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the grandiosity of 'Malifaux Raptors'


Frozen Feet

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I am the proud owner of 2 Malifaux Raptors.

Have sold the third to restrain myself..

Playin almost ever at least one of them. Regardless of the Master.

 

Yesterday i played with Marcus vs. Rasputina. My raptors came down on the enemy end of turn 1

1pinned Raspy and an Ice Dancer, the second engaged Snow Storm and the Ice Golem. Both in 5.98Inch from another to chain activate.

First one, hit Raspy 2 times and 'beasted her'.

The second one hit the golem, 2 times as well. The big bad icicle also 'beasted'.

Marcus cast 'Alpha' on the Golem. Result: Golem hitting Snow Storm for a weak 9Damage SMASH!

Enemy killed one of the birds with Golem. And the second survived till round three.

Rasputina only cast 1 attack spell and was pinned down/in bad position for a long time...

What do u think about this nasty little control pieces?

 

Tobi aka Frozen Feet

 

 

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55 minutes ago, Nutella said:

I've been using the raptors with Ironsides. Beastify 2 models turn one to allow them to be targets for Claw and Blade swaps + do 1 dmg to qualify for Ironside's hand picked men. Its really fun! Just have to figure out how to sneak in Pack leader..

That seem interesting. It lets you have a non-Peon beast target of choice. I would have to figure out how to fit that in (hence the 'on a budget' comment above), but I'm seriously considering trying my next tournament as a single-master (Ironsides) for the practice/experience. Would be very amusing to use it in conjunction with Steam Arachnids to place Oxfordian mages in a furious casting location or out of engagement.

My thought with turn one clawing yourself shenanigans is cycling your own deck. With two attacks, relenting, and either cheating or flipping for the trigger, you have the potential to really open up how much of the deck you see in the first turn. Sure, I run the risk of pitching some high cards, but I'm looking at it as joker-fishing in a turn where I'm maneuvering more and flipping less in general. If I happen to see a RJ coming up, I get to stack the top of my deck, and leave it at that until my next activation or a trigger lets me draw it.

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I just played a tournament with 2 Raptors in each list, and each time wishing I had taken a third, so I'm glad there's a thread for these guys. I think they're one of the very best Peons in the game... They're cheap, versatile, mobile and surprisingly hitty.

The Beast trigger must do wonders for Marcus, but I find that with other masters, the :mask trigger is still super strong for messing with your opponent's deck. Your opponent really doesn't want to lose the duel on your first attack if you flipped the :mask or on the off chance you have a :mask ready in hand, so they'll be pressured to cheat. If they don't cheat, you will get to stack their deck to make sure they are losing the next duel, so again they either have to cheat, or take damage and risk a further :mask trigger to remove good cards from their deck.

If they are cheating on any of these 3ss attacks, their control hand gets diminished quickly. If they're not you're getting unparalleled control on their flips. You can't call yourself a real Arcanist until you hit a model, find their Black Joker and stick it on top, swing a second time, then find and discard the Red Joker from their deck. 

The fact that this spectacular trigger comes attached to a 3ss throwaway Peon model on a 11" threat range with Flight, potentially hitting 4 damage on Severe, is just icing. There's very few models that have Severe damage higher than their ss cost.

And this is all secondary to it's usual role of being top tier schemers/anti schemers...

For scheming, as mentioned with Practised Production they're fantastic with Leave Your Mark. With Grab & Drop Kaeris they're half way decent for Convict Labour/Search the Ruins/Leave Your Mark and they're absolutely gross with Plant Explosives or Set up. 

For anti scheming, they're just as good. Fly 16" to engage and deny interacting from enemies (with Df6 no less), or use its (2) to land anywhere at the end of the turn to tie up enemies/block doorways. This action is killer in Interference, obviously. The only scheme where they're a liability is Hunting Party if they're killed. Even then though, you can design your list to run a single Raptor in your back corner using his (2) all game to completely deny the scheme. Thus, I can't see a reason to play any less than 2, outside of the above anti-Hunting Party list.

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Shh, quiet, I don't want arcanist players around here to hear you guys.  At least till I finish the three I am working on for my Marcus.

Seriously though, I agree these little guys are great.  Only one of the Arcanist players around here currently uses them and he has not infected the others yet.  It took him a little bit because he put them on 30mm bases first and did not realize his mistake till he put them down to play against me and I commented.  That said he has only used them for Kaeris as he is not a big Marcus fan yet.  I always hate to see them in his Kaeris list because I know they are just going to be trouble till I kill them and that is never always certain.  He laughed at me having Perdita blow them away once but my counter was it was worth the AP if that lets me deny the VP.

I have often compared them to Guild Hounds that are far better at moving and tying up models.  Anything that can force the enemy to lose its chance to charge is great, and even if they try and send a model back to remove the raptor for the piece you are tying up it is not certain due to the Df6 unless they can target Wp.  And even if they do kill the one, having a second lets you just swoop that one in and retie up the model forcing them to try again.

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52 minutes ago, EnternalVoid said:

Shh, quiet, I don't want arcanist players around here to hear you guys.  At least till I finish the three I am working on for my Marcus.

Seriously though, I agree these little guys are great.  Only one of the Arcanist players around here currently uses them and he has not infected the others yet.  It took him a little bit because he put them on 30mm bases first and did not realize his mistake till he put them down to play against me and I commented.  That said he has only used them for Kaeris as he is not a big Marcus fan yet.  I always hate to see them in his Kaeris list because I know they are just going to be trouble till I kill them and that is never always certain.  He laughed at me having Perdita blow them away once but my counter was it was worth the AP if that lets me deny the VP.

It has taken me a while to come around to trying the birdies out, and mainly because I started reading up on ways to get around things like the Troubleshooters' box inherent weakness to Make Them Suffer/Hunting Party (my second crew box, back when I was just starting) that don't interfere with other things I'm trying to do.

After I picked up a box of them I started looking at things that they can do, and with the arrival of my Black Friday order (Shastar Vidiya Guard), I see tremendous value in using the Raptors in the first turn to cycle my own cards: instead of spending Stones cycling them before the turn, spend some AP to cycle cards, cheat to hand, and get the SVG pinged early for HPM. Similarly, I found that Amina's abilities become much more reliable when she's got HPM supporting her . Last tournament I played in I ended up in an Ironsides v. Ironsides match with Hunting Party in the pool, and my opponent was deathly afraid that I would turn his enforcers into Peons and score Hunting Party off of his front line dudes even while his token minion hid in a back corner.

I am finding that I really love playing control, and these birds give me the ability to not just deny Hunting Party and drop Leave Your Mark tokens, but also manipulate cards and potentially screw up charge lanes/shooting. They are quickly becoming something that I'm trying to figure out more ways to squeeze them in or squeeze more work out of them. Things like I wonder if ditching a card to Flesh and Metal them for an attack to stack my opponent's deck is worth the card and F&M AP come to mind.

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