Jump to content

Help me pick the best worst master/crew


S'tan

Recommended Posts

Hey guys

First a bit of introduction I suppose. I've been playing tabletop games since I was something over 10 (GW's Lotr) and it's been my primary hobby through most of my life. 40k, Necromunda, WHFB, various skirmish games, you name it. Moved to Warmachine right before mkII, became a PG a 2 years later (Privateer Press' version of Henchmen) but still dabbled in other games. Me and my mates went to Hungary for one of their international tourneys and I fell in love with Malifaux. Traded some unneeded stuff for Viks, McMourning, Dreamer and Lilith + enough to play them and I was loving the game. Reminded me of mkI Warmachine and how crazy that was, the philosophy that if everything is op it must even out right? Even got a couple of my buddies to get minis and play a few games. Then Malifaux mkII hit, I didn't feel like re-learning the game I just learned a couple of months back + with all the commotion that comes with edition change, the hype died down. Fast forward till early November this year, I'm not really feeling all that excited about WMH at the moment (waiting for Errata and Tier lists to come out) and my best mate's girlfriend mentioned she was looking at this game called Malifaux and that it seems interesting. I was hooked instantly.

Blowing dust off my old stuff and picking up the paintbrush for the first time this year, a couple of evenings later my speedpainting netted me this:

IMG_20161214_0805341_zpsxmyn7pta.jpg

We also played a few games and I'm loving it. It's not the old ''my master is pretty much invulnerable'' which I found so hilarious but just like WMH evolved to be a better and cleaner game through edition changes, I feel the same happened to Malifaux. 'cept Austringers, the only thing more tilting than them was a red joker on a triple negative dmg flip that JUST killed McMourning.

So, I now face the same problem I face in all the games. What to play and how to not play every single faction. You can see I'm off to a good start with my model spread. I really really like Lynch and people rating him highly appeals to my powergaming side. Him and Dreamer will very likely be my first crew pair. Oh yeah, the logic I'm applying to crew building at the moment is 'take 2 masters that don't overlap too much to cover as much field as possible with fixed crews that have 10-15ss leeway for tailoring list to specific s&s'. Don't know if it will work in the long run but for now it's one more solid rock to which I can hold on to while digesting new rules and interactions; heck, even the mentality of ''will this course of action net me victory points'' over ''what favourable model trades can I make in this turn?''.

 

I need to pick my primary master or two with which I can properly learn to play the game and eventually take to tourneys as well. I am a competitive player at heart, not just because I like to win (who doesn't?) but because I enjoy competing, a good hard battle; won or lost from which I learn something. One thing I tell people when demoing games is to start with something they enjoy the look of and worry about the rest later. Well, I like pretty much everything in Malifaux but I'm getting more and more drawn to Ten Thunders. But Neverborn are neat as well and I'll probably expand my Outcast collection to have more mercs for other factions and then it's just a small step to having a playable faction isn't it? Decisions decisions...

 

Today I finally got the revelation I needed, the final nudge that helped me decide. Playing in WMH tourneys a lot, I noticed one thing in particular. Starting at 8-9 in the morning, most people are absolutely burned out by 7-8 in the evening. Mistakes happen by good players that would never do them if playing remotely fresh. Now I believe our beloved games are balanced enough that player skill is the deciding factor in most games, RNG can sometimes screw you over but in my mind that's mostly the player's fault for gambling too much on crucial things. One resource not often talked about is mental stamina. Most of us can only have so many things happen to us before we tilt. I don't think of myself as a sadist but I really enjoy messing with my opponents like that.

I've read a lot of stuff here and I've listened to well over half of Schemes and Stones and I heard some pretty cool ideas. Alp spam with Dreamer, Stiched Together with Lynch, cheating face down,...

So, what would you suggest as the most tilting master/crew? What puts you on tilt consistently? What is not..maybe strong per se but just really really annoying?

 

Cheers chaps :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Welcome back to the hobby!

I have to say that nothing gets under people's nails quite as much as a good Pandora player.

She's evasive, fast , deals tonnes of damage and she messes with the activation order of your opponent's models (extremely powerful and can be frustrating to your opponent).

There's 2 main builds with her - one in which she is up close and personal, spreading AoE damage, forcing Horror duels, tying people up, and the other in which she is controlling your opponent by paralysing their models and dealing light damage. She can fulfil whatever goal you set to her - as long as that goal is making your opponent miserable (she has an ability literally called Misery). Yeah, I'd say she makes people tilt really hard.

She may have some appeal to you seeing as you're already leaning towards Neverborn.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd say that there are two aspects to what you're looking for: things that force decision on the other player that they'd rather not deal with and things that are complicated and unpredictable. The first one messes up their plans (generally by leaving stuff alive but with horrid Conditions or out of place or whatever) and the latter makes planning really difficult in the first place (by being able to do so many different things that the enemy can't prepare for them all).

In the former category Pandora, Jack Daw, and Nellie spring to mind, in the latter Sandeep (the king of this approach!), Zoraida, and Lilith. Probably Colette as well. In theory also Brewmaster but he is generally considered the second weakest Master in the game.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, Math Mathonwy said:

I'd say that there are two aspects to what you're looking for: things that force decision on the other player that they'd rather not deal with and things that are complicated and unpredictable. The first one messes up their plans (generally by leaving stuff alive but with horrid Conditions or out of place or whatever) and the latter makes planning really difficult in the first place (by being able to do so many different things that the enemy can't prepare for them all).

In the former category Pandora, Jack Daw, and Nellie spring to mind, in the latter Sandeep, Zoraida, and Lilith. Probably Colette as well. In theory also Brewmaster but he is generally considered the second weakest Master in the game.

This! :)
To be more detailed:
- Jack Daw can throw curses at your enemy(debuffs), and push them around, his crew will also debuff enemy and move him around (Nurses, Jakuma Ubume, Crossroads 7 models)
- Nellie can push, give slow, has some nasty combo with controlling enemy actions (he has to drop scheme marker or cannot etc.)
- Lilith, Can create forests on boards (forests can block line of sight, provide cover, block charge lanes etc), also can switch models (your and enemy) or make some models unable to walk or charge (don't remember exact wording)
 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Jafar said:

This! :)
To be more detailed:
- Jack Daw can throw curses at your enemy(debuffs), and push them around, his crew will also debuff enemy and move him around (Nurses, Jakuma Ubume, Crossroads 7 models)
- Nellie can push, give slow, has some nasty combo with controlling enemy actions (he has to drop scheme marker or cannot etc.)
- Lilith, Can create forests on boards (forests can block line of sight, provide cover, block charge lanes etc), also can switch models (your and enemy) or make some models unable to walk or charge (don't remember exact wording)
 

Yeah, good idea on the details, so to add the missing ones:

- Sandeep can lend his Actions to others in his crew seemingly allowing anyone to do anything at any given moment. He also Summons Gamin with weird additional rules and really takes quite a bit of mental focus to keep stuff straight.

- Zoraida can Obey enemies or friendlies and give out a Condition that gives her cards whenever the opponent does stuff. She also has a good way of spreading various conditions through her summonable totem.

- Colette can Push and Obey friendlies allowing anyone in her crew to suddenly do a lot of stuff and she does this super effectively.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Neverborn it is then, I'm sold. They seem to have a lot of damned if you do, damned if you don't thing going which is great. Also mobility, can't go wrong with that. I'll keep you updated with my half finished western town and some ranting and whining. I do love to whine. :P

 

Thanks for the replies! :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information