Who loves their Mah?

[Somnicide]

I've read the old tactics here from when she was first going to come out and shortly after her release and I'm curious if there are any Mah lovers?

 

If so, I'd love to get some tips, tactics, and tricks with her!

[Macumazahn]

I'm certainly a Mah lover. Platonicaly because she's really ugly, but a lover nonetheless.

One of the most basic tricks she has, and one that I use often, is to hire Lenny and use the ram he gives to all duels to trigger "cripple'em" (from the "Out for blood" upgrade). As long as you have Lenny close she can charge for 1 ap, and ml range 3, dealing 4 minimum damage (or 5, or 6...), and she's melee 7 at least, so that's scary.

That takes some care in positioning, but between her (0) "Let Mah handle this" and her (1) "Horrible hollerin" you can basicaly push 5 models a turn, witch is a perfectly fine way to use Mah's ap.

In fact I would give priority to this positioning game she has to her raw damage dealing, but she's great at both.

[HellecticMojo]

What's the typical list comp? I feel like she wants at least Lenny and Trixie for yoyo and getting chores she wants, but she also needs bayous for less painful Do it Right.

She just seem like a lamer brewmaster for positioning, and less reliable damage dealer than Ophelia.

[Somnicide]

I played her last night for the first time and loved the movement. I did horrible hollering and then let Mah handle this to get Francois crazy far up the board before he activated. I didn't consider moving multiple models around. That's awesome.

[Macumazahn]

12 minutes ago, HellecticMojo said:

What's the typical list comp? I feel like she wants at least Lenny and Trixie for yoyo and getting chores she wants, but she also needs bayous for less painful Do it Right.

She just seem like a lamer brewmaster for positioning, and less reliable damage dealer than Ophelia.

What part of Ml 7 (or 8) minimun damage 4 (or 5) with no backlash mind you, is less reliable than Ophelia's? She doesn't even need triggers, unlike Ophelia, to at least deal respectable damage.

I would say Ophelia is made to prepare a very damaging shot with focus (witch means things like hard to kill, and incorporeal are super annoying to her) and that's it, while Mah just brute forces against enemies with a bunch of attacks (wich means armor and pushing triggers like squeel are a problem), but they are pretty similar in that regard.

I actually don't use Trixiebelle a lot, oddly enough. She's super useful, but a little expensive and fragile to use her with a very aggresive Mah crew (everyone charging in turn 2). I tend to use the Emmisary, but both he and trixie aren't really autotakes, only Lenny (witch is a problem when making a crew agaisnt Neverborn).

Also the Rooster raiders are even faster in her crew and can get to melee 7, so I guess there's no reason not to use them, they're even better than in other gremlin crews.

[Four_N_Six]

I successfully run Mah with 1 or 2 heavy hitters (Mancha, Whiskey Golem, Emissary) and the rest of the crew is built to schemes. She works very independently of her crew and doesn't need specific models. 

[Math Mathonwy]

13 hours ago, HellecticMojo said:

She just seem like a lamer brewmaster for positioning, and less reliable damage dealer than Ophelia.

She can be about as good at shutting stuff down as Brewie while also killing things.

She has lots of positioning tricks for her crew and the enemy making her a potent distractions piece. I think that concentrating on "Ml8 minimum damage 5" is a trap similar to Brewie's bubble - it looks like that's what's intended but I find that she works a lot better when you concentrate on Pushing stuff and being a nuisance. 3" engagement is a powerful tool.

Her problem is that she loves cards and you oftentimes want to activate her early resulting easily in a situation where you have a very small hand left after your first activation. This goes double if you use her signature models as they have the most prominent anti-synergy in Malifaux amongst them chucking cards left and right. Ophelia OTOH is very card efficient since she's usually flipping with positives but Mah is far better as a distraction.

[Four_N_Six]

With being able to charge while engaged and then push her models out of engagement, she can save some lives, too.  I don't use her tactical action unless I can guarantee the free Ml attack as well.  I almost never use her 1 AP charge, but have been a little more if I can make sure Old Cranky is nearby to get the soul stone back.  I think Mah suffers mostly from not being played as widely as other gremlin masters, so a handful of people tried her out and didn't figure out any good tricks, and then labeled her as a sub-par master.  I have very good success using her most of the time.

[wizuriel]

Mah imo has some good tricks up her sleeve, but she competes too much against Ophelia as the faction's damage dealer and imo Ophelia is a clear winner in that regards.

Yes you can get Mah up to MI 8 and with Lenny, SS and cards she can get min damage 3-6. Ophelia though can shoot further than Mah's threat range doing min damage 2 or 4 and starts to pull ahead of Mah at the moderate and severe levels.

As has been stated Mah is also super card intensive and imo is squishier than Ophelia (Ophelia has her squeel trigger and doesn't need upgrades to be offensive letting her stock up on more defensive upgrades).

[Clement]

3 hours ago, Math Mathonwy said:

Her problem is that she loves cards and you oftentimes want to activate her early resulting easily in a situation where you have a very small hand left after your first activation. 

The way I run Mah she typically has 2 "modes" over the course of the game.   "Push + Position Support" mode and "Hell Bent for Leather" mode.  When she's not going completely crazy, she'l normally activate somewhere middle/late turn and push models around trying to set up an angry Alpha Strike for a later turn.  When she does finally get to "going completely crazy" she's normally first or second activation depending on how badly I need the + flips from Do It Right.  By the end of her activation on those crazy turns, normally 2 - 3 enemy models are dead/maimed and Mah is scooted off out of retaliation range, but she's likely eaten a few stones and a good chunk of my hand to get there.

Things I always take in a Mah crew:

1) A secondary beater, ideally one who enjoys being repositioned.

2) Trixie.  Too useful a toolbox for Mah; especially with her interaction with chores.

3) Lass.   Yes really, always.   If I can afford to wait for Mah to go second, the Lass is first and she is the one to feed "Do It Right".  Since she passes off her free upgrade to Mah when she goes down, her price tag is actually 2-3 stones.  Cranky is in theory good times, but Mah always leaves him in the dust on her rampages, and the goal is always for Mah to end up out of reach of real retaliation between her flying charges, murderous damage curve, and easy repositioning triggers.

Everything after those 3 can safely focus on scheming typically.  I'll often bring a rooster or two because Mah's "Do It Right" is uniquely qualified to halt a rooster rampage that's gone awry, also Roosters love all of the chores options.

[Four_N_Six]

As like everything else in Malifaux, it's all what you prefer.  I prefer Mah to Ophelia, and don't really like using Ophelia at all.

[Clement]

1 hour ago, wizuriel said:

Mah imo has some good tricks up her sleeve, but she competes too much against Ophelia as the faction's damage dealer and imo Ophelia is a clear winner in that regards.

Yes you can get Mah up to MI 8 and with Lenny, SS and cards she can get min damage 3-6. Ophelia though can shoot further than Mah's threat range doing min damage 2 or 4 and starts to pull ahead of Mah at the moderate and severe levels.

As has been stated Mah is also super card intensive and imo is squishier than Ophelia (Ophelia has her squeel trigger and doesn't need upgrades to be offensive letting her stock up on more defensive upgrades).

Aside from Dirty Cheater, what else are you putting on Ophelia?

 

Ophelia's big drawback in my mind is that when people run her in "murder mode" it's often her dragging old cranky around for defense and SS generation as well as Lenny for Rams and some damage prevention.   It's unwieldy trying to move all of that around at once, so the "Ophelia cuddle puddle" tends to be really obvious in it's intentions.

Ophelia's  on Sh seems like a great option, but cover is most definitely a thing, and most of my normal opponents are boards are rife with hard cover and know exactly how to use it.

Edited October 27, 2016 by Clement
Added Ophelia commentary

[Macumazahn]

4 hours ago, wizuriel said:

Yes you can get Mah up to MI 8 and with Lenny, SS and cards she can get min damage 3-6. Ophelia though can shoot further than Mah's threat range doing min damage 2 or 4 and starts to pull ahead of Mah at the moderate and severe levels.

Yeah but that minimum damage it's what more often than not you're going to flip, unless you focus, and if that's the case that means you're going to shot only once, maybe even twice, with Ophelia. Also she needs rams for that, so better bring lenny with you, or stone for rams, or hope you have a high ram in your hand. Not only that, Rg 10 is not a safe range at all, plenty of things in the game can destroy you there (Mah, for example, can reach to a threat range of 15", but she's only one of many).

In that situation you're already using Lenny or stoning for rams, so it's exatcly the same situation that Mah is in, but since Mah can get to 4 attacks with minimum damage 3 (that can also get higher) Mah actually does plenty more damage.

 

Now the real point of Mah is that she can push a ton of models, both enemy and ally, pretty easily, wich opens many possibilities. And if something nasty gets a little to close, or is in a very juicy spot? You wack'im with the spoon and it's probably going to die.

You can also use her 3" reach to tie in melee a bunch of models, but that goes for any model with that range (like the emmisary)

[wizuriel]

17 minutes ago, Macumazahn said:

Yeah but that minimum damage it's what more often than not you're going to flip, unless you focus, and if that's the case that means you're going to shot only once, maybe even twice, with Ophelia. Also she needs rams for that, so better bring lenny with you, or stone for rams, or hope you have a high ram in your hand. Not only that, Rg 10 is not a safe range at all, plenty of things in the game can destroy you there (Mah, for example, can reach to a threat range of 15", but she's only one of many).

In that situation you're already using Lenny or stoning for rams, so it's exatcly the same situation that Mah is in, but since Mah can get to 4 attacks with minimum damage 3 (that can also get higher) Mah actually does plenty more damage.

 

Now the real point of Mah is that she can push a ton of models, both enemy and ally, pretty easily, wich opens many possibilities. And if something nasty gets a little to close, or is in a very juicy spot? You wack'im with the spoon and it's probably going to die.

You can also use her 3" reach to tie in melee a bunch of models, but that goes for any model with that range (like the emmisary)

Ophelia doesn't care much if she is engaged and imo as mentioned she can take a hit better than Mah can. Also her 3" reach doesn't tie up to many models imo since she loses the 3" range at the end of the turn. I've had situations that I tried to look down models and next turn lost initiative and the model just walked away from her. 

[Sergrum]

Opehlia and Mah both have good and bad things about them Mah is way more card intensive to get to maximum damage output. They are different yet similar in a weird way. In the end its an argument of preference, if you want real power you take Somer/Wong/Zipp and  leave both these masters at home

 

[Somnicide]

Finally got my first win since I came back and it was with Mah! I was up against a Zoraida crew with tons of gupps and silurids and juju. It was a super fun game and everything really clicked for me. Mah was able to charge and kill 2 silurids in a single action thanks to triggers.

i was loving all the pushing and moving around shenanigans. I'm definitely hooked on her - thanks for the words of advice here.

 

[Mxbedlam]

I've played against Mah tons of times and am trying to theoryfaux out the perfect list for her. I'm looking at Emmisary right off the bat, his (0) action and extra chores just seems to good to be true. After that, Trixie, Little Lass and at least one Rooster. From there I'm struggling. 

[Somnicide]

I think there is a consistent core for her but no "perfect" list.

This scheme pool was convict labor, hunting party, leave your mark, search the ruins and occupy their turf. My opponent had declared neverborn and I guessed that they were going to take hunting party and search the ruins since the scenario was also a middle table one (the child one where you deliver scrap markers) - he ended up doing convict labor rather than hunting party.

I took bushwhackers one on each flank to get off my land and a bayou gremlin to run up the flank with them. They both advanced and played possum and I got up the sides pretty easily while little lass, mctavish and Mah took the center to try and deprive interact actions, which ended up working out.

[Dogmantra]

4 hours ago, Mrbedlam said:

I've played against Mah tons of times and am trying to theoryfaux out the perfect list for her. I'm looking at Emmisary right off the bat, his (0) action and extra chores just seems to good to be true. After that, Trixie, Little Lass and at least one Rooster. From there I'm struggling. 

I think the Emissary, Mah & Trixie is going to leave you playing pretty much without a hand. Cheating initiative and discarding for extra chores means you're on 4/6 cards before the turn has even started, and Mah eats cards up like nobody's business. I mean yeah you're not going to cheat initiative every turn, but it's still quite an investment. Personally I'm not that impressed with the Emissary, which to be fair I haven't taken that often, but extra chores came up much less than I was hoping. I'd mostly just rather have McTavish for the same cost, or two Bugs or Slop Haulers.

That said if you do want to go down that route, I'd probably go for a mostly card-independent crew. Roosters are great because of Bayou Two Card and frankly ridiculous stats and possibility for s. Anything with Bayou Two Card is a good idea actually, Slop Haulers, Bayou Gremlins and maybe even a Mechanised Porkchop in order to hand out s on charging friends. I'd ditch The Little Lass for Old Cranky - his Df & Wp auras mean having less of a hand is less of a big deal, and his (0) lets you make the most of the cards you do have. Lenny is a strong consideration too, not just for the more easily accessible free charge trigger on Mah, but also to help reduce the impact of lost duels.

[Math Mathonwy]

2 hours ago, Somnicide said:

I took bushwhackers one on each flank to get off my land and a bayou gremlin to run up the flank with them. They both advanced and played possum and I got up the sides pretty easily while little lass, mctavish and Mah took the center to try and deprive interact actions, which ended up working out.

Did you end up throwing away six cards on abilities on the first turn? Or only four (forfeiting the 8" Pushes for Mah and Lass)? 

[Macumazahn]

I would never take the Emmisary and Trixie at the same time, at least not with the conflux of bushwacking. For me The emmisary brings some safety in the chores selection (with trixiebelle I always prioritize cheating high, not an specific suit), meaning if I didn't get rams or masks I'll discard a weak card of that suit. The reason I really take the emmisary is because he performs like Mah does: he's fast, does a lot of damage, melee range 3, and has a lot of pushes too.

He and Mah are a tag team of annoying green destruction.

[Somnicide]

1 hour ago, Math Mathonwy said:

Did you end up throwing away six cards on abilities on the first turn? Or only four (forfeiting the 8" Pushes for Mah and Lass)? 

I threw away 2 cards, one on each bayou. Points couldn't be scored in the center until the second turn and there wasn't much to worry about in the center of the field, so I ended up throwing little lass up for the next turn (to die and give me a lead apron but she lived longer than she should have) with Horrible Hollering and then Let Mah Handle this. Then Trixie, since she was going to hang back for a turn anyway, was deployed directly behind McTavish then she did a Gremlin Lure on him and dropped her own scheme marker for a change (it was kind of sad to see her buying her own present).

[Math Mathonwy]

9 hours ago, Somnicide said:

I threw away 2 cards, one on each bayou. Points couldn't be scored in the center until the second turn and there wasn't much to worry about in the center of the field, so I ended up throwing little lass up for the next turn (to die and give me a lead apron but she lived longer than she should have) with Horrible Hollering and then Let Mah Handle this. Then Trixie, since she was going to hang back for a turn anyway, was deployed directly behind McTavish then she did a Gremlin Lure on him and dropped her own scheme marker for a change (it was kind of sad to see her buying her own present).

Ah, OK, I read that you used both Get Off My Land and Play Possum on the first turn on both Bushwhackers but indeed the time line was a bit blurry.

[Mxbedlam]

17 hours ago, Dogmantra said:

I think the Emissary, Mah & Trixie is going to leave you playing pretty much without a hand. Cheating initiative and discarding for extra chores means you're on 4/6 cards before the turn has even started, and Mah eats cards up like nobody's business. I mean yeah you're not going to cheat initiative every turn, but it's still quite an investment. Personally I'm not that impressed with the Emissary, which to be fair I haven't taken that often, but extra chores came up much less than I was hoping. I'd mostly just rather have McTavish for the same cost, or two Bugs or Slop Haulers.

That said if you do want to go down that route, I'd probably go for a mostly card-independent crew. Roosters are great because of Bayou Two Card and frankly ridiculous stats and possibility for s. Anything with Bayou Two Card is a good idea actually, Slop Haulers, Bayou Gremlins and maybe even a Mechanised Porkchop in order to hand out s on charging friends. I'd ditch The Little Lass for Old Cranky - his Df & Wp auras mean having less of a hand is less of a big deal, and his (0) lets you make the most of the cards you do have. Lenny is a strong consideration too, not just for the more easily accessible free charge trigger on Mah, but also to help reduce the impact of lost duels.

So the other thought I have is taking Bounty on someone, so that everytime anyone kills something you get cards back, should help mitigate the amount of cards being dumped on a turn for turn basis. That being said, Trixie is definitely not an auto include.  My only problem with Old Cranky and Slops is how quickly they fall behind with mah and the emmisary tearing through enemy lines. 

[Math Mathonwy]

15 minutes ago, Mrbedlam said:

So the other thought I have is taking Bounty on someone, so that everytime anyone kills something you get cards back, should help mitigate the amount of cards being dumped on a turn for turn basis.

It requires a Crows, though, so it is pretty unreliable. I feel the Bounty's idea is more about mitigating the nasty Crows Triggers that a couple of models have.

15 minutes ago, Mrbedlam said:

That being said, Trixie is definitely not an auto include.  My only problem with Old Cranky and Slops is how quickly they fall behind with mah and the emmisary tearing through enemy lines. 

Trixie can help with the movement allowing the Slop Hauler at least to keep up  

(As a more serious suggestion, maybe you could use an Iron Skeeter?)