Yore Huckleberry

They (Death Marshals) feel pretty solid for Hold Up Their Forces; they're cheaper than a lot of things and very little can drop them in one activation. Getting them for free from the DMR isn't terrible.

I'm Yore Huckleberry, sir! ;D

Are players from the Des Moines meta on here? I’ve been listening to Steam-Powered Scoundrels and Schemes and Stones and would love to “meet” the community. I’m Ben from Omaha; new to 3rd Ed and a refugee from the defunct Star Wars Imperial Assault skirmish game. I’ve started Guild and want to try Lucius, but his box isn’t out yet. I may jump into a different faction once I learn the game.

What do we see as the strengths and weaknesses of: Exorcists - Ignore Friendly Fire into Lady J’s brawls. Glassy defense. Anti-summoning tech. Death Marshal Recruiters - Allows enduring piece value from bubbling. Helpful points denial in Reckoning. Domadores - corpse command, heals, aura makes enemies undead. Decay ignores friendly fire because it doesn’t have symbol on it. Death Marshals - hearty pawns. Can take up to 3 hits, depending. Good synergy with Domadores. What else are people finding?

I worry that the bubble for DMR is too small, plus you need to save a card to discard. It feels better on paper than in practice, I'd venture.

"Hi, I'm Nellie Cochrane, and this is my henchwoman ... Lady Justice."

I ran Lady J in a 4-way game running the Halloween farmhouse event last night. My three opponents literally all toilet-bowled around the opposite half of the board, leaving me a full board half to myself. Turns out, they'd played against her before. XD I wonder how useful this is psychologically in tournaments? Maybe instead of a Henchman and minion, bring Lady J as a second master and time a mid-round pass token to make your opponent blink?

Might I suggest a google doc? That would just be an enduring link in the thread, rather than a document you have to take down and re-upload continually. And if you want, you could give permission to edit it to other people who could help you out too.

I tend to find things to do with my cards in my games! ;D

I’ve only done theorycrafting, but it seems like you want to use the ability where you discard to put the opponent at - flip to attack, given that you’re able to draw a bunch in this deck. Two fun draw tricks: Alison Dade’s blackmail ability resonates really nicely with Lucius: the opponent must choose whether to discard 0, 1, or 2 cards or give you pass tokens for every card they don’t. Then she has a built in to trigger an effect where she can discard any number of pass tokens to draw a card. Since Lucius gives you a draw whenever ANYONE discards a pass token, you could draw four cards here. She can do it twice (or three times after auto-fast from the opponent revealing a scheme) although she needs two distinct targets to do so — stat 6 vs WP within 6”. So now you’re looking at a potential top end of a 12-card draw out of Allison’s activation ... and that’s assuming you’re not just there with an elite crew and can discard your own pass tokens to double up in the first place. The second trick may or may not work, but it’s obey stacking: you use Lucius to obey a lawyer to obey someone else. Maybe throw the doppelgänger or Agent 46 into the chain if you want (and string the order across the board a la telephone?). This relies a bit more on flips going your way ... but if you only want the card draw out of it and are treating the resulting action as a bonus, you can cycle a ton of cards. One note: longer chains take pacing, since mimic keeps the ability until the end phase but means those powerful figures have to go earlier.

Yeah, the issue with Zoraida is the ability to de-position figures or force interacts on idols or to drop explosives. Burning resources like focus or Fate tokens on a rider are pretty bad too.

There’s a quick off the block Marshals crew too if you double corpse-command push the Pale Rider forward with the Domador and then have a Death Marshal Recruiter give two Death Marshals a 3” push towards it. But then you’re basically deciding between the Lone Marshal and a henchman, and you’re going to leave your Domador in the dust.

Undercover Reporter can’t take one if you deploy it buried, alas. The reckless models are interesting. I think there’s a theory craft build where you take Nellie, a False Witness, two journalists and the Pale Rider, where the FW goes forward and puts two markers down ahead of himself. Nellie pushes the PR towards it, bumping bases with the witness. Then the journalists activate and take their free move apiece off of the scheme markers. Later, the Pale Rider moves someone forward with Ride with Me. 23” of free movement in round one — Colette, eat your heart out!

This does in fact make me happy. I’ve played about six games now and this ruleset is like drinking from a fire hose. I’m a refugee from Star Wars Imperial Assault (which had a great skirmish scene up to 2018) and I’m loving Malifaux so far. Most of the community has really been patient and welcoming, especially on rules interactions.

So, if your own model gets obeyed to attack you, does it remain friendly? I’m trying to think of why you wouldn’t relent this to put the attacker at a double negative flip, saving your hand and limiting the power of their obey action.

Speaking Guild-wise, of course.

Who are your favorite bomb-runners? Is there anyone who just really reliably gets them over the line early and stays up?

Arcanists have the Arcane Reservoir one, although it often goes on Soulstone Miners. Neverborn have really good ones too. Vs Guild this means they're unlikely to take Lead Lined Coat since they'd be paying two stones for a wash. List of masters who use upgrades should also include Yan Lo, Ophelia LaCroix, and every summoner. Plus there are models like Austringers that attach an upgrade to do a specific thing. And that's without using your own tech to apply upgrades for a bonus.

that's good tech in general -- just being able to focus, move, and fire all in the same activation.

I think the trouble here is keeping the model alive for the second point. Family has no trouble finishing your Vendett'or's target, but keeping a Pistolero alive is rough (especially when one of the best ways to get them into a surprise position for the ping damage is to use reckless on them!). Maybe this is another place where having a Death Marshal Recruiter nearby would help? Death Marshals really take three hits to kill under most non-Master attacks.

Survivability is the other great thing about Austringers: you can use the bird-discard defense to keep it alive. Having a Death Marshal Recruiter nearby to allow it to continue counting as a replaced model is also good tech.

Man, this is going to drive me nuts now. I just spent fifteen minutes looking for the thread throughout the Rules forum and couldn't find it. Someone was making the case that the definition of "friendly" meant "hired into your crew," and that anything hired into your crew was necessarily an opposing model. Frankly, I'm perfectly fine with the rules as you're describing them @Myyrä -- it seems to me that "specific beats general" could easily apply to allow a model to become friendly beyond the usual definition of friendly models without triggering any logical necessity that it must now oppose other models. Although ... does that mean you can always relent on an obey'd attack from your own model and force the double-negative flip, since both models are friendly?

I think @solkan or someone just had a lengthy explanation in the rules forum about why becoming friendly treats you as enemy to the other crew. I’m not 100% on this either way (needs an errata, probably).

Also, the Effigy upgrading to the Emissary is tech across all factions. Its based on the following rule from the Replace section of the rulebook: ”Step 4: If the new and original models belong to the same Crew, the new model becomes the target of any effects that targeted or chose the original model, such as Schemes, Leader designation, or lasting game effects. The new model is always considered a legal target for those effects.” So if your scheme started with the effigy targeting a cost 5+ model, and you take the upgrade that replaces it into the Emissary in round 3, then the Emissary is considered a legal target for that scheme that has the target. Silly, but apparently legal until it gets errata’d somehow.

Lone Marshal is great if they wind up with anything 10 stones on their side. You have to tech him in before you know if they will ... but “oh no, the Lone Marshal is in my crew!”