Jam Warrior

With some masters, all their upgrades seem amazing and you can't pick 3.  With Lucius, I ended up taking none in a game last night and didn't miss them.  Talking through Lucius' upgrades mainly to try and organise my own thoughts but also keen to hear other opinions.

Starting with his personal ones.

- Suprisingly Loyal.  An obvious take if you want some sweet mimic action.  The defensive trigger is at least achievable now but still not great.  Likely to be swapped out via Terracotta Warrior if taken.

- Secret Assets.  Nice but expensive, both in purchasing and use.  But more importantly competes with Lucius' new (0) to allow people to interact while engaged, which given the schemes one usually goes for with Lucius is likely to be the preferable option.

- Secret Objectives.  Swap scheme markers for melee attacks?  Nah.  Lucius has people to do that kind of thing for him,

- Legalese.  The scheme marker flipping one is unlikely to be useful due to the lack of end game scoring schemes in GG.  The stealing enemy auras/pulses is highly situational but great in those situations.  A good choice to Terracotta Warrior in when you know what you are facing.

- Useless Duplications. Seems a little redundant to give Lucius the ability to discard a second card to give attackers a negative when he has one already baked in.  Unless you suspect Assassination or a ranged heavy opposition against your mimic heavy crew, probably not worthwhile.

- Watch My Back.  Expensive.  Value depends heavily on your investment in Guardsmen who don't already have companion.  And even then liable to lead you to being out activated.  I've never been tempted.

So not a great crop.  Certainly no 'must takes' beyond Surprisingly Loyal if your crew is heading that way.  How about the general Guild ones?

- Curfew.  Probably the best choice if you intend to concentrate on non killing schemes, as despite Lucius' newly discovered healing powers I often still find myself short on figures toward the end of the game.  

- Dampening field.  Highly situational.  A possible Terracotta swap in.

- Badge of Office.  Unless you're expecting Assassination, Lucius is probably already survivable enough.

- Vengeance bullet.  No good unless you invested in Secret Assets.  Not a bad choice if you did.

- Plant Evidence.  End game scoring schemes are lacking.  Pass.

- Expert Sleuth.  +2 to initiative is nice... but I've often got a Doppelganger with me.

- The Thalarian Stone. #fart noises#

So what do you reckon?  What do you tend to take with him?  I'm still relatively new to the game so am very open to some (all) of my assessments being way off!

On the reverse side, what do you like to put down as your FFM patsy?  Again from my limited experience I'm quite keen on a Death Marshal.  Nobody likes to see the pine box making a beeline for their master/hench.  You can afford a couple to make it less obvious who to stop if they have a delaying plan.  And as a last gasp they'll drop a scheme marker for you when they go.

On 16/03/2017 at 11:45 AM, Jam Warrior said:

Lucius + Beckoner + Dashel + 2x Riflemen

The ability of focused riflemen to melt face is well proven but they can have issues getting targets once opponents get wise.  I'm hoping that the new (to me) idea of throwing in a Beckoner with their lovely 18" range, Wk + 4" lure will get the enemy to wander out of combat and into the open nicely for me.  As a bonus I can issue commands via Lucius and do both the luring and the shooting in the same activation if needed before they get to respond.

Well it wasn't exactly the best test as it was my first time playing Ressers and Nico steam rolled me with endless waves, but I think the Beckoner is too expensive at 7 stones for that role in general use, useful though it was.

I reckon it'd be a great in an Assassinate set up however.

As for your constantly shooting everyone to death, check out the two stickied terrain threads at the top of the general Malifaux discussion board:

http://themostexcellentandawesomeforumever-wyrd.com/forum/245-malifaux-discussion/

Chances are you don't have enough.

Lucius + Beckoner + Dashel + 2x Riflemen

The ability of focused riflemen to melt face is well proven but they can have issues getting targets once opponents get wise.  I'm hoping that the new (to me) idea of throwing in a Beckoner with their lovely 18" range, Wk + 4" lure will get the enemy to wander out of combat and into the open nicely for me.  As a bonus I can issue commands via Lucius and do both the luring and the shooting in the same activation if needed before they get to respond.

On 23/01/2017 at 7:46 PM, Cadaverousbirth said:

Witchling Thralls. Oh my god these guys are beasts, going over 1000MPH with Lucius. Extra "free" actions (still have to flip a card but always passes Lucius' horror duels), a great Ml attack with auto-heals OR auto card draining depending (side note: combined with Austringers this will eliminate your opponents hand very quickly) AND an excellent Ca with blasts that wont randomize. Combined with their zero action to reposition to friendly models makes them amazingly mobile with a huge threat range. Hunting Party in the pool? Tell your opponent "good luck" as you ram two of these bad boys down their throat, but do it in a nice way and always with a smile. I haven't tried them out with McCabe yet but I assume there will be similar results there.

Late reply, but Hunting Party requires kills made by Henchmen or Enforcers, and a Thrall is a Minion.

I love red tape now it has a functional duration as it tends to cover almost my entire crew.  You can use it to really neuter a big enemy beater.

I don't think enough has been said for their longevity.  High defences.  Inbuilt ability to discard to give the attacker a .  Ability to get hard to wound.  Throw a couple of the mimic upgrades around via Lucius or a Doppelganger and you can also get another discard for  attack and make them hard to shoot due to randomisation as well.

When considering Lucius and Riflemen, remember that you can freely shoot into a combat that includes a friendly Doppelganger. 

Wishlisting, I'd be over the moon to have a chance to get my hands on Puppet Wars Lucius.  He's one rare little guy!

Ah, which came to no firm conclusion I see.  Here's hoping for an FAQ then.

Lucius Issue Command:  'Target friendly minion model which has not been targeted by this action this turn...'

Malifaux Child Just Like You: 'Take one of this crew's leader's Ca actions...'

Can they both issue commands to the same guy on the same turn?

My interpretation is no.  Even if the 'this action' on Issue Command was referring to the specific instance on Lucius' card rather than all actions sharing the same name, Just Like You still says you are using the leader's action.  But wanted to see what others think as I'm not 100%.

I just noticed that the Guild Pathfinder and his traps are dual faction 10T.  What's the logic there?  There doesn't seem to be a fluff reason I can see.  Not complaining, just a bit confused.

They've been pulled from the sale.  The sale line up announcement was from before the mis-scaled horse complaints grew loud enough that they had to address the error.

It stops the model in question doing anything else.

Quote

It may not take any further Actions, resolve any of its Triggers which have not happened yet (even if they were declared), or do anything else that happens during its Activation.

Fees is not something the model does.  It is something a condition does to the model.

I'm assuming she's a bit too small to match up to the ogre like proportions of Dashel.  That and the Guild Sergeant actually has an attack using an axe unlike Dashel who apparently just carries his meat cleaver around for show.  Then again the proper Guild Sergeant figures aren't modelled with an axe!

It's all a bit of a mess.

A Changeling is standing within 3" of a friendly Clockwork Trap.

An enemy pushes to within 2" of the Changeling.

(1) Ignoring his own Surprise! ability, can the Changeling now use the Trapping Jaw attack action from the Clockwork Trap as 'This attack may be made against enemy models which end a move, push, or placement within range after resolving the current Action.'

(2) If he can, can he also use Surprise! and so attack twice?

I can't see why not, but then by my reading of the rules I would have ruled opposite to the FAQ on the Changeling engagement range so I doubt myself!

So you're suggesting you'd be able to upgrade swap it back in once it was discarded to get around the Rare 1 limit?  I suppose so.

1 hour ago, 4thstringer said:

6.  curfew multiple turns, without the stone cost. 

I don't get it.

Good point!  I feel better that what I was doing was at least in the realms of possibility.

Double negatives being a bit excessive, but turning a single positive into a negative so they can't cheat is pretty powerful.

Dang, thought as much. Sadly my mental version of the ability didn't include the 'When you are targeted...' bit so I was doing it at will.  Only realised my error when questioned on it.

I need to make multiple apologies to people.

Can a Lawyer/Lucius use Higher Authority multiple times on the same attack to discard multiple cards for multiple ?

Multiple.

Nah, Blood is WP5 .  Ashes is 6 but you can't cast fees on masters.

Viktoria of Blood is always a nice target.

The ARBBL gaming group meet Tuesday evenings at Andover Scout Hut and we've been getting heavily into Malifaux in recent months.

More players always welcome and we're more than happy to do intro games for new players.  Best place to contact us is our forum:

http://www.arbbl.com/forum/index.php