Abnormalifaux blog - starting Molly

[Metalhed]

Hey gang

 

Some of you may have seen that the Dark Sphere London crew have a group blog, called Abnormalifaux. Each week we add a couple of new posts and a variety of topics - I will hopefully break up all the Neverborn filth that's been there to date. I have recently begun embarked on a Molly phase thanks to her fantastic new plastics and the fact that I managed to get hold of a few of her metal spirit friends.

 

Take a look:

 

http://abnormalifaux.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/the-gorgons-tear.html

 

I will be going into more detail in future posts on feedback from games, lessons learned, crew lists and how Molly copes with specific strategies and schemes.

 

Hope you enjoy it.

 

[Metalhed]

Hi all

It has been some time since I managed to get much writing done but I have managed to get another blog post up:

http://abnormalifaux.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/taking-molly-out-for-spin.html

 

And a co-authored battle report:

http://abnormalifaux.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/battle-report-molly-v-shenlong-both.html

 

Let me know your thoughts.

[MEGAHORSE]

Hey! Read these when you posted them to Facebook! Love them actually. I mostly just dont know how to Molly really well at this point, and it doesnt help I just run her Horror upgrade since it'll be a few weeks till we get the plastic spirits. She's just more difficult to get mileage out of on the Horror route due to the lack of Adversary, the Hanged/Shikome/Onryo, and an actual focus for the crew. It's what bugs me about the Horror angle, as that we have Punks and Students, maybe a Belle or Crooligan/Drowned to summon. But they dont really do anything for the rest of your crew outside of niche scenarios (like using the Crooligan's (1) to make black blood deal more damage... but I've yet to set that up)

I also dont care for Tear. There is maybe one turn in a game where you have a 9+ of Rams to give something reactivate and it's never a bad idea to hold cards to cheat or pitch to her ability to reduce damage to 1. Usually I end a turn with 0-2 cards in hand. Take Back the Night has been a common upgrade I've taken just because she doesnt have the card advantage that Nicodem has. If Molly could draw cards off of undead being killed, specifically Horrors, so Spirit Molly doesnt just become too good, Horror Molly would have a significant boost and be more flexible. The Emissary is supposed to help fix H-Molly, by allowing you to run Mindless Zombie black blood spam. Not sure how effective it will be but i want to give it a go!

I know you said the upgrades on Datsue ba weren't really stellar, why was that? Were the Sheshin not worth the drain on your hand? Also, do you ever find yourself summoning Belles at all? I noticed you typically dont hire any and I usually have started (of course Horror side) with at least 1 so I can pull a low Wp model into my ball of death and force the opponent to engage me. 

 

[Metalhed]

Hey there

Thanks for the comments. Sorry for the slow reply. I have never tried summoning belles as I find them better from behind rather than in the thick of things. In my first few games I wasn't hiring them as they were a bit of a crutch for me for my Tara crew. In my next few games they feature quite a bit more.

I think the Datsue summons were tough on my hand and I just couldn't get them going. I think it is still worth trying though.

Take back the night is a really useful upgrade. I think you are right that the Spirit version has the edge over the horror version. Something for dead horrors might be helpful.

I have added another blog post:

http://abnormalifaux.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/molly-heads-to-croydon-well-more-sidcup.html

This is based on my first tournament outing with Molly. Was a good day all around at Crofaux. Also gave me a good opportunity to get a few consecutive Molly games in. Work and real life keep hampering my play time. 

Hope you enjoy this.

[MEGAHORSE]

Hey there

Thanks for the comments. Sorry for the slow reply. I have never tried summoning belles as I find them better from behind rather than in the thick of things. In my first few games I wasn't hiring them as they were a bit of a crutch for me for my Tara crew. In my next few games they feature quite a bit more.

I think the Datsue summons were tough on my hand and I just couldn't get them going. I think it is still worth trying though.

Take back the night is a really useful upgrade. I think you are right that the Spirit version has the edge over the horror version. Something for dead horrors might be helpful.

I have added another blog post:

http://abnormalifaux.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/molly-heads-to-croydon-well-more-sidcup.html

This is based on my first tournament outing with Molly. Was a good day all around at Crofaux. Also gave me a good opportunity to get a few consecutive Molly games in. Work and real life keep hampering my play time. 

Hope you enjoy this.

• Played my first game with Datsue ba ever, with Seamus, and I have to agree on the summons part. I would forego it as well. Although her upgrade to use a (1) to place a scheme marker when a non-peon spirit dies might be neat with Molly in scheme heavy pools...But yeah, would have to agree it's a waste and with how card hungry Molly is, an 8+ for it is really meh. Even Seamus who doesnt need high cards often was struggling to summon them. 
• I just ask about the belles as they seem a mainstay in Molly lists (at least Horror based), but I've not yet played Spirit Molly so I dont know what to expect. How aggressively are you playing Molly to get your summons in? Or how do you try to get her in to summon, and then keep her safe from a counter attack. What about against shooty lists like Levy? 
• Also you mention "He had some insane card and SS draw going with Phil & Nanny and Sebastian." Was sebastian using "Those our not ours!" then? Never heard of Kirai using them. Usually I see lists with Izamu/Yin/Datsue ba. I quite like that. What did she use as summoning batteries then? 
• I think I may try out Phillip soon with Molly for more scheme heavy pools myself. Tough to justify its points when I could take Yin or something, in its place. Or a belle and 3 points leftover. I like belles. I'm spoiled to them
• I always forget you can use Molly's (0) to have a minion place a marker. Very good tip! I forget that in the heat of the moment. 
• Against Ironsides, she got to get up in Molly's face but I was able to use her crow trigger to prevent most of the pain. I then used Sybelle to teleport her away, then summoned some minions in to keep her busy. Sybelle is pretty meh to Ok in Seamus lists for me depending on if she gets to attack, but with Molly she is just an all star. That 0 is just the best damn action on her card. 

 

[Fetid Strumpet]

The summoning upgrade for Datsue-Ba is critical I feel in a Molly/Seamus list, otherwise you might as well leave her at home I feel. The point its to clog the board with Black Blood Bombs who can also protect clumps of models from AoE effects and or heal models that get damaged. That is worth the card for either master. I never have datsue-ba pull her weight enough to justify bringing her without that upgrade, personally.

I don't use many belles in a Molly List regardless, she doesn't need them as much as Seamus does. I use them, but I've run multiple Molly lists without them and never had an issue. It's all down to the scenario, list, and how you play it.

Philip is a good model in the right list. The card draw even a Doxie and Philip can give is very nice. Doxy interacts for a scheme marker and Focuses, then takes the Lead against a model if necessary. Philip blows up her scheme marker. There are several variants, but with Take the lead on command and a decent walk in any case Philip can rundown enemy scheme runners VERY efficiently, and he is killy and beefy enough to survive the average scheme runner's counter attack.

[MEGAHORSE]

On 11/30/2015 at 11:08 AM, Fetid Strumpet said:

The summoning upgrade for Datsue-Ba is critical I feel in a Molly/Seamus list, otherwise you might as well leave her at home I feel. The point its to clog the board with Black Blood Bombs who can also protect clumps of models from AoE effects and or heal models that get damaged. That is worth the card for either master. I never have datsue-ba pull her weight enough to justify bringing her without that upgrade, personally.

I don't use many belles in a Molly List regardless, she doesn't need them as much as Seamus does. I use them, but I've run multiple Molly lists without them and never had an issue. It's all down to the scenario, list, and how you play it.

Philip is a good model in the right list. The card draw even a Doxie and Philip can give is very nice. Doxy interacts for a scheme marker and Focuses, then takes the Lead against a model if necessary. Philip blows up her scheme marker. There are several variants, but with Take the lead on command and a decent walk in any case Philip can rundown enemy scheme runners VERY efficiently, and he is killy and beefy enough to survive the average scheme runner's counter attack.

Sorry to necro the thread, but I finally tried out Phillip and the Nanny, and yeah. The card draw was just incredible. I also took her with Take back the Night and hired her with Kirai. I had 5 soulstones left by the end of turn 3 because I just didnt need them! I was drawing upwards of 5 cards a turn and seeing so many crows! I actually was able to support summoning with Kirai and Datsue as well as cheating in cards to save/heal Yin! 
 

I guess what I find most ironic about my malifaux experience is how little I've cared for Molly, and yet I find myself picking her up more often than not (Mostly because Nicodem is an NPE for a few players in my area). Her playstyle suits me, yet I feel naked and exposed in being so aggressive with her, but damn is it fun! I definitely have come around to not using belles as a crutch, or maybe just hiring one. They definitely arent as required as I thought, my initial though being that if the opponent doesnt bunch up or move up far enough for me to get summons off, I could pull some of their models in. 

I'm less upset about Horror Molly anymore, and it's mostly because I realized Necropunks arent a terrible summon either, given their hard to kill and ability to heal up. Plus killjoy bombing is fun. I feel like she was balanced around this fact heavily and not taking killjoy makes me also feel at a loss with Horror Molly, as I feel I'm missing something to really make her competitive and engaging. 

[Fetid Strumpet]

How are you summoning Necropunks with Molly? They aren't Horrors, and as far as I'm aware the only one who actually can summon them is Nicodem, or if you get one when the Forgotten Marshall Dies.

She was balanced with the Killjoy Bomb in mind, but she functions quiet well without it. I tend to find Izamu tends to do more for her than Killjoy does. But I do enjoy using both in different lists.

[BlitzMonkey]

9 minutes ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

How are you summoning Necropunks with Molly? They aren't Horrors, and as far as I'm aware the only one who actually can summon them is Nicodem, or if you get one when the Forgotten Marshall Dies.

She was balanced with the Killjoy Bomb in mind, but she functions quiet well without it. I tend to find Izamu tends to do more for her than Killjoy does. But I do enjoy using both in different lists.

As one of Mega's usual opponents, I was curious to know how Izamu did with her, actually.  

[MEGAHORSE]

1 hour ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

How are you summoning Necropunks with Molly? They aren't Horrors, and as far as I'm aware the only one who actually can summon them is Nicodem, or if you get one when the Forgotten Marshall Dies.

She was balanced with the Killjoy Bomb in mind, but she functions quiet well without it. I tend to find Izamu tends to do more for her than Killjoy does. But I do enjoy using both in different lists.

apologies, didnt have the summoning card in front of me when typing. I assumed they were Horrors. 

[Kogan Style]

Izamu can work well in a Spirit list with Datsue and Molly. Datsue's zero can move Izamu and Molly's Zero means Izamu can either take a free swing or move again (less Optimal) and then Molly can accomplice Izamu to rain in more hits. 

[MEGAHORSE]

4 hours ago, Kogan Style said:

Izamu can work well in a Spirit list with Datsue and Molly. Datsue's zero can move Izamu and Molly's Zero means Izamu can either take a free swing or move again (less Optimal) and then Molly can accomplice Izamu to rain in more hits. 

I will echo this. I played my first game with spirit molly last night. I'm less than impressed with her summons (I'm spoiled by punks actually being able to take more than one hit), Datsue and Izamu flew up the field while phillip ate schemes behind them. Izamu walked up, then got a charge on huggy and tabled him. He held a point for quite a while before huggy came back and slowly chipped him down. 

I definitely prefer horror thus far, but I need more experience with the spirits. This may have also been due to my incredibly poor flips and playing against Lynch who just puts out such insane firepower along with Huggy being a pain. Onyro are great when their Slow goes off, or when you can take advantage of Adversary. Again, spoiled by a Hard to Kill, ML 6 with a built in positive flip to damage. I also hit issues with drawing alot of 11s. I cant quite summon a Shikome with that, but I'm stuck with Drowned(10) and Onyro(9). However, that makes 9's not as awkward as they are for Horror Molly! I guess I cant have a damn good summon for each TN!  Drowned were fantastic though! definitely the tanky summon i wanted. I need to get mine finished on the paint table. 

Datsue is someone I will most likely take against Arcanists due to ignoring armor, but I was really missing Yin. Probably also because I usually take Yin, but was giving Phillip another go, and he definitely helps shore up her card issues, same with Take Back the Night on Molly. 

[Fetid Strumpet]

For me the options for summoning hanged and Shikome VASTLY outdo any work the Punk Zombies ever do.

[MEGAHORSE]

38 minutes ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

For me the options for summoning hanged and Shikome VASTLY outdo any work the Punk Zombies ever do.

It's probably my meta then. We still have alot of new players and people who play big killy things, and despite the damage output the hanged and shikome can put out, it's getting them to survive or connect with an attack I have issues with! 

[jonahmaul]

6 minutes ago, MEGAHORSE said:

It's probably my meta then. We still have alot of new players and people who play big killy things, and despite the damage output the hanged and shikome can put out, it's getting them to survive or connect with an attack I have issues with! 

Who cares if they survive?!  They were free!  The (+) flip that Punk Zombies doesn't make them significantly better at connecting that Hanged or Shikome.

[Fetid Strumpet]

Getting them to connect with the attack tends to not be a problem with all the Adversary conditions I toss around, and is one of the good things about Shikome in that they have a zero action to give adversary out. It's win win for me two times out of three with using that action. If it lands, awesome, if they cheat high to stop it, awesome it drains a good card from their hand.

Also, I prefer they constantly attack and kill my summons. Punk Zombies I tend to find cause the opponent's to look at the AP required to kill them over and over and they then direct their attacks actually at Molly instead. I'd much rather they attack and kill the Shikome and Hanged over and over.

[MEGAHORSE]

28 minutes ago, jonahmaul said:

Who cares if they survive?!  They were free!  The (+) flip that Punk Zombies doesn't make them significantly better at connecting that Hanged or Shikome.

 

27 minutes ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

Getting them to connect with the attack tends to not be a problem with all the Adversary conditions I toss around, and is one of the good things about Shikome in that they have a zero action to give adversary out. It's win win for me two times out of three with using that action. If it lands, awesome, if they cheat high to stop it, awesome it drains a good card from their hand.

Also, I prefer they constantly attack and kill my summons. Punk Zombies I tend to find cause the opponent's to look at the AP required to kill them over and over and they then direct their attacks actually at Molly instead. I'd much rather they attack and kill the Shikome and Hanged over and over.

Well, I do care, as usually I'm stoning for that Crow, and cheating in the card to summon them lol. That's far from free to me! I dont see how, in your opinion, having the plus flip doesnt make them significantly better when it in fact does make them significantly better at connecting, IE Adversary? I dont mean to rag on you man, but it's just ridiculous to hear that the Punks attack getting + doesnt matter much but Adversary is great when its the same effect, but benefiting all spirit attacks, not just the Punk's melee. More often than not the extra flip is getting me from low to mid, or mid to high on my attack flips. I dont need them to attack Onyro to get it, and I dont need Shikome to hit a duel to apply it to a single model either, it's just built in. 

Adversary is great, when you get it to go off, and then can activate and benefit from it. Typically it drains their cards. I'm happy for that too! Not saying it's bad by any means Fetid. I'm with you there. But from my point of view, I'm just at least happy to get a single activation out of them, with any summoner. Maybe I'm spoiled from Kirai being able to accurately shoot and apply it. And I'm happy they're killing my summons. But I'm usually summoning 2 a turn if I can, and maybe that's my issue, is summoning too often? Or biting off more than I can chew.

I'm not a fantastic player by any means, but I just want to understand. I think I do, I just need some practice at it. As I said, I have unrealistic expectations from the incredible potential of Punks in pure killing and staying power, and I just need to get a hang of how to properly use Spirit Molly's summons and get the most mileage out of them. 

[BlitzMonkey]

16 minutes ago, jonahmaul said:

Who cares if they survive?!  They were free!  The (+) flip that Punk Zombies doesn't make them significantly better at connecting that Hanged or Shikome.

While I take your point of summons being a bit more disposable, I don't necessarily get the second part.  + Flips seem inherently and significantly better at connecting.  There is some measure of truth of melee vs ranged vs casting and all of that, but could you define what is considered "significantly" better?

[jonahmaul]

7 hours ago, MEGAHORSE said:

 

Well, I do care, as usually I'm stoning for that Crow, and cheating in the card to summon them lol. That's far from free to me

 

I dont see how, in your opinion, having the plus flip doesnt make them significantly better when it in fact does make them significantly better at connecting, IE Adversary? I dont mean to rag on you man, but it's just ridiculous to hear that the Punks attack getting + doesnt matter much but Adversary is great when its the same effect, but benefiting all spirit attacks, not just the Punk's melee

On the first point true, they are not completely 'free' per se however a SS and a card isn't too high a tax to pay for a free model, especially when you're getting something like a Punk Zombie/Shikome/Hanged out of it.

 

On the second point it doesn't make them 'significantly' better.  Sure it makes them better as it's always going to (barring Black Joker) but the maths has been floating around on the forum before and a (+) flip equates on average to somewhere between +1 to +2 on your attack which is good but I wouldn't class that as significant.  If I've got a slightly better chance to hit with a Punk Zombie v slightly lower change to Cast Whispers From Beyond then I'm gong with the latter because it's better.

 

I didn't compare Punks (+) to Adversary, I was comparing it to base attacks of Shikome/Hanged.  However, if you include Adversary then it's a hands down loss for the Punk Zombie.  Shikome become absolute beasts against anything with Adversary getting +1 damage, (+) flips *and* being able to choose whether to attack Df or Wp which can be massive in shutting down certain models (oh yeah, and the can ignore armour).  Whispers from Beyond on a (+) is fantastic

 

Don't get me wrong, I love Punk Zombies and being able to summon them into a bunch of enemies and slice and dice is one of my favourites and they are a pita to take out once they're there because of HtK which makes them good summons imho (but not good hires).  But Shikome and Hanged are both better summons even without a (+) flip.

[MEGAHORSE]

Definitely agree on Whispers being the better attack and shikome/Hanged being better summons. Again, I'm just spoiled by spamming punk zombies. I guess we both just misunderstood each other  My issue is getting that Adversary to stick and to get mileage out of it with Molly, but it was just my first game. Like I said, not having Kirai's gun to help me apply it hurts! 

[Fetid Strumpet]

Getting Adversary to stick isn't an issue in Molly if you want it. It can be an issue if the Shikome is the only way you are trying to apply it, but summoned Onryo and Datsue-Ba tend to be my primary ways.

[jonahmaul]

Yeah, it definitely feels like more work to get Adversary out than a PZ just rocking up with his (+) flips but Adversary can have more benefits.  I still like PZ's, they are good summons and Slice and Dice is a great action, I just tend to find that Shikome and Hanged are more often summoned for me.