thatlatinspeakingguy

Valedictorian as a leader, then obviously the three students. Then Philip and Nanny, Dead Doxy, Nurse and 5 ss. Nurse is pretty good in any crew due to the Tools for the Job, healing and handing out Focus to your main beater. Dead Doxy brings some utility with her push and you can use her aura to make models Stunned with your students easily or to enhance effectiviness of Nanny's One More Question!

it's a shame that these inspiring profiles got so uninspired sculpts...

this thread is meant to be a compendium of (not mine, yours) knowledge on "how I beat ES crews except Cadmus" (I leave Cadmus out because currently a) you don't beat them, you only narrow the margin of your loss, and more seriously b) Pergli has a great thread on that). So, tell me everything you know about particular keywords' weaknesses that can be exploited and lynchpin models that need to be eliminated when playing against one of seven ES non-Cadmus crews.

Catalan "two free Mad Dog shots each turn" Brawler looks pretty good to me. Strong addition to Von Schill. I am also going to test him in Parker crew with Emissary (Regen for him to compensate for Price for Progress and companion for Mad Dog + you can get that friendly marker where you need it). In ideal world you can have two consecutive activations of two Fast models making 9 attacks in total (3 Brawler, 6 Mad Dog).

...and then Molly activates Necrotic Machine and makes them draw those cards back

no one expects the spanish inquisition!

I know that, because that's what Adran already said. I was more interested in the specifics: which Ancestors do you usually kill and by which models, as most of them are sturdy and require some AP to be taken down.

that's interesting, never heard of it before. How it is usually executed?

you didn't get the point. Zombies are there to hold reliquaries and be replaced.

Another difference between Lo's is that RR Lo does not need to rely on Gokudos, as he can bring a Zombie generator, like Carrion Emissary.

exactly. back then you were asking yourself "what is the maximum number of activations I can get for 12 ss that are left after hiring my best stuff?"

there was a lot of pressure on the meta coming from summoners who were aiming at out-activating you, so these few competitive non-summoners had to take a bunch of cheap models to mitigate that, but it didn't translate into great variety of playable cheap models, at least not on the competitive level of play in the pre-Broken Promises meta (for me the least fun times of M2E). Not to mention that these competitive non-summoners often had more than one copy of their cheap totem (Shenlong, Levi, Collodi). So yeah, cheap models were a serious consideration in M2E, but they were valuable mainly as "pass tokens with stats" (except some really broken ones).

The thing with Anna and Misaki is that Anna can prevent placement in a certain area, but Misaki will easily outmanouver her at some point. Anna synergizes well with Reva, so even if her aura becomes less relevant, she can still do many usefull things, like detonate candles or tank (she's really hard to take down with Reva's healing), and Shieldbearers can always push her 6" to lock another marker. In Urami things are a bit different, as Anna needs to rely entirely on herself. I did use Anna with Urami against Mei Feng in Flank Deployment and it worked out splendidly well, granting me some massive victory, but a) it was Flank, so Anna's low speed wasn't that problematic, and b) Mei and her scrap markers are a bit more predictable than Shadow markers, so it was easier to respond to them.

if your friends are ok with homebrewed versions of official models, then you can apply all these changes and see if they still get wrecked by you. but I can hardly imagine anyone except highly casual player who would accept such a proposal. could you maybe play another master against them and keep Levi for experienced players?

Another thing to consider: Toshiro can summon Ashigaru who prevent attacks from Charges to happen.

Just from top of my head: Anna Lovelace can shut down Viktorias' placement and Misaki's unburying (and she's a good addition to Reva anyway). Carrion Emissary can slow them down a bit with coffins (you can place a coffin on top of Misaki's shadow marker). Anyway, it's not easy for Reva to survive hard pressure.

what do you mean by "tempo"? just curious.

this game is completely broken at smaller points. masters with huge damage output can wipe out enemy crew really fast. summoners have obvious advantage. this format is ok if one person is a newbie and the other adjusts his crew for a balanced game.

My proposals regarding Rasputina: * Change or expand her leader Ability with one of the following: if an Ice Pillar is removed by an enemy action, the enemy suffers 2 irreducible damage; or enemy models need to disard a card as an additional cost of removing Ice Pillar with their actions; or after deployment, create 2 ice pillars anywhere on your half of the table. * Change her bonus action. Currently it's one of the worst bonus actions printed on a master. Why it removes Ice Pillar is beyond my comprehension. I propose one of the following changes: make it resisted by Mv, so it can be used as a follow up after shockwaves; or remove the "remove Ice Pillar" clause. As for the others, I think that Snow Storm should be able to command himself. December Acolytes needs some defensive tech. In beta they had an ability which granted them cover if they were near terrain - it would be a small buff, but it will be probably enough to let them see the start of turn 2 if deployed from the shadows.

that's an interesting idea. it reminds me of Themes in Bushido (basically: bonuses for your crew if you follow certain hiring restrictions).

my main beef with him is that he cannot target himself with his bonus action being very slow by himself (and if you use one of his actions to reposition your crew then he's even more behind). plus, his bonus action works on a very limited pool of models. These are good points. Opposing crew limits his viability even further. Miners are still very good models, I just don't like them aesthetically as they lack any personality.

I played several (5+) games with Rasputina as I really like her aesthetically (not an Arc player). I am not going to sell you on her (as I also think she sucks), but what I have learned from these games is the following: - first and foremost, don't think that you have to use Winter's Strike every activation. I barely do that after turn one, to be honest. Raspy's best attack is Freeze Over and you should look for an opportunity (or more likely: create it) to use it as often as possible. If you think of her in this way, she stops taxing your hand too much, as she needs 5's to work and occasionaly a card to discard. Freeze Over is especially great if you manage to position Ice Gamin properly. - there were two ways I've composed my lists so far: Ice Golem focused lists and "loose" lists. Once I figured out I don't need to use my good cards for Raspy, I started to build the crew to support Ice Golem and invest my cards into him. I think he's a great beater with tremendous damage track, but as a model he's good only if certain schemes are in the pool, like Claim Jump, Leave Your Mark, Research Mission. Other downside of playing Ice Golem is that you need to take suboptimal models to support (i.e. speed up) him - Snow Storm or December Acolyte. Loose lists are lists which are based on loose synergies between models, which operate more independently from each other. I like Cassandra in them and Blessed with Soulstone Cache. - Only in-keyword models which are good are imho Blessed, Silent One (always with Magical Training) and Ice Gamin. Ice Golem is situationally good. Snow Storm and Acolytes are imo under the curve. I haven't tried Dancers and Hoarcats. The former seem weak and the latter are among the worst and most pointless models I have ever seen. - OOK&Versatiles I like are Cassandra and Mechanical Rider. They're both mobile and help you with schemes. Rider is also better than Snow Storm in delivering Rasputina where she's meant to be.

it was not intended that way and makes absolutely no sense from the point of view of balance and realism. the mess with ricochet trigger ruling is, well, a ricochet of a ruling on the word "another" in one of Nekima's actions. they answered in a way that is applicable to every action with "another model" in its description. my impression is that they haven't looked at every instance of "another model" phrase being used in a sentence and were not aware of the implications of their ruling for other triggers, like Ricochet.

Poor man's Prospector 😁

Hamelin can be played in a lot of ways, but I agree with others that Midnight Stalker is probably the best versatile for Hamelin (and, in fact, for any master). He comes with Malifaux Child in box, whom I personally don't use, but as Zebo pointed out he can be paired with Prospectors for more card draw. These are also very useful versatiles and as such they should be second on your purchase list. Personally, I like Pride with Hamelin, but it may not be easy to purchase him outside Crossroads 7 box. Some people like Hans in this crew, as he can slow down enemy beaters.