35 point Mei Feng vs. Ramos.

[WWHSD]

I've got my initial batch of Malifuax models painted up and want to play. I figure that a 35 point match between my two boxes is a good way to start.

I'm not looking for the strongest crews that I can make from each box, I'm looking for something balanced.

35 point Rail Crew:
Mei Feng with Vapormancy, Seismic Claws, Arcane Reservoir
Kang with People's Challenge and Hard Worker
Emberling
3 x Rail Worker

35 point M&SU: 
Ramos with Under Pressure, Arcane Reservoir
Joss with Bleeding Edge Tech
Harold Langston with Imbued Energies
Brass Arachnid


How are those two crews going to match up? Without having played the game before it looks like they should be fairly well balanced. Ramos's summoning will be off to a slow start due to having to wait for something to die to get a scrap marker to work with.  It seems like the Rail Crew will have an early advantage but once things on either side start dying the M&SU squad will be able to start picking up steam. Is there anything that I should tweak to get better games between the two crews?

I know I should be shooting to fill 1/4 - 1/3 of the board with terrain. I currently have no terrain. Is there a decent site for getting 2D terrain that I can print and cut out? I've seen a bunch of print and fold buildings but I'd like something that's easy to store and toss out on the table. My local game store has a lot of terrain available and I'll probably just use that when I want to play on a fancy looking board. 

I'll try and enlist one of my kids to help me learn the game but if I can't talk them into it, are there any tips for playing solo?  

[hippodruid]

These two crews are going to get bloody, fast if they meet head-to-head.  Between Kang's buffs and the amount of hurt Howard Langston and Joss can dish out, expect fatalities quickly and often.  It's a game with Armor where Armor basically doesn't matter (Howard and the Brass Arachnid are the only models that have even the slightest respect for Armor).  Ramos's summoning engine here is almost completely dependent on Joss (if Howard kills anyone, the Mei Feng player can just drop a corpse), or on getting your own models killed, which puts him behind.   Joss and Howard are easily worth more than 2-3 Steam Arachnids for all but activation control and scheming.  It actually looks like it could be a very, very tense game for a while, but once it starts going toward one person, that momentum would be hard to break.  A lot of it, of course, would come down to schemes and strategy.  With such a low model count, Ramos's crew would have trouble with an objective pool that involves putting down a lot of markers or spreading out.  Similarly, schemes that revolve around leaving enemy models alive will be hard for Mei Feng to deal with, since the models across the table from her are legitimate threats that she won't want to remove from play.  VP win games, not dead models.

Also, usually you want to shoot for a bit more terrain.  25%-33% board coverage is actually pretty sparse and gives an obvious advantage to the crew with more ranged attacks.  I would aim for closer to 33%-66%.  Remember, not all terrain blocks line of sight, and some of it can be used to create chokepoints that bigger models can't fit through or conveniently avoid.  All of that can really impact the dynamic of the game.

[Franchute]

Summoners tend to have an advantage in 35 point games: Its hard to make Ramos and Mei Fang balanced at this level.

[WWHSD]

2 hours ago, hippodruid said:

  Ramos's summoning engine here is almost completely dependent on Joss (if Howard kills anyone, the Mei Feng player can just drop a corpse), or on getting your own models killed, which puts him behind.   Joss and Howard are easily worth more than 2-3 Steam Arachnids for all but activation control and scheming. 

Hmmmm...I forgot that it's the player whose living/construct model gets killed that gets to choose which marker to drop. Would it make for a better game for the Ramos crew to trade in Howard for three Steam Arachnids? They lose the ultra-killiness of Howard but give Ramos more potential for scrap and more activations. 

[Myyrä]

If I were playing Ramos, I would just kill the Brass Arachnid for scrap with Joss and start summoning merrily.

[Trixter]

4 hours ago, Myyrä said:

If I were playing Ramos, I would just kill the Brass Arachnid for scrap with Joss and start summoning merrily.

At the start of turn 2 Brass reactivate Howard then Joss kill Brass then Ramos' activation.

[hippodruid]

On 6/6/2017 at 5:33 AM, Trixter said:

On 6/6/2017 at 0:57 AM, Myyrä said:

If I were playing Ramos, I would just kill the Brass Arachnid for scrap with Joss and start summoning merrily.

At the start of turn 2 Brass reactivate Howard then Joss kill Brass then Ramos' activation.

Turn 2, I would reactivate the Brass Arachnid, then Joss and Howard if possible.  Then kill the Arachnid for two scrap.  Still, that's fairly advanced play that I wouldn't expect of two new players.  I wasn't trying to write a tactica. 

[bertmac]

Hard worker Mei with tiger claws could ruin a lot of arachnids. Also willie could be awesome.

[WWHSD]

On 6/5/2017 at 8:33 PM, hippodruid said:

Also, usually you want to shoot for a bit more terrain.  25%-33% board coverage is actually pretty sparse and gives an obvious advantage to the crew with more ranged attacks.  I would aim for closer to 33%-66%.  Remember, not all terrain blocks line of sight, and some of it can be used to create chokepoints that bigger models can't fit through or conveniently avoid.  All of that can really impact the dynamic of the game.

Does this look like it's about the right amount of terrain? That seems like it would fall squarely in the 33%-66% coverage range but I'm having trouble picturing how you would move anything around very well. Having more then a 3 inch charge seems useless unless the model can do something like fly.

 

 

[hippodruid]

On 6/14/2017 at 0:31 PM, WWHSD said:

Does this look like it's about the right amount of terrain? That seems like it would fall squarely in the 33%-66% coverage range but I'm having trouble picturing how you would move anything around very well. Having more then a 3 inch charge seems useless unless the model can do something like fly.

 

 

Terrain is very much a part of the game of Malifaux.  A good board will have enough of a mix that models with abilities like Unimpeded or Flying can actually make use of them.  A charge lane that's good for a Sabertooth Cerberus isn't necessarily the best charge lane for a Rail Golem, and the reverse is also true.  Remember, the board is built before your crew is, so you can adjust what you're taking to match where you'll be going.

Also, I think parallax is skewing the perception of that board.  It looks like either side of the gallows has lanes for 50mm bases to move through without contacting other terrain.  I would personally be pretty happy to play on that board.

[H4ml3t]

You definitely want a variety of charge lanes but you also shouldn't be able to draw LOS from 1 board edge to the other. I find terrain placement gets better with experience and experimentation.