Schill Pill

[scarlett fever]

Outcasted comrades I have been set a Von Schill challenge. However I've never really looked twice at him, feed me some tasty combo ideas.

Also not interested in hearing whether or not he sucks, just want to know what he can do for me.

 

[Seadhna]

Probably the best combo is Hodgepodge Emissary putting his shirt back on, so you can charge in and spam those mass Horror Duels. He's probably VS's only decent solution to scheme-heavy pools.

I also like Hannah+Anna Lovelace for huge card draw and double pushes. 

[apes-ma]

22 hours ago, Seadhna said:

Probably the best combo is Hodgepodge Emissary putting his shirt back on, so you can charge in and spam those mass Horror Duels. He's probably VS's only decent solution to scheme-heavy pools.

This is very much true. One of the biggest problems with Von Schill (leading to the "he sucks" discussions... which we will avoid here) is that as time has gone on (and strats and schemes have changed) it's things like pushes, free AP/scheme marker placement, out-of-activation actions and activation control that win games, and there is almost none of this in Von Schill crews. This is compounded by the fact that without at least a few Freikorps models, VS is basically a henchman (by current model standards), and he naturally favours a low model count crew (after the pretty much compulsory Hannah and another 10SS model, there's not much wiggle room...). The Emissary really helps with this, since he pushes and places markers for a zero which in an already AP starved crew makes a huge difference. In pools where marker placement is less important Strongarm (helps Hannah beat harder too) or Lazarus works in the same slot in order to swap schemey for killy. Anna can also be fantastic with Hannah (as @Seadhna pointed out) in pools where holding points and staying alive is important. These pools are where VS works best, in my opinion. There is a lot of healing, and the hard to kill aura makes the Freikorps hard to budge if you play it right. Also, don't forget to go for Finish the Cur when you get the chance - it's one of the only sources of free AP in a typical VS crew, and when free AP are so hard to come by it can make a huge difference.

I would typically start with:

VS (shirt comes off (unless emissary), engage at will, and a third upgrade to taste (survivalist is a good staple, though),
Steam Trunk
Hannah (with I Pay Better),
Librarian
Freikorpsmann (mainly for reference the field guide for Hannah)
Perhaps a Trapper

And then that leaves 21SS to round out the list. 10SS really ought to be either Emissary, Strongarm (or Lazarus), or Anna (there's an argument for Rusty with the summoning upgrade as well) and then that leaves 10-11SS for a seventh model and either upgrades and cache, or an eighth model.

Good luck! Von Schill is pretty fun to play (in my opinion), but he is very dependent on the strats and schemes to be able to score points without extreme difficulty!

[Bathysphere]

I've had some success with an all-Freikorps crew.

Von Schill - 3SS Pool 
-Survivalist

-The Shirt Comes Off

Strongarm Suit - 10SS

Freikorps Librarian - 7SS

Freikorps Librarian - 7SS

Freikorps Trapper - 6SS

Freikorps Trapper - 6SS

Freikorpsmann - 5ss

Freikorpsmann - 5ss

Obviously this only works with 2 Hired Guns boxes, but the idea of two resilient groups of ranged damage with VS and a Strongarm bouncing back and forth as melee is still achievable. 

The tricks in a VS crew come from the Steam trunk handing out useful (0) actions to your crew, but it only affects Freikorps models and the most useful ability is generally the heal, which is usually covered by a Librarian already. It's great against Ressers since it can clear corpses and remove poison, but I've never found any use for it beyond that. I think htat you should either commit to the Freikorps plan, or don't. Abuse his HtK aura if you go in-theme, or don't worry about it if you don't. Many Outcast crews end up running Freikorps models anyway, but don't force synergy because of model quality. 

Board presence is, I believe, the biggest upside to VS. Between Survivalist, The Shirt Comes Off, and a few Soulstones for prevention, he can tank for quite a while. Remember that Survivalist gives a positive on the healing flip from The Shirt Comes Off! Charge him into your opponent's flank and let the rest of your crew take care of scoring. The crazy bastard can be a great distraction, and he can easily take care of some important models while he's at it.

Giving him fast with the Student of Conflict can turn him up that last notch you need to go ham, especially if has Oathkeeper to pop the next turn. 4AP Schill can charge twice, for 16" of movement on top of 4 attacks (maybe 5 with Finish the Cur!). Most opponents will freak out a little if your master ends up in their back line at the top of turn 2. Even better if the Strongarm Suit is right behind him! Keep the enemy crew in mind though, some might make bratwurst out of him regardless of his defenses.

Other solid upgrades are Scout the Field (for super early engagement), Scramble (again, more mobility), and Engage at Will (For the bubble w/ the Steam Trunk).
 

 

[Adran]

If you want to play off the wall, I think Von schill is the best outcast master to use Abominations with. He allows Rusty Alyce to summon 1 a turn with her upgrade (using 2 (0) actions), and the steam trunk typically turns the abom card draw into cycling by discarding the bad cards to heal the aboms, allowing a much longer term use of their card draw abilities. (which allows the summoning from Alyce to happen more often due to your better hand)

 

[scarlett fever]

Cheers for the input guys, some good stuff to chew on there.

@AdranThe Rusty synergy is interesting one, particularly as my first thought looking through the Freikorps/merc stuff is there appears to be a lot of discard dependent actions and outside of Hannah and a Librarian surge trigger, I can't see much in-house card draw.

@VaudevillianVicious I hadn't noticed the plus flips to Shirt Comes Off from Survivalist.

Has anyone got anything from Stand and Shoot? I imagine it might only come in use vs summoners, not often you can get more than 3 targets in range at once, but looks fun if you could make it happen.

The other one I'd really like to try is Paid in Blood. Would only have use in Standard and Corner deployment, but that plus Scout the Field would give you a super early strike. Bit dependent on not deploying first but still, coming from Thunders I do enjoy the deep field early strikes.

[Bathysphere]

@scarlett fever I've used Stand and Shoot to any exactly once to any real value. Turn 2 vs the dreamer. Managed to kill 2 daydreams and 2 new summons. They were all bunched in the Dreamer's aura so it wasn't very hard to get a good bead. That being said it was kind of a fluke since I was already in position from the last turn and activated VS immediately after he used the Dreamer. I tried it against Gremlins once, but missed 3 of 5 shots and burned Oathkeeper for my trouble 

 

[Nukemouse]

Between the emissary's shirt shenanigans and Anna Lovelace inflicting horror duels with her non-randomizing attack Von Schill can get quite a bit of mileage out of the -1wp aura from Montresor. Models like Sue, Convict Gunslingers, Freikorps Trappers, Rusty Alyce and so on get a lot of benefit out of the emissary's 4 inch "no randomization" aura. Against ressurs or neverborn its wise to take the specialist to avoid slow and paralyzed, and then his attack will cause more horror duels.

[CapnBloodbeard]

schemes and stones has a good one on Schill.  they basically promote careful use of the can opener or whatever it is that reduces defence coupled with healing and really work on the denial game. 

 

I ALWAYS take survivalist on Vs.  That, with Librarian and shirt comes off???

 

I've had vS resist about 20AP of attacks before.

[DXXXVIII]

Von Schill and the obedient wretch. She summons Rats and he can finish the cur himself to kill the rat to make his crew immune to horror duels using "hard and relentless"  

[Freman]

Rules as written that actually works.

[SuperFly TNT]

Re: Rusty and Abominations 

If you also take Lazarus he can be the target for Vile Reclaimation. His Armor +2 reduces the damage to 1 and Self Repair gets him healed up. Lazarus can also copy Vile Reclamation for another card draw. 

[keget]

16 hours ago, SuperFly TNT said:

Re: Rusty and Abominations 

If you also take Lazarus he can be the target for Vile Reclaimation. His Armor +2 reduces the damage to 1 and Self Repair gets him healed up. Lazarus can also copy Vile Reclamation for another card draw. 

I think vile Reclamation is a once a turn thing.

[scarlett fever]

2 minutes ago, keget said:

I think vile Reclamation is a once a turn thing.

Once per turn is actually once per turn per model, call-out box page 39 big rule book.

 

[keget]

Glad I said think.

[Davos]

On 4/10/2017 at 5:58 AM, apes-ma said:

Freikorpsmann (mainly for reference the field guide for Hannah)
 

 

I had never thought of using Hannah with reference the field guide, I normally use make a new entry for Librarian's healing, but thinking about it, it could be really strong, ensuring you get the horror duel on her attack.  I generally find Freikorpsmann not worth their cost, but I'm gonna have to check that out, thanks!

[Seadhna]

Making a new Entry for the Field Guide looks grossly suboptimal to me (you basically waste 2 cards to get a suit that you could use a Soulstone for), but might work in a fringe situation.

[apes-ma]

2 hours ago, Seadhna said:

Making a new Entry for the Field Guide looks grossly suboptimal to me (you basically waste 2 cards to get a suit that you could use a Soulstone for), but might work in a fringe situation.

 

2 hours ago, Seadhna said:

Making a new Entry for the Field Guide looks grossly suboptimal to bsicallwaswwaastewwawas 2cardacartgeg uissuthatthyocoucoSoulstfoSSoSouSoulfoumighmmimigworwwoifringffrfrifrinsituati.

I find that when i play Von Schill I often have very few soulstones, and a knock on effect of that is that I don't stone for cards a lot which means I have low cards in my hand that are less of a resource than soulstones for getting a suit for Hannah. And for I Pay Better, Steam Trunk etc.

[CapnBloodbeard]

Some people like scion of the void to introduce something different into vS. 

 

I reckon Wokou Raiders might have a space if you can afford them SS wise.  they introduce some scheme marker manipulation, but could also team up well with vS with their action making another model take a melee action.  This could help get the opposing model down to the 2 wounds needed for '....finish the cur'