LexLock

Future Sight is so unlikely to go off that it's pretty much worthless and the fact that it isn't built in on either Df or Wp is ridiculous.

Honestly Euripides' crew is just too tome hungry, if you gave Cyclops a tome built in on their Ice Pillar creation the crew could function a lot more smoothly and you could get some consistent openers using Gigants to shoot Euripides or Thoon up instead of relying on RNG and The Old Ways. An interesting way of bringing two crews up would be to add some dual keywords to Savage and December, loan december Thoon or some Cyclops and maybe use some Silent Ones or Snow Storm.

Necropunks in Neverborn so we have a decent scheme runner.

Bultungin's Pack Mentality is only during their activation, so it doesn't protect them anyway, it needs HtK at the bare minimum and even that won't do much to make it compete with a real scheme runner.

I use it for the hazardous damage. You just need an undergrowth marker near Titania and the thing you're trying to kill, then use her bonus action to move it under Titania (and preferably the enemy), pinging her for a damage and activating the hazardous. Given I am often already using the Cradle of life trigger to get close to my target, it isn't that awkward to position it a little closer.

Gross.

Can you use erasable marker on them?

I mean... so do other factions. What we're missing is an efficient scheme runner or ways of cheating out scheme markers. Our best generalist option is probably the Black Blood Shaman, which is much better suited to hanging back (6 health + no defenses), handing out focus and growing into a beater. Also given our general squishiness and reliance on melee we really aren't that fast, anything with a movement trick blows a high move stat out of the water, especially a scheme runner, because they can both place two scheme markers in one turn and freely leave engagements. Other factions get scheme hacks, we're supposed to be zoomy, where's ours?

You can't balance a master using its crew in a game like malifaux. Saying that Seamus is fine because his keyword is weak and doesn't have much synergy with him is ignoring the plethora of great versatile models in Ressurs. You can build a Seamus crew with no Redchapel models other than him and his totem, in fact models like The Carrion Emissary and Gravediggers have great synergy with him that his keyword mostly lacks. At 6ss Necropunks are still easily some of the best scheme runners in the game (and if your complaint is that Von Schtook can get more for less, get in line) and Bone Piles can do a pretty convincing pre-nerf Soulstone Miner impression with some setup. Obviously Seamus's keyword is lacklustre, but if we're thinking competitively instead of thematically then Redchapel being bad doesn't necessarily mean Seamus is.

Yes, but I think it is worth it for the lead you can get on your opponent. Sure I may lose out on some strat VP late game but my opponent lost two beaters and didn't really have a way to get Bounty tokens, with the only target in range being Titania who is hard to kill and nearly impossible to pin down.

I used this list in a Public Enemies game with corner deployment against Shenlong (post nerf). Titania - 8ss Cache Gorar - Totem Killjoy - 10ss Rougarou + Ancient Pact - 10ss Black Blood Shaman 1 - 6+1ss Black Blood Shaman 2 - 6+1ss Waldgeist + Ancient Pact - 8ss The goal of this list was to get early Public Execution points with Titania's alpha strike potential and tankiness. Killjoy, the Rougarou and the two Black Blood Shamans were all picked to enhance Titania's killing potential. Killjoy increased her damage with Blood Sacrifice, the Black Blood Shamans gave her Focus +2 and the Rougarou pushed her up 12" turn 1. I managed to activate Titania back to back end of turn 1, start of turn 2 due in part to ill omens and managed to kill a Samurai with Silent Protector and The Lone Swordsman. Combining the Rougarou's Intimidating Roar with Titania's Cradle of Life trigger makes her ridiculously mobile and allows you to hit pretty much any model on the board (even in corner deployment). While powering up Titania was my main focus, it didn't leave my crew worthless, the Black Blood Shamans can turn into spooky Mature Nephilim just by doing their focus shenanigans and the Rougarou gets to move using Deadly Pursuit even if it uses both it's actions first turn.

Assuming your opponent's crew isn't extremely mobile, I think your goal first turn should be to yeet Euripedes up with a Gigant/Cyclops pillars and create 6 Ice Pillars using Rune-Etched Ice. This should disrupt your opponent and wear away at their hand with the move duels, hopefully reducing their ability to respond to Euripedes (who should have Incorporeal at this point anyway). If you bring Ancient Pact you can probably spam move duels again first thing next turn, giving you roughly a dozen Ice Pillars to hem in your opponent with and a ton of chip damage from move duels. I think Euripedes (much like Fae with underbrush) is going to be countered pretty hard by crews that can ignore his Pillars with flight/incorporeal/leaps because his crew is quite slow and relies on slowing the enemy crew in order to keep up.

They should give Winged Plagues the Obedient Wretches Tummy Ache ability.

Leveticus and Von Schtook are both top tier masters so it should come down to playstyle, how much you're willing to spend, and any other parts of the faction that you might want to expand into later. Leveticus himself is pretty much entirely focused around doing damage in his activation and maybe incidentally summoning something or moving some wounds around with essence transfer whereas Von Schtook is more of a support master/summoner who can speed up his crew with Fast and hand out Focus. Their crews are both good at outlasting their enemies with the Transmortis having more defensive abilities than pretty much any other crew (seriously, armour +1, HtW and 1 more wound than their cost on nearly every model) and Amalgam taking a more offensive approach with Entropy and the Unmade trigger chipping away at their opponents defenses. I don't think either crew particularly needs to take any versatile models, they both have good in keyword beaters and both of them have Necropunks which are the best schemers in the game relative to SS cost. I'd probably make my choice based on whether I want to play a summoner (Von Schtook) or a more proactive beater like Leveticus. Do you want to kill something dead every turn? Then choose Leveticus.

If Dead Mans Hand were included we'd actually be in a much better position. Lilith is a much more interesting leader for the Nephilim and Collodi (in my opinion) is good enough to bring some variety to Neverborn in tournaments. Guild gets access to Ryle which boosts Hoffman a bit and Ressurs get Nicodem who might even bring the power of their average master below Tier 1 (yes I'm bitter). Ramos is a lot more fair now that Arachnid swarms and SS Miners have been nerfed but he does do a spooky amount of unresisted damage. I know most won't go for DMH in tournaments but I actually think it would make the game more balanced.

Oof, not sure I can stomach 8 wounds on an 11 cost, even with his defenses. Barbaros just seems really mediocre to me, but maybe he can work.

With Ashes & Dust being nerfed into a state of fairness I find myself looking for a replacement versatile beater in my non Leveticus crews. I used A&D sort of like a Rider model and now I'm feeling that hole in my hiring options. Taylor is meh even with the Viks, our Emissary is a support piece, we don't get a Rider and our strongest beaters are ranged models that can't tarpit. I'm looking at Montresor or The Desolation Engine who are both kinda slow but very tanky, any other suggestions?

What about to the attack in exchange for to damage?

So why did they nerf Enraged By Insolence? Has anyone ever had it affect their games to any meaningful degree? That aura is pretty much the only thing Nekima can do that isn't hitting it very hard on her turn. I mean, it's still based around hitting, but it at least makes your opponent think. As it is now Enraged By Insolence needs too many things to go right to be effective. You need a minimum of four different models in the right spots to get a pretty mediocre effect. Nekima needs to activate the aura, one of your models needs to be killed (oof) by an enemy model within pushing range of another one of your models. All you get is one attack for all this setup, it isn't worth it and it is too easy to counter. Nekima really needs something to do that isn't just hitting things with a big stick.

Easy fix, remove the leap and numbskull, he can focus then and he's still super tanky for his cost. Most big beaters are less tanky than Archie, not more and it's ridiculous that people keep trying to imply his defenses are anything other than great. 11 wounds, HtW, Terrifying 12 and healing is great and Numbskull is a great defense too.

I think leaps are too good across the board. Any scheme runner with a leap is in a league above even dedicated schemers without one. As they are now a leap can allow you to place two scheme markers a turn and acts as pseudo Don't Mind Me. Either leaps shouldn't be able to be taken while engaged (Like Fly With Me or Ambush) or they should be treated as a disengage for the purpose of scheming (Jumping out of someones reach doesn't seem that different from walking or flying, they're still gonna take a swing at you).

I think they should have Welcome to Malifaux work on all place effects but make it once per turn to prevent abuse (its like a more situational flurry that you can get movement out of). Also, if you've seen Taelor's new art she has a bottle of alcohol in one hand, so it'd be a good excuse to give her a healing bonus action to make her less fragile. Lastly, the Mercenary crew as a whole is lacking in card draw / manipulation / access toflips which makes them a bit lacklustre compared to more consistently beaty crews (Lady J has the Judge/scales, Nekima has focus spam, Levi has scavengers and is self sufficient, Misaki has the Tanuki and models with) maybe they could be improved by fixing one of our sub-par upgrades and making it provide consistent card draw.

Which summoner does she counter?

All that stuff makes them takeable, what makes them potentially game winning is their intimidating roar, which can be used to push any friendly model up 12" on the first turn with two AP. Rougarou are solid models that also give you another tool to work with if you need an alpha strike. Try using Titania with butterfly jump pushed up 12" and given the blood sacrifice upgrade from killjoy so she can turn whatever she uses her action on into hazardous by moving it under her. Then assuming you've brought a big cache to lean into the alpha strike you can start hitting them with effectively a 4/6/7 damage flip and they are not going to want to retaliate while in hazardous.

Levi and Tara are probably the best masters in faction (maybe Zipp too, but why play him in outcasts?). Levi's keyword is filled with amazing models like Rusty, A&D and Necropunks and Levi counters so many things by having irreducible attacks. Tara + Aionus can dominate Corrupted Idols like nobody else by spamming pass tokens and she has so much AP + mobility that she can easily get VP on her own. Although they are both countered heavily by certain factions (Tara into guild and Levi into thunders/ressurs) you might be cover all of your bases using Levi for guild and Tara for Thunders/Ressurs (although Tara struggles with Kirai, who doesn't?).