how important is my cache in a Jack Daw crew?

[apes-ma]

I'm just getting into Malifaux, I've got a few games under my belt and I'm just now thinking about some things I wasn't thinking about before as my newness wears off, like using focus and defensive stance, and my soulstone useage. I'm wondering if I should be maximising my pool when list building, or getting more models into play, and also what I should be using my soulstones on - its my clear when I am wasting them. I seem to use them mostly to see more cards at the start of the turn, or reflipping initiative when I feel like I really need it at the moment. My crew consists of Jack, Ligeia and Montresor, and then some combination of up to 3x guilty, up to 3x crooked men and up to 2x the hanged. I also have Bishop and Sue (mainly since I love the models!) but I haven't had a chance to play with them yet, so I don't know how well they will fit with the crew or how often I'll play them.

[daniello_s]

Always aim at 4SS as absolute minimum but 5-6 is what you should try to have.

Unfortunately our masters are low on cache (except Tara) and we have to try to cope with that by trimming our crew. I have learnt how to play with 4ss cache with my masters but sometimes it is hard I must admit

[Argentbadger]

I actually almost always use the minimum cache for all masters I've tried in Outcasts (Tara, Jack Daw, Leveticus and Von Schill, the exception is the Viktorias) as I'd rather have a bigger crew.  I find that you can play around the safety net of Soulstones to some extent with shrewd positioning.  If something crazy comes in for your master then maybe you'll lose them; just make sure that the loss achieved some other aim like costing a lot of the other crew's resources.  Jack Daw is pretty survivable unless something with built in to attack comes for him and he doesn't particularly need suits for anything, so the decision will come down to how much card cycling you think you'll need plus how many Soulstones you expect any henchmen in the crew to account for.

That said, I think that most of the answers you'll get here will favour a bigger cache.

[Khyodee]

I used to play a light cache with Jack Daw and then tried playing the full 7ss cache. Now I won't be going back and will try to stick to around 7ss if possible. Why? It make Jack so much tougher and I can throw him forwards to tank models which will have to burn AP just to focus once to attack him as a normal attack.

Then of course if you play against Ten Thunders who have focus in spades, you need the stones to not outright die and actually be effective (aka not hiding the whole time).

[dropdeadcriminal]

It almost seems like the low master cache is a punishment for having so many Merc models within faction that don't need the extra SS to use. 

[Freman]

It probably is. That and our masters do do things like having two free totems, or a free henchman.

[Adran]

17 hours ago, dropdeadcriminal said:

It almost seems like the low master cache is a punishment for having so many Merc models within faction that don't need the extra SS to use. 

Its more histiorical. Back when they first made Outcasts they were all independent with no support. Thematically they wouldn't have easy access to soulstone, so they were all given (0) cache in the first edition.