Maniacal_cackle

I think she is probably a good call! Early on she can claim her side of the board, and by end game should be able to flood the board. Lure on Jaakuna seems like a great bonus.

Flank deployment with kill strategy and a centre-scheme just screams for our brawler crews (Yan Lo, McMourning, Jack Daw are probably all fantastic for this). That said, I'll probably get some reps in with Molly xD Will post a list soon, I will be up against Zipp this week. So Molly will hopefully pay off as a piano-eater.

This thread is for all ressers: master and newbie alike! In this thread we'll all come together to discuss a scheme pool. Ideally some of us will even get to play it! Pool 2: Flank Public Enemies Public Enemies - Flank Deployment 1 Breakthrough 3 Vendetta 4 Assassinate 10 Leave your Mark 13 Runic Binding NOTE: I will curate these pools a bit more as we go forward, mixing up deployments, strategies, and making sure we don't do a scheme more than twice. This particular pool comes from one of the Vassal tournaments happening at the moment so apologies for some scheme double-up. How to participate: Just post! You can post theorycraft about what master or list you'd take into this pool, or you can post a list you want to take into this pool seeking advice, or a battle report of actually playing the pool. If you're not confident posting, I'll slap some templates here that you can steal to make a reply. These are just suggestions, though! Theorycraft: I think <X, Y, or Z> would be good because <reason>. List seeking advice: I am thinking of taking this list or master: ... ... I will be up against <faction or master opponent declared> (if known). I own: <list models or crews>. I think this list will work because <reason>, or I want to try this list because <reason>. Battle report: My list: ... ... Opponents master (or list if you have their whole list) ... ... Outcome and schemes I took: Summary of how it went: Things I would do differently:

@Shakyor there were an odd number of Malifaux players at the club for tomorrow night, so I'm the odd one out this week! So doing a game of a different pool on Vassal on Friday. Happy to start the next pool as soon as people are ready. Once a week at the moment feels about right, and then people can skip them. Any objections to me posting the next pool tomorrow?

Ahhh, of course. Thanks

1. Yup! Very useful for dropping pyre markers straight beneath people. 2. I'm not 100% sure, as I can't remember if a model counts as "within" 2" of itself, but I believe it does. It doesn't count as in base contact with itself, but it counts as within 2" of itself. Rules forum might have better answers!

Yeah, the key quesiton of timing is for measurement (when does Philip and the Nanny to be near the discard - presumably when the discard actually happens, not when you're resolving the ability). So in that way, P&N can have fading from a model that is no longer near them? And can get fading from multiple models that are far apart from the same event?

Carry the loot - yup, should be once per Bayou Smuggler I assume. Too Greedy to Die - this one is a bit trickier as it 'affects' multiple models, but I would say the aura 'affects' the Dead Outlaw who in turn pushes something else... So yes, should be able to get a 9" push (subject to the other limitations).

I think that is for any given model though, right? In this case there are two affected models (Guilty draws and Outlaw draws), so is fine to generate it twice?

Just to make sure, you can also do blast damage off of a Guilty, right? So a drowned attacking your own Guilty with projectile vomit will blast?

Did he at least try to back-to-back the 2 irreducible damage pulse with it? Could have wrecked your Ashigaru bubble turns 3/4 (or 2/3 if he is clever with card usage).

Also Riders in general can be extremely disappointing. They are mobile enough to get themselves into trouble, and die fast enough that this is a problem. But in my experience, they're devastating when played well. Curious if pale rider is actually bad.

Yeah, when I saw his list I thought "that looks pretty basic, but maybe I don't know his crew." We do really well against alpha strikes, but Shenlong turned negatives to positives 😜 That said I still wanted to try Ashigaru against him, that'd have really mucked him up. Toshiro is enormously underrated for this reason, in my view. Sad to learn night terrors are so good. I have to buy them someday xD No card issues at all, then? How much did you summon? Two models a turn?

@Shakyor did you already play then? You won I take it?

@Wyamphri nice!

Eek, okay, important to note xD

All good advice, I don't know Lady J at all! One thing I'll emphasise is if Lady J goes that aggressive and fails to kill Molly, don't forget that Molly should do 6-9 irreducible damage to her a round. She should be dead pretty quick!

Another trick for denying points is having models die while buried or dying to hazardous terrain. And of course being conscious of points thresholds. I suspect rabble risers are recently powerful in public enemies since they cost 6 stones.

@Shakyor fun! I'd take Hidden Martyrs (Archie + Crooligan) for two reasons: Archie is probably going to die anyway. He might go for a turtling strategy, in which case this scheme is two points potentially (although both Lady J and rider represent a real threat to the crooligan). This means the crooligan doesn't have to leave the deployment zone to score (and it isn't clear that it could score breakthrough for example). Then Leave Your Mark seems like a nice second way to score without going to his side of the board (though may have to summon an extra crooligan to score it twice). Don't forget Molly can remove scheme markers anywhere on the board with her crows trigger, and crooligans can with fading or bonus action. A turn where a crooligan eats two scheme markers can be devastating. One tip for Molly: most opponents underestimate her damage, but she can do 6-9 irreducible damage against the unprepared. If rider or lady J come near her with low cards in hand, nuke the hell out of them. You may have to skip summoning to save high cards for Molly. For this reason assassinate will be tough for him, and he doesn't have a good setup for hidden martyrs or take prisoner. Breakthrough seems too aggressive for a shooty crew, but I think it is secretly the best option. I bet he takes assassinate/Leave your mark, but be prepared for any combination of those two and breakthrough. For scoring lodestone... He will likely obey his own models. Don't forget: night terrors give ALL models concealing - he gets a minus to obey his own model if near a night terror. Also use Ashigaru to lock down models with lodestones or that may carry lodestones (and don't forget you can choose not to attack if you don't want trigger damage back on you). Just gum up his models. Now with a point plan that doesn't require all your models, use your spare capacity as a crew to just kill off his crew. Pale rider or lady J if they let Molly kill her, but otherwise just kill their other models (if they're forced to scheme with pale rider and lady j, they can't spend time killing you). Remember Archie can two-shot their exorcists from full health and the domadores if they have one damage from elsewhere. He should try to single activation a few models before he dies. EDIT: oh, maybe he takes take prisoner if he obeys your models. But that should be easy to stop if you're forcing the last activation and have a crooligan or night terror on standby to mess up the positioning (or even Archie in a pinch). Edit2: if you take hidden martyrs and he uses take prisoner on Archie, just have Archie go ballistic on his Lady J. He can't afford to have Archie live forever while beating on her, so will eventually kill her. If he isn't dead by turn 5, consider sending in the crooligan to see if that can bait a death.

One thing to note is that Molly/Forgotten are just super efficient in general, so you don't need to worry about going overboard on things. Defensively, super efficient at bogging enemies down (Molly is hard to kill, several models from the crew can dish out slow and distracted, and the models are generally pretty tanky). Throw in Toshiro and the crew is pretty nuts on defense already. Offensively, Molly draws so many cards that the beaters of the crew can dish out loads of damage (and Molly herself can hit for 3 irreducible damage at range, or slow AND deal 3 damage pretty easily with focus). Denial wise, crooligans, Molly, and P&N eat scheme markers super easily. Mobility wise, Archie and Crooligans (and to some degree, night terrors and P&N) ensure you can get to any part of the board extremely quickly and efficient. So since everything is so efficient, probably don't need to go overboard on any one aspect (except killing power, can never have too much killing power). As a result, my standard lists tend to be extremely kill oriented. Denial, tanking, and scoring are already built in pretty solidly. And I think I've just convinced myself to drop Grave Golem from this game if I do play!

@Shakyor, I assume you mean corrupted ley lines and not harness? Interesting list! I don't own most of those models and have quite a different playstyle, but will try to share some thoughts. I haven't considered overloading on summoning (I usually play Molly in a much more aggressive fashion, locking down the board as early as possible, but could work!) For Obeys, one of the best things you can do is just spread out your crew. Archie can take a flank, and could have another beater take the other flank. Then you don't need to worry about obeys ruining your day. If you want to have the cards, you can have the cards. It's not uncommon for Molly to see 12-14 cards total if she wants to (but careful not to go overboard). Some basic card drawing tips: Sometimes you can just waste cards to get your hand size down, like cheating on initiative. If they match you and get their card hand size down, make sure to punish them with irreducible damage from Molly. You can use necrotic machine to 'strange behaviour' a few cards into their hand, then discard into Molly to make Molly activate right away and draw a bunch of cards before they can empty their hand. Lost Knowledge is a very easy source of card draw. One combo in particular is: Crooligan drops a scheme marker next to Molly Molly activates, reactivates crooligan, eats scheme marker for two cards, and moves. Molly + Gravedigger + Toshiro is a pretty brutal backline, you may find you don't actually need much more than that unless the whole enemy crew is smacking you around. Consider a Rogue Necromancy though (Projective vomit + molly's slows can lock down a surprising number of models). Also be mindful of how you're going to move your lodestone - you can't place with it, so Archie and the Crooligan are quite awkward with it. Although I suppose you can pass it like a football, I've never tried that method, but summoned ashigaru should help.

After reading Lady J and Marshal crew, there's some rough stuff there! But really mainly a few things stick out: The Jury's "Into Dust" trigger means you should probably have a few extra soulstones than you normally would have (maybee 5 instead of a base 1-3). The Judge's "Crumble Away" ability could two shot Molly, but thankfully it is a bonus action. Night terrors could help by providing concealment, or Ashigaru could Take the Hit. Watch out for adversary (especially on Molly!) You could go pretty hard on defense, but I also wonder if a good offense is the best bet. Killing the key pieces may really free you to deal with the game!

I'm not too familiar with Lady J. What are the key abilities that are the problem? I'll go read them

Glad it helped! I'm still in the experimental stage for whether or not Manos can swap for Archie, but you're forgetting the Necrotic Machine. Coupled with Dead Rider, Necrotic Machine is a fantastic crooligan beacon. And of course Philip and the Nanny moves 14" by default (and I recently realised it is REALLY easy to make them move 19" in a turn even without night terrors). I've had games where a necrotic machine went up a flank, and the opponent sent something small to tie it up, and the crooligan just teleported and stabbed it to death. Crooligans are fantastic assassins, typically hitting for 3 per attack. So it is a potent package! Quite possibly better, but I don't own Forgotten Marshal 😜 That said, there's something to be said for having immediate access to the rabble riser (since his core function is to give focus to P&N on turn 1). There's also some merit to not having summons in an activation control list for maximum pass-token advantage. But I'd have to test it out if I get the marshal (it's currently 6-7 boxes down on my purchasing wish list). This list is completely experimental for me, so it could be bad! One major reason I'm taking Molly is I essentially own Molly + Reva, so it is kind of her by default. That said, her massive card draw and other support abilities really help boost a crew like this. The crew does lots of cool things on its own, but is a bit card hungry. Molly makes up for that and then does some cool stuff herself. Seamus for example eats several useful cards rather than generating cards, so does better backed up by more support models IMO. Gravedigger- I do love blasphemous ritual, but againit is a case of what I own. I don't own Mortimer! One thing in favour of the gravedigger is it is way more maneuverable, and Mortimer doesn't boost everything (grave golem, necrotic machine, etc). Yeah, it isn't as centre-controlly as some, but I would like to experiment with playing heavy defense (especially since Ashigaru and Yin can all peel enemy models off the markers).

Neat! I've been wondering about the Reva vs. Kaeris matchup! Assassinate may be doable, but that armor+1 on Kaeris hurts. Take Prisoner should be quite doable if you want to snag Yin or similar. Breakthrough should be doable, Kaeris isn't that great at defending a standard deployment zone I think - she'd rather be aggressive than defending. Hidden martyrs - takes some mind games, but if you think you can set it up go for it! Keen to hear how it went. Leave your mark seems compatible with Reva, especially if you take grave golem to really dominate the centre. So perhaps any two schemes other than assassinate (and avoid take prisoner if you haven't got good models for it). Just my two cents, haven't played the matchup but we had a Kaeris player for a while. EDIT: Worth mentioning that Archie and Bone Piles are good in this matchup for burning immunity!