Sweet Tooth

Question for the group (I’m not sure I’ve seen this discussed elsewhere). With Home on the Range extending the area of deployment for Frontier models, how does that affect deployment zones like Flank and Wedge that have sharp points in the deployment area? For example, say you can deploy up to 6” from the deployment zone in Flank. From what I sketched out below, would you be able to deploy in the shaded areas?

Page 62 of the physical rulebook, third paragraph under 'Friendly, Enemy, & Control': "Every Ability, Action, and Trigger on a model's Stat Card and Attached Upgrades treats the use of "friendly" and "enemy" from its point of view."

I’m at GenCon. Can confirm it’s a rogue necromancy. Will be on the Black Friday sale.

I ran my first Basse game tonight and took Paul. He was doing work for me. He’s the only model in the crew that ignores friendly fire (IIRC), so I used him as a finisher. He took out Pere and Francois LaCroix after Jonathan and Basse softened them up. My crew was Basse, Bernadette, Jonathan + LLC, Paul, Pathfinder, Frontiersman x2. Up against an Ophelia crew directly from the core box plus some upgrades, so we played a 40ss game that was more learning focused for both of us.

There are certain schemes and ability interactions that look at a model’s cost (Such as Following Orders on Lucius’s keyword models). Also, since we can hire second (and third, or fourth!) masters into crews, they need to have a cost associated with them. Most masters cost 15 stones, but some like Lady Justice or Jakob Lynch have a different cost.

From pg 42 of the Rulebook, when hiring crews, your leader’s cost is considered to be 0. So in your example above, you’ve only used 35 stones. That said, I’ve found most people still bring around 7-9 models in a crew.

Great write up! Lady J is my favorite master (and my main since the start of Open Beta). It's important to note you can't blast off of friendly models. Domadores can hit the enemy and heal models next to them or you can simply heal another friendly model for 2. (See the 3.22 Rule book, pg 30, last sentence under Blasts) That was definitely a tough strat/scheme pool for Marshals. They're great in Turf since you do want to kill things. With those schemes I would definitely take Hold Up since DMs are fairly durable 5 cost minions. After that, consider Deliver for an easy first point or Dig for an easy second point (rewards you for killing things, which this crew wants to do). Power ritual is also a solid choice, but i'd consider adding the Pale Rider with the Lone Marshal to make that a much easier two points (Scales can drop the marker in your backfield while the riders head to the opposite corners & gun down anything in their way). Search is doable, but the Marshals don't have any action efficient methods to drop markers, so it feels rougher.

Agent 46 (Lucius' henchman) has analyze weakness for cheaper than bringing in a second master. He's also brutal with inhuman physiology (can't cheat against his attack actions) & mimic. I've just had good luck with the rifleman - his gun has an armor ignore trigger & he ignores friendly fire.

I find the models to be gorgeous. Since fluff-wise they’re Spanish resurrectionists that dance to make their necromancy work, the sculpts match that idea completely. And honestly, another sword/gun wielding person in a duster coat would be boring. Domadores (and Jury) add some much needed flair to the Keyword.

Game 3 of our grow league this week. We're at 50ss now! This week saw Lucius get shooty with Parker Barrows. Flank Deployment, with Plant Explosives. Schemes were Breakthrough (Parker), Power Ritual (Lucius), Vendetta (Lucius), Assassinate (Parker), & Dig their Graves. I brought: Lucius + 2ss The Scribe (0) Agent 46 + LLC (9+2) Pale Rider + LLC (11+2) Doppelganger (8) Changeling (4) Watcher (4+1) Rifleman (6+1) My opponent brought: Parker + 0ss Doc (0) Mad Dog (9) Sue (8) Midnight Stalker (8) Convict Gunslinger (8) Bandido x2 (10) Freikorps Scout (6+1) This was an epic bloodbath of a game. Was a ton of fun but did take 3.5-4 hours. There was a lot of learning going on for my opponent (only his 3rd game of M3E i think) and his deck was flipping rather poorly most of the night. Quick Rundown - After last week's murderfest v Nekima, I knew those s on Parker's crew would be painful, so I didn't bring Investigators or Alan. I also knew I needed some ranged options to ping the enemy as they drew closer to me. The Rifleman was a solid pick and having 46 copy his gun for a no-cheat shot is nasty. I also tried the Watcher OOK here for his Mv 7. It was great until he was shot off the board at range by a gunslinger before he could drop his bomb. The Changeling was the other schemer here. Stealth + Disguised shutting down Run and Gun is hilarious, but eventually the demon child was killed too. This was also my first time using Pale Rider. I think he definitely has his place when movement is needed. Doppel was able to mimic his gun for some early shots and then he rode off to the backfield to drop bombs/markers for scoring. To tally the kills: I lost the Changeling, the Watcher, Doppel, The Scribe, & Lucius My Opponent lost a Bandido (One-shot'd by 46), Sue (executed by the Rifleman), the Midnight Stalker (Killed by 46 and then again by the Scribe in a series of ridiculous flips), and the Gunslinger (second kill for 46) I ended up winning 7-6 at the end of 5 turns. Full points for Explosives, 2 for Power Ritual, 1 for Vendetta (Rifleman v Sue). My opponent had full point for Explosives, 1 for Breakthrough, & 1 for Assassinate (a hot deck turn 5 wiped out Lucius). Our group is super pumped for release next week!!

He’s definitely situational given the very different actions available to him. I’ve mostly given up on his gun and am trying to get use out of the Garrote and One More Question. Also, really happy to see other folks have opposite experiences with Lucius v Nekima than I had. I played my first game against Nekima last week and the Young Nephilim chewed through Alan and the investigators. The built in to their attack shut down the Elite models’ only defense and I was quickly out of models to retaliate with.

Playing in a growth type league this month (folks are free to change crews or not week to week, but mostly it's to get new folks familiar with the game). This week we were at 35ss. I ran Guild Lucius - Lucius + 2 stones The Scribe (0) Agent 46 (9) Alan Reid (8) Investigator (7) False Witness (5) Changeling (4) Up against Neverborn- Nekima + 2 stones Blood Hunter (0) Hayridden (9) Lilitu (7) Young Nephilim (7) BBS (6) Tot (4) Was corner deployment Turf War. I went for Harness the Leyline & Outflank, my opponent took Take Prisoner on False Witness & Search the Ruins. Had an early victory when Nekima turn 1 charged into my bubble of Scribe, Alan, & Lucius only to have 46 charge in and get 4 attacks on her between end of turn 1 and beginning of turn 2 (1 attack turn 1, 2 during his activation T2, 1 from Lucius commanding him), which killed Nekima. In the end it didn't matter much though since multiple nephilim grew up and I had 2 matures and another young curbstomp me. By end of turn 3 we called it for time. I had lost 46, the scribe, and the investigator by then and Alan was about to die. Talking through turns 4 & 5, we would have ended the game with Nekima winning 7 to 4. Definitely not a great matchup as the nephilim had multiple focus on most models by the end of T1, then the on the Young's attacks bypass Intimidating Authority on Alan & the Investigator. So the beating plus lack of any other defensive tech saw my crew bite the dust (After killing Nekima my hand was in sad shape). Then the mobility let my opponent go on to score all his schemes after removing my models from the table. I'm trying to learn from this game though since I want to get better with Lucius and against a threat like Nekima. Initial thoughts are to use more ranged attacks and have armor/more durable models to go up against all the beaters. Would love any other advice you all have to offer.

Remember Mimic cannot target Masters.

Great write up as always! Definitely agree more terrain will cut down on the brutalness of a gun line, or at least create more interactive play from them. Here’s the table I set up for my game today. It’ll be Lucius v someone.

Check the pics out here.

Didn’t realize that. Course now I need to go find her. Ill stand by the alt lawyer idea though. Need a third lawyer and more diversification in Lucius’ legal team.

Miss Grievance or Ms. Demeanor - an alt female Lucius or lawyer (since I need that third lawyer )

Follow up.. Mason mentioned if you take a henchman as a leader and they happen to have two keywords, then you have both keywords to hire from at no penalty.

This is what Mason said when I spoke with him over the weekend as well. He also said that the first master + totem are free and determine your keyword hiring, the additional master and their totem will cost you stones.

I played a game this weekend and proxy'd in these new Arcanist buddies against a Gremlin Brewmaster crew. I rather enjoyed the shenanigans, but do see these models as dependent on crew/strats & schemes. Played Symbols, Punish the weak, Dig their graves, Undercover entourage, search the ruins, recover evidence. Declared Faction: Arcanists Crew Name: Kaeris 50ss Leader: Kaeris - Cache:(4) Grab and Drop 1ss Malifaux Child 2ss Fitzsimmons 8ss Carlos Vasquez 9ss Stunt Double 1ss Practiced Production 1ss Cassandra 8ss Smoke and Mirrors 1ss Fire Golem 9ss Saboteur 4ss Saboteur 4ss I took Undercover on Cassandra & Search the ruins. The idea was to light everyone on fire turn 1 with the Golem's (0) at the edge of Kaeris's G&D aura so that the crew could fly towards the middle and drop their markers. Cassandra would go up the middle and take a few hits, leaving more markers with her Smoke & Mirrors trigger. Then the saboteur's would have their pick of targets near scheme markers. Carlos would be an extra burning anchor for the Golem to jump to in later turns as needed & could blow up any markers that were poorly placed or if I needed more burning on nearby friends/enemies. Fitz could also use his (0) to drop a marker on the opponent's side of the table once Kaeris lit them up. The saboteurs did well against models of similar beefiness (i.e. a slop hauler and a bayou gremlin) and I'd say I drew a card about half the time they attacked a model near a marker. The anti-cheating aura is cool, but I found the 3" range to be a tad limiting since neither myself nor my opponent was really cheating cards on low cost models that often. I think I only did 1 point of damage with it. The Fire Golem felt pretty tanky and my opponent chose not to go after him due to the damage mitigation, so he ended the game with Burning +7. Fitz was ok. He dropped a marker once with his (0). Cassandra copied his Arson once with Understudy. His 'protected by the union' aura didn't really come up since the Brewmaster crew was leaving more poison than damage with their attacks. But his Picket Line attack is dope. The MI 6 and built in positive flip is sweet and it's not hard at all to keep two other M&SU models nearby for that min 3 damage. I won the game 7-6 (3 from Undercover, 2 from Search, 2 from Symbols). It was a lot of fun playing with these new models and I can't wait to pick up the box at GenCon this week.

That's a great setup @Treehouse but I'm not sure it works that way because of the wording on Graves' SYTD. "Push..., then push.... This model may only target a friendly model with this Action once per Turn." Thinking about the setup though, if you switch Lilitu & DG in the pictures, then: 1. Graves pushes Lilitu but won't go BtB because of the DG in the way 2. Lilitu can lure Pandy & DG towards her. With Pandy's 4" walk, she should still have room between her & Lilitu after the lure, leaving room for the next push. 3. DG can then copy SYTD from Graves and push Pandy 6", then walk into cover. It won't push Pandy the full 12", but 10" is still great to get her upfield before activating.

Game 2 Pandora vs Sonnia His crew: Sonnia, Francisco, Peacekeeper, effigy, 2 death marshals, witchling stalker, & a watcher The pool: Ply, surround them (me), undercover entourage (me), vendetta (him), show of force (him), & something else Deployment: Standard, I deployed first My plan was to have Kade & Lilitu run down a flank aiming to drop a marker in one corner while Barbaros ran interference and crossed into the enemy deployment zone to score undercover entourage and drop a second marker in enemy territory. Dora was going to go toe-to-toe with Sonnia to keep her engaged. Turn 1: My opponent and I were slowing rolling the crews forward. Barbaros got himself out in front to put up Challenge and Iggy positioned himself so that he could Martyr for Dora as needed. Lilitu pulled the effigy forward so Dora could then swing up the field by mood swinging twice. By this point I think I managed to put mood swing on half of the opponent's crew between Dora, Iggy, & Emissary. (I had fun dictating his activations Turn 2) Dora walked herself into engagement with the Peacekeeper, Sonnia, Frank, and the effigy. That 3" engagement kept the opponent's crew massively tied down. Turn 2: Dora was able to ply, Incite once, then Inflicted twice on the 4 poor guild members draining my opponent's deck of a few 12's, 13's, and the RJ. Dora was eventually Grounded(?) (meaning she would have to discard 2 cards for a cast action or it failed) until the end of her next activation. Barbaros was targeted for Vendetta and some focused attacks from the rest of the enemy crew had me stoning to prevent damage on him. One of the enemy models walked up and ply'd Barbaros as well, making us even that turn. Lil & Kade were walking for the back field with a death marshall heading off to meet them. The Emissary wandered up the field and summoned a changeling off a marker dropped by my effigy. The PK walked around the engagement area into the center of the board for Show of Force. Turn 3: Frank did his Enfrentate a Mi! on Dora, allowing him to place frank on the other side of Dora and push all his buddies away. He then ply'd Dora. The Emissary was able to walk within range and attack Frank to remove the Intel condition. The changeling was able to blink to Dora, ply Frank and then attack him with Dora's Self Loathing. Barbaros was getting smacked around as the target of Vendetta, so I ran him around the outside of the enemy bubble only to be blown up by some ranged Sonnia casting action. This scored 3 points for the enemy's Vendetta and denied my Undercover Entourage points. I don't remember what Lilitu did (probably died from the PK) but Kade kept walking for the backfield and met the Death Marshall. Dora (being the MVP of this game) was able to Ply, Incite twice (killing the brutal effigy and pushing 8" toward the enemy table corner), walked once and dropped a marker for my second point for Surround Them. The PK scored Show of Force again that turn. There was a lot of Plying going on, but the enemy ended the turn with one more model with the Intel condition than me. The game ended here. Results: Neverborn 2 (Surround Them) vs Guild 6 (1 Ply, 3 Vendetta, 2 Show of Force) This felt like a much better game than the prior matchup. I was able to use Dora as an effective tarpit and then she scored a last minute point without removing that Grounded condition. Dora did struggle to attack a single model head-on in that bunched up group since the damage tracks were low/models were difficult to attack (PK is armor +2 and Hard to Wound, Sonnia had a wp of like 9), so Inflict was the way to go. I realized that Barbaros incites a deep-seated loathing from every opponent I play, so planning to use him for an end of game scheme is a bad idea since he'll likely die before then. The Emissary was like a tool bag in this game, removing a condition and summoning a changeling. Even Sonnia wasn't that scary once I had her engaged. All in, I had fun this game. :D I'll post game 3 tomorrow. (Preview: It was my best game of the tourney)

@chryspainthemum I agree the lures would have been helpful, but I deployed first and had lilitu & kade off to one side to be their own killy/lurey bubble. Because of the terrain (a building), they were separated from the rest of the group for the first turn. They did lure a gremlin out to be killed by barbaros at least once, possibly twice, but with how quickly my own models were being pinged down by the gremlins we were even on models with the shed blood condition. I was hesitant to drop Pandora into the swarm even with all her protection in Turn 2 after losing my control hand and seeing how often/easily the gremlins were passing duels by bayou two carding. My tactics got better in Game 2 and I did use Inflict to max effect.

Apologies for moving at the pace of an Ice Golem with this followup @INXVI. I've been drowning in work and life seems to be filled with everything but Malifaux these days :( I've finally got some time to sit down and put thoughts on the page so bear with me here. I'm not great at battle reports (yet), so this will be more game highlights than anything else. The Crew I ended up taking was: 50 SS Neverborn Crew - Melee 'DoraPandora + 5 Pool - The Box Opens (2) - Fears Given Form (1) - Aether Connection (1) Barbaros (10) Mysterious Emissary (10) - Conflux of Sorrow (0) Lilitu (7)Baby Kade (6)- Thousand Faces (1)Iggy (5) - Malifaux Provides (1) Mysterious Effigy (4) Game 1 Pandora vs Somer His Crew: Somer, Trixie, 2 slop haulers, 2 of Somer's skeeters, and 8 bayou gremlins. Pool: Public Execution, Eliminate the Leadership (both), Vendetta (me), Set Up (him), 2 others that we didn't pick Deployment: Close. I deployed at the close line, the opponent setup his crew along the 6" line. This was not a great start to my day. The opponent fielded 14 models at the start of the game compared to my 7. This was also my first game against gremlins and I'm told it was an odd list for the opponent to bring. Turn 1: The opponent won initiative and immediately dropped a skeeter into the center of my poorly clustered group of Pandora, Iggy, the effigy, and Barbaros. Since Iggy was the closest and immediately engaged, I lost my chance to have him go after Trixie for Vendetta. Pandora and Barbaros moved up the field in an attempt to go after Somer but were taking numerous shots from the bayou gremlins. After a certain point I started pushing Pandora away in an attempt to keep her alive. The rest of my crew was flanking the sides of the board, but not accomplishing much. Turn 2: First activation, Somer targets Pandora and attempts to have us discard our hands. I denied the first attempt but couldn't stop the second. So we played turn 2 with no cards in hand while nearly every gremlin could bayou two card and go reckless. Pandora eventually died that turn, which scored 3 points for the opponent's Eliminate the Leadership. Barbaros was barely hanging on to life, but managed to kill a gremlin, so we stayed neutral for Public Execution. Turn 3: The rest of my crew was massacred against a gremlin gunline (never expected to see that happen) and Trixie got cozy with Barbaros to drop a few scheme markers, letting the opponent score for Set Up. End of the game it was Neverborn 0 - Gremlins 7 (1 for Public, 3 for Set Up, 3 for Eliminate) Overall, not a great match up for me. My biggest takeaway from this game is that a dedicated assault (however obnoxious it was) will bring down anyone. And to be fair, my opponent went on to win third place in the tourney (out of 16 folks). I was clearly up against a skilled player. I'll be back tomorrow to post Game 2 & 3! Would love any feedback or thoughts on how to counter a Gremlin swarm. Thanks!! :D

@INXVI How do you play the Emissary? Do you tend to position him more forward as a beater, more mid-field as a support model that can summon and sometimes hit things, or in the rear as full support? Given the triggers on his attack and the ability to copy other abilities (from the Conflux upgrade) it feels like I should be positioning him forward/mid-field to get the most value. Thoughts?