Croaker13

The only other thing I can think of is to bring Cassandra as well as Hoffman, so she can copy his Overcharge ability.

Uh, I guess that's correct. Don't see why not. Edit - Oh, and If you really want to make your opponent rage quit, then have the Mech-Rider reactivate the duet for another four actions 😀 (that works, right?) It's a cool trick. It's a shame there are so few ways to give out fast in Archanist.

I got a game in yesterday and managed to do a field-test of my ”Long Shuffle” maneuver. I’m happy to report that it was a smashing success. Game was 35ss Colette vs. Von Schill. Cursed Idols with Flank deployment. I took Breakthrough and Deliver a Message (sidebar: Turns out that getting the second point with Deliver a Message on Von Schill is really difficult). I deployed as the defender and put most of my crew centrally in the deployment zone, except for a Coryphee Duet, which was placed on the left flank. My opponent also deployed most of his crew centrally, except for a scout who placed with From the Shadows on the right corner (from my perspective). It’s almost like he was afraid of getting too close to my Duet 😉 I was thinking about slingshotting the Mannequin into the opposing deployment zone to score breakthrough, but the first idol turned up on the left corner of the battlefield, where my opponent couldn’t get to it easily, so I went for that instead while the rest of my crew held up the enemy in the center of the board. Cassandra and the Mannequin got close enough to the corner that Cassandra was able to double-walk and push the idol at the beginning of turn two. The plan was then to have the Mannequin heal her and move towards the enemy deployment zone. However, my opponent decided to use Hannah’s “Ancient Words” to bury and unbury the Duet next to Cassandra (well, it was that or have it activate right next to an already wounded Von Schill), so I simply had the Duet heal Cassandra and then drag the Mannequin towards the center of the board edge. Next, the Mannequin activated to walk into the enemy deployment zone, drop a scheme marker and score me Breakthrough. It spend the rest of the game simply doing a walk/activate to get me the other point. At the end of the game, it had moved more than 60” and dropped four scheme markers in the enemy deployment zone, which I think is quite impressive for a four-stone model. In the end, I won the game 6-5. The Duet could have done the same job, but IMO that would have been a waste of a 12-stone model. I could also have reached the corner by simply deploying Cassandra and the Mannequin further up one of the “legs” of the deployment zone. However, that would have: A: Given away my intention and allowed my opponent to counter-deploy some of his beaters. B: Put them out of reach of the other corner, in case the first idol had dropped there. Overall, I’m quite happy. This is obviously just one game, but I’m convinced that the basic idea has merit.

I haven’t really settled on a ”normal” number of models in the crew yet, but I agree that, due to bringing three doves for free, Colette will usually have more models than the enemy turn one. You are probably correct that it’s fairly fiddly. However, it’s only meant to be a supplement to “normal” play. You should still do the all the other Performer shenanigans, and moving Cassandra and a Mannequin up one side of the board is often something I’d like to do anyway, so the opportunity cost of this “play” shouldn’t be too great. I’ll report back once I’ve had a chance to stress-test it in actual play.

The Mannequin Long Shuffle. After getting punished rather harshly for being a bit too obvious with my deployment during my last game , I came up with this maneuver. The general idea it to use a Mannequin’s “Mechanical Assistant” ability to move it across the board in one turn, and possibly drop a scheme marker, without telegraphing which direction you are moving until midway through the turn. Ideally, you’ll do this turn one, in order to get it safely away from the enemy’s big hitters and in place to score a strat./scheme turn two. You might also want to activate some of the rest of the crew first, in order to gauge what the opponent is doing before committing to a direction. Instead of writhing a 500 word description, I’ve tried to illustrate the maneuver with pictures (see below). There are a number of variations you could think up, including using Angellica’s “Give them an encore” and Colette’s “Practiced Choreography” to gain even more reach, but I think it’s already fairly complex, so I didn’t want to muddle the picture even further. I will mention, however, that after the 3rd activation (Colette moving Cassandra with “Presto Chango”), you still have the option to move the Mannequin the opposite direction in a double-feint. You’ll lose some distance, but if the Mannequin double-moves after being dragged by the dove, it can still get about 20” up the board, which should put it in position to move and drop a scheme marker in turn two. I’d love to hear your thoughts about this.

Here are some pictures of the terrain I used for a game last night. We did end up removing one of the houses just beforehand, as we agreed that there was a bit too much blocking terrain, but otherwise it worked out very well. Game was Colette Vs. Von Schill

That's a very good point. I'll add that to the original post. It's obviously dependent on activating and having access to a scheme/scrap marker, so I think that the Corpyhee is still slightly more survivable overall, but that might change after some more playtesting.

That's a good point, all though at 8+1ss I'd be inclined to run a Blessed of December, if only because I actually own that model 😉 I also like the ideas about using the Mecharachnid as counter-tech. I'll be playing against Freikorps soon, and it might come in handy against all that armour +1. Besides, Colette can help up it's otherwise middling speed.

As far as I can tell, people almost always buy the full duet if they want Coryphee in their crew. That makes sense, as it’s hard to argue that the duet isn’t more than twice as good as a single Coryphee. However, I’m playing a series of 30ss games where the 12 stones becomes a big chunk of the total budget, so I’ve been toying around with the idea of occasionally hiring a single Coryphee. Instead of evaluating it against the duet (which is arguably unfair), I figured I’d compare it to the other two 6ss constructs a performer crew might want to hire, namely the Soulstone Miner and the Mecharachnid (a.k.a. Large Arachnid). Here’s my analysis. I’d love to hear your opinions as I haven’t had the chance to play all that many M3E games yet. Stats: All three are 6ss, minion (2), constructs. Soulstone Miners and Mecharachnids are both versatile, but that doesn’t really matter here. They are also all 5 health, Mv 5 and Sz 2. Coryphee and Soulstone Miners are on 40mm bases, while the Arachnid is a 50mm. So far no big difference. The main difference comes in Df and Wp. The Miner is clearly weakest with a sub-par 5/3, while Coryphee (6/4) and Mecharachnids (5/5) each have a total of 10. Either can be better, mostly depending of the opposing crew. Overall the Coryphee and Arachnid are better stat-wise, but the Miner’s ability to get you Soulstones means that it’ll usually end up being cheaper than the two others (sometimes much cheaper). Point: All Maneuverability: With equal Mv, it mostly comes down to special abilities. Miners and Arachnids are both Unimpeded while Coryphee are Nimble and Agile. The big swing comes in the Miner’s ability to bury and unbury almost anywhere the next turn. That technically makes it extremely fast, but it’s worth noting that it’ll take it three turns to move somewhere by burying and then place a single scheme marker and it can’t unbury in or near the enemy deployment which makes it less useful for many schemes. Meanwhile, Coryphee doesn’t have anything else to spend its bonus action on, so it’ll almost always use it to move, which frees up more actions to place markers. It can also use Dance Partner to get even more range if you can set it up. Point: Soulstone Miner and Coryphee. Defense: All three have Armor +2, which makes them fairly tough out of the gate, but at “only” 5 health they can die quickly to anti-armor tech. Additionally, the Miner can simply bury to get out of a tough situation while the Coryphee has Agile and several triggers to reposition after taking an action. Both can therefore be very slippery targets. After dying, the Coryphee will also leave a wounded Mannequin, which could be very useful in certain circumstances. The miner does have very low willpower, which may or may not be a big disadvantage. Edit: It has been pointed out that the Arachnid's Temporary Limb action gives it a plus flip to all duels, including simple and defense. If you can set it up so that it can activate early and eat a marker, it can become a very tough nut to crack. Point: Coryphee. Offence: The Coryphee has the best pure attack at stat 6 and damage 2/4/5. However the Miner will ignore resistance triggers (and armor on a tome) and the Arachnid ignores Armor, Hard to Wound, Hard to Kill and Shielded and it has Onslaught on a mask. Additionally, the Arachnid can get plus flips on duels by discarding a nearby scheme or scrap marker (which could be an enemy scheme marker), potentially making it quite scary for some models. Point: Mecharachnid. Utility: Besides removing enemy scheme markers as a free action, the Arachnid can create scrap markers by killing any type of enemy. You probably won’t use those, except as a way to power up the Arachnid itself. The Miner is very, very good at removing destructible terrain and can create Hazardous, severe terrain markers. As mentioned above, it can also create Soulstones, either by giving itself stunned or by killing enemies, but it’s extremely unlikely to break even, so it’s best seen as a time-lapsed discount. Coryphee can hand out distracted and slow, which is nice but nothing world shattering. All three are good targets for a Diesel Engine or Magical Training upgrade. If I had to choose, I’d probably give Magical Training to the Miner, which is more likely to hang around in the background, and Diesel Engine to the Coryphee and/or Arachnid, both of which are more likely to move around in the midfield. Point: Any of the three – it’s very dependent on terrain, scenario and/or enemy crew. Tiebreaker goes to the Soulstone Miner, which seems more generally useful. Overall: In the end, the Soulstone Miner and Coryphee tie. IMO, if you’re only ably to get one of the two, the Miner wins out – if only because it’s effectively cheaper. Just be careful against enemies that like to attack Wp (and probably don’t ever bring it against Dreamer). Meanwhile, Coryphee is usually a better scheme-runner and not much worse in the other areas. Given that the Miner is often viewed as a must-buy in Archanist crews, this makes me think that a single Coryphee isn’t such a bad deal after all. The Mecharachnid comes in last – mostly because it’s slower and easier to pin down. However, that’s not to say that I think it’s useless. It can deal out a fair bit of damage and I can absolutely see it working as an anti-schemer. Attach a Diesel Engine so it can catch its prey and get a plus flip on damage when it charges, which, combined with its other offensive tricks, should allow it to make short work of anything that comes running down the side of the board.

I absolutely agree on that general method of introducing new players to the game. However, it requires an experienced player who’s willing and able to set all that up. In fairness, the different Malifaux communities seem to be extraordinarily welcoming and helpful towards new players, but it’s still a fairly big assumption. In my brother’s and my case, for example, we didn’t know anyone else who played Malifaux, so we had to get all the materials ourselves. Having the starter set on hand was a huge help. This reminds me, that I also think a starter set should include a cardboard counter sheet with a number of printed 30mm scheme/corpse/whatever markers as well as two+ 50mm markers. Regarding terrain: I would personally be completely happy with a couple of fold-and-glue paper buildings (in fact, my first games were played using 80’s era Citadel “Townscape” paper buildings – see picture). The full bonanza of a playmat and plastic buildings (a la GW’s Killteam starter) would be nice, but I fear that the price would become prohibitive. The upcoming Marvel: Crisis Protocol (link to a description of contents) is a better comparison. That has a MSRP of $99.95, which is a bit on the pricy side for what you might want for Malifaux, but it also seems to have full plastic terrain and more stuff than you’d need for Malifaux in general, so it might be possible to cut a couple of corners and end up around the $80 level.

I’m one of the people who got pulled into the game through the M2E starter set (specifically a copy my brother had bought and painted up). IMO, it would be a huge mistake not to do some kind of M3E starter box somewhere down the line. Maybe not right away, but preferably in the foreseeable future. Malifaux is not the easiest game to get into (even for a lapsed miniatures gamer like myself), so having a way to ease new players in is priceless. It’s also a good way to show just how unique the Malifaux game and world is. I can still remember looking at the “Black Blood” ability on the Neverborn unit cards and thinking “what is this?” and then rushing off to learn more. As for the form of said starter set, they could just update the M2E box and call it a day (that would be a reasonable solution IMO), but I’d really love a totally new set. New units, two new fate decks, new rulers, new everything. I’d also really love it if they included a few pieces of thematic terrain. I’m not sure what I’d like the theme of the set to be. It’s hard to beat “Guild sanitarium workers vs. Neverborn inmates/rescuers” for something that screams Malifaux. Maybe something involving Showgirls. That would certainly make it stand out from the pack.

So, I have this idea… It’s probably a little too cute (as opposed to effective), but it might catch an opponent off guard. I haven’t tried it yet though, so please let me know if I’m being dumb. The general plan it to create some powerful area denial by pairing Cassandra up with an Ice Golem. The specific plan is something like this: You include Cassandra (8ss), an Ice Golem (10+1ss) and a Silent one (6+1ss) for a total of 26ss (leaving you 34ss for the rest of the crew). Deploy them fairly close together. Turn one Cassandra uses Upstage on “Ice Pillars” to create a pillar 8” in front of the Silent One. She then moves towards the “target area”. The Silent One uses the ice pillar to (hopefully) create another two pillars up to 12” further up the board. The Ice Golem should then walk towards the area and stand within 1” of the Ice Pillars. If you need it there right from turn one, have Colette move it up with Presto-Chango. That might even allow the golem to put up the Blizzard aura right from the start. From then on, the Golem will simply squat next to the pillars and dare anyone to get close. Cassandra can either do her own thing from then on, stay close in order to put up a Blizzard aura without the Golem needing to use actions to do so, or you can have her stand 8” away from the golem and have them both put up a Blizzard, in order to cover more ground. The Silent One can stand a bit further back and provide the golem (and possibly Cassandra) with Ice Pillars and healing. All of the above would obviously be easier in a Raspy crew, but people won’t expect it in Colette, so they might not be prepared to deal with something as hard-hitting and tough as an Ice Golem that’s being supported with a supply of Ice Pillars. What do you all think?

Thanks for the answers. Hmm... Something to think about. I can see her fitting very nicely into my Raspy crew, to help maximize those Ice Pillars, but that's for another thread. In keyword I agree that there's some potential to pairing her with a Duet, but I'm not sure how often you'll want those two close together. I'll have to try it out - it seems cool.

Has anyone found some strong targets for Cassandra's "Upstage" ability?