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1st game with Colette - 4 player Prison Riot


Haunter

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I finally got my first game in with Colette at the helm.  It was 4 player scenario - Prison Riot, where the strategy involved 4 different victory conditions involving 4 prisoners who needed to be moved about or killed.  Schemes were ALITS, Bodyguard, Power Ritual, Spring the Trap, and Protect Territory.

 

I drew the Prison Riot VC that involved getting 2 of the prisoners into my deployment zone.  I chose Spring the Trap and ALITS for my schemes.

 

My crew:

 

Colette (4 pool)

-Cabaret Choreography

-Arcane Resevoir

 

Cassandra

-Smoke & Mirrors

 

Angelica

-Practiced Production

 

Mech Rider

 

Performer

 

Mannequin

 

Johan

 

I was squaring off against McMourning, Seamus, and Mei Feng. 

 

Things I learned:

Holy carp, this crew is fast!   Between Angelica's Give them an Encore, Colette's prompts, Cassie's Nimble, the mannequin's free follow, and the mech rider's push on her summon...  I literally had more movement than I knew what to do with.  Soooo, I did the natural thing to do - I overextended myself dangerously!

 

I like Doves.  I used a Mech Dove and Practiced Production to drop half of the markers for ALITS.  The confusion around the table when I flew it into the back corner of someone else's zone was priceless.  "Uh... what's he doing with the Dove?  It's an insignificant peon with no engagement range...  why is it over there?"   Not sure I'd get away with it a second time, but a fun trick this time.  Summoning them felt like a bit of a hardship more from a card standpoint than an AP one.  I intend to try hiring them instead next time and seeing if it makes a difference.

 

I clumped up too much (while overextending).  I was all excited to use Colette's ability to give Showgirls & minions (0) interacts to drop scheme markers all over, but due to poor planning and placement I didn't get the requisite 4" away from the last ones to place the next ones as often as I had intended!

 

Mech Rider is good.  Her speed is awesome and intimidating, and stabbing people for scheme markers is good times.  Not an auto-include, but I was very pleased with her.  All 3 of the metal gamin I summoned were still alive at the end of the game, all having achieved virtually nothing but activation padding.

 

Prompting feels card-intensive!  I had one turn where I futilely tried to kill Mei Feng (God I hate that woman).  I Dove-buffed Colette early in the turn, so was flipping 2 cards for each of her 3 prompts, followed by another card for Cassie to then hit Mei.  I think Mei swallowed about a third of my deck... and I never got her below half her wounds.

 

I got lucky with Spring the Trap.  I used a Performer to lure McMourning in and paralyze him, then piled scheme markers all around him.  This seems like it would be a really dicey scheme to pull off under normal circumstances.

 

ALITS was trivial for this crew.  At the end of the game I had 6 of the 8 scheme markers I'd dropped still on the center line.  A 

 

I underutilized Johan.  I figured between Poison and Burning, I'd have plenty of conditions to remove.  Unfortunately he got 7 burning stacked on him, and when I smugly tried to drop the Ram I'd been saving to Rebel Yell himself I was reminded that he cannot target himself with an attack action.  Arse.  

 

In retrospect, I wished I'd had another Performer for more Siren Call and Seduction... but maybe if Johan had gotten to do anything before he died I'd have been glad for him anyway.

 

The crew felt fragile, but maybe that's because I ended up getting drawn into a brawl with a bunch of Punk Zombies and McMourning... and then got Mei, Firestarter, and Emberling in the bunghole.  Bunched, overextended, and squeeeeeezed.  A poor craftsman blames his tools, so it's tough to say how much is that the crew's fragile and how much was that I played foolishly.

 

In the end, Colette's girls came in 2nd with 6VP while Mei stomped her way to a 7VP win.  Seamus and McMourning got honors for showing up.

 

Sorry, a bit scattered and not a proper battle report.  I wanted to braindump somewhere to people who might understand what the heck I'm on about.

 

 

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Mech Rider is amazing, the first time I used it I almost one-rounded McMourning (burning Imbued Energies, of course) which left him with 2 boxes. Then I remembered Revel In Creation, so I made an EC so it could blow up as soon as it activated, netting me the kill before he could do the Nurse/Witchling trick to top him up.

 

I haven't had a chance to play Colette (here's hoping she's in the Black Friday sale!) but I expect Prompt lets her get more mileage out of her beatstick models.

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Some tips and tricks to add to your arsenal here.

 

1) Cassandra can use Understudy on Johan to copy his Rebel Yell.  So the common trick of piling the condition on Johan does not work as well if Cassandra can still activate and as a henchwoman she can even use a soulstone to buy the Ram if you truly need it to go off.  Even if she has already activated Colette can Prompt Cassandra to use Understudy if she had not already used it this turn.

 

2) It sounds like you did not utilize Magician's Assistant on the Mannequin.  Your issue of not being able to drop scheme markers due to over clumping can partially be solved by this action as it lets them put them down with in 6" under certain restrictions.  That means you can drop the first one at a distance and then move and drop the second if you are close enough to Colette.  Or if you are in an ideal place a single model with the Mannequin can drop 2-3 scheme markers themselves fairly easily.  This could have allowed a single model and the Mannequin to pretty much cover McMourning by themselves.  Also with the push the get to Showgirls you can likely get away with using the ability and still keeping up.

 

3) Metal gamin are nice with the Mechanical Rider for endurance, but if you don't need endurance I would consider Ice or Fire Gamin.  Both do damage upon their destruction.  Fire gamin get some extra damage from their burning but Ice gamin if you are willing to burn a card can get +1 damage from their (0) action.  So if you have a chance to have two or more ice gamin you can really force multiple as their damage in melee becomes 2/4/5 with the action.

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Drat, you're right Eternalvoid.  I think in the moment I thought I could only Magician's Assistant for the Performer, who was too busy to throw scheme markers, but it's all friendly models within 2" isn't it?  I could have hurled another 5-10 markers over the course of the game if I'd remembered that.

 

Gamin - I defaulted to metal because they're the only ones I was familiar with... and had available.  I will read up on Ice and Fire before next game though.  Does anyone use Mech Rider to summon more Mannequins?  They seem pretty fragile coming in at 1 wound, but they've got some utility.

 

Oooo, smart.  I didn't use Understudy at all.  She pretty much spent every non-Nimble AP trying to hit things with her sword.  That would have been such a good idea.  I think she would have been in range of it too.  I'll definitely file that trick away for future reference.

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True.  The only constructs she brought were 2 fire gamin.  She wasn't running a typical crew - 2 fire gamin, 2 gunsmiths, a performer, Johanna, Firestarter and Emberling.  Fire Gamin + Gunsmiths were a pretty gross combo.  Light it on fire, shoot it in the face.  Wash, rinse, repeat.  They eviscerated a number of models.

 

Under the circumstances the Mech Rider and subsequent Gamin were far from Mei's crew, mucking about in McMourning's quarter.  They ended up just defending my ALITS markers and tying up a couple of minimally relevant models.  

 

I do need to keep Magnetism in mind.  My brain sort of has them in the 'cheap tank' box and I forget that they have some potentially useful offense like that.

 

So much to learn!  I appreciate the feedback and suggestions!

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Magnetism is an amazing ability that is incredibly situational. Sometimes you need to kill your own models, sometimes you need an extra 6" movement and sometimes you want some free damage on an opponent. I use it every few games, but it's one of those abilities that you need to keep in mind when thinking about the table and position. 

 

Also, they are surprisingly offensive with Prot of Metal on - 1/2/3 is lame, but Burning +2 to make that 3/4/5 is gross. (Still only Ml 4 though...)

 

 

 

I'm the Mei player from this game :D. I don't have any comments about Colette, except that I'm glad Haunter didn't know about the Understudy->Johan trick, because I spent a lot of time putting that Burning on Johan so he would die next turn! :P

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I also wrote a bunch of crap on my blog, if you love reading about Malifaux: http://geeksong.com/pigment.apply/2014/11/malifaux-prison-riot/

 

(I tend to mostly post painting stuff though, so don't follow me if you love battle reports :), I only do them after big tournaments or...just now, since I haven't posted anything painting related in to long!)

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