Can Von Schill be fun to play and face?

[Merellin]

So, Just because I realy love Malifaux, And like building the models, and constantly wants new things, I wonder, Is Von Schill and his crew box fun to play, and to face? What are their strengths and weaknesses? Is the Steam Trunk as horribly annoying to assemble as it looks? xD

[Kirby]

Depends on your definition of "fun".  Von Schill is not flashy, but he is consistent and durable.  He has some nice mobility with Augmented Jump to be able to charge over things and he adds some nice durability to his fellow Freikorps models.  There is nothing about him that opponents should really find irritating or frustrating other than a fair amount of healing within the crew, but nothing like the curses, debuffs, or movement shenanigans that some of the other crews have.

Steam Trunk isn't bad, you just have to take it one piece at a time.  Be sure to dry-fit everything first, and if you plan on painting then it is easier if you assemble the tank treads and the box separately, paint them, then glue the tank treads on.

[Freman]

He is a balanced master that is okay at most things, but not exceptional at any one thing. He is certainly good to play against, there are no NPEs when playing against him.

His crew box is almost essential to playing Outcasts, so you'll get it anyway even if you don't play him specifically.

Their strength is basically reducing the effectiveness of your opponent's attacks. Higher damage is reduced by their armour, and pseudo-hard-to-kill while within Von Schill's aura. Blasts and pulses? They don't care. Horror tactics are reduced because they have reasonable base Wp and again Von Schill's aura. They're reasonably skilled with weapons, and Trappers are terrific. Their weakness is that there never seems to be enough of them on the table.

The Steam Trunk is basically a matter of making sub-assemblies and sticking them together.

[Franchute]

I'd say that the specialist is the most difficult one to assemble in the box because of the thin hose (correct word in English?) of the flame thrower.

[Merellin]

One mayhaps stupid question, What does NPE mean..?

[Freman]

Negative play experience.

Like most people feel after playing against Pandora.

[Merellin]

Ah. Yes, Pandora was a bit annoying to face in the first match.. xD

[Jafar]

@Kirby and @Freman mostly cowered everything. I don't know what "fun" means for you, but Vs is very straightforward. So if you like this it's ok, but for example, for me it's boring to play him. You opponent will mostly know what you want to do, an mostly will be unable to stop you

Off top- I love this trick on VS: burn oathkeeper on VS, charge twice a turn and move something like 18''

[CapnBloodbeard]

Fun?  Well, he doesn't have much in the way of tricks which is what is fun for some.  Some people complain that because he's rather straightforward he can be a bit boring - but he's easy to play.  Easy to play, not so easy to play really well (because of the lack of specialising).

But he is also fairly forgiving to play - you're not going to lose him instantly if you put him slightly out of position or something like that.

Some of my most enjoyable games have been using VS - playing against an opponent where we got a bit silly.  Tournament but neither of us were placing.

One game, Turf War and the terrain sort of funnelled people into the middle.  We both just ended up throwing stuff into the middle, VS withstood something like 30AP worth of attacks.  Just a hilarious case of throwing everything into the mosh pit.

Another game, VS on VS, of course they clashed in the middle, almost killed each other, healed, mine killed his with 1 wound left.  So it had this real thematic image of 2 exhausted and bloodied old men just beating the living snot out of each other.

 

[KrazyIvan]

Von Schill has one of the strongest stat lines in the game, but just about zero flashy tricks. The former part mostly gets ignored by folks, because they think that he boring due to the latter. Here is my take on him:

1. He is equally suited to melee and ranged combat. You rarely need to make a decision about charging or shooting the same model because your damage will be similar either way. This allows you to be more flexible depending on the board situation at the time.

2. One thing he does very well is move. In boards with good sight lines he can charge all over the freaking place, especially with Oath Keeper, including at models your opponent thought were safe. When paired with a Strongarm enemies will have a hard time staying out of melee if you want them there.

3. He is a pretty tanky model due armor, friekorps suit, and all the healing he has access to. Add Survivalist and he becomes the second most survivable master in Outcasts, IMO, after Levi, and he doesn't need any complicated bury mechanics to do it.

4. People write off his 3AP shooting action, but I've had it win games for me on a couple of occasions (including once killing 8 models in one go). Opponents might know that he has the ability to shoot everything in LOS and range, but they will often forget about it. That makes it something you can pull out once and a while to clutch a game.

Anyway, I think he is much more worthwhile than a lot of folks. Just go in with the right expectations of what you can get out of him.

[Khoregard]

The only tricks von schill has is taking the shirt off and possibly the lower df trigger on his knife named jack. His crew with I pay better can find a use for literally every card in the deck which imo makes him very easy to play. 

[Seadhna]

The Freikorps are the Space Marines of Malifaux, with their power armor, relative resilience (i.e. quite resilient vs small arms fire and the like, but dedicated murdering will get them under quickly) and access to healing (between Librarian, Hannah and the Trunk they can get most models up to full health in a turn).

 

Their main weakness is average damage output for their nice statlines, especially against Ressers and their Hard to Wound (I mean, the Strongarm is boss when it comes to survivability, but his damage is just meh) and relative weakness agains conditions: the only in-theme condition removal would be Specialist, who is also the most fragile model in the Korps, while Johan needs a relatively high ram to do his thing; considering that a Von Schill crew would have rather few models, an opponent who can reliably apply Paralyze is gonna be a nightmare for them.

 

Outside of that, an excellent crew and fun to play if you like the style of "I'm a slow-moving steady ball of DOOOM rolling toward your face" with occasional aggression spikes where you play pinball with Oath Keeper'd Von Schill himself.

 

 

Come to think of it, Von Schill's trick might be Horror duel spam, with the Emissary's endless supply of shirts.

[Ludvig]

10 hours ago, Seadhna said:

Their main weakness is average damage output for their nice statlines, especially against Ressers and their Hard to Wound (I mean, the Strongarm is boss when it comes to survivability, but his damage is just meh) and relative weakness agains conditions: the only in-theme condition removal would be Specialist, who is also the most fragile model in the Korps, while Johan needs a relatively high ram to do his thing; considering that a Von Schill crew would have rather few models, an opponent who can reliably apply Paralyze is gonna be a nightmare for them.

The specialist is the most extreme condition removal in the game. It automatically removes all the paralyzed and slow on most of your crew at no cost whatsoever, the black joker can't even stop it. Just don't put the specialist on the front lines, let it linger (it moves slower than the rest of the freikorps anyways so it should be fairly easy to arrange).

Being able to remove corpses and scrap is also very handy even if it's trickier to set up. The scheme marker removal is really potent for preventing set up and spring the trap and similar schemes as long as you're not too badly out-activated.

[daniello_s]

If only Specialist was a bit faster...

[Seadhna]

If only specialist was at least Df 5...

otherwise, it's a superb model with a really good gun and fantastic triggers

[KrazyIvan]

Anyone try "Von Schill goes shirt shopping", i.e. Hodgepodge Emissary helping to spam The Shirt Comes Off? I'm wondering if anyone has found it a viable tactic.

[Manxfaux]

I've had a some success using Hannah to copy 'The Shirt Comes Off' early in the turn to catch a bunch of models and drain their hand/deck of some decent cards, then using the Emissary to put it back on VS who goes later in the turn and catches another bunch of models that, more often than not, have to top deck those Horror checks. It won't always work but it's pretty easy to pull off.

I'm also experimenting with the Scion in his crew and taking more Freikorpsmen to increase the model count and the amount of models that can become dangerous when using the her attacks. Something like: VS + upgrades, Scion, Trunk, 2x librarian, 2x Trapper, 2x Freikorpsmann.

[Virtus]

57 minutes ago, Manxfaux said:

I've had a some success using Hannah to copy 'The Shirt Comes Off' early in the turn to catch a bunch of models and drain their hand/deck of some decent cards, then using the Emissary to put it back on VS who goes later in the turn and catches another bunch of models that, more often than not, have to top deck those Horror checks. It won't always work but it's pretty easy to pull off.

I'm also experimenting with the Scion in his crew and taking more Freikorpsmen to increase the model count and the amount of models that can become dangerous when using the her attacks. Something like: VS + upgrades, Scion, Trunk, 2x librarian, 2x Trapper, 2x Freikorpsmann.

IMO, that's the best way to abuse 'The Shirt Comes off', but I  don't like it because it generally means VS is playing with less than the magic number of 8 activations a turn.

I too have been testing Scion of the Void, and I think he fits well. He gives attacks against WP for the rest of the crew, and 'In the Blink of an Eye' is what VS and his crew needs to be tricksy. Get two actions from him, unbury him, then heal him back up.

I usually play something like this:

Von Schill (Cache 7)- Engage at Will, Survivalist, Oath Keeper/The Shirt Comes Off
Steam Trunk
2x Freikorps Trapper
Freikorps Librarian- Oath Keeper
2x Freikorpsman
Scion of the Void

[Seadhna]

Funny enough, 

48 minutes ago, Manxfaux said:

I'm also experimenting with the Scion in his crew and taking more Freikorpsmen to increase the model count and the amount of models that can become dangerous when using the her attacks. Something like: VS + upgrades, Scion, Trunk, 2x librarian, 2x Trapper, 2x Freikorpsmann.

funny enough, I was thinking along the same lines:

Scion compliments VS's crew very nicely in that she is a sturdy, reliable source of follow-up damage that can shoot into engagements and costs less than 10 SS.

Her only weakness is being outactivated, really

[default_108]

I find him boring to play but i like having shennanigans to pull but i tell ya he aint fun to face if you are a blast centered crew like sonnia or rasputina.

[KrazyIvan]

On 12/26/2016 at 1:00 PM, Virtus said:

I too have been testing Scion of the Void, and I think he fits well. He gives attacks against WP for the rest of the crew, and 'In the Blink of an Eye' is what VS and his crew needs to be tricksy. Get two actions from him, unbury him, then heal him back up.

I usually play something like this:

Von Schill (Cache 7)- Engage at Will, Survivalist, Oath Keeper/The Shirt Comes Off
Steam Trunk
2x Freikorps Trapper
Freikorps Librarian- Oath Keeper
2x Freikorpsman
Scion of the Void

How are you making use of Whispers more than in one turn? Without using Hannah's bury a VS crew doesn't have a way to unbury the Scion...so it'll just die. 

[KrazyIvan]

I'm thinking sonething like this, though going with only a 2 cache is a bit worrisome.

50 SS Outcasts Crew
Von Schill + 2 Pool
 - The Shirt Comes Off (1)
 - Survivalist (1)
 - Spoils of War (1)
Steam Trunk (3)
Hannah (10)
 - Ancient Tomes (2)
Scion of the Void (8)
Freikorps Librarian (7)
Freikorps Trapper (6)
Freikorpsmann (5)
Freikorpsmann (5)

 (exported from CrewFaux)

[Tris]

52 minutes ago, KrazyIvan said:

How are you making use of Whispers more than in one turn? Without using Hannah's bury a VS crew doesn't have a way to unbury the Scion...so it'll just die. 

You could unbury it with it`s own `The Hollowing`?

which is especially good in a Von Shil crew, as you can take multiple 0s, so you can still do other 0 actions with your models.

[KrazyIvan]

20 minutes ago, Tris said:

You could unbury it with it`s own The Hollowing?

which is especially good in a Von Shil crew, as you can take multiple 0s, so you can still do other 0 actions with your models.

The model is buried so never activates. How is it going to use is zero?

[Tris]

4 minutes ago, KrazyIvan said:

The model is buried so never activates. How is out going to use is zero?

Do you have the card/Book in front of you?

Other models in your crew can use the Scions actions while it is buried, thanks to the `Whispers from the Nothing` ability - that`s actually the whole point of burying it in the first place, so that your low cost models can use its actions.

Although, every time a model uses the Scions actions while it is buried, it suffers 2 damage - hence the need to unbury and heal it with, say, a Librarian.

 

Why did you try to build a list with the Scion in the first place?