Cuilion

I had another game in the meantime against Parker 2. I altered the list a bit and brought Gluttony and Barbaros instead of Envy and the Catalan Brawler. Reason was that armour is not as good against Mad Dog and I hope to punish the many scheme marker drops with Gluttony. Due to time reasons we were not able to finish. It was a close game that would have ended with a draw or a close victory for one side. Major insights: The crossroads are extremely killy. I drew Parker into the bubble with Bring it and killed him within 2 turns. Crossroads are good at scoring and dominating the middle. They really struggle on the sides of the board and with denying points. I could use some advice how to work around that. My first idea was to buy a master like Zipp 2 or Tara 1 fort more mobility but guess what - Masters are not allowed in Henchman Crews. Learned something new. Midnight Stalker seems not the right choice since he is only fast on the other half of the table and therefore a scorer, not a denier. Prospectors could work to deny scheme markers but they are not fast and not very durable. Another approach would be to use Envy and/or Catalan Rifleman to shoot anything in my half but usually opponents should be able to work around that with movement/terrain. Metallurgist with Grenades is another option to burn markers but I feel like that is not enough reson to bring her. My fav idea so far is to bring the ancient construct instead of the brawler so I can toss anyone in the crew towards an enemy scheme runner. Also the Card Discard from Take the hit synergizes well with my Yannik approach. Thougts? Better ideas?

I had a first game which was very promising. I played Pride, Wrath, Envy, Sloth, Effigy with upgrade, Yannik Waller, Catalan Brawler and Malifaux Child. Opponent played Shenlong Teacher Title with his Totems, Sensei Yu, Fuhatsu, 2 Wandering, 1 Low River, 1 High River Monk. High River and Fuhatsu with Hard to Kill Upgrade. Strat was covert operation with standard deployment, I took Public Demonstration and leave the mark, he took Spread them out and Set the trap. I ended up winning 7:5 while only leaving 1 Wandering River Monk and Sensei Yu (because I needed him for the scheme) alive. The synergies feel super strong. I placed a lot of scheme markers the first 2 turns and used them for Yannicks Aura - the card draw gave me a great hand, many high crows and other high cards. All the healing and protection from the Brawler made this a sturdy crew, I only lost the child in round 4. Abusing Sloths healing aura is incredibly strong. In 2 subsequent turns I was able to put sin tokens on 3 models with democratic elections and repeating the same with the Malifaux child. 6 Sin Tokens for 2 fairly low cards! The child synergizes so well. I used it to copy the Effigies heal and Yanniks elections, never needed it for destructive performance but still this is another great option. Another thing the crossroads really benefit from is being able to use Focus for simple duels now. They usually have more Focus than they need and using it for destructive performance allows to fish for tomes and reducing the amount of cards needed for cheating. The one thing I struggled with was denying points. With 2 Wandering River Monks and Spread them out I did not feel like having any chance to deny this. Set the trap I also did not see a way to avoid since I got only the emmissaries weary road to move models out of combat and no marker removal (did not have gluttony). The main reason he did not score the second point was that he only had 2 models left and I had tons of healing. The lack of movement and movement tricks (no skill to move enemy models) is a weakness. I might end up having to play them very killy. As for the list: Pride did not do much actively but his auras are dope. With his 3rd AP he can help scoring in this slow crew. Wraths bring it was super important. It is a threat and it helped me murdering the high river monk early. The fact that you force the opponent to trigger his aura when punching you with this skill makes Bring It even stronger. Sloth aura is nuts with this crew, he mostly just stood around and did destructive performance. Envy was indeed very strong. Concealment does not hurt, his quick action can be used with Yanniks aura and being able to end conditions on targets is strong (Shenlong with tons of distracted). Brawler was a great bodyguard, has a decent punch if needed and helps the card engine. Yannik was just great. Democratic elections is so strong in this crew, both for ping damage and healing your own models and also for triggering Sloths aura when healing enemy models. Effigy was solid and you can use accomplice with Yanniks aura. Emmissary later was a big help with easier heal and weary road helped a lot with scoring. Accomplice upgrade on the crossroads is also very strong. You can for example chain 2 Bring its with destructive performances right after before the opponent can react. Lastly I loved the child. It is insignificant and even with the -2 penalty you do not need crazy high cards for healing, elections and destructive performance. I think I will experiment much more in the future with slight variants of this approach to see how this works in different matchups. Denying scoring could remain an issue.

Thanks for all the feedback! @SEVno worries about replying with a different approach, I am thankful for every single take on that crew since there hasn't been much talk about them in the past months. I still do not get though why Envy is an auto-include. For 2 points less I can get a Catalan Rifleman who has the same damage track, smaller base, bigger range. With ignoring friendly fire he nearly equals the + that envy has, also he generates scheme markers and punishes enemy charges. Sure he is much more squishy, but there are ways to work around that. @Azahulthanks for the feedback on Greed! I still feel like this is situational. Not every Master/Henchman wants to enagage with several Crossroads. And even those who would might refrain when knowing what awaits them. I will def consider Greed when I am facing a master who wants to beat the s*** out of me but I feel in other matchups she would do nothing. As for Envy same question as above, what makes so Envy so good for you? How do you approach scheming with the C7? Apart from the Midnight Stalker I do not see many options that wanna leave the bubble. How much do you stay in bubble or do you have positive experiences with spreading out a bit? Discussing with a friend a few days ago we found a fun way to make more use of Sloths aura. The effigy/emmissary heal can target enemies and it is a simple duel - very easy to get off. Also Yanniks Democratic elections can trigger it. In fact you could choose the same enemy model to both heal and suffer 1 damage (or multiple if in range). Taking this even further the Malifaux Child could do the action again generating a massive amount of Sin Tokens if you can get enough enemy models into both Yanniks and Childs aura. So let's say you can get 3 enemy models into the aura we are talking 6 sin tokens for a 5 and a 7 without the opponent being able to do anything. Child could even start a first destructive performance after (triggering a potential second with a tome) before the enemy can do anything to escape. Much potential with low cards. Not easy to setup of course since affected models have to be below max health and within the aura.

This most notorious band since the Blues Brothers have been my 3rd crew and back then (short after 3rd edition was released), being a total beginner, I struggled a lot with them. I tried several times to field all 7 of them and got my butt kicked each time. I accepted meanwhile that playing all 7 of them is not a good idea. Also, in the meantime we got more versatile models. So I wanna make a new effort in playing a Pride-led crew with much more use of versatiles. I'll post my initial thoughts below but all of that is theory-faux, so any real experience from you folks would be much appreciated. The Crossroads 7: Pride is the leader obviously. I feel like I should always take Sloth and Wrath - Sloth because all his actions are good and he punishes healing, Wrath because he punishes enemy damage and Bring it is so good to draw enemies in. Gluttony and Lust seem situational to me, depending if I expect a lot of markers/card draw from the opponent (while I doubt that Lusts 6" are enough to really punish card draw). I am not very attracted by Envy, if I really want ranged damage it seems like I could do better going versatile or OOK. Greed has 2 interesting actions with Guitar Bash giving a sin token without a suit needed but 0" engagement sucks and Unchecked Avarice which requires some setup; so still I feel she is not worth it. In general, I feel like I want to spend all my Crows (plus soulstones) on Pride, Wrath and Sloth, so I am not sure how much use I can get out of any additional crossroad model. Catalan models: I am very tempted to hire all 4 . The brawler can protect the crossroads model, Rifleman give some ranged and produce free scheme markers and Yannik enables the card draw machine - with the Crossroads being hungry for those high crows that seems like an excellent option. Malifaux Child: 3 points to have another Destructive Performance? Yes please! I can potentially cause 6 damage on each model with 2 sin tokens with investing a 8 of tomes and another 6. Especially great, if I only bring 3 crossroads models. Johann Creedy: Good beater, I like that he can make Sloth stronger by removing the Slow from his heal, also Showboating supports card cicle to fish for those Crows. But is that worth 7 stones? Midnight Stalker: Good for the known reasons, also has Showboating. Barbaros: Alternative to the Catalan Brawler. Another Bring it would be great but I think the downsides are that he needs Crows for his defensive trigger (same with Brawler) and that I will need all my soulstones for the crossroads. Also does not synergize with Yannik. Hans: Ranged tech piece, I do not see much specific benefits for the crew. Prospector: More soulstones? Yes plz! Also Malifaux mining law can synergize well with all the Catalan scheme markers (if I do not remove them). Out of keyword: Only had a quick look, maybe Freikorps Engineer and/or Scavenger could support the card draw engine but I doubt it is worth the 7 stones. Upgrades: Effigy of Fate seems like a great choice. Emmissary is always good, Weary Road gives another free scheme marker per turn which support the Yannik card draw. Servant of Dark Powers and Soldier for Hire do not seem to be worth 2 stones. Wanted Criminal could be nice for the 0" engagement crossroads if there is enough impassable terrain and depending on the opponents number of expected scheme markers it could draw some more cards. Still not sure if I wanna spend 2 SS for that. Any thoughts? Already tried some of this?

TBH I do not remember why we came to that conclusion, I think it had to do with wording on other model's card where they refer to the duel and its damage flip specifically. Other way round, is there any passage in the rule book clearly defining that the damage flip is part of the action and not something separate that is triggered by the action? I didn't find any. Maybe I am overcomplicating or have let myself be mislead to easy

Great post! The quoted part segways into a rules question. I assume you are referring to the damage flip when you are mentioning negatives. I discussed with my local players if the expression "any cards flipped during this action" only refers to the duel or also the damage flip. Our tendency was that it would only refer to the duel. Any thoughts on this?

Great write up, thank you!

that is exactly what I did.

Again, thanks to all your contribution. I discussed with my local players in our chatgroup and they totally agreed with you here. Seems like this was only in my head. It might have to do with the fact that I played a lot of Warhammer Fantasy tournaments back in the days when in our national meta hard resrictions were normal. Maybe that's why I leaned into that direction. There might be some local players who don't wanna oppose my Levi but still most of them do. I guess I got it all wrong. I think, depending on my opponent, I will try the soft nerfs that you proposed like altering my list, making sure the encounter is not Levis wishlist and making sure terrain is not comforting me. Thank you!

First of all thanks everyone for your contributions! I'll try to explain better where I am coming from and also answer to the different proposals. My group is pretty large, most of the players are casual oriented. I own every Outcast Master but Zipp (which will change) so I do have a variety of masters. Me and my opponents mostly enjoy games that are challenging for both sides with a close outcome. We do have those games when I play Hamelin, Viks, von Schill etc. However, I like Leveticus playstyle a lot. I thought about non-optimal encounters. While chosing schemes that do not fit or having a deployment like Corner which Levi doesn't like might even out the chances to win but I hardly doubt it would be fun. Spending the first 2 rounds walking from my corner to the middle might give me opponent time to et into better positions but is it fun? I doubt that. Non-optimal lists like the Abomination/DE Spam List posted above can be fun for one game maybe but it doesn't represent what I want to play. I want to use Rusty and A&D and use a scavenger and play very Levi style but only if my opponent still has an even chance to counter me. I am not seeking a justification to destroy my opponents, I just think it is more fun for me and my opponents if I can use the full toolbox of a nerfed Leveticus crew and my opponent feels like playing an even matchup. I do regard myself as a good (not international level good) player in our group but not THE best. I think I understand well how the game and crews work. And only when playing Levi I feel like I will always when if I don't do bigger mistakes. I did offer one of my opponents an army swap after destroying von Schtook 2 times in a row. I think Schtook can be an even matchup for Levi. He didn't like the idea and refused. However, this is a completely different approach. While I think von Schtook can beat Levi, a lot of other masters I believe cannot. I believe it supports the variety in our group if I nerf Levi and make him fairly playable in most matchups. Nevertheless I am surprised by all of your reactions and wonder if my group will feel the same. I did not offer this to them yet. I will ask and wait for their reactions before pursuing this further. If anyone still has ideas for good Levi Nerfs I am still happy to read them. Regarding the Desolation Engine Nerf: I do not think the DE is a bad model. I think it is very strong. But with having Rusty Alice and A&D in the same crew it just faces even better models. I tried playing 2 DE in Public Enemies the other day and it was devistating. They have a big killing potential, are not squishy and you don't have to worry about them dying because the opponent will not get any bounty tokens but will have to kill the summoned Abomination instead to get at least one. That feels simply wrong. If I field 2 10P Killing Machines, the opponent should be able to score from killing them. In other strategies my nerf will not have much implications.

Inspired by Extremors Thread about the Dreamer I want to try the same with Leveticus. Most players in our local group don't like to play against Leveticus for 2 reasons: - He is too strong - Some effects, no matter if too strong or not, feel frustrating because they just happen without the opponent being able to prevent it I think they are absolutely right. I don't wanna play Leveticus into games with my buddies I know I am gonna win from the start. Simply playing non-optimal lists or encounters Levi does not like feels wrong. I still want to get the most out of my crew when creating a list and playing the encounter - that is part of my game desired experience. Therefore I started pulling together some rule changes for the Amalgam keyword which you will find below. The goal is not to make him weak. He can still be a strong master, but just not as ridicolous as he is now. A similar level like the Viktorias would be good. Please let me know if you think my measures make sense. Do they go too far? Not far enough? Would you like to play with a non Tier 1 master against this Leveticus and expect a fair game? Do you have alternative or additional ideas on what to change? Should single models like Rusty or A&D be nerfed additionally? Irreducible Damage Can be reduced by Soulstones. Gives opponents at least a partial counter. Entropy Models do not automatically suffer the damage but only if not passing a TN12 WP simple duel. Demise Leveticus and Ashes&Dust Both cost a card to go off. Increases the cost of their demise and gives opponents without Lantern of souls a small chance to prevent it by draining my hand. Demise Desolation Engine Change the effect from replace to summon. This way opponents get bounty tokens for the desolation engine.

Reviving this one after talking personally to Extremor (we are in the same group of players). I do not think you can tackle this issue with just going for a nicer list or by "Playing casual". Knowing Extremor I believe he still wants to get the hell out of the crew he fields. Also hiring models you know won't help you score is a bit against the idea of the game. That is why I believe we need to talk about house rules. Nerf the crew and then when writing th elist and when playing still try to get the best out of it. I am currently trying the same with Leveticus and will open a similar thread over in the outcast forums. I believe the Nightmare keyword has 3 levels of issues that make it a) too strong and b) frustrating to play against. b) is different from a) meaning that there are rules that might not be overpowered by themselves but just feel wrong because you cannot do anything against it. The 3 levels in my view are 1) Rules for Summoning, 2) Keyword-wide rules 3) rules for certain models. Below I will elaborate on each section with restrictional proposals. I am not saying you would need to apply all of them but they might serve as an idea reservoir to pick your tools from. 1) Summoning i) Lower summoning stats: Lower the stat for summoning for each summoning action in the game. In Nightmare this affects the Dreamer and Widow Weaver. Still I am saying in the game because if you play against another summoner he should follow the same nerf. ii) Lower summoning stats dynamically: Lower the stat for this action for every model you are naming after the first one. This will make it harder to summon 2 models wich I believe is harder than summoning one model for the same cost because of the number of additional actions you get with a second model. Again this should apply to your opponent summoners as well. iii) All summoning actions are once per turn: This affects the Widow Weaver. Scrap marker needed or not, 2 puppets in a single turn from a henchman are not ok. Again this should apply to your opponent summoners as well. 2) Nightmare Keyword i) Lucid Dreams access: I guess I do not have to explain why it sucks? I would reduce the number of models that have access to that rule. My proposal is to have it only on Alps and Daydreams. This still gives you the chance of 6 Lucid Dreams per turn but it forces you to play different models. I also think it creates a nice synergy with the stitched if you need other models to remove cards from the game that the stitched can use. ii) Lucid Dreams costs: It should not be free. I propose a simple duel that needs a 7. This value could vary depending on what you pick from the paragraph before. If few models have Lucid Dreams the value could be lower, if many higher. iii) Twisted Reality: Does not ignore Armour. This addresses several issues. The attack will still be very strong. It nerfs Serena Bowman. Also I believe that the dreamer crew has no real counter. By applying this change, armour becomes a thing against the dreamer. Crews like Hoffman or von Schill suddenly become a match, maybe even a counter. 3) Specific Nightmare Models Lord Chompy Bits: i) Make him Enforcer. With Regen 2 additional Souldstone Reduction is unnecessary. Not being able to buy suits also seems right as the triggers are very strong. ii) Lower Twisted Reality stat to 5 to make melee more attractive for him. Coppelius: i) Lose Agile. This is too much with the high movement. You could make Interacting with him more difficult by engaging him. He still can flee melee and interact with the Ahh my eye trigger but it requires more resources. ii) Lower melee stat and/or movement by 1. Seems too much all together. Serena Bowman: i) Remove trigger from Bottle of Painkillers. Healing 2 times is way too much. Together with the Twisted Reality Nerf that brings her back to normal. If you think this is too much, compare with the Freikorps Librarian who is 7P. Insidious Madness: i) Make it less hard to kill. This could be achieved by reducing/removing Terrifying and/or removing incorporeal and/or reducing its wounds. ii) Change scatter - it has no cost and the opponent cannot defend themselves which is frustrating and overpowered in strats like leylines. I would change it to either a) requiring a simple duel to go off plus having the enemy models in range passing a simple duel or b) make it a quick action that targets one model and makes it an opposed duel targeting WP. b) is my fav because it give both players the opportunity to invest a high card to make it succeed/fail. Stitched: I do find them too strong but believe they would be nerfed enough with my proposal to restrict Lucid Dreams to Alps and Daydreams.

Hannah can copy the leap from another models Rocket Boots and use it without the upgrade being discarded. When I want Hannah to be able to leap, I give the upgrade to someone near her.

I have some and they are great. Shipping from Russia to Germany however took ages.

Trying to give this thread a different flavour... So again, let's say you have all Outcast masters and you want to start a new faction - but the ask is: What other faction has the most different playstyle from Outcasts? Since Outcasts is a lot about killing I tend to say it would be Arcanists or Neverborn since they have quite some not so killy masters. Any other opinions?

Thank you so much for your work! I played each strat one time so far, 3 of them with Viks, Public Enemies with von Schill. That does not make me an expert, but I would still like to share where I tend to have a different opinion (which means I agree everywhere else): Symbols: I think it is a very strong strat for the Viks. I secured my defense by annoying my opponent a while with 2 of my markers which he of course got at some point and securing the other 2 with Taelor. You should be able to place those 2 markers in a way that Taelor has reach and can hide behind a terrain piece. At the same time you should be able to get at least 3 enemy markers, in my game I got 4. We are incredibly fast and can have 2 Don't mind me models (Big Jake and Emissary upgrade, I had it on a Vik). Public Enemies: I do not think this is a good Viks strat. We are squishy and our model (Viks) give too many bounty tokens. Each melee is a big risk for us and we cannot overcome our weaknesses like armour, incorporela etc... It might work in some rare setups but overall I believe this is not a go to for Viks. Let them bleed: This is a great scheme to score against the Viks. If we take it, it forces us to take too many risks. I would stay away. Leave your mark: I took it and scored both points. First point is easy with Emissary, second one is situational. Research Mission: Agree with one exception. This is awesome if the opponent heavily relies on markers and has to place them in their half. It is super easy to score this against Reva with all her corpse and pyre markers in her table half. Runic Binding: I think that is super hard to setup, even with emissary. It forces us to spread our crew less - but isn't this exactly what we wanna do? Did you actually take it and scored?

I like the new starts but believe the wording could be better. I assume that you only score 1 VP per turn. If that is true it should say "...if it removed one or more enemy strategy markers that turn."

For me it is not an option since it is a dick move

Please post pictures of those bases! I might steal that idea...

OMG, missing the obvious Thank you!

I did use the serach function without any luck but at the same time can't believe this hasn't been discussed before. So if I just failed searching, my apologies... In Turf War we divide the table into 4 table quarters. I believe most people do this as shown in the first attached graphic. But what is a quarter? It is not necessarily a square, the strategy text only tells you about quarters which means they must have equal size and you have to divide the whole expanse of the table. That means that a quarter could as well be a triangle. You can divide the table into 4 equal triangles (shown in the second attached graphic) which all have a centerpoint where you can place the marker. Am I missing anything fundamental here or are there really 2 options? If not, how do you decide which option to pick? Do I have to agree with my opponent? It does make a difference for the game choosing either option: Using the squares with corner or flank resp. using the triangles with wedge or standard requires more aggressive play since 3 markers get placed on the centerline.

Hope it's OK to revive this thread for a related question... So it seems we all agree that Hanna can use Adaptive Tatctics to copy an action that a friendly Freikorps Model receives from an upgrade. If she does so (let's say Grenade Belt) and uses the upgrade, does the player need to discard the upgrade? It first felt right to me but looking at the cards I feel like no: Adpative Tactics copies the action, not the whole upgrade. The upgrade card says "discard after use", but that is not part of the copied action. So rule as written you do not discard the upgrade. Am I missing anything?

Had a lot of fun with this list lately: Von Schill Steam Trunk Arik Schoettemer 10 Hannah Lovelace 10 Lazarus 9 Librarian 7 Freikorpsman 5 Prospector 6 3SS I'm falling in love with Lazarus more and more. He gives Cover. He supports melees so well with his grenades - usually you can place the shockwave so that only enemy models get hit - but even if Arik gets hit... free Focus. He is also a great scheme counter being able to destroy scheme markers from more than 10" away without LoS. This crew works so well together.

@psychogeek I think you forgot Assassinate in your initial post.

Wyrd, not weird.