New Player Seamus Battle

[Fexxo]

Hi

Ok so the game was:

Flank Deployment

Stake a Claim

A line in the Sand

Assassinate

Breakthrough - I choose -  not revealed

Power Ritual

Frame for Murder - I choose - it was the Flesh Construct (I realize now this was a mistake)

 

I played 35ss Seamus into it against Lilith the lists were:

Seamus - Red Chapel Killer and Mad Haberdasher

Copycat Killer

Madame Sybelle - Bleeding Tongue

Flesh Construct

Rotten Belle x 2

 

Lilith -  not sure on upgrades

Mr Graves

Hooded Rider

Terror Tots x 2

Primordial ooze

 

This was my first game with Seamus and I realize I need more games. I lost this one badly having everyone but Seamus and my Flesh Construct left on the table before I conceded on turn 4 with no way to earn VP and having scored none at all, having Seamus tied up the entire game by Lilith and Mr Graves. I know that having Seamus too close was my mistake and should of not gotten him so close turn 1.

The reason I couldn't use Red Chapel Killer is due to my opponent not killing anything else and only gunning for Seamus with Lilith and  Mr Graves while having the rest of his army running schemes. Hooded Rider did clean up in Turn 3 and 4 to kill a lot.

I struggled a lot with this game as Lilith's range is pretty long and she can block out a lot with forests. I feel like Seamus should of been running schemes instead of killing, having the latter as a bonus. The Belles were great and lured a lot but due to Lilith catching Seamus in rough terrain it was hard to get him far enough out or her's and Mr Graves melee range. I felt lost in this game and I am just wondering if I am on the right track with my thinking. Should I change out things in my list or was it fine and that my strategy just super flawed. My plan was to tie up a good portion of his army with Flesh Construct and Belles, while Seamus did the rounds and placed scheme markers. But that fell apart turn 1.

 

Edited November 6, 2015 by Fexxo

[Fetid Strumpet]

So, a few things, there are some excellent Seamus resources on Pullmyfinger. Additionally I post on him, a lot, so if you look back through the Resser boards you'll find a lot of people starting up Seamus with questions asking about what they should do with him. Additionally I've done two podcasts covering him, if you enjoy listening to gaming podcasts. A Through the Breach from, maybe a year ago, and a more recent Schemes and Stones.

So, I can give you a few pointers on your game, but keep in mind this is only my opinion, and I'm in no way the be all end all authority. First, depending on player skill, this should have been a pretty easy matchup for Seamus to win. Lilith tends, in my experience, to hate playing against Seamus with a raging passion. Let's look at the list brought against you first for the things Seamus could have exploited. First he brought Lilith. Let me say up front that Lilith is no Joke. She is regularly discussed as perhaps one of the strongest masters in Malifaux. In my opinion, the reason that discussion of her doesn't reach consensus, and she isn't just handed a crown, is the one glaring weakness that Seamus, in particular, loves to exploit. She has a very low Wp, which we will get to in a moment.

Next, he took the Hooded Rider. Again, depending on the player skill using him, this is not always a great idea against Seamus. The Riders are all scary models, but most require a little care and handling early in the game, until their defensive trigger gets up and running. And even once that has gotten up, they still do not like models which can deal a massive amount of dmg in 1 attack, because they thrive on either making you waste a TON of AP to remove them from the board, or make you look at how many AP it will take, and ignore them. Seamus is one of the models who can actually do something somewhat AP efficient against them. Seamus has the ability to reach out and threaten the rider on turn one. In may games my opponent has cautiously brought his rider out one turn one, not that far only to look on in Horror as Seamus jumps in and focus shots him to almost nothing on turn 1. Without their bag of wounds, it doesn't matter if you are reducing the incoming dmg. if you only have 2 wounds its going to take only 1 to 2 ap to remove you.

Finally he took Mr. Graves. Again Graves is a great model, but suffers from 2 very glaring weaknesses to a canny Seamus player. First is he shares Seamus problem of only being Df 4. Models that are Df 4 or less have a great deal to fear from a Seamus player because of one particular model available to him, the CCK. The CCK has, essentially, almost the equivalent of Seamus' gun, and he isn't limited to firing it once a turn. In most games the CCK is an AP sink for the opponent. He isn't especially accurate on the table, but he does so much damage, and can do it multiple times, he often can't be ignored in the off chance he gets a lucky shot in and blows your best enforcer/Henchman/Master off the table out of no where, so the enemy often spends AP killing him, which is fine by me. Those are attacks not directed at Seamus, and eventually gives Seamus a Corpse for use as raising a Belle, or using Red Chapel Killer with. Second, like Lilith, he has a low wp, and that is just fine by Seamus. But if you have a low Df, like Graves, suddenly it isn't an inaccurate version of Seamus' gun, it IS Seamus' gun, and one that can fire twice. 

So, again, not considering the opposing player's skill, which will often trump model advantage going into the game, you had some advantages going into your game. Let's examine your list to start.

First, I'm not certain why you didn't take one of Seamus' Limited upgrades. Personally I feel if you are playing Seamus and are using upgrades one of those should go on him before anything else. The Scheme pool you posted indicated that either would have been a good pick. I tend to favor Sinister Reputation but with both Breakthrough and Power Ritual in the pool, Bag O' Tools could have potentially been game winning. So a quick explanation of why I think you should have brought one or the other of these upgrades. First Sinister Reputation, because it feeds directly into what Seamus likes best, wp duels, and it's a big reason why I don't tend to have trouble with Lilith lists, because if you can get Lilith, or Graves in this instance, within that aura their wp drops down to 3, which is basically just punching bag territory. It makes anything in your crew with WP attacks, which in my crews is every single model save Seamus and the CCK, able to much more effectively land their attacks. Don't forget Sybelle's ranged attack targets wp. It also gives Seamus another ranged attack, which heals him, so you can forgo the Focus/Shoot combo that almost always occurs in certain situations if you want to. While a Focused shot can do more dmg, it is one shot, and they know it's coming which means they can plan for it. Live for Pain, Live for Pain, Flintlock is still a very respectable attack line if you are able to attack without moving. The Bag could also have been effective in this instance with either break through or power ritual, Seamus could have gotten in position and taken potshots all day, and then a turn after using Back Ally, Remember you can't interact after using it on the same turn, just started dropping scheme markers. If Lilith then sent troops to stop him Seamus could use the bag and a tome (or stone) to just hit the enemy that came to tangle with him and just started dropping scheme markers (remember the 4" restriction only occurs when taking the interact action to drop them) and done damage to boot.

Next let's examine crew selection. There are two potential issues I see, and this could be down to play style. First I'm not entirely certain why you took Bleeding Tongue on Sybelle. Don't get me wrong I do like the upgrade and take it often. But Remember you are paying a stone for it, which becomes more relatively valuable the less you have, and you were playing in a low SS game, and it often requires a stone or more to get the trigger you want on command. Which means you NEED to get those strikes in for the upgrade to have been worth the investment, which means you planned to have Sybelle in ML combat from the first... which while she isn't bad at it, isn't her main forte. Unless you were planning on using comply on Seamus first turn to either give him a Focus action outside his activation, or get him to Back Ally outside his turn, so he could have 3 AP in his arrived location. In which case I can see why you brought it. When I'm not doing that particular trick, and I'm playing low SS, I tend to Favor Not Too Banged Up over Bleeding Tongue. Again it wasn't a mistake, just trying to see where you were coming from with it.

A choice that doesn't make sense to me is the Flesh Construct. I know Cheated Fates Joe likes using them with Seamus, but I've never found them all that useful with him, and Joe runs them in pairs to create a model wall to block Seamus from LoS on turn 1 for Back Ally. To me they are easily ignored walls of wounds, which can be useful in certain crews, but in this instance I'm not sure what the decision making was behind the choice. He doesn't have any WP duels which get improved by sinister reputation or heal Seamus, he isn't a belle, he isn't very good or effective in combat with only a ML 5, and thus can't really tie enemy models up, as Lilith will just Tangle Shadows them, or they will just walk away from him in the knowledge that succeeding on disengaging strikes isn't going to be easy for him, and the scenario didn't really have take and Hold objectives, like Turf War, where massive walls of wounds would be valuable. Finally, Seamus and the CCK are your killers, and in general they tend to kill via ranged attack, so you don't want the models you are sniping to be engaged with your models, because if they are you might randomize onto your own model, and they don't have that many shots. I'd try replacing him with a Nurse, one of which, I feel is almost de rigueur for Seamus lists.

Try this next time. Use your Belles with the boosted walk from Madam Sybelle to be your utility/scheme runners. Add the Nurse for general shennaigan's/distraction/ and Scheme running when doing nothing else, and bounce Seamus and the CCK around the board like killers. Seamus isn't great at scheme running because he is VERY slow if you don't use back ally, and if you do use back ally you can't interact for the rest of the turn.

If there are more specifics I could help with feel free to ask.

Edited November 6, 2015 by Fetid Strumpet

[Fexxo]

Wow thanks you so much! I read through it but will probably have to read through again :P, what you have explained to me has changed the way I think of each model and will put it to use in my next battle. Yeah with this game, my opponent was much better than me so it was definitely a loss because of skill. But just that I felt like I could do nothing is what bothered me not the defeat. Though I do plan on winning someday :). Thank you very much, will definitely change things around and update on how my next game went.

Edited November 6, 2015 by Fexxo

[Fetid Strumpet]

As a side note, if you have Yin available try her too, she's excellent with both Seamus and Madam Sybelle. (Look at their 0 actions that target the enemy and imagine them on the same unactivated model; Credit for that combo's notoriety belongs with Cheated Fates Adam)

[Fexxo]

Hey Fetid

Thanks again for the advice though I still made mistakes I played vs a Marcus and it was a tight game. 7vp to 6vp to my opponent. The nurse didn't do much towards the fight but she covered Seamus and dropped scheme markers for Protect Territory. Also kept Seamus on the edges sniping off the stragglers. Had him come in on the 5th turn to shank a Dawn Serpent with the Bag o Tools and drop markers for Plant Explosives getting 3vp off that. The reason I lost was due to me not lining up my kills for Reckoning.

Thanks again. Also your podcast interview helped tons.

[Fetid Strumpet]

You're very welcome. Glad it helped.

[MEGAHORSE]

Hey Fetid

Thanks again for the advice though I still made mistakes I played vs a Marcus and it was a tight game. 7vp to 6vp to my opponent. The nurse didn't do much towards the fight but she covered Seamus and dropped scheme markers for Protect Territory. Also kept Seamus on the edges sniping off the stragglers. Had him come in on the 5th turn to shank a Dawn Serpent with the Bag o Tools and drop markers for Plant Explosives getting 3vp off that. The reason I lost was due to me not lining up my kills for Reckoning.

Thanks again. Also your podcast interview helped tons.

The threat of Nurse paralyzing or causing the opposing model to only be able to make walk actions when its engaged with sybelle or someone is threat enough to make her worth her points. Worst case you can paralyze your own models to fully heal them. Nurses are something i never really used well early on and I'm slowly coming around to them. Their biggest problem is their effects only last until the end of the turn, and not until their next activation like some other effects, so their use requires finesse and early activation.