Questioning about rats

[EpicWaffle]

Hi everyone  I'm a dedicated gremlin player but, since i have everything that i need from my faction (even moore that i should have), i was starting to think to take an ''outsider'' crew, just for the sake of playing it with friends to chenge up things by time to time, and which won't cost me too much to get to a playeble level! So i'm here to ask you some advices since the crew that among all facinate me the most is the one led by Hamelin! Now i don't know almost anything about him aside from what he generally does but i wanted to know, aide form the crew box (and i guess the rat king one) how many models should i buy before being able to play him decently? 

I saw the tactica recently posted and as much as i found it very interesting, i wanted a more ''pragmatic'' information

 

Would be also nice if someone would share some general crew ideas (50ss) for Hamelin, in order for me to get on what road i'm going if i so decide to pick him as a ''recreative'' master!

Thanks in advance to anyone which reply  

[Rabbitknight]

Hamelin is basically 2 boxes for 8 hired points, and a bunch of summons. Since he has access to lure, obey, and charge denial a ranged crew goes very well with him. I enjoy Hamelin, Rusty Alyce or Lazarus, Sue and a couple Convict Gunslingers, with a stolen and a wretch to start the rat creation process.

Your rat engine is to delay activating until your opponent can't react then lure something in and unload on it with obeyed attacks and rapid fire. Schemes are done by Rat Kings and Catchers 

[Freman]

If you work at it you can usually generate a Rat King a turn, and they are a very handy 8 stone minion that can, if necessary turn into a 6 stone minion and a peon. They eat scheme markers, which annoys the heck out of your opponent if that's what they're working on, they're reasonable in a fight, they hand out Blighted, and they're effectively free after the first (which consumes your first Stolen and a couple of Crow cards). I picked up a blister of Wyrd Twisted Apparitions and put them on 40mm bases to give me five Rat Kings instead of just two.

Hamelin has Obey, which is a wonderful ability, particularly combined with the ability of Rat Kings to charge blighted models for 1AP. Pull the enemy in with Pipes, using Plague to give them Blighted, then hit them with Rat Kings. It also works well with Trappers, or any other model with a 1AP ability that you want to spam. Ashes and Dust has Industrial Age, which is a Tactical action, not an attack action, so you can potentially generate 6 pulses of it per turn combining Ashes 3AP and Hamelin's.

[EpicWaffle]

Thanks to both  I already purchased both boxes, a box of winged plague (i really like the piece) and ordered Johan and Killjoy (both reusable in my other crews), cause i really like the 1 one and found particularly funny the "Rat-joy" idea (as I said,I plan to play this crew mostly with friends). The gunslinger seemed fine for me but I saw a friend of mine having terrible results using them so I kinda let them down, are they worth the cost? Also what about bishop?

Also I already have lazarus so I'll look up to use him asa I can  

[Freman]

Bishop is great, but he goes down quickly if the enemy can concentrate on him. He's not tough like Strongarm with his armour +2.

[EpicWaffle]

What about AMA no zako? I really like the piece and while ml5 ain't that much, you can make people walk into the terrifying aura and fail the terror check + it's fairly durable and can use stones! I would pick it as a flanker or a tarpit model 

[Freman]

I have her but I haven't tried her on the table yet. 

[Rabbitknight]

The big thing I find with the Gunslingers is they should be going late in the turn after your opponent has cheated a lot, and really lean on the [+] to attack that they get naturally. Between that and pipes putting people in Rapid Fire range they're good multi hit damage dealers. Facing Armor obviously makes them less desirable, since they do their damage over multiple hits.