Struggling with Kaeris...

[Scorpion0x17]

OK, first up, I should say I'm not only new to Malifaux but also this is the first game of this type I've ever played (though I have played numerous PC/Console strategy games), so that probably has some bearing on what I'm about to say.

 

In short, I picked up a Kaeris starter set as my introduction into the game based purely on the look of the figures (the advice I got was that the different masters are fairly well balanced and so to go with something I liked the look of), and in a way I'm glad I did - I love the character and the thematics of the set - in fact, if I were choosing a faction now, having read through the rules, and looked at most of the fluff in the main rule book, I'd probably still go with Kaeris!

 

However, I'm finding it really difficult to figure out how to use her, and the crew I'm starting to build round her, effectively.

 

OK, some specifics - as well as the Kaeris starter, I've picked up a Rail Golem, Rail Crew, and have Metal Gamin (which I proxied with Imperial Guard in my last game ) on order (along with a Dawn Serpent, but that's for when I start to play Mei Feng 10T as my second crew), and I've tried proxying The Firestarter a few times.

 

Now, the problem I'm finding with her, and the various crew combinations I've tried, is that once I get pinned I can't easily get free and nothing seems to have the hitting power to do anything about it. But, if I try playing more sneaky and defensive I don't have the speed to get around the board and, say, put down scheme markers (even though I keep on hearing people say that Kaeris is fast and maneuverable!)

 

Take, for example, my last game...

 

The Strat was:

• Squatter's Rights

 

And the Scheme pool:

• A Line In The Sand
• Protect Territory
• Assasinate
• Murder Protege
• Distract

 

I chose to go with:

• A Line In The Sand
• Protect Territory

 

And fielded:

• Kaeris + Arcane Reservoir + Grab and Drop
• The Firestarter + Imbued Energies
• Rail Worker
• Rail Worker
• Metal Gamin
• Metal Gamin
• Rail Golem

 

My opponent went with:

• Murder Protege
• Distract

 

And fielded:

• Marcus (don't recall exactly what Upgrades he had on him)
• Jackalope
• Cojo
• Myranda + Imbued Engergies
• Razorspine Rattler
• Sabertooth Cerberus

 

I got initiative first turn and started by activating the Rail Golem, Vented Boiler (setting my entire crew burning), then moving forward and dropping a scheme marker for Protect Territory, I don't recall exactly what order my opponent moved, or the various things happened, but I flew my Rail Workers and Gamin forward, also dropping scheme markers when they could, but before I knew it (by the end of the 1st turn in some cases and definitely by the end of the second in others) he'd got all my models pinned in place, turned my Rail Golem into a Beast and was hitting me with it. The Golem died pretty quickly, as did Kaeris (but then I know I made a mistake in going too aggressive with her), and The Firestarter (who I think I also used too aggressively).

 

It got to the point, by about turn 3 or 4, where all I had left were, iirc, the Rail Workers (which couldn't do anything, because they were engaged), and one Metal Gamin, so I conceded the game because I couldn't possible kill the things pinning me, he wouldn't have allowed me to break engagement and I had no way to score VPs (if it had gone on any longer he would have killed the rest of my crew then removed my scheme markers and claimed all the squat markers).

 

I tried Grab and Drop, to try and pull individual models out of engagement, but that failed. And then Kaeris died.

 

I tried using the Rail Golem to Knock Aside models, which worked on one, but not another, and then he died.

 

Hardly any of my attacks even hit, and when they did I did hardly any damage.

 

In short nothing I tried worked.

 

And that's been pretty much the pattern of most of the games I've played.

 

In the game I played before that I don't remember any of the details, but I was up against a Raspy crew - the Ice Golem pounded across the board and destroyed my Rail Golem in the first or second turn - and it was down hill from there!

 

Prior to that I played a game against Ratty, which was just horrible.

 

Out of a total of half-a-dozen games I've won one, and that was against a Misaki crew and a player that had played fewer games than me (he then went on to win against me in a rematch a few weeks later with the exact same crews facing each other).

 

Basically, I'm finding I can't hit anything hard enough to kill anything, and my models are too squishy to get into combat, but too slow to avoid it.

 

What am I doing wrong?!

[bertmac]

I really like fire gamin 1ss cheaper than rail workers with a nice sh attack which with burning is effectively weak 3 damage obviously this adds to the effectiveness of kaeris and if you included any a gunsmith. Metal gamin are great at killing ice golems I had mine magnetism towards dealing 2 damage then headbutt dealing one damage and two burning it ended up with 8 burning from the two gamin and burned to death

[brdparker]

Apart from the usual response of "play to your objectives" which is always the primary advice, this could be a question of resource management. Malifaux is a quintessential resource-based game. Which suits/values/how many soulstones/objective running actions/damage dealing actions/etc. do I have at a given time? Kaeris should be pretty durable, and if she gets in a pinch, can get out of it relatively easily with Grab and Drop, though newer players take a bit to get used to initiative as well. Either side can get four activations in a row if they end a turn with a chain activation and then win initiative!

 

Also, feel free to ask your opponents "out of these three models, who has the lowest Df?" I'm often asking "does this model have any defensive abiltiies?" meaning Armor, Hard to Wound, Hard to Kill, or triggers. Likewise, I'm generous with that information to my opponents. As you play, learn which of your damage dealing spells attack which stat and focus on what's easier to hit. You can also save the higher cards for the Golem and other big-costing models and cards and SS for Kaeris if you can unless you need it for another model to run an objectiveor do something else more useful. Also, and this can be key at times: don't forget about Focus and Defensive Stance. Just don't do it.

 

Is it a lot to juggle? Oh yeah. Try out thinking about one or two of these minor advice points in your next game and see if they help. If not, try some different ones. as you grow as a player, you will add things you notice to your mental pool and be able to make the calculations much quicker and find more depth to your crew.

[Deggiera]

Mythicfox has being getting some milage out of his kaeris as of late check out his 15 min malifaux and blog, might give ya some pointers. there's also a podcast he talks about his crew selection ect hold on ill go fetch the links.

 

his youtube channel : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQVTdEeXiaxjsb6q1PZAPLQ

The podcast i was referring to: http://malifools.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/daily/fools_92.mp3

and finally his blog: http://blog.mythicfox.com/

 

Hope you find some good info

[Scorpion0x17]

I have been following mythicFox's blog, videos, and so on - and have picked up a couple of things from that (for example the Vent Boiler trick), but I'm still struggling!

[Deggiera]

Ah fair enough, well sadly i know more about how the mind of a woman works than how Kaeris does the former being next to non existent. but i hope someone with a handle on her drops by ^^

[Kadeton]

Without being able to see the specifics of how you got into bad situations in your games, it sounds to me like you were surprised - in the Marcus game, you were surprised by how quickly he and his crew engaged your models, Marcus' ability to Alpha your Rail Golem, and the generally high Df of the beast crew.

 

I think you can chalk this one (and probably the next few too) up to experience. Knowing your own crew gives you the tools you need to play, but knowing your opponent's crew lets you figure out how you can actually use those tools to win. If your opponent is doing things that you didn't expect, then you're going to have a very hard time.

 

I'd suggest that you mostly need to play more games to get a feel for Kaeris, and for your opponents' crews - don't worry about winning and losing, just think about what you expect your opponent to be doing and how you can pre-emptively stop that. Additionally, if you feel you're lacking for hitting power (and looking at that list, you've got all your damage eggs in the Rail Golem's basket), there's loads of other options the Arcanists have available. I've used the Captain to decent effect with Kaeris, and Howard Langston / Miss Step is fast and extremely deadly. It sounds like your opponents are fine with proxies, so try out a variety of things and see what clicks with you.

 

Finally, as always, check PullMyFinger - both for tips on Kaeris and her crew, and for what to expect from your opponents' crews. Good luck!

[hippodruid]

Another thing that wasn't in your favor here was actually the crew.  Even with Wings of Fire, Metal Gamin and Rail Workers are on the slow side of things, and the Rail Golem isn't any better unless you can take an extra walk or two.  I would drop the gamin and the Firestarter and put in a couple of Gunsmiths.  Even if things aren't on fire, they'll still hit pretty reliably with a nice selection of triggers and the potential to gain Fast.  I actually like to use Flare on Turn 1 just so I can make that Df duel happen to cheat any in hand, and if they happen to gain Burning, I'm fine with that, too (at least in a Grab and Drop list).

 

When you're in melee with the Rail Workers, are you using Implacable Assault first?  I find that they become a lot more dangerous with the to attack and damage flips, especially since they have a decent damage spread.

 

It also sounds like you had a little bad luck on your side here.  Kadeton has a lot of good advice, and what he says about knowing your opponent's models is priceless.  I also might suggest running Kaeris without either of her Limited upgrades in a game or two, just to feel out her and her crew's core abilities without having to worry about the synergies they can create.  The Arcanists have plenty of great generic upgrades, and her base card still has plenty of synergy options.

[Scorpion0x17]

Well, the list was basically suggested by mythicFox over in the Kaeris thread, so I think any problems I had with it are more likely to be down to me than the list per se.

I've run with Gunsmiths before and I do think I need to bring at least one back into the list, but, regarding what you said about Flare - I see the idea there, but doesn't that mean activating Kaeris early, and what do you do after you've Flared? Leave her where she is, or maybe make 1.5 walks at most, so that the now Burning Gunsmith(s) can make use of Wings of Fire?

You make a good point about the Rail Workers - this was the first time I'd used them and though I did use Implacable Assault once or twice I know there were numerous times I forgot to use it! :-/

Regarding dropping Kaeris' limited Upgrades, I did play a couple of games where the only upgrades I took were Arcane Resevoir and Imbued Protection (both on Kaeris), and with a simplified crew, and that certainly helped, so I felt it was time to bring Grab and Drop back in, as it's quite a simple upgrade in and of itself.

Also, you may be right about luck, but if so I'm getting unlucky in almost every game I play!

Anyway, I've a rematch against the guy with the Raspy crew on Wednesday, so we'll see how that goes...

[hippodruid]

Generally, I'll Flare and position myself for Wings of Fire.  Another thing you can do is take Blinding Flame to push your models (it has no enemy restriction).  This combo is great for a Rail Golem, as you can push it 9" toward the centerline, get it out of range of Wings of Fire, and give it four to eight Burning in the process (Flare + 3x Flaming Halo, all of which can be augmented from the Golem's Df trigger).  That can bump your models further up and give you another shot at Concealed Weapon or just to apply some Burning to take advantage of the upgrade.  If Assassinate (or Deliver a Message) is in the scheme pool, I'll consider keeping her back and applying her where the enemy is weakest.  She's fast enough to go from a central position in or near the deployment zone to threatening anything along the center line, generally speaking.

 

So no, I guess I don't have a problem activating Kaeris first on Turn One.  If I'm running Grab and Drop, I'll actually deploy all of my models in a little bubble around her to maximize Flare and the resulting scheme marker nonsense.

[Scorpion0x17]

Ah, yeah I see.

I hadn't revisited Blinding Flame yet since cutting back on upgrades and simplifying the crew.

I guess it's also useful for breaking engagements.

[Dracomax]

 

I think you can chalk this one (and probably the next few too) up to experience. Knowing your own crew gives you the tools you need to play, but knowing your opponent's crew lets you figure out how you can actually use those tools to win. If your opponent is doing things that you didn't expect, then you're going to have a very hard time.

So..."It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle."

 

Old advice, that is. good, but old...

[Scorpion0x17]

I've a rematch against the guy with the Raspy crew on Wednesday, so we'll see how that goes...

And it didn't go well. It was a 50ss game, we flipped Close Deployment, Reconnoiter, Protect Territory, Plant Explosives, Spring The Trap, Bodyguard, A Line In The Sand.

 

We both chose, and revealed, Protect Territory and A Line In The Sand.

 

I went with:

 

Kaeris -- 4 Pool

 +Arcane Reservoir [2]

 +Blinding Flame [1]

 +Grab and Drop [1]

 

Gunsmith [7]

Metal Gamin [4]

Metal Gamin [4]

Rail Golem [11]

 +Bleeding Edge Tech [1]

Rail Worker [5]

Rail Worker [5]

The Firestarter [7]

 +Powered by Flame [2]

 

He took:

 

Rasputina -- 6 Pool

 +Cold Nights [1]

 +December's Pawn [2]

 +Shattered Heart [3]

 

December Acolyte [7]

December Acolyte [7]

Ice Gamin [4]

Ice Gamin [4]

Ice Golem [10]

Sabertooth Cerberus [9]

 

He won deployment, but gave me first deployment and I know I probably made a mistake here by deploying too open and too far forward, because he then positioned his Acolytes in LOS of my Rail Golem, and Rasputina in range of them.

 

By the end of Turn 1 both the Rail Golem and one Metal Gamin were dead. By the end of turn two I had Kaeris, the Gunsmith, and one Rail Worker left, and that was it. At which point I conceded because it was clear there was no way I was going to score enough VPs to even draw, let alone win.

 

I'm not really sure what I did wrong, if anything. I just couldn't keep anything alive. He decided to kill something and then it died. And there was nothing I could do to stop it (and believe me, I tried everything I could think of).

[kross1]

Sound like you don't have enough terrain on the table. It is a common mistake found among people that are just beginning this game. There is a excellent thread pinned in the Malifaux Discussion section of the forums.

[Kadeton]

Hmm, not sure that more terrain is necessarily the answer - it's damn hard to hide a Rail Golem, and Rasputina doesn't struggle to cast across the board.

 

@Scorpion - that's a lot of damage going on the Rail Golem, through Armor and apparently getting some blasts as well. Basically, you should be trying to minimise that - you should aim to have attacks with blasts flipping at a negative for damage whenever possible, because your Golem's Armor should make most weak damage pretty trivial.

 

Can you go into (if you remember) the sequence of attacks that led to a turn-1 kill of the Golem? Was it all coming from Raspy, or were other models (presumably only Acolytes) also attacking? Was the opponent able to cheat their damage? Basically, I'm surprised that Raspy (deadly as she is) was able to do this without some terrific luck.

[mistyboyspants]

Feel I should get in on this. I'm the Rasputina player from last night. To be fair their was a large amount of terrain on the board. 1 large building in the centre and I believe it was 5 normal sized buildings spread around as well as a few walls and rocks. The board was set up by Scorpion before I arrived.

Rasputina was set up behind a building and was casting through the December acolytes. Decembers curse was cast 5 times in the first activation 2 sets of severe damage which is double blast 2 moderate with blast and 1 weak. This took out the Rail Golem and I think it was a metal Gamin?

It could be said that it was a mistake to set up close allowing me an alpha strike but setting up further away would have given me more time to get more casts off.

Feel free to ask me anything.

Apologies for my poor typing. I hate posting from my phone!

[mistyboyspants]

Can answer that Kadeton. My hand I drew fist turn had a 11,12and 13 of masks(my trigger) as well as a red joker. I also drew a black joker on the damage flip which is a red joker for me.

[kross1]

Hmm, stepping back and looking at both the crews, the Kaeris crew seems outclassed in both speed and ranged options. Each time I have faced a Rasputina crew, I look to focus on her ice mirrors, and limiting her options at who she can fire at. This should have the added bonus of drawing her in so you can mob her with you own models. Cover will be very important, especially hard cover, which will give a negative flip to damage.

I would also look at taking Sue, he has great synergy with Kaeris, and can really hamper casters.

[Adran]

Ow. Its hard to have an answer to that.

Things that might help - Set The rail golem up so that it has a good chance of gaining cover. That might mean its entirely behind a ht 2 wall and it'll spend a lot of its first turn walking somewhere, but it would have put all those castign flips at negative, which would either have meant mistyboyspants couldn't cheat in from his hand, or he was spending extra SS or AP to allow him to cheat.

 

Even with those good cards in hand, yout opponent had to be lucky to get that much damage. It can be worth cheating reasonably high to put them on negative flips for damage, so they can't cheat. the imopprtant number to look for is within 5 of the opponent.

 

Normally I would expect the Rail Golem to survive 1 turn of Rasputina castign into it. Just. (although a good hand and a lot of soulstones can see her killinging it) But there isn't a huge amount you can do to stop everything. Try not to set up models within 1 blast marker of your big targets. They will probably get hit by severe and its double blasts, but if you can stop the blasts from moderate hiitting anything else, you normally can do ok.

[Ratty]

I was at the club and the amount of terrain looked fine.

[Kadeton]

Hah. Yeah, sometimes there's just nothing you can do - Rasputina with Jokers on damage and a ton of high Masks in hand means she can kill anything she wants, basically. I've found that a solid alpha strike like that is nearly impossible to recover from. So while there are probably things that could have made the game go differently, do realise that Rasputina could have ripped apart any crew you took in this case - it's nothing to do with your experience with Kaeris, it's about your experience against Raspy. You just got a whole pile more experience.

[Dracomax]

Ow. Its hard to have an answer to that.

Things that might help - Set The rail golem up so that it has a good chance of gaining cover. That might mean its entirely behind a ht 2 wall and it'll spend a lot of its first turn walking somewhere, but it would have put all those castign flips at negative, which would either have meant mistyboyspants couldn't cheat in from his hand, or he was spending extra SS or AP to allow him to cheat.

Rail Golem is Ht 4. TO hide, it needs at least a Ht 4 wall. For cover, it really only needs part of anything with the cover trait between it and whatever is being used to draw LOS.

[Adran]

I know, but when the opponent is deploying after you, and has Ice mirrors and from the shadows deployment, just perching near a wall may well not get it cover.

[Dracomax]

I just don't see the need for a 2" wall. I can see saying completely behind a wall, but the 2" part feels a bit off.

[Adran]

I was thinking that if the wall was less that 2", the acolyte could deploy the far side of it from Rasputina and still be used as an ice mirror.

(Well thinkign might be a bit strong... but it was needlessly confusing)