Summoning the Brood: the Nephilim Sisters

[Mastershake]

So to kick things off here's some background.  I liked Lilith a lot in 1.5 and found her to be immense fun to play and pretty effective.  In 2e I had a love-hate relationship with Lilith for a while.  She seemed to still personally be really solid, but I couldn't zero in on a crew I liked and more or less ended writing off trying to grow things after quite a few failed attempts.  Then Nekima dropped in the field test with the True Mother upgrade.  While Nekima went through a number of iterations, the True Mother upgrade really made Lilith and the Nephilim finally click for me.  I went through quite a few list variations, but I found the more variety I included, the worst the crew performed which might seem counter-intuitive, but that's exactly what kept happening.  With that in mind, I decided "screw it" and went with a list with 6 terror tots.  The results were much better than I thought.  This is the current iteration I'm working with:

 

Lilith

-Living Blade

-Beckon Malifaux

-Rapid Growth

Nekima

-The Mimics Blessing

-The True Mother

6x Tots

Cherub

 

 

There's going to be a few summaries of games since their specifics have long since faded from memory, but I'll get to a close to full bat rep at the end.

 

vs. Zoraida with lots of Swamp Fiends

Lilith and Nekima were able to single out some Silurids on the peripheries of the battle really early resulting in two extra Young nephs on the table.  The Waldgeists took a little more effort, but Nekima's high Weak damage and Lilith's built in positive still made it go pretty fast.  One of the Waldgeists also became a Terror Tot when it died to Black Blood from Nekima.  My opponent had some success creating vodoo dolls of Young Nephilims and Terror Tots, but Nekima's high Wp proved pretty resistant through most of the game and Lilith was never in LoS.  The game ended with a Young Nephilim eating Zoraida and becoming a mature and with me winning 7-5 (only 2 reckoning points were scored all game).

 

vs. Kirai

This game I tried to keep my foot on the brake as much as possible.  We were playing the headhunter scheme from gaining grounds.  My approach was to prevent a large melee.  The Cherub was the single biggest factor in this game as allowing my models to pick up the head tokens with a (0) interact allowed me to gain VPs and steal them from my opponent multiple times.  In the last two Turns, Nekima essentially dared the entire resser crew to kill her (I still had 4ss) as a distraction to keep my opponent's attention off of Kirai who I was trying to take Prisoner.   Nekima did survive the game though mostly because of her 7Wp and healing and Lilith was able to get the 2Vp for taking Kirai prisoner.  The game ended 9-0

 

vs. Seamus

This was my biggest failure and it was mainly due to me not doing what I've done in almost every other game i.e. keeping control of the game's pace.  I tried to engage too many things too fast.  At the end of the day I was still able to keep a good enough hold on VPs to score 7 by turn 5 with my opponent only getting 5, but the game went on to turn 6 which given how weakly I was hanging on, was just enough to make it an 8-7 loss.

 

vs. Yan Lo

I was able to settle back into my core strategy of controlling pacing this game and even though I quickly singled out his scheme runners to make some Young turn 1, was able to avoid serious return fire.  It was a little grindy and I had to kill Yin twice (always a joy), but I had some of the less relevant tots tie up his models who could answer Nekima which also resulted in him taking non-trivial damage before Nekima even made and appearance in the middle of his army and when she and her sister rolled in there wasn't anything left to stop them.  The game ended in a 9-4 victory (or likely would have, but he conceded turn 4 when all he had left was Chaki and Toshiro fighting against both sisters and two Mature Nephilim).

 

vs. Jack Daw

This game went really fast.  Two activations into turn 2 had my opponent down 4 models with me having a Young and Mature added to my crew.  At the end of turn 3 it was just a hanged vs pretty much everything.  I think there was 1 VP I couldn't get, so we just called it a 9-0

 

vs. Lucius

This game happened tonight, so we can actually have some details this time.

 

Lucius (definitely had hidden assets and surprisingly loyal and probably something else I'm forgetting)

Candy

Doppelganger

Lawyer

2x Illuminated

Beckoner

 

In my opponent's defense, this was one of his first games with Lucius and while I can kind of see the thought process in the list, it doesn't have many heavy lifters.

 

The Strat was Turf War with Standard Deployment and both of us ended up taking Protect Territory and Plant Explosives (I revealed Protect Territory and he didn't).

 

Turn 1 starts with all the Scheme markers.  Seriously between both sides we probably dropped 7-8 turn 1 alone.  Near the end of Activations I had Lilith port Nekima off of the Cherub with tangle Shadows and threw up a forest to keep the bulk of the enemy crew off of her.  Nekima then went for the Beckoner, but my hand was not quite good enough and I only landed 1 severe hit out of three attacks leaving the beckoner on 1 health.

 

Turn 2 he gets initiative and has a dilemma, Only the Beckoner and an Illuminated can access Nekima.  He opts to have the Beckoner go and manages to land a Despicable Promises, but he did Moderate damage so I opted to stone for prevention and flipped a severe.  Fortunately for him, the trigger that hands out Brilliance only requires succeeding, not damaging.  Next it's my activation, I don't actually want to activate Nekima yet because I'd like her to keep Perfect Camouflage up for at least one more activation, so I go for Lilith.  She ports to Nekima with Tangle Shadows and in the process drops Nekima within 3" of the Illuminated, but no 2" (and herself as well) then swings twice, but an untimely black joker sees the Illuminated surviving.  Unfortunate, I was hoping for both of those models to be gone, but both Nekima and Lilith Black Jokered an attack.  Still, my board position is good enough that it's just really inconvenient and not a serious problem.  Lilith Wraps up her activation by cycling the forest to give her and her sister some privacy while they deal with the Illuminated.  The Illuminated then walks up and tags Nekima with a good swing, but damage prevention drops it to only 3.  Now Nekima goes and kills the Illuminated in two swings  which grows a Young and leaves her with a general AP to walk into a slightly better position where she's not threatened.  Between Regen and Teach Them fear, Nekima also healed back up to full.  The other Illuminated gets a hold of two Terror Tots and kills one, then gets orders from Lucius and attacks another damaging it.  The Lawyer throws Special Damages on the Young Nephilim.  As my last activations I have one Terror Tot plant a scheme marker to get some quick VPs for Plant Explosives and another Tot sprints up to the 1 health Beckoner and eats her becoming a Young.  Turn ends with me going up to an early 3-1 lead (2 for plant explosives and both of us get 1 for Turf War).

 

Turn 3 I Red Joker Initiative because why not.  I do some minor debating, but it feels like the best plan is to have Nekima walk up to the Doppelganger and swing twice.  I have to connect with both swings, and go through Manipulative 14, but if I do I've denied him an activation and gained a Mature.  I wish something exciting happened here, but it really doesn't.  I discarded the Black Joker after stoning for cards and had what I needed in my hand, so Nekima just eats the Doppelganger and passes off the kill to the Young Affected by Special Damages giving me a Mature.  He manages to kill some more of the roaming tots, but I'm in a great position right now.  The Mature Nephilim, despite being slow started in melee with the Lawyer and uses Charge Through to throw the Lawyer away and Charge the Illuminated, but doesn't flip very well and leaves it only lightly damaged.  The Young Nephilim also charged Lucius, but he discarded cards to give a negative twist so the Young didn't do anything.  Lucius then switches places with the Lawyer who's only sitting on 2 health.  This move gives him 3vps from Plant Explosives, but at the end of the day I can't really stop Lucius from getting plant explosives.  Importantly Lucius and the Illuminated are a few inches outside of 6 from the center and Candy is messing around with scheme markers on the table edge, so he doesn't score for Turf War this turn, but I very much do.  Turn ends 4-4 (although this score makes the game look a lot closer than it is at this point)

 

Turn 4 I get initiative again and Nekima more or less puts the game down.  She's starting in melee with the Lawyer because of Lucius trading places, so she kills him with melee expert then uses her next two AP to Charge the Illuminated and kills that as well.  She also ended her charge move within 3" of the Cherub, so she throws up another Scheme marker as her (0) (Lucius has used Hidden Sniper to pick up a few Scheme Markers, I'm not in any danger of running out, but I want to keep my options open and it's not hurting me to do so).  At this point he lacks a way to stop me from getting max points for the strat or Protect Territory.

 

We play out Turn 5, but the outcome is not really in doubt.  I kill Lucius on turn 5 leaving only Candy left alive and don't quite have the positioning to kill her (but if it goes to 6 I would've gone for a Tangle Shadows port of Nekima which might've killed her and denied the last two VPs for Protect Territory) The game ends on 5 with me having 9vp to his 6.

 

 

 

There has been some more games with the list, but that's really all I can remember.  I'll probably throw another report next time I drop the crew.  Anywho, I'd like to ruminate on some things.

 

Lilith:  She's got a tight set of upgrades...that sounds bad.  Moving on, there are other upgrades I'd like, but all 3 have immense game impact and serve to give the list it's necessary flow.  She usually starts the games as Nekima's Taxi, but turn 2-3 gets in the fray and starts racking up her own bodycount.  The Living Blade giving her the positive to attack and damage flips is frankly amazing and means she operates on very few cards unless she's casting spells.  Often I find it's worth losing the 1 extra attack you get from charging to walk up and get the positives (and with the positive damage twist usually nets about the same damage).  The only drawback to that plan is that you putting more reliance on fewer attacks, but the positives make those attacks more consistent in performance outside of the odd Black Jokers (or Red Jokers for the other player).  The Living Blade also gives her the free attack on things that end pushes within 1" and given that one of Nekima's triggers has the potential to push everything around her in any direction, the Young Nephilim have a built in trigger that pushes a model in any direction and the Cherub has a built in trigger that pushes a model in any direction she can get usually get a few free attacks every game.  It's easy to say "Target Lilith's Wp", but she rarely gives LoS to the other player before I want her to.

 

Nekima:  As long as your not overly optimistic about Nekima's ability to tank damage, she can justify her points in most lists.  Then again you could say that about most models.  Nekima does find a unique home here where her special brand of rapid violence is uniquely well suited to killing models that you've isolated and while she's not great at tanking an entire crew she can certainly take the small amounts of damage that can't be mitigated by the Illusionary forest.  All of that she could do in any list though, The True Mother is the upgrade that makes her the monster she is in this list.  The 6" kill pass off is generous enough especially considering her large melee range gives her a lot of positioning freedom.  True Mother costs 2 points and consistently nets about 6-10 points of extra models every game.  Out of all the cool things Nekima does though, the Wp7 is probably one of my favorite features making her surprisingly resistant to a number of debilitating effects and often forcing the other player to deal with her the hard way...if you've even been generous enough to give them that option.  She's a centerpiece model and this list gives her a centerpiece role to match.  Considering she's always been my favorite character I'm pretty happy with that alone.

 

Cherub:  This little guy is just money.  Interacting for less AP is really good, like you get VPs good and VPs win games, so there's that.  He's also surprisingly useful for messing with enemy beatsticks with the ability to push them while also giving them slow or just trap them in Severe and Hazardous Terrain.  As much as I can respect people liking the vomit worm with Lilith, the Cherub often feels like cheating.

 

Terror Tots:  Sprinting is kind of like a Walk action only better...especially when you're unimpeded and have a Cherub nearby.  In a lot of lists you can kind of justify using Silurids over tots (even though they're almost double the points and have worse Df/Wp and the same Ml stat and damage track), but when you've got a Cherub Silurids are just worse scheme runners than tots...by a lot.  Because of this I'm usually fine picking any scheme that involves placing scheme markers or interacting and Nekima and Lilith's pension for violence means a lot of those are open as well (though unfortunately Vendetta is usually a bad idea...god help my opponent if they ever drop Ashes and Dust and Vendetta is an option).

 

Young Nephilim:  They're not technically in the list, but they appear every game so we'll talk about them anyways.  I'm not in love with this model, but I have a hard time disliking it.  They don't exactly respond well to violence since their Df and Wp are pretty meh and they have no other defensive tech, but sweet jebus these things can throw out damage well out of proportion to their weight class.  I've had three instances  of them dropping Masters from full health on their own (two had fast, because they just have a built in criteria to get fast) and they regularly eat Enforcers on their own.  They're kind of deceptive in that regard simply because they don't look that threatening on paper.  Ml 6 with a 2/4/5 isn't exaclty earth shattering, but Blood Frenzy is just brutal especially since it's one of the few remaining "infinite" triggers (not actually infinite, but it gives you an extra attack that can still declare the Blood Frenzy trigger if you get the right suit).  Charge something while fast, trigger blood frenzy twice, you've now made 5 attacks likely getting at least one moderate and that's not even that hard to pull off.  Having the built in way to get fast can also be useful since this list summons them so they come out slow.  Being able to remove that means they're getting right in the fight.

 

Mature Nephilim:  Again not technically in the list, but they make appearances.  Usually these guys are the Harbingers of a slaughter and their appearance is just some salt in the wound.  That being said, if they get summoned in melee with something they can use the Charge Through trigger to still get effectively a full activation.  Their Ml 6 with a built in positive and Weak 4 also makes them more reliable than the Young even if they lack the explosive activations the Young can sometimes get.  They're also Naturally fast with Wk 6 Cg 8 and flight which is good because usually when you've gotten them out you're trying to chase enemies down.

 

Overall the list has done pretty well with all 4 Strategies and a good chunk of the available schemes and even though on the surface it may look to have a lot of filler models actually musters a lot of violence when it needs to.  The biggest drawback is probably how many models you have to pick up to play this: I own 9 Terror Tots 4 Youngs and 2 Mature, but if you're a resser player you're probably used to having spare models around just in case.  I'd say give it a shot if you're interested (but you probably want to proxy it first).

[asrian]

Very nice write up. I've been playing Lilith for over 6 months now successfully, but never once as a grow list. This makes me want to go pick up another box of Tots and Young.  

Question, as I do tend to use them quite a bit in various Neverborn lists, but have you tried Black Blood Shaman any, or not found them worth the trade off of dropping 2 Tots to afford it?

[Shadowfane]

Quick question - I know this is probably due to me having a cold and not thinking properly, but why are you talking about your tots being unimpeded? I'm not aware of anything that will give them that...

[Mastershake]

Quick question - I know this is probably due to me having a cold and not thinking properly, but why are you talking about your tots being unimpeded? I'm not aware of anything that will give them that...

 

Huh, Not sure why I thought they had that ability (actually it's probably because they had it's equivalent in 1.5)  Probably like thinking the Cherub has Black Blood which it doesn't for some reason or thinking the twins still have flight/float which they don't anymore.  Can't speak to how much impact it would've had on a given game, but I'll have to keep it in mind in the future.

 

Very nice write up. I've been playing Lilith for over 6 months now successfully, but never once as a grow list. This makes me want to go pick up another box of Tots and Young.  

Question, as I do tend to use them quite a bit in various Neverborn lists, but have you tried Black Blood Shaman any, or not found them worth the trade off of dropping 2 Tots to afford it?

 

Black Blood Shamans just don't do much in terms of game impact.  I've tried to like them for Pustule, but the positioning usually doesn't allow it since the idea is usually to kill what gets near you or what you allow near you until you've got enough force going that they can't stop you.  Maybe if he was 6 or also had the Mature ability, I dunno.  He can fit well into a list with Illuminated, but has never really done what I needed in this list.  He's also some of the variety I was talking about that made the list worse.  He doesn't do a lot of work, he's not that good at dropping scheme markers and he gives you another model competing for specific cards your hand.

[Entropy86]

"Next it's my activation, I don't actually want to activate Nekima yet because I'd like her to keep Perfect Camouflage up for at least one more activation, "

 

How does your Nekima have perfect camouflage?

[Mastershake]

 

"Next it's my activation, I don't actually want to activate Nekima yet because I'd like her to keep Perfect Camouflage up for at least one more activation, "

 

How does your Nekima have perfect camouflage?

 

 

Mimics Blessing

[Entropy86]

Yeah just noticed the upgrade going through my folder. I've never used it before, seems like it would be a good choice for her.