Ergonomic Cat

You really need the Twins (Lilitu and Lelu) - Lilitu goes in a ton of lists, and summon her (and often Lelu) with Dreamer is a great thing to do. Beyond that, you have a great core. There are certainly models to pick up eventually, but I wouldn't worry about getting anything more than the Twins, and just learning everything you have. As far as a 30ss list, it's pretty basic: Dreamer with Dreams of Pain and Otherworldly (and I like On Wings of Darkness for card draw). 2-3 Daydreams. Widow Weaver (I like her for the summoning option, the WP, the horror, and the theme) with Handbag and On Dreaming Wings. Then just summoning Lilitu, Stitched Together, Coppelius, Insidious Madnesses, and Lelu, and go crazy!

I've never faced him, and he's still top of my list, just listening to people. However I also have a perverse "He's not so bad" counter because I can't imagine he's really as bad as people think. Also, freakin' Neverborn! I played a demo game as Sonnia against Lilith. Jesus, that was awful! I'm glad they're my faction, so I can use all those awful tricks but, man! Also, I hate that I have crews I want in every single faction, yet I can only play one game a week.

People are 100% convinced it is both #2 and #3. Everyone agrees that #1 is right out, though!

Zoraida could obey Nekima to kill her. Then you save Nekima's AP. I feel like Lynch would be the best choice, though, because Lynch gets Huggy, who doesn't disappear when Lynch dies. I think that's the biggest impact you can have in a master who is brought in to die. Also, Lynch is going to be simple to kill - he doesn't have great stats, and you'll very likely have an Ace in hand to cheat his duel down.... Go super aggressive on Play for Blood to start. Start Nekima with 1,000 Faces so they don't suspect it. Could be amusing to do once.

Duration is not mentioned at all. Fated says "Once per turn, when this model receives a Condition from one of its own Actions, all friendly Puppets and Minions within 6" pulse may gain the same condition."

Oh, he'll be mine. I have no concern. He was reading the book and getting interested, watching us play, talking about the rules. It's only a matter of time.

The thing is, Defensive specifically doesn't call out a duration. Defensive says: "....if the model does so, it gains the following Condition until the start of its next activation a number of times equal to the AP spend on this action: "Defensive +1: This model gains +flips to all Def duels."" The condition never gets a duration. Defensive doesn't say "This model gains +flips to all Def duels until the start of its next activation." It probably *should* say that, I'm guessing. But it doesn't. Collodi just passes the condition. And if it ends at the start of Collodi's next activation, you can basically get Defensive for 2 turns if you do Collodi first one turn and last another. That seems a bit powerful.

Still going! Also, there's now a former (and hopefully future) Henchman nearby, in Winona Minnesota! He lives in the River City Hobbies group as well, or message me for his contact information!

Summoning Dreamer is pretty vulnerable, because he's not taking Aether Connection, and he's trying to avoid becoming Chompy. So things that keep him alive are important. Enemies being unable to cheat cards in melee is pretty useful in that case. The other thing is that you don't need to activate Tannen early *unless* you're going to use him for his ability. Most of the time, that's either first turn, to summon Lilitu, or the turn that you get the 13 of Crows or the Red Joker. Other turns you can probably either summon with what's in your hand, or wait until later in the turn to do the Tannen/Dreamer combo. Tannen also has a few other nice interactions - he can shut down soulstone use in his targets. That's big if a master or henchman is coming for Dreamer. And then he can make things slower. Both are situationally useful. And honestly, if Tannen is next to Dreamer, and your enemy is dedicating their resources to killing Tannen first, that's also a reasonable value to get out of him. Finally, he's a Woe. So if you feel so inclined, you can put Depression on someone else to give him Melancholy for some activation control. Iggy or Baby Kade are probably the best targets there, unless you've brought Candy along. None of those are really strong arguments to bring Tannen on his own. You bring Tannen if you want 1. To deny interactions or 2. To do the Teddy summoning Jank. However, if you *are* bringing him, get benefits out of him! If you decided to go all in on Teddy, bring Baby Kade and Tannen. If you're doing Iggy related things (either to get some conditions or protect Lelu and Lilitu) then putting Depression on him and bringing Tannen is a definite choice. And while Tannen is squishy, your Dreamer better be reasonably safe if you're summoning. That likely means you have some cover or LoS blocking. Generally, I put Dreamer at the corner of a house, and then put Tannen out of sight. Basically, the question with Tannen is do you want to spend 6 SS to get an 11 SS model out on turn 3 or 4 in most games, and possibly boost your Dreamer summoning in general? That question mostly depends on how comfortable you are with the fact that you could well never draw the 13m or Red Joker.

I saw a couple discussions around, but none that were specifically focused on Defensive, and none with a conclusive answer. Collodi, with the Fated Upgrade, takes an action to go Defensive. All his minions and puppets within 6" gain Defensive +1. When does Defensive end on his minions? I see three interpretations: 1. It ends on Collodi's next activation, because the action says "The model gains defensive until its next activation." Its refers to Collodi. 2. It ends on each minion's activation, because the its refers to the model that has defensive. 3. Defensive is just a condition that gives +flips. Since the only thing that sets an end time is the action, and the minions didn't take the action, there is no set end time on Defensive, so it follows standard "Conditions end at the end of the turn unless otherwise noted" rule. I'm leaning towards #3.

I mean, Guild Ball's fun too. But their loss. As I said to a player at my store this week: Me: "You remember how much I used to love WMH and play it?" He: "Yeah?" Me: "I've only played once since I started Malifaux." He: "I have to leave. I can't afford another game."

Follow-up to myself: The Knights' Lures are 0 actions, not 1 actions. So while they're good for what they are, you can't My Will their Lure.

This is a great point. I have been paring down my WMH stuff, so I'm down to basically 1 list and a couple options (Abby 2 + beasts). I would *never* consider myself able to play in a tourney. My list is a fine all-comers list, but I need basically an entire second list to handle niche meta stuff. And even then, my current list is over $200 retail. Adding a second specialized list (probably something like Thags infantry? I dunno - I'm not up on the meta now) would be another $200+ dollars. They just already *have* all the WMH stuff. So they don't see the cost they put in to it over time, and they're thinking of going from 0 to full competitive.

Envy also has some use in a Collodi crew - Envy can use a 0 to make Collodi Focus, which gets passed out to all puppets in 6".... Does Bishop do anything useful for Neverborn, though? What does he bring that we can't get in faction?

Follow-up: Autumn Knights in Collodi? The Thorn or The Tooth seem pretty nice replacements for a Beckoner....

So I notice Coryphee is very absent in these lists. Do people not find it (Her?) worthwhile?

So, they may be talking about the literal competitive scene. Warmahordes has a very sharply defined set of tournaments that lead up to certain big events - Lock n' Load, Masters, etc. Malifaux doesn't have ATC weekends, where people compete to represent their area. We don't have qualifiers for regionals, nationals and worlds. We have less iconic events that you can go to and watch on stream to see the best of the best. And that's fair. Malifaux is not as structured, or at least it's not as publicized. When I play WMH, I was often thinking "Okay, I can play fun lists for another 3 weeks, then I need to start practicing my lists for the next tournament. When I play Malifaux I'm thinking "WOO! BEST GAME! WOO!!!!!" But that can also be down to the area - have a Henchman set up aggressive tournament schedules and you'll be in competitive mode. And maybe there is a very thriving Malifaux feeder tournament scene, I just don't know it. On the flip side, Warmahordes is all about competitive play. You are constantly thinking about your meta, your counters, everyone has an anti-armor list and a dude-spam-murder list and such. There is a defined meta - people play types. Andy is a Khador Jack-spam player, Larry plays A+ Tier Cygnar, Megan does awful things with Ret trickery, Matt is always just going to bring Circle beasts and slam them in to you. Also, you can have tons of discussions about "Legion in to Wurmwood" or the like. And you can prep for a tournament by running against certain lists you expect to see. Malifaux doesn't have that. While we may have masters to watch, it's not like there's a specific few lists that you have to build against. You aren't going to see the same lists over and over, you're not even going to bring the same list to every game. Which doesn't mean we aren't planning and plotting and playing to win, just that playing to win means different things in Malifaux, and it's not so easily categorized as "Be sure your lists can handle X, Y, and Z." So even "tournament prep" in Malifaux means something different. It means playing combinations of your masters to be sure you're comfortable, and trying out gimmicks. Not just running the same list 20x in a row to lock it in. As to cost, that's up in the air. If you pick the right masters, you don't need a huge pool to support them. For $150 or so you can get most all of the competitive figures you need for 3-4 masters in almost any faction. Maybe not *any* 3-4 masters, but you can get a broad pool pretty quickly.

Have you considered getting an additional device that you could dedicate strictly to Corgis?

I'm putting it in Lucius, Lilith, Zoraida, Titania - anywhere it can go. Lilith with her Sword o' Doom is next on my list!

My current obsession is two Autumn Knights and Lilitu, or Titania with her Lure, Lilitu and a Knight. I've put The Thorn, The Tooth, Lilitu and Lelu in several crews lately to abuse Lures and Pounce. It's super fun.

I love love love Lures. Even if you were planning to get your entire crew up to me, I'm still doing it in an order you didn't mean, and dictating where they go and, ideally, getting them there one at a time, rather than in a batch. I know you are prepared to bring your beaters up in my face and fight. But I don't think you're prepared for *1* model to be in the middle of my whole crew while the rest of your crew works on just getting there. If I do pounces right, that model can be dead before you even get your next one there.

Agreed. I'll take Lilitu's Lure and kit any day! Johan is the only merc I really consider a "must have" in Neverborn. He's a good model that can fix conditions and be copied by Doppleganger. He's usually considered part of the "Neverborn All-Stars" which is basically just Neverborn good stuff. Freikorp trappers have a lot of synergy with Changelings, because they can cheaply copy their shot. Lazarus is fun, as you've discovered. I also really want to try Performers with Widow Weaver (Paralyze, give 5 poison, do 5 damage).

Neverborn has Teddy, which is the iconic face of Malifaux. We win! Your first instinct is to hate Guild. That's a good one! Stay with it! And you know who hates the Guild the most? Neverborn! Dreamer is a fantastic model. I love his look, his lore, and his playstyle. I love the models he summons. Pretty much everything about him is awesome. Titania is Queen of the Fae. And she has a whole new queen/old queen storyline with Lilith, which also includes Nekima. Who are all awesome. However, Dreamer and Titania don't have a lot of overlap. Dreamer likes Nightmares, which Titania doesn't necessarily care about. Dreamer likes a lot of things that are core Neverborn, so he's a good starting point to get in to the faction if you really like him, but Titania comes from the other side. The upside is that if you get all you need for Dreamer and all you need for Titania, you're basically just a couple masters away from having everything.

Welcome! I use Pandora's avatar (well, the tentacle'd half) for the Mysterious Emissary. I also use the Pandora half as my Pandora. The only caveat is that, if you want to go that route, you'll have to get the books to make copies of the cards, or order them from Wargamevault.com, and there's going to be 10 or so cards per Emissary.

I'm so with you. I'm very close to doing two Autumn Knights, Lilitu, Lelu, a couple tots and BBS as a pounce-crazy grow-list bundle.