromancy(s) deserve a mention. They're seldom auto picks but some pools really make them shine. I've found them to be particularly filthy with Nurse back-up available.

Hire Mortimer and a Crooligan, who deploys the middle of the board somewhere safe with From the Shadows. Mortimer activates early and uses (1) Fresh Meat twice to push all Undead models (Molly is Undead) up to their Wk towards it. The idea is that your entire crew, except Mortimer, are Undead and have LOS to the Crooligan to get 2 free pushes up the board, which is better than what Sybelle can do and it doesn't even require you to meet any TNs. And yes, Kentauroi could replace Sybelle. They'd fulfill Sybelle's job better than Sybelle herself would.

It's usually not worth going after Nicodem unless you can propel something with enormous damage into his face. If you can't put him down in one activation he'll just heal up and summon the perfect counter to your offending model. Zombies are Df 2 with Wd 3 without HtW, so s should prove helpful in thinning a crowd. If you play Sonnia they are incredibly easy way to biff s the board at other models. Try clean up Corpse Markers as soon as they arrive if you have models that can remove them. If you can remove LoS between Nicodem and where most of the Corpse Markers are he'll struggle to get work done; again, Sonnia is useful here with those Flame Walls. Try Monster Hunters. I only hear great things about them, and all the crutch models that this Nicodem build in particular relies on are 7+ SS, so Monster Hunters should be really efficient at erasing the likes of Asura/Phillip/Emissary/Mortimer. I'm not 100% sure if Taelor's Welcome to Malifaux allows her to auto chain Charge multiple models that are summoned at the same time. If she is, and you position her appropriately, she can squish every single Mindless Zombie that Nicodem laughs up. None of those support models in Nico's build wants to tango with Taelor, so she should be solid at denying existing Corpse Markers from becoming a fresh wave of Mindless Zombies.