Maniacal_cackle

Sounds to me like an issue that can be fixed via gaining grounds. If too many games involve a pool that doesn't require you to proactively cross the board, something bigger has gone wrong. I haven't found focus stacking to be overly useful in my ressers forgotten crew, but maybe it is an exception. It is quite common for models to die with 3+ focus if I stack it. Not to mention you can use condition removal on it.

To get Vendetta for model A against model B, you have to: Have model A damage model B Have model B end the activation with its life low enough. Have this happen during model A's activation So another model obeying model A doesn't work (it isn't model A's activation). Model A obeying another model doesn't work (model A isn't doing any damage).

@Trample, great points, especially about Seamus. Personally I much prefer Gravedigger over restless spirit though. For 1 stone more, you're getting blasphemous ritual, stitch up, extra movement, recent funeral, field of corpses, and better synergies with models like Toshiro. Edit: and don't forget ritual can eat enemy corpse markers after they try to set up dig. Tricky to position, but a small bonus.

The more I play, the more I find schemes dictate a lot of my choices. So I want to get a feel for opinions on which models are best for each scheme (scoring or denying). I posted the same post in Neverborn, but want to hear about ressers too! Ressers are awesome schemers in general, IMO. Plus they have access to one of the best scheming abilities in the game: By Your Side! Two models do it super well, but Lost Love seems only okay for it. To start us off... Hold Up Their Forces: Crooligans and Undergraduates can be great for last minute positioning to score the points. Ashigaru stand out as super good for this scheme, with their 2" engagement range, hardiness and low cost. Toshiro of course works really well to summon them as well. Take Prisoner: I've struggled with this one, not sure who is great at repositioning enemies. Dead Rider stands out, but he does a lot of damage when he does it. Can always clear out the enemies near the target, of course! Outflank: Archie is fantastic for both scoring and denying. I imagine the same is true for Valedictorian. McMourning has a tough crew that can break into a few groups and can probably handle it on some deployments, but would struggle on corner for example. Seamus can probably sneak it with the right terrain. Assassinate: matchup dependent, of course, but worth noting that most of our crews will struggle to chase down an enemy master that wants to stay safe. We're not like Nephilim where we can potentially use tons of stones to chase down an enemy master. And Archie by himself is not going to cut it. Deliver a message: By Your Side is great for this. Claim Jump: I find Philip and the Nanny to be one of my favourite claim jumpers. Deadly Pursuit is fantastic for it, and their manipulative ability also makes them a bit tankier (though watch out for ruthless). The fact that you can keep them safe and deadly pursuit into position is huge though. Grave golem is also great for this, as he struggles getting around the board. Claim jump gives him one spot he can focus on. Vendetta: Archie weirdly is one of my favourites for this. He can be fantastic for taking out stronger targets with a little assistance, and he can avoid enemy vendetta-ers by just leaping away. Extremely hard to score two points against him. Scheme marker schemes! Molly if of course great for all of these, as are crooligans with by your side and free marker eating. Molly and P&N are fantastic for denying, being able to remove scheme markers anywhere on the table. Detonate charges: This one is particularly tricky, but crooligans again are great for it since they can often jump straight into a spot where they can do it. Just don't try it against crews with movement tricks. Molly also has the ability to drop schemes into base contact with people, making it much easier to secure the second bomb. Breakthrough: Archie + crooligans, Valedictorian + undergraduates, Kentauroi + anything, Dead Rider + anything... We have tons of good teams for this! Sometimes a bit tricky to score the second point, especially on corner deployment. But it can often take people by surprise and be an easy solo point! Harness the leyline: tons of options. We're pretty interact efficient with great schemers all over the faciton. Dig their graves: Gravedigger. Does more need to be said? Power ritual: same as breakthrough. Just need a mobile tag team to move and place. Search the ruins: Any of the above. What are your thoughts?

I raised this point on the rules forum a while back, and most people were of the view that life leech applies once to every sorrow in range and once to the model activating (they all can only be affected once). Plus life leech would be pretty OP if it could work that way.

Ah, here is what my understanding of what you were saying was Nagi, but I suspect I had it wrong: Both get hit by black blood at the same time, reducing them to 0 wounds. You get to step 6 and decide to resolve Hog Whisperer first (so you go through a, b, c, and d for the Hog Whisperer) This generates a heal for the Squealer at Hog Whisperer 6c (presumably resolve it here too). Then you never need to do anything with the Squealer as it is not dead anymore, so never gets to step 6a?

This I think is one of the biggest reasons Archie and Valley get flak. A lot of people just run scheme runners without support and it works against some crews (it can be a real PITA against my Neverborn crews). Against ressers (Archie, Valley, Seamus, etc), you can't do that. No matter where on the board you put a scheme runner, we can get to it and kill it with little cost. With Pandora and Dreamer, a savvy enemy can tie me up so I struggle to answer a lone schemer positioned well. Resser models cheat on movement and can prevent tie-up strategies. You have to protect your runners against us.

I think when going for dual masters, you have to take into account masters are super resource hungry. So you usually want a support master plus a resource hungry master (for instance, Molly + Kirai is amazing apparently). As such, for support masters you're probably looking at either Zoraida or Lucius, or maybe even Marcus in some crews. So I'd suggest looking at combos that half involves them. I'll have a further think! EDIT: Titania adding Marcus to her crew (or vice versa) might be sweet for Rougarou. Lucius can move your entire crew forward an extra 6", synergies super well with strong minions (Nekima especially), and provides cards. I struggle to think of a crew where he wouldn't contribute something.

Haha, thanks. My artistic skills impressed even me. I think I didn't communicate the point of the strategy very well, though. The WW and Bandy would err towards a flank, but can flexibly swap to 20+ inches away pretty easily if the situation calls for it. Pandora and co. would sweep forward to make sure that anything that gets within 12"/shooting range of the spiders is killed so that it can't just gun the spiders down. If the entire Lucius crew decided to engage the Pandora crew, the spiders would be close enough to jump into the fight (and they're great at hitting things, just not at getting hit). But I doubt the entire Lucius crew would engage Pandora, as they have to worry about being on corner deployment with plant explosives as well. It is one of the least scenarios out there, so I don't think Lucius will be in full kill mode. Assuming the more likely scenario that Lucius decides to try for two flanks or to dodge Pandora's crew, she can then sweep in and start hitting him from the side (after clearing the way for the spiders). The spiders could either come support (if going for Take prisoner or Vendetta) or they could secure more points, or they could counter enemy bombs with their spiderweb field (don't think Lucius has much marker removal?) It is mostly mute as it looks like OP will go a different direction, but wanted to clarify the strategy thoughts. If your spiders are getting hit when you don't want them to, you're probably not giving them enough zone control support. Nothing should be able to get within 12" of where they want to be if you're zone controlling hard enough (short of models like Archie or the Valedictorian who can easily bypass obstacles and still take 2-3 attacks).

There are several threads a bit further down you can see, but basically my view is: Hooded Rider is a must. Iggy would be great but is a bit tricky to find at the moment. Next think about crew overlaps. Getting Teddy or Carver gives you a good beater to mix into your crew. In terms of crew complements, I'm going for Dreamer and Zoraida to supplement her crew. In Malifaux it can be good to have a few keywords. Others here have different setups though. In terms of versatile models beyond just hooded rider, Serena Bowman is fantastic and I hear great things about Hinamatsu. To recap, think about the long term a bit. Start with Hooded Rider + a beater (Teddy or Carver) and you should be set for a while just learning those!

Give it a go! I've never played against Lucius, so my advice isn't rock solid necessarily. However, one note of caution is to make sure you're able to travel the distance to plant your bombs. That list is going to be great at bogging the enemy down and working your way through killing his crew. Just make sure you're scoring points along the way (and to be fair, you probably can manage 3 scheme points with that list!) Also don't forget Poltergeist negates ruthless. Super important aura! It'll likely save Kade or Candy's life, or even Pandora's. EDIT: Of course, denying is a valid strategy too. If you kill all of his bomb carriers, that's as good as scoring points with your bombs.

Fair points! I don't think Lucius' gun line is particularly potent, is it? His models are some of the weaker shooters in guild. Hinamatsu might be worth ditching because of Agent 46, although you could run her a bit behind the others to keep her safe, that negates the point a bit. Perhaps swap Hinamatsu and Iggy for Candy and Aversion. Candy can Vendetta Agent 46, Alan Reid, or Doppleganger. This can force them to play a bit safer. Aversion is needed if you're taking Candy for extra crew mobility. Here is what I'd envision with the above list as one possible strategy. You could have the B team (Pandora, Rider, heavy hitters) go forward providing cover for the A team (Widow Weaver + Bandersnatch). The C team is just the Poltergeist or Iggy or Aversion dropping a power ritual marker (and could do this even if doing a different plan, as it is a useful bluff tactic and you may want to hold back Poltergeist initially). WW + Bandy will die if you let things hit them, but the strength of those models is that they're very difficult to attack if they have some backup doing zone control. Don't let things get close enough to kill them until they've dropped their explosive tokens. Pandora excels at zone control, so it might work. You could also go for simply surging forward and meeting the enemy, going after them and gumming them up. Then use Widow Weaver and Bandersnatch to lay down some bombs wherever you can punch a gap in their lines. This means the list can potentially handle Vendetta (1-2 points), Take Prisoner (1 point), Power ritual (1 point), and go hard on the strategy (aiming for a 1-2 point advantage to cancel out the scheme disadvantage). It's a bit rough, but it is not like there are heaps of options if locked into Pandora + nightmares.

Ah, so you treat 'step' as meaning all of step 6, not 6a, 6b, 6c as being separate steps? That makes sense and resolves a number of issues.

It says: If it is healing another model, it is not healing the killed model. It doesn't resolve all heals at 6a, just the ones that would heal the killed model (and I've heard it argued that even not all of those apply, though I'm sceptical of that).

Yes, but that assumes that there exists a heal effect on the Squealer at 6a to resolve. At that point, I don't see that a decision has necessarily been made that your'e healing the Squealer (you could heal something else). The rules are a bit ambiguous as to when you make those types of decisions, but if you've not made it by 6a, I don't see how you could resolve it at 6a.

Sounds like a good setup! Marcus looks to be a very flexible crew as well, so should be a good starter setup. No matter the scenario, both crews should be able to do some interesting stuff! Zipp will be favoured in maneuverability, but Marcus has some neat tricks that will be a decisive advantage at times (such as his heals and upgrades, and Myranda's transformations). Although Nagi above just posted as I was typing. His core box comes with 4 beasts, so I assume he is going to be at least viable with just the core box (though of course not optimal). But should be good for some starter games I would have assumed. EDIT: I should note our Marcus player didn't actually manage to make any of the core box games, so I'm not speaking from experience for this particular combination.

Simultaneous effects aren't necessarily applicable here, as I don't see anything that needs the simultaneous rules applied. I was referring to sequential effects (though 'effects' is a pretty ambiguous game term). Those demise abilities heal the model itself, so happen at 6a and avoid the issue. For the Hog Whisperer, which states: This shouldn't resolve at 6a of the Squealer, it should resolve at 6c of the Hog Whisperer as far as I can tell (after all, the Hog Whisperer might heal another model). At least, that's one possible interpretation, it depends a bit on if you make the decision as it resolves or when it is generated (something the rulebook has very little to say on). Overall I don't think we have enough timing rule information to come to definitive conclusions.

Finding a balanced pair of core boxes is going to be difficult and constrictive. There's so many different scenarios in Malifaux (4 deployments, 4 strategies, 13 schemes, thousands of combinations) that different matchups will be lopsided one way or the other in lots of cases. In addition, in Malifaux, skill gaps are supremely important. When you're starting out, it will likely be the better player who wins rather than the player with the more powerful crew (although of course it always sucks to have the better player have the more powerful crew). My suggestion is to just pick two core boxes you each like and start building a crew. You'll quickly find you want to purchase more models for more options anyway, and you'll find the balance as you go. One word of warning about Dreamer: as a summoner, he will feel quite incomplete until you get the rest of his minions for him to summon. On the bright side, he is definitely a top-tier master and keyword, so you probably are fine for him to be at a weaker power level when starting out with him. Kaeris can also be tricky to play as I think her keyword isn't quite as powerful in general and her core box doesn't have her best models. However, she herself is extremely potent in combat and for that reason her core box should slightly overperform. Captain Zipp's corebox is insanely strong for any non-killing scheme and strategy pool (which is most of them). At least, that's what I think! I don't know about Hamelin's core box, but he seems like another crew that is not at full power with just his core box. The great thing is the core boxes are so cheap, you can just buy two and try it out. If you like the game but not the crew, you can swap crews at that point without much loss. P.S. Here's an introduction series for new players you may find useful: EDIT: oh, also a good metric is the total soulstones value of each box (discounting master and totem). Captain Zipp for example has 30 stones I think.

As far as I can see, it is (probably) true that the Black Blood damage should resolve first since it is generated first, but it does get a bit messy still. There are issues with Sequential Effects (you're not supposed to be able to resolve an effect while another effect is resolving, at least how I read it. Same as you can't resolve an action while another action is resolving). So what isn't clear is how the demise abilities are going to resolve here. Just to check that I understand... Are you in the camp that the Squealer gets to drop a scheme marker for its demise in step 6c, then the Hog Whisperer gets to heal the Squealer back up in step 6c, then the attack damage kills the Squealer again, so it can drop another scheme marker, giving two demise (scheme markers) from it from the single attack?

Our terrain is big and blocky, so it usually touches the centreline or is 5+ inches away from it. Maybe I'll experiment more!

Iggy will be a bit funky for scheme marker removal as you may hit your own models, but possibly something like: New Pandora Crew (Neverborn) Size: 50 - Pool: 7 Leader: Pandora Totem(s): Poltergeist Hires: Widow Weaver Hinamatsu Iggy Hooded Rider Bandersnatch References: Stitched Together Wicked Doll See My Shadow Changing With 7 stones for whatever you want. Hinamatsu charges then lures Pandora. Rider moves forward and Rides with Me on her. Bandersnatch moves forward and gets a web down for widow Weaver, giving her a 12" boost. The next turn, widow weaver gives Bandy a 12" boost. Leapfrog. After that initial burst, you should have everyone across the centreline, so everyone focuses on killing the enemy while Bandy, Widow and Iggy score points. Possibly split into two teams, going after each flank, or hit one flank super hard (power ritual is a good option if you want to deny outflank but not score it). Edit: could swap Iggy and an Aversion, in which case you'd want to mix up your first turn movements to boost Hinamatsu, Pandora, and the Aversion. Also note you can fake outflank on deployment by putting Bandersnatch and Widow Weaver on opposite sides, then using a movement trick to reposition one and have it run at a diagonal to place a web turn one. Has worked well for me before, but recommend it only for players comfortable with inefficient bluff strategies.

Unfortunately timing on black blood, demised, and damage is not at all clear IMO. Previous questions on the topic spanned dozens of comments. I recommend doing a search and reading the previous threads.

Well, if you're stuck with fixed master you're stuck with it! Still gotta play to win. You'll probably have to get a bit wacky. Given your available models, you probably want Widow Weaver and Bandersnatch. They are great at corner plant. They also offer some good scheming potential. Rider is automatic here IMO. EDIT: I'm sceptical of Serena. She is super slow, and you already have a slow keyword. She is not great on corner deployment, especially with no schemes or strategy for her. EDIT2: also, looks like our collections are nearly identical! I'm just missing Hinamatsu and Carver.

@Nagi21, i suspect we play different crews (I'm Pandora + Dreamer primarily atm), as we have very different rankings! Claim Jump I agree is best in faction. Search the Ruins I found trivial before the Gaining Grounds update, but after the update (when terrain doesn't count on the centreline), I find it extremely difficult. It is probably dependent on how big of terrain you use. Hold Up Their Forces I also find one of the easiest schemes on Dreamer. He summons low cost minions in base contact! But I can see it'd be hard for crews like Neph or Woe. Outflank I find pretty challenging in many matchups, as the enemy just needs to control one flank to deny it.

If you want a summoning with Widow Weaver list, Zoraida is actually the best master apparently.