Yore Huckleberry

I'm trying to decide what the best scheme runners are? It seems like other factions have fast, cheap units, but some of the best Guild options seem to be mid-tier units. Mounted Guards can easily move around and help shift some friends while they're at it, and the demise replace is obviously a help. Undercover Reporter and Alison Dade (or Nellie herself) have that amazing scheme reversal aura ... but that feels like an opponent can play around it. Hounds have good movement but are easy to pick off. And Investigators are pretty powerful scheme area control, but they're pricey, especially out of keyword. Is there a rule of thumb in our faction, here? Or is it more that you commit some of your mid-tier costing to scheme runners and then try to hold the middle or keep a defended gunline, etc?

I'm still new and having trouble with some timing and triggers. But it seems to me that there's a pretty good counter to Misaki through Lady J lists? - The Jury auto-deals damage to buried models - Death Marshal Recruiters can target buried models directly - Death Marshals have a trigger on Pine Box that deals damage to a buried model That said, how does this work in practice? It seems like the DMR direct attack still has to deal with Misaki's DF6/WP7 stat line, and Pine Box requires that you be in melee range of something, and then target the buried Misaki. On top of that, what's the basic Pine Box timing? Do you bury the target in time for the trigger to work on the first model you bury, or is this meant to be a cumulative effect? I'd love to hear if people have experiences with this, or if it's basically just nice to have some extra ping damage off the jury and the chance of a cheap shot from the DMR's as small efficiencies in the matchup?

To my mind, the Judge is so good that it hurts not to take her at "only" 10 stones when I'm running Lady J, and Phiona suffers a bit of "not-Judge" syndrome. If I'm playing a mission where I need a Lady J crew to just wreck my opponent, I probably want the Judge instead, even if only for the free-action finisher damage. And Phiona's Take the Hit attack action competes with Lady J's mask trigger (though having the Tome trigger on Sweeping Strike is kind of some nice variety in the list). All of that said, Phiona's no slouch offensively, and I think there's some real impact from her Bring It lure ability. Pulling an enemy out of position and into range of a charge from Lady J (and Judge if you can fit the points into an elite crew) feels like a pretty powerful way to knock out an activated henchman or master in a Reckoning or Turf War matchup. I think Take the Hit is just gravy on Phiona. And one nice thing is that unless you're SPECIFICALLY going against Undead of some variety, the Judge is basically another beatstick, so swapping in something that CAN hit particular kinds of targets well (as above, the ones who have +flips to def) may be helpful variety.

I'm new and have been largely picking things up based on sculpt-coolness. That's totally fine for me, given that my local scene is fairly casual and I think I'll be able to get plenty of reps in just to enjoy weird (Wyrd) models. But I'm curious what order people would go in, particularly for Masters (as I'll be taking some time with those!). My current collection includes: Lady J (my "all comers" Master) From Box: Judge, Scales-totem, 3 x Death Marshals 2 x Exorcists 2 x Domadores de Cadaveres Nellie Cochrane (for scheme-heavy pools) From Box: Phiona Gage, Printing Press-totem, 3 x Field Reporters Misc 2 x Mounted Guards 2 x Guild Investigators I feel like the Domadores can hire-in to deal small blasts in a pinch (say, against Bayou in Reckoning), while if I run up against Hoffman I may need to actually run Nellie and look for staggered synergy between Judge, reporters, and investigators to beat armor and try to win on schemes. Any thoughts about key pieces, next masters, etc?

I'm pretty sure the bandana connects just above her left ear, though it's been a few weeks since I built it. I did my build by referring frequently to the box and her card art and dry-placing things before the build. I got confused on a few flame placements for death marshals (though I think they're the same sculpts as 2e), but Lady J fits together pretty intuitively. Good luck with your build!

Thanks on both counts. My collection is fairly small and I'm mostly using the horses for Ride with Me and to have the replace mechanic as kill denial in Reckoning Matchups, so sounds pretty niche for what I'm able to do so far.

On the Mounted Guard (and I believe some other Guard keyword models), there's a "Drop It!" trigger off of tomes. This reads "Enemy Only. Target must Drop an enemy Scheme Marker into base contact with itself, in LoS of this model." I'm a new player, and I have a technical and a strategic question about this: 1) Does "Enemy Scheme Marker" here mean that it's the opponent's (that is, the player who does NOT control the Mounted Guard triggering the ability)? 2) Is the major reason to do this to try to deny the opponent the ability to place the marker closer to whatever their actual scheme objective is? Or is it just good synergy with, say, Nellie's "Get the Story" or other abilities that just straight up use Scheme Markers as currency? Thanks!

Thanks! Too bad about the timing being correct. For a second I thought this was an incredibly powerful ability that basically force the enemy to somehow stop Nellie's movement in order to hit her whatsoever. Even so, 12 health, interact healing, and the fact that she should be able to play corner cover to avoid taking more than one hit per non-Master activation makes me feel decently confident about her survivability.

TOTALLY new player here going to my first tourney today ... which will also represent my first full Malifaux games ever! To make it nice and easy on myself, I, y'know, picked up Nellie Cochrane as a Master. I've played skirmish games with crunchy timing mechanics before, so I thought, "Hey, why not?" Anyway: I obviously ran smack into a ton of questions about particulars. I think I've answered some (e.g., the interaction between her 2i and 8i bonuses off opposing interacts), but haven't figured out: Df (Msk) Squeal: Enemy Only. After resolving, this model may move up to 3". My two questions: 1) Am I correct that this timing means that Nellie can't "squeal" out of melee range or break LoS in a way that cancels the attack? That is -- it looks like she simply gets to move after the attack "resolves," so she takes the first hit, but then has a chance to run/hide? 2) Can Nellie leave engagement range of melee on a squeal, or do you have to leave engagement range through the disengage action, or by some effect that explicitly allows it? Thanks in advance!