M2e Mei Feng

[Aa7]

I have really loved reading through the pinned M2e masters threads in here for getting general run downs and advice on the four masters currently pinned. Is there any reason why the remaining three Arcanist masters don't have pinned run downs?

Was hoping to get a run down on all seven, soon to be eight masters on here but since the next master I plan on painting is going to be Mei Feng can anyone post a general crew box run through, tactics or favoured models etc similar to the other pinned master threads?

[osoi]

I can, I am a little time poor at the moment but I will see what I can do.

 

Mei can switch gears a bit with support and giving a bit of a beat down. She is not a Master killer but works really well against low and mid cost models

[Strangely Brown]

Have you tried Pull My Finger?

https://pullmyfinger.wikispaces.com/M2E+Mei+Feng

I think this may be helpful. From the other side of the table, I often see her with her crew box, Joss and the rail golem.

 

Cheers,

'Brown

[Adran]

I think the reasons are largely that no -one started them. 

Mei is largely a brawler, best against large groups of weak models. She sort of has the feel of a chun-li from streetfighter and a playstyle that works on combos together (a little less so in her M2E incarnation where its easier to get off triggers). 

I most commonly see/play her with the upgrade that gives her extra attacks. And when you use this, if you can set the board right she can get a rediculous set of attacks. Your ideal set up is a gropu of enemies together that she can get at, and that are blocked in, because if you push a model away from her and it get stopped before it is more than 1" away from her, you can attack it again later. If you get 2 tough models in this, you can just keep triggering your attacks from one to the other until they die or you miss. 

She can be very fast around the board if you use her railwalk action, and have enough constructs/scrap around the table. (Personally, I rarely use this action, but I know a lot of people who build lists to make the most of this, it can be very useful to get her away from somewhere you don't want her).

Her crew box is fairly durable, but also fairly slow. 

[Sybarite]

She is a bit of a hard counter to Perdita due to stacking vent steam. 

I tend to run Langston, then Iwould look at the effigy cause I finally have it and it is great for giving Mei more burning, oh and jumping on.

Emberling is a great little schemet for 3ss incorporeal.

Firestarter or Cassandra can give some more speed and schemey options. Ss miner can help here as well.

I tend to always pick arcane reservoir on her, then seismic and/or Vapormancy and sieze the day.

Joss is of course a great option as well.

 

[trikk]

Firestarter can also add Burning to the target, so Mei can have  on the first hit.

[Sybarite]

Yeah that can be handy oh and if you have the effigy buff and rail walk ending with a kick you can add burning to set up for scarier claw attacks. Unless the enemy discards.

 

[Aa7]

On 9 June 2016 at 6:33 PM, Adran said:

I think the reasons are largely that no -one started them. 

Mei is largely a brawler, best against large groups of weak models. She sort of has the feel of a chun-li from streetfighter and a playstyle that works on combos together (a little less so in her M2E incarnation where its easier to get off triggers). 

I most commonly see/play her with the upgrade that gives her extra attacks. And when you use this, if you can set the board right she can get a rediculous set of attacks. Your ideal set up is a gropu of enemies together that she can get at, and that are blocked in, because if you push a model away from her and it get stopped before it is more than 1" away from her, you can attack it again later. If you get 2 tough models in this, you can just keep triggering your attacks from one to the other until they die or you miss. 

She can be very fast around the board if you use her railwalk action, and have enough constructs/scrap around the table. (Personally, I rarely use this action, but I know a lot of people who build lists to make the most of this, it can be very useful to get her away from somewhere you don't want her).

Her crew box is fairly durable, but also fairly slow. 

So  you prefer her as a brawler over a jump in jump out master which I assume is what she does in the rail walking construct crew build? 

With her crew box being rather slow what models do you normally run with her in a brawler list or he rail walker list? Rail workers move of four is pretty slow but they seem resilient and able to throw out some big damage with their zero action helping them. I guess they would be suitable for both a brawler list and the rail walking style lists too? What other models work well with her?

[Aa7]

On 9 June 2016 at 7:10 PM, Sybarite said:

She is a bit of a hard counter to Perdita due to stacking vent steam. 

I tend to run Langston, then Iwould look at the effigy cause I finally have it and it is great for giving Mei more burning, oh and jumping on.

Emberling is a great little schemet for 3ss incorporeal.

Firestarter or Cassandra can give some more speed and schemey options. Ss miner can help here as well.

I tend to always pick arcane reservoir on her, then seismic and/or Vapormancy and sieze the day.

Joss is of course a great option as well.

 

Lost me a bit on the stacking of vent steam...is that done by both Langston and Mei Feng both venting or ??? langston and the rail golem both have vent steam type actions and imo the rail golem is more thematic for a Mei Feng crew but is there a reason Langston is your pick over him.

 

i ran the effigy the other day for the first time with Ironsides and was impressed, he does look like a good match for Mei Feng too

[Adran]

Mei feng can vent steam multiple times, and each aura would then apply, putting models at multiple  flips. (It really does work like that. Most things stack, its conditions that don't stack without added justification). 

I guess my general use for Mei is as disruption for my opponents plans. By putting her in the middle of my oppoent I expect her to stop them doing what they want, and have to spend time killing her. The rest of my crew is often built to score me points. This will vary hugely on what I'm wanting to do, and may contain anything. 

I like the effigy with her, especially if I've got the scalding breath upgrade, because it applys the burning to all models hit by the blast (if they don't discard cards).

I've had little success with the rail workers, but I know a lot of others think they are very good. I'd be interested in them if I was trying to hold areas, so perhaps guard the stash, or extraction. Likewise Kang. 

If I want a mobile construt, you can#'t go wrong with an arachnid. 

 

I think my last Mei list had a blessed of december, emberling, arachnid, effigy, angelica and 2 molemen. Got me a 10-5 win over Ulix on a extraction game (corner deployment), with inspection and leave your mark. (Molemen in the corners were able to walk 4, drop a scheme marker for leave your mark and then bounce back to a scheme marker in the inspection area. I aslo had practised production to help with that if needed). 

 

 

 

[Sybarite]

That's pretty interesting. Was your opponent dedicating resources to deal with your molemen scheming on the edges?

[Adran]

As it turned out, no, my molemen were undisturbed, and largely just sat about to score me 6 points. But I had that plan there to hopefuilly keep them scoring the 6 points even against disruption. 

There was a big scrum in the middle as the frame for murder Sow got very quickly into the fight, and then mei got her down to very lows wounds and burning, so he brough extra models up to stop the burning, so he could score frame for murder. And on the third turn there was apiglet next to Gracie which allowed the tigger claw triggers to not push Gracie anywhere. I was able to bounce off about 4 different models and Gracie, and at one point, to make sure I didn't miss I even attacked my own spider to esure I killed Gracie. 

That turn probably saw about 50 points of Damage come out of Mei feng thanks to the burning blasts from her scalding breath, and about 12 Tiger claw attacks with positive damage flips. Once she finished there wasn;'t much left of the Gremlin crew, and what I had left was able to finish him off. 

[Sybarite]

So the opponent just let you have those 6 points undisturbed? 

[Adran]

Yes. You could say that.

He started off trying to protect his 3 points for frame for murder, bringing more models into the extraction area, but that also put them in Mei range, and she was able to keep everything engaged there turn 2. he knew by the end of turn 1 that I was heading out for inspection, and I think he had planned to be able to send out piglets around turn 2/3 to stop it, but that just didn't work. 

[hydranixx]

I've noticed that between the Mei with upgrades, Railworkers & Kang, they have a use for all 4 suits. Some are situational - such as the armour buff with crows or the Pin/Push with rams - while some are always welcome; high Tomes & Masks are both exceptional for Mei's Df trigger, and for her numerous attack triggers you want to hit. 

Also, with Implacable Assault and Hard Worker (0) actions present on her models, you basically always have an outlet for using even your low cards & black joker for big bonuses.

For these reasons, card advantage with Mei is a must. Arcane Reservoir, Price of Progress, Imbued Energies on her friends, and triggers such as the Mech Rider's card draw, are more valuable to Mei than they are for almost every other Master in the faction. I don't think playing her without at least one source of card draw is a good idea.

Also, a situational, but rather cute combat trick:

Fish or cheat for rams with your Railworker's to Pin enemy targets, then Mei can start freely combo'ing between two of them for a single AP, potentially infinitely, until they die or her Claws miss. Just like the impassable terrain trick some people mentioned, it requires some setting up and is no guarantee, but can be extremely rewarding. Kang's and the Captain's pushes can help position targets perfectly for this.

[Fog]

Mei hurts guild a lot. Either they're ranged dependant or they're low defense so she can pinball through anything they bring. 

She's incredibly underrated.

[BFOmega]

22 minutes ago, Fog said:

Mei hurts guild a lot. Either they're ranged dependant or they're low defense so she can pinball through anything they bring. 

She's incredibly underrated.

No lie. She's also Hilariously strong against Seamus, especially if you stick Warding Runes on Kang so he doesn't have to be under her bubble to be safe from lures.

[retnab]

I just recently played a game of Rasputina vs Mei Feng and her Vent Steam really messed with my spells all game.  It's one of these abilities that, when it comes up, is incredibly strong.

[spooky_squirrel]

Kang's Rousing Speech is priceless against anything hoping to abuse your living crew members with horror.

With the two newest Foundry models (Sparks and Mech.Porkchop), she's got a few more interesting options for her infiltrate ability as well.

[spooky_squirrel]

On 8/23/2016 at 11:06 AM, spooky_squirrel said:

Kang's Rousing Speech is priceless against anything hoping to abuse your living crew members with horror.

With the two newest Foundry models (Sparks and Mech.Porkchop), she's got a few more interesting options for her infiltrate ability as well.

Completing this thought, nearly two weeks later:

Rube Goldberg Machine alert:

Kang gives nearby models a boost versus undead and constructs. Porkchop drops a free scrap marker, Sparks uses it to make the target of choice a construct. Looks interesting, but requires Kang and Sparks infiltrating into an Arcanist armor list with Kang in support position, Porkchop walking and dropping its tail, Sparks activating while scrap marker still exists to bolt some pieces onto the target, then the follow up beating/shooting from yet another model. This isn't as flexible as I would like in a Mei Feng crew, so I probably won't try it more than a couple of times. Would be absurd if the follow-up is something that doesn't care about armor (gunsmith with right trigger, Joss).

/alert

What seems more interesting (and reliable) is having Sparks keep your Rail Golem* fast and using the Hostile Work Environment to limit your opponent's ability to interact with the models that you're about to launch the Rail Golem into.

It also would be interesting to make a gunsmith into a construct to provide a railwalk escape vector for Mei that targets a model that likes to hang back in the midfield, and if on her way out she manages to set a tank on fire, so much the better for their (0) The Hard Way follow up.

 

* Or, since we're not infiltrating into Ten Thunders here, insert favorite M&SU construct beater that would love to have fast without it being a once-per-game feature of Imbued Energies. If you're concerned about Terrifying, make it a Living construct and enjoy some passive help from a nearby Kang (constantly fast Hank or Joss that's immune to Horror duels anyone?).