Mycellanious

Moderate, since Red Joker damage counts as Severe damage and Blasts do one step lower. Damage Modifiers do not carry over onto Blasts, so no +1 from Red Joker, Crit Strike, etc.

Does Neverborn even have models that can drop Scheme Markers?

4-D Malifaux. ... it was two games we'd had

Which was preceeded by 2 Mature Nephilim running into my deployment zone to kill all my Frontiersmen

Not a single one! Also definitely dont look at my most played masters...

Fortunately no masters in the game are capable of that in Flank deployment

8 Their biggest trick is probably situational min 3 on a 12" range. With Tools for the Job they can guarantee the Crow and punish model your opponent Activates early. The problem with them is that they don't ignore Ice Pillars so your opponent is always going to have Cover. Furthermore, they have From the Shadows, but are suuper squishy so they either die Turn 1 or dont use FtS. Finally Grim Feast is an absolutely abysmal bonus action for December models. It's simply irrelevant, making them a 2 AP model at a stat disadvantage because of Cover, hitting Min damage because of Cover, with a 0" engagement range, no movement tricks, and no scheme marker shenanigans.

What I want to know, is does "ignore vertical distance" mean you can Charge up/through terrain?

they are ok. They seem pretty card intensive for the crew, which doesn't really have card draw. Their stats are REALLY unimpressive

He's very tanky in some situations, and very squishy in others. I bring 9 stones, with the intention of using all of them to reduce damage for Reichart and Basse. He is really good at "reducing damage" by maximizing his Disguised and 2" reach. Follow my Path helps a lot with that. He just kind of crumples to models with Min 3 and 2" reach tho. The best thing about him is definitely Bring It. That combined with Caught in the Quicksand can seriously misposition models.

I've been using a frontline of Basse, Reichart, and the Bellhop Porter supported by 2-3 Frontiersmen and it's pretty good!

Recently I've been playing Basse and I've found the Frontiersmen to be pretty good! They perform well for me as an Overwatch mechanic. Their ideal place is 6 in behind Basse and Reichart. When an enemy attacks Basse, pitch 2 cards and punish them for it. Using them in this way means I dont need to stone for cards because I only care about the number of cards in my hand, not their quality, and primarily use them for reduction. Home on the Range means that they can spend Turn 1 Concentrating, then Interacting. Dropping those random Scheme Markers allows Basse to snag a Joker you incidentally flip, or refill your hand so you can pitch more cards for the Frontiersman. They are geneting more Actions for themselves later, which is pretty efficient. Make sure they end their Activation with a Focus. Their innate positive gets around friendly fire, and the Focus allows them to get around their own Dust Clouds, if they need to. They are also great because they don't care when in the Turn they Activate. You can Activate them early to create Severe Terrain for Basse, you can Activate them in the middle after Basse has loaded something with Injured and thrown them into the open, or you can Activate them last and use Follow My Path to negate Friendly Fire, meaning they don't suffer the same problems other Projectile models do for Activating after something has already Charged in. Frontier is a Keyword I think that likes playing a Front-to-Back game. Frontiersmen are strikingly resilent to guns, whichs helps a lot in that regard. Sure, they are super weak to mobile mele units, but I think it's ok that they have a weakness.

I had a recent game with a pool where she was quite useful. I'd played her I think 3 times before that, and always wished I'd taken something else, but this time was different! I played Basse into: Wedge - Symbols Leave Your Mark, Assassinate, Research Mission, Hidden Martyrs, Sabotage My opponent played Reva So Jessie isn't great at Symbols, since isnt fast enough to take them and literally is incapable of defending them because she lacks an engagement range. However, she seems to favor Wedge deployment, since she only has to walk once in order to reach the centerline with Archeological Dig. On Turn 2 she removed my opponent's scheme marker, which allowed me to score LYM, and I placed the Scrap on the centerline which scored me Research Mission. She has a good cost for Hidden Martyrs, my opponent said he didnt attack her because he was worried about that, and she is useful for denying sabotage

Title

I think that if you lose initiative Turn 1 you just play a very different Turn 1. There really isn't any reason you need to rush models up the board Turn 1, especially cheap models. You can't score Turn 1, you don't need to score Turn 2 because you have 3 and 4 to score your Schemes, and if you play defensive and forgo strat Turn 2 then your opponent probably isn't scoring it either so you are on an even playing field, at least for this GG. It's totally acceptable to durtle for a turn and wait for a better opportunity.

On the flip side however it can feel real bad to have to jump through hoops for a mediocre effect, where a simpler model just gets that effect. It can feel good sometimes too. I think pre-ES Basse is a good example of the first, where you have like 3-4 Minion that need to use their Bonus Actions to Push a model the distance equivalent to a Walk, and then there are models that just have Nimble. For the positive example of that, I would put EVS or Lucius. They jump through hoops to draw 10 cards a turn, but it feels awesome doing it, as opposed to something like Kitty which just draws 4.

Sabateurs and Fitzsimmons totally have Shockwave attacks they definitely get to use. Plus Snow Storm, and Angelica who have shockwaves that arent garbage and are models that definitely dont want to be doing anything else. And finally there's Raspy who is a completely valid master and is taken OOK all the time.

I don't even think we are arguing about it. It's just and example of Toni working in a crew without her keyword.

You could also just take a Miner into your Mei Crew since Pit Traps and Spark's Aura stack. Plus you have cheaper Vent Steam Models

Use Bring In to move a model into Vent Steam and Scrapyard Mines so it takes 3 Hazardous damage, Inj +1, Toni punches it, and Bombs in your Belly for an extra 1. so like 6-7 damage Inj 1 from one stat 7 Action edit: 4 hazardous so 7-8 dmg

I have heard that Toni is better in a Mei crew than her own crew but I havent tried it yet

I'm pretty sure the answer to that question is, taking either path would be a good solution.

Ok but why would you ever declare Knock Aside when you could instead say the words, "Unintelligible Screaming"

Seconded for the Rattler. It always punches above its weight class for me

Sure but I think if you plan around that its super good! I think giving your whole crew better-than-incorporeal for their whole activation is worth a bit more than 5 stones lol. As it is, it really helps on some of those congested Vassal maps.