Help me out with Von Schill

[Kadeton]

I'm a pretty dedicated Outcast player, but I've found of late that I just don't understand Von Schill. Whenever I come to consider which Master to take, it always comes back to a decision between my Big Three - Viktoria, Leveticus and Hamelin. Not only do I find it difficult to think of a set of strategy and schemes for which Von Schill seems like the best choice, I've found in the few games where I've forced myself to play him (for practice) I was constantly wishing I'd taken one of the other Masters instead.

 

So I'd like to open things up to Freikorps supporters everywhere: What does Von Schill do better than anyone else? What are his unique strengths? For which strategies and schemes is he your go-to guy?

 

Here are my more specific concerns with him, based on my experiences so far:

 

• He doesn't put out much damage. He will struggle to put down any tough opponent, at range or (especially) in melee. The Viks and Levi can effortlessly slaughter enemies all day, while Von Schill puts out relatively weak damage and has limited ways of getting around special defenses like Armor.
• He's a lone wolf in the centre of a pack. The Freikorps are perfect for clumping up together against most opponents, and they rely on Von Schill to boost them up in order to be properly effective. Unfortunately, Von Schill gets almost nothing back from them, and his stats and other abilities are better suited to an independent mobile hunter role (a la Misaki). This severely limits his board presence, or (if you do decide to go the lone wolf route) basically cripples his crew.
• The Freikorps tendency towards mutual support makes them individually weak, and bad at achieving Schemes and Strategies that involve spreading out against opponents who do not suffer that limitation. It's fine if you can just mob up and advance to board centre, but how many scenarios have that as a viable option?
• There's very little variety in attack methods. Most of the Freikorps are simple Sh or Ml attacks with fairly low damage spread. This can cause serious issues against opponents with lots of Armor, Incorporeal, Hard to Wound or other damage-reducing abilities.

 

There is a major caveat to this, which is that I haven't used (or assembled) my Strongarm Suit yet, and everyone seems to regard him as an auto-include. (I tend to think of auto-includes as an inherent weakness of a Master's design.)

 

Anyway, give me tips! I'm sure there's some value hidden in the Freikorps somewhere, I just haven't found it yet.

[Ratty]

If the board is fairly open in the center and you have Turf War I think Von Schill, his totem and Freikorps is a great idea. They are tough and can heal up, which allows them to stand in positions a lot of other crews couldn't afford to.

Von Schill himself is very good at jumping out to an objective later in the game to grab VPs once you have held the center for a while. I don't necessarily run the Strongarm, Lazarus and Hannah are probably better in this case due to the double heal.

[MasterDisaster]

Von Schill doesn't actually do anything better than anybody else. I find this is because he is good at a little of everything. Think of him as a Jack of All Trades. He's good at combat, shooting, defense, support. His crew does it all. Unlike the Viks who are outright killers but are fairly lacking in defenses or Hamelin who can swarm the opponent the Freikorps are a well rounded crew who can bring in any of their specialized members to deal with various situations. They all have Armour +1 as a minimum and most are immune to damage caused by  &  which is incredibly useful.

 

Von Schill is the keystone of the crew. He is tough as hell and has some nice damage output although it's not the best. He support his crew with his "Legend to Live up To" which gives out a nice +1 Wp and a better version of HtK. Then you mix and match your crew depending on what you require. 

 

Freikorpsmenn are very good at running objectives are they are cheap, fast, durable and have a bunch of nifty tricks to help them out in a pinch. 

 

Steam Trunk is an incredibly useful tool within the crew, especially if Von Schill has the upgrade which allows his crew to use 2x (0) a turn so long as they are different. It allows you to remove poison, burning and gives a nice little heal. 

 

Librarians are pretty badass for 7ss, they can offer you some nice healing and can dish out some nice ranged damage. On top of this their only attack is a Ca action so it can be effective against Incorporeal enemies. 

 

Specialists are great at putting out some ranged damage but also offer utility in the form of Slow and Paralyze removal, on top of this they can remove enemy scheme markers which is real useful. 

 

Trappers are one of my personal favorites, they are fast, fairly tough, cheap and have some real nice damage at 14-28" range and their rifles comes with a   to attack so they automatically negate cover which is always useful!

 

Strongarm Suits are the go to beat stick if you want something up close and personal laying into your foe. With serious Wd and Armour they can take the hits really well. They offer some nice ranged attacks but mainly they tend to excel in combat where they can lay down the pain. Their (0) action also offers some really useful little buffs. 

 

Lazarus is your go to beat stick if you want some nice ranged firepower, his grenade launcher is a nice damage track and offers some blast damage. He is also fairly competent in combat not to mention tough as nails, he also has Armour +2 like the SAS but he can also heal himself with one of his (0) actions. His other allows him to copy the abilities of other constructs. 

 

I don't have any experience with Hannah

 

A good Skeleton crew for any Von Schill crew would be 

 

Von Schill

- Survivalist

- The Shirt Comes Off

Librarian

2x Freikorpsmann

 

And go from there

 

They are well above average at everything but specialize at nothing as a crew. Each member fulfills a specific role and you need to pick the right team members for the requirements at hand. Hopefully the above will give you an idea of how to work the crew around various objectives and how to build a crew using them.

[Falconrider]

Rusty synergizes well with Von Schill if he is equipped with Engage at Will as she can use both her 0 actions on From the Aether to summon an Abomination each turn. 

Begin the game with 2 Aboms and you should be able to summon the Des Engine turn 2.

[Csonti]

I have played a lot with Schill and I didn't lose many games. However I do agree that he lacks some magnificent stuff other Masters possess (like summoning, extreme damage potential etc.). In exchange he is solid and acts like a Swiss knife and usually has some solution to any challenge you should face. I try to put some notes after your questions.
 

He doesn't put out much damage. He will struggle to put down any tough opponent, at range or (especially) in melee. The Viks and Levi can effortlessly slaughter enemies all day, while Von Schill puts out relatively weak damage and has limited ways of getting around special defenses like Armor.

 
Here we disagree. Weak damage of 3 on an Sh6 Rg12 Attack is a beast, especially on a Master that can use 3 AP (4 with Fast) and SS as needed. That means a potential 10 damage or so if you can hit with all your shots. And that is from a very long range, you don't have to risk VS throwing into the middle of the enemy.

 

In melee the 2/3/6 looks a bit weaker but it does ignore Armor and has the possibility of Critical Strike (or that lovely Can Opener trigger). Not to mention the Finish the Cur Action that usually lets you take a 4th attack if 3 was not enough. Of course a Vik can do better in close combat but she will melt away easily - something you couldn't say about VS.

This package looks very decent to me.
 

He's a lone wolf in the centre of a pack. The Freikorps are perfect for clumping up together against most opponents, and they rely on Von Schill to boost them up in order to be properly effective. Unfortunately, Von Schill gets almost nothing back from them, and his stats and other abilities are better suited to an independent mobile hunter role (a la Misaki). This severely limits his board presence, or (if you do decide to go the lone wolf route) basically cripples his crew.

 
The Freikorps can just do fine if VS is out hunting. The boost he gives to his troops is nice but there are cases when you happily give up that for a surgical strike. For example in one match I was on a Pigapult at the start of Turn2 while the rest of the crew absorbed the Gremlins' advance quite nicely without the help of VS. Game was over practically at the end of turn 3 since VS neutralized a lot of points with his bold advance.
 

The Freikorps tendency towards mutual support makes them individually weak, and bad at achieving Schemes and Strategies that involve spreading out against opponents who do not suffer that limitation. It's fine if you can just mob up and advance to board centre, but how many scenarios have that as a viable option?

 
A lot. Turf War and Squatter's Rights is spot on and Reckoning is also very fine if you chose a proper crew. From the usual Strategies the only challenging one is Reconnoiter.  
 

There's very little variety in attack methods. Most of the Freikorps are simple Sh or Ml attacks with fairly low damage spread. This can cause serious issues against opponents with lots of Armor, Incorporeal, Hard to Wound or other damage-reducing abilities.

 
VS can ignore HtW and Armor, Specialist can shoot blasts that also gets around HtW. His attack also comes with Burning good against HtW, Incorporeal and even Armor to some extent. Strongarm has a trigger that denies any kind of damage reducing stuff to work. Librarian has a Ca Attack that is both a ranged and melee weapon. She can even do that 3 times with possible blast triggers. Trapper can deliver up to 6 damage with Critical Strike out of a single Focused shot from 28". Then there is Lazarus...

No I don't think they struggle in this front.
 

There is a major caveat to this, which is that I haven't used (or assembled) my Strongarm Suit yet, and everyone seems to regard him as an auto-include. (I tend to think of auto-includes as an inherent weakness of a Master's design.)

 
He is a very fine piece but I won tons of games without him so I would refrain to say that he is an auto-include.
 

Anyway, give me tips! I'm sure there's some value hidden in the Freikorps somewhere, I just haven't found it yet.

 

I wrote the VS tactica on Pull my Finger. While that is aimed for newer players maybe you should take a look at it. Except from Hannah I'm done with the other Freikorps entries there too, so maybe you should also check those.

[Bengt]

I really don't get why one of the most repeated things said about Freikorps is that they have to clump up. Sure they they are immune to some of the drawbacks of clumping up, but that should only mean that they have an additional option against some Masters where you would not normally clump up.

 

I haven't played with or against VS though.

[Ratty]

There are quite a few buff bubbles in the crew, Distance from Von Schill, Distance from the Luggage. So they are definitely individually tougher when they are close together. But they don't need to all stay together to be useful.

[Seregon]

The Von Schill +1Wp and HtK bubble is also 6 or even 8", so they don't have to stay that close to eachother in order to benefit from it.

[MasterDisaster]

The Von Schill +1Wp and HtK bubble is also 6 or even 8", so they don't have to stay that close to eachother in order to benefit from it.

 

I believe it's 6" so take into account his 30mm base and then a 6" bubble around him. That's just over 13" across and its all around him. That's a HUGE area of the board covered by it and you don't even have to be entirely within the aura. Clumping up is definitely not a requirement but it can be useful. His Augmented Jump makes him incredibly mobile as well so he can move that aura around easily without worrying about his other crew members being left out. 

[Kadeton]

Cheers everyone! I'm going to go through some of the responses that don't quite gel with my own experience, to try to tease those thoughts out a bit more and see what I'm missing.

 

@MasterDisaster: You say that he's good at a little bit of everything, but of the list of things that Masters can do in this game (melee, shoot, cast, tank, buff, summon, position, control... there are probably others but I'd say that's the highlights) he's got some great passive buffs, decent shooting, mediocre melee and tanking, and basically nothing else. I'd say there are other Masters who fit the "Jack of all trades" moniker much better, and still have areas in which they are outstanding - Seamus is a good example. He can do everything on that list to some extent, most of it rather well, and some of it better than almost anyone else.

 

The Freikorpsmanner are very solid and cheap, though not fast or dangerous. I find they get stuck in melee and slowly ground to death.

 

The Steam Trunk is the main thing that forces the crew to clump together, which bugs me a bit.

 

The Librarian is great, but I always find there's way too much that I need her to do. She's got a good attack and good support, but it often feels like she's the only one in the crew that does.

 

I like the Trappers a bit, but I've tended to try to use them for objective grabbing (with From the Shadows) which they're honestly total rubbish at. I'll try them exclusively as backfield snipers and see if that works better.

 

I like Lazarus a lot.

 

@Falconrider: Nice trick!

 

@Csonti: I'll take a closer look through the PullMyFinger stuff, thanks.

 

I will admit a certain degree of Viks bias in dismissing a Sh 6 3/4/5 attack as laughable for a Master... I doubt I'm going to ever find that satisfying. I will say that even in comparison to other primarily ranged Masters, it feels a bit weak, and it being on Sh rather than Ca is a major flaw. Oh, and 12" is easy engagement range for most combat-focused crews.

 

As a specific question from my worst Von Schill experience, what would you suggest a thematic Freikorps crew do when they happen to come up against Kirai?

 

I found the spirits incredibly difficult to take down (certainly much slower than my opponent was able to heal and/or summon them). Von Schill personally did little more than kill a Necropunk and lose a one-on-one fight with Ikiryo (he was isolated and couldn't disengage). Lazarus got torn apart by Ikiryo and a Shikome as soon as he fired his first shot. Both Trappers lost fights with Necropunks (though they did get me full points for Power Ritual). It felt like the most one-sided matchup I've ever played, through all of first edition, closed and open beta, and M2E.

[Seregon]

Librarians can make short work of most incorporeal models with their furious casting, especially if they're clumped and you hit that blast trigger. Hannah can also be used there to steal their offensive spell.

Also, don't forget Nether Fluctuation that remove the opponent's built-in suits when within 4" of them. That has stopped a fair many nasty triggers for me.

 

Trappers should never be in combat, and have their (0) to simply push away and then doubletap into whomever is unfortunate enough to have gone so close to them (plus that they get to move up to 3+3" while doing so).

 

As for Von Schill being charged by opponents, it's something he can usually tank and next turn he can simply charge them back even when engaged and drop three or potentially four attacks on them, ignoring armour and potentially permanently dropping their Df and thus making each subsequent attack easier to hit with.

3/4/5 ignoring HtW at 12" is absolutely devastating against most ressers.

 

Specialist is one of my favourite support model. His attacks ignore cover and either deal one extra damage from burning or effectively deal out slow if the opponent wants to remove the burning. He can also burn away scheme markers and he's immensly effective against summoning masters since he automatically removes all scrap and corpse markers at the end of his activation.

The only drawback is that he tends to get swamped in combat. He'll usually hit with his Ml6, but you may want to have some other model nearby to relieve him.

 

Freikorpsmann can be quite decent as an objective runner if you can go after the engaged opponent. Discard a low tome, hopefully hit them once and trigger Duck & Weave and then try to disengage with your now Df7.

[Kadeton]

Thanks Seregon. You make some good points about the crew's effectiveness in general, which I mostly agree with. I still see problems with Kirai, though.

 

Librarians can make short work of most incorporeal models with their furious casting, especially if they're clumped and you hit that blast trigger. Hannah can also be used there to steal their offensive spell.

Also, don't forget Nether Fluctuation that remove the opponent's built-in suits when within 4" of them. That has stopped a fair many nasty triggers for me.

Yeah, the Librarian did some work in that game. I don't have a Hannah until the TtB stuff arrives, so I haven't really used her except in Wave 1 beta, when she was basically garbage. Unfortunately, a Furious Cast from the Librarian means that there's some enemy models within 10", which basically means she's about to be dead since she's the only thing in the crew that can threaten Spirits and they really want to kill her.

 

Trappers should never be in combat, and have their (0) to simply push away and then doubletap into whomever is unfortunate enough to have gone so close to them (plus that they get to move up to 3+3" while doing so).

The Trappers in this particular case were supposed to be doing a Power Ritual. Pushing away was fine, but after a couple of tries I determined that they couldn't reliably kill a Necropunk with two shots, and the Punk would then eat their Scheme marker and re-engage. This easily shut the Trappers down until Shikomes started showing up to kill them, which they had no defense for at all. I still got my Power Ritual, but I won't ever use Trappers for it again.

As for Von Schill being charged by opponents, it's something he can usually tank and next turn he can simply charge them back even when engaged and drop three or potentially four attacks on them, ignoring armour and potentially permanently dropping their Df and thus making each subsequent attack easier to hit with.

In my game, Von Schill admittedly flubbed a way higher portion of his attacks than would be normal against something with Df 3, but yeah - Ikiryo tanked his damage (hitting for 1 every time), got healed up, and slowly shredded him as I burned all my stones. I think it took three turns to kill him, but it never felt like he came close to hurting it in return.

3/4/5 ignoring HtW at 12" is absolutely devastating against most ressers.

I feel like I'm harping on this and it wasn't actually your point, but again - not against Spirits. That's a 2/2/3 spread which isn't much chop.

[Drool_bucket]

VS crews definitely struggle against massed Incorporeal.  They are a bunch of dudes with guns and knives in a world of monsters...

 

I agree with most of what has been said here in defense of VS.  What is missing, and can not be overlooked, is that VS (and his crew) have numerous hard counters to most other's "tricks."  I find the Friekorps crew has the most success when they are defeating what the enemy does while slowing achieving their own goals.

 

For instance....  (going from particularly general to more specific cases)

 

- are a melee crew that relies on killing the enemy?  Friekorps has access to a ridiculous amount of healing in a "base" crew as well as almost universal armor...

- run a shooting crew to do damage?  Same as above but has theme'd access to (strong) shooting on every model.  And I'll mention the enhanced HtK stopping sniper one-shots here as well...

- like to summon off Corpse or Scrap markers?  Friekorps Specialist remove them

- make use of Black blood or other Pulse damage?  The suit ignores it.

- make use of Blasts to hand out significant amounts of damage?  Again, the suit ignores it.

- attack WP?  VS buffs and the starting stats are above average to start

- hand out slow/paralysis?  Move or Burn (and ignore the damage, btw)

- you running Schemes?  We burn them up?

- have low WP, well, we can cause Horror duels

- Can't Lure Hannah who is a great roadblock piece to center a crew around.

- Do you utilize Poison or Burning to great effect?  Yeah, Friekorps can remove those.

- Have a giant "beater" model that cornerstones your attack (except A&D) or hands out amazing synergies to the rest of your crew?  Friekorps bury those.

 

I am sure I am missing some, but my point is this.   A "basic" VS crew brings a solid hard counter to whatever the opponent is doing, the secret is identifying it and putting it to good use (and protecting it) in each match up.  People say that VS is a "starter friendly" crew, to which I agree, the rules are straight forward and "what they do" is very easy to comprehend.  But I think really mastering VS is just like any other Master, you have to know the crew, how it works and how it deals with the opponent.

 

And I don't know about your VS, but mine does so much killing that I have moved to taking Tally Sheet with him as his third upgrade... (The Shirt and Engage as the others)

[Drool_bucket]

Two other things.

 

First, Hannah.  She is one of my two favorite Henchwoman in the game right now.  Rusty being the other.  Both are amazing! 

 

Two, Kirai is a hard match up for VS, no doubt.  Most of their stuff ignores Armor and are Incorporeal, both unattractive things to face iwth Friekorps.  And I prefer VS against most Resser masters, too.  But being bad against one other Master doesn't mean the crew is poor overall.... 

[Kadeton]

But being bad against one other Master doesn't mean the crew is poor overall....

No, absolutely - I'm not actually trying to say that the crew is bad, I'm just trying to get at what makes it good, and how people have used it successfully. Your point about countering other crews' tricks is quite an important one, I think.

The Kirai matchup does make me very uneasy, and it's not the only awful incorporeal-based problem out there - Jack can happily run a high number of nasty spirits, as can Levi, Tara, any Resser... that really starts to stack up against them. I suppose the answer to that concern would be Hannah and/or a second Librarian - but an easier answer might just be to run a different Master if your opponent declares Ressers or Outcasts.

Really, I'm not looking for situations where the Freikorps can do okay if you feel like running them - I'm looking for situations where they will be a better choice than another Outcast. That's been my main problem so far. I get a couple of turns into a game and realise how simple it would be to win if I was using Viktoria, or Levi, and it depresses me... but I'm know there's plenty of good potential there, I just struggle to unlock it. This thread has been quite handy, and I'm looking forward to giving some of these ideas a try.

[Drool_bucket]

I, too, play the rotation of Viks, Levi, Tara, Hamelin and VS.  All competitively, too.

 

Von Schill competes with Leveticus for Turf War.  This is particularly true in Close or Corner deployment because his crew is overall tougher than Levi (funny to actual type that) and moves better as a whole.

 

Squatter's rights is a consideration.  It's usually scheme pool dependent vs the Viks, Hamelin or him.

 

I favor him against Neverborn, Ressers and Guild. 

 

For Schemes, if I see Murder Protege I usually move away from Levi because of A&D...  However, I will not play VS if Distract/Cursed Object are available.  Too few, elite models that.  If I see lots of Marker placement Schemes I gravity towards VS.   There are so many schemes that it's hard to list... but these above are usual the ones I keep in the front of my mind.

 

A side note, IMO the two most important models in your VS crew are the Trunk and the Specialist.  Though I act like it's either VS himself, or often Hannah/Librarian combination, in the end those two models are extremely key to many of the "counters" that I like above.   The Specialist is a game winner by himself if the opponent decides to drop Breakthrough or Power Ritual Markers because he can remove that at range, as long as you can get an (unimpeded) Freikorpman or a (relocating) Trapper near to those Markers.  Anecdotal: I won a game once because my Gremlin opponent did the whole Reckless/Scheme Marker dash for a turn 5 Breakthrough, only to have my Trunk drive right between them and get hit with a very low Crow (?) triggering Wildfire, removing all 3 VPs for the player....

 

back OT, Reckoning is finally a consideration, but I agree that the Viks do it really, really well.  I might consider VS in Reckoning against Gremlins, though, because my local player makes great use of the Pigapult against my poor Viks....

 

Stake a Claim is Tara all day and night...

 

and I haven't got anyone to succeed in Recon regularly.  I am hoping Daw with so much board control can really handle it.   Outcasts just don't have a solid summoner to keep up with other Faction's best Recon Masters.... 

 

So, I agree that VS is not my go to Master in many games.  That said, I never feel like I am helpless with him and love playing him.  Try the SAS, too.  That thing offers up a lot of what the crew is missing, a giant beater that launches itself reckless into the fray... only to come out victorious when his friends are backing him up with heals...

[Mikey_C]

VS has been my main master since M2E. I play with the old metal box, I use every piece and I've only lost 1 game with him. 

 

Freikorpsmen have Unimpeded and Reference the field guide.  These are great. These guys are great at snagging objects along the flanks.

 

The Trapper, has reposition built in. This is pretty amazing. built in plus also amazing. If I deploy 2nd, I always put the trapper in position to achieve strats or schemes. Also if VS has "I pay better" the trapper is pretty amazing.

 

Specialist, this guy is a game winner. If I have I pay better I'll drop cards to feed him focused. All of his trigger are great. I always give him Oath keeper, and have a turn of walk, shoot, shoot, or if my opponent made a mistake shoot, shoot, shoot.

 

Librarian, I usually have her hang out near the specialist. Between the 2 of them they can take one anyone. I often give her Oathkeeper as well so she can have a turn of walk, furious casting or walk heal, heal.

 

VS, the man himself. He's is great. Upgrades I looks to first are "the shirt comes off", "I pay better" and "oathkeeper". 
I find VS is better at shooting in general than in melee. I also try to save him for late in the turn when cards are getting low. His reposition trigger is amazing. and a standard turn he can dish out 9 wounds with the gun and move 9" with the triggers (use soul stones or cards as needed).

Also, VS can't get "stuck in melee" very easily. He can just charge out of melee so long as another target is in his charge threat.

I play VS himself as a bit of a bully. He takes care of Enforcers and lower while his crew occupies the henchmen and masters.

Often I'll charge him into a group of minions or enforcers take a couple stabs with his knife and then If he's wounded he rips off that shirt and forces the horror duels, which late in the turn is amazing an has always gotten me a few paralyzes.

 

Overall I play a game of denying my opponent points. A high scoring game for me with VS is 7 or 8 points. I don't think I've ever hit 10, but have often won games by scoring 6.

[tenshu]

I've done well on the uk tourney using just VS he has an answer to everything. where ate you guys playing competitively??

[SanguinaryDan]

Wow.  Now I REALLY, REALLY NEED these guys in plastic.  

 

I love Sonnia, but I want Von Schill.

[Pablonius]

Have been a VS player since day one when I first got into the game over 2 years ago, he was awesome fun then, and is still just as fun if not MORE now.

Just had a game today actually that left me and my opponent reeling, managed to shut down a Snow Storm with Hannah and her bury upgrade by having it buried in turns 2, 3 AND 5 (won activation each of those turns, and it was a Void Wretch that buried it on the 5th turn). Also managed to pull off Assassinate on Colette in that game which was risky to pick but the Scheme pool was lacking much else worth taking.
 
As above, a Void Wretch with the VON is pretty good too if you get your activations right, Hannah buries him and the VW uses 2AP to heal the bugger. end of turn he is back out on the field and ready to pop another fool.

So upon re reading the rules on bury/unbury I have come across something quite spectacular... 

"When unburying models, if the models do not physically fit in the specified location, they are placed in their controller's deployment zone by the player who controls them."
 
Meaning that you can bury a model using Hannah and then have her (or another model on a 40 or 50mm base simply stand on the void marker and BAM!... "Do not pass GO, Do not collect $200"

Edited August 22, 2014 by Pablonius

[Simbrian]

I use Von Schill in most games that I play and most of my games are against Ressers so I usually have a hard time.

 

I find that Von Schill makes for an excellent distraction in most cases. Being a master, my opponent will usually focus on trying to bring Schill down while I have Taelor or Hannah moving up the board working on my objectives. As an Outcast player, I find that I have more than enough models with unique abilities to deal with nearly any situation.

[Drool_bucket]

interesting, when facing Ressers, short of Kirai, Von Schill is my go-to Master from the Faction.

 

ignoring HtW at range is beatiful, their high WP can really negate any Terrifying that comes into play and the Specialist and Trunk (and therefore anyone near it) can remove Markers.

 

I do agree the VS is an amazing distraction... his augmented jump, plus all the access to healing he gets means the opponent can quickly fall into the trap of spending a massive amounts of AP to remove him.

 

The only thing that the Friekorps really suffers from is a lack of solid objective runners.  (Friekorps, not Outcasts)  That's why I favor non-scheme marker objectives with them...

[Kadeton]

interesting, when facing Ressers, short of Kirai, Von Schill is my go-to Master from the Faction.

How do you weigh up the chance that your Resser opponent won't pick Kirai against the certainty that if they do, the Friekorps are going to get their teeth kicked in? That's still my major worry with them, and I think it's a glaring weakness to the crew.

One of the things I found most strange at Gencon was that we were required to announce Master at the same time as Faction. In that setup, it was super easy to counter-pick the Friekorps and destroy them because their toolbox is so limited. Taking stuff that ignored Armor and Hard to Kill, or provided resistance to shooting threats, gave such a huge advantage that the games were practically over before they began.

[Mason]

One of the things I found most strange at Gencon was that we were required to announce Master at the same time as Faction. In that setup, it was super easy to counter-pick the Friekorps and destroy them because their toolbox is so limited. Taking stuff that ignored Armor and Hard to Kill, or provided resistance to shooting threats, gave such a huge advantage that the games were practically over before they began.

 

I'm really hoping that isn't part of the rules for next year.  It's a really odd addition that I felt skewed the match ups a bit too much in some pairings. 

[LunarSol]

I'm really hoping that isn't part of the rules for next year.  It's a really odd addition that I felt skewed the match ups a bit too much in some pairings. 

 

When I first got into the game I thought something like that seemed like a good idea to help reduce the variance in having 7 masters to potentially build again.  As I've gotten more experience, I'm leaning more in favor of something like a limited pool or just declaring 3 possible masters for a tournament in general.  Still too new to have a meaningful opinion on the matter though.