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mirparx

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Hi all,

I've played 5-6 games then stopped ( 1 year ago more or less ) as I didn't have enough time to play.

Now thing are better, it seems I've some time to play, and I've done my first game yesterday. I'm very entusiastic.

So I'm asking for some advices for a generalistic list to learn Malifaux with.

Even it I know that list change based on the faction you are playing against, scheme and strategies,  I would like to have a sort of solid "core of model" to get practice with ,so that I can spend less time reading the cards and more looking/ tinking on how to score points and destroy enely plans :)

I would like to play with Lilith as a master, and what I actually own is:

Lilith Crew Box

Malifaux starter set

Titania Crew Box

Nekima

Nephilim box

Mr. Grave

Doppleganger

Misterious Effigy

Wave 1 generalistic upgrade for Neverborne

 

I'm also thinking to get a box of Wadgeist, as I think they can work very well with Lilith 

 

Can you help me building the "core" of the list?

 

Thanks

Mirko

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I'm not much help with a 'core' list because it's not my gameplay style (I don't think I've ever played the same list twice), but if you want to play Titania as well since you have her I'd suggest getting the Masters upgrade deck whenever it goes on general sale or see if anyone at your logal playing group wants to offload the Neverborn cards. There's 2 Limited upgrades for Titania that basically finish her overall card, one that makes her really tanky or one that makes her really damaging (especially against masters).

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Don't know much about Titania but Lilith is very flexible.

 

Liliths totem, doppleganger, Nekima or Mature nephilim, all three tots and a couple of waldgeists or young nephilim will bring you to about 50ss and give some variety. Lilith has some really good upgrades in her base box, the one that gives her an extra (0) and lets her place forests is an auto-take at the very least. Play that list in a bunch of games and see how it goes.

You can buy models and tailor lists all you want but I would just assume I'll have a hard time winning for a bunch of games and play within the limits of what I had. It will teach you a lot about the game and positioning while doing schemes the good old-fashioned hard way. After you know what kind of plays fit you it will be easier to see what the different models would offer you and you will probably have learned a lot.

Titania could just do her box, add a few tots and the doppleganger. Some seem to not like Aeslin so maybe swap her for a mature neph or Nekima (possibly dropping a tot to get the soulstones).

Why don't you build a couple of lists and post them in this thread and we can comment based on those?

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Yesterday I played this list:

50 SS Neverborn Crew

  • Lilith + 6 Pool
    •  Beckon Malifaux (1)
    • Living Blade (2)
  • Primordial Magic (2)
  • Barbaros (10)
    • Nephilim Gladiatus (1)
  • Mr. Graves (8)
  • Young Nephilim (6)
  • Bloodwretch (5)
  • Bloodwretch (5)
  • Terror Tot (4)
  • Terror Tot (4)

 

Was thinking to swap Barbaros and a Bloodwretch for Nekima,  and maybe remove also the second bloodwretch for a waldgeist, or maybe decide for young neph/waldgeist based on the opponent/mission, are the have the same cost

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@mirparx

Looks good to me, especially with your suggested replacements. The way I play Lilith I usualy don't consider living blade worth the two stones but that's personal taste I guess. A full cache and wings of darkness lets you have insane starting hands most turns. Flying is also very nice in combination with her charging qithout LoS and bonus damage if you charge through terrain.

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Yes, I was thinking about that. I don't find much use in Living Blade  in the way I use Lilith. I tend to keep her quite protected and using mainly illusionary forests and Wicked vines.... Sometime Tangle shadows, but I don't find it very reliable due to the CA5.

So I can think to something like this for a "Core" crew:

50 SS Neverborn Crew

  • Lilith + 7 Pool
    • Beckon Malifaux (1)
    • On Wings Of Darkness (1)
  • Primordial Magic (2)
  • Nekima (13)
    • Fears Given Form (1)
  • Mr. Graves (8)
    • The Mimic's Blessing (1)
  • Young Nephilim  (or Waldgeist ) (6)
  • Young Nephilim (or Waldgeist )  (6)
  • Terror Tot (4)
  • Terror Tot (4)

 

With

Nekima as main beater,

Grave help in placing and hit,

Terror Tots as skeme runners 

Nephilim can beat or help with skemes, 

Lilith to support the crew. 

 

Does it make sense?

 

 

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@mirparx

Except for starting with a thousand faces on Nek and Graves and swapping into your proposed upgrades it looks good. Fears given form for example can screw you early game because it affects your own models too so if you start with a thousand faces you avoid that. If you don't have upgrade deck 2 yet I guess you can get by without it. You might really want graves to ignore armor with retribution's eye as well so it's nice to be able to swap.

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2 minutes ago, mirparx said:

Got it. DId not realized that fear given form affected only my models :)

 

THanks for the advices!!

 

I will test it and report results!

It affects any model so it's good to have it if you are near a bunch of enemies but it is also really important to consider the placement and activation order of your own models.

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Lilith is my primary go-to master and I've gotten a fair amount of experience with Titania. Still prefer Lilith though.

I highly recommend picking up Lilitu for use with Lilith. That might just be my preference, but the very reliable Lure works well with the way Lilith likes to play. Best advice I ever got for Lilith is that she is a "spider in middle of a web". Don't use her big sword to go charging after people. Make people come to her, where she can quickly cut them down one at a time and stay safe.

A few Lilith tricks

- Tangle Shadows is an AMAZING ability. Remember, it can target your own models, so the CA 5 is irrelevant. Move up a cheap piece, then tangle shadows to get a slow beater half way up the board and into charge range. If you have an enemy with a low WP in middle of a group, Tangle Shadows that to drop a big tar pit into the middle of them and then spend the rest of your AP to chop up the one you tangled. You can even nominate Lilith as the friendly model to move, giving her amazing threat range.

- Terrain generation from Waldgeist, Beckon Malifaux or her new Book 5 upgrade play very nice with Wicked Mistress and Living Blade. Maybe not the most AP efficient, but you can drop some terrain in front of her, root something, lure/push it to break the root into terrain to slow & terrain damage & extra damage, then get a free pounce-esque swing.

- Lure + Teddy + Baby Kade is also all sorts of fun. I once had Lelu use his ability to gain pounce, which gave it to Lilitu. Then I used Lilitu to pull Francisco into Teddy's reach, triggering a Smell Fear swing, which connected and then pushed Francisco into Liltu's 4" reach. She then lured a second time to pull Francisco into Baby Kade's and Lilith's pounce range. He didn't live through the experience.

- Don't forget her front side Master of Malifaux. You don't need to see to target things, so things like Tangle Shadows and Root work great while keeping her out of sight. She has a decent ML defense, but melts completely against WP attacks. Keep her out of sight against those, and use Lure/Tangle to pull things one at a time to her and murder them.

- Remember, the Doppleganger can be a duplicate Lilitu if you get used to using her. Plus she can turn into Nekima when the lure is done! 

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11 hours ago, mirparx said:

Yes, I was thinking about that. I don't find much use in Living Blade  in the way I use Lilith. I tend to keep her quite protected and using mainly illusionary forests and Wicked vines.... Sometime Tangle shadows, but I don't find it very reliable due to the CA5.

I used to think the same about Living Blade. It didn't look like it did much to justify 2 stones. It's basically the same as her normal Greatsword. Also, like you (and basically everyone that plays Lilith), I primarily use Lilith for Illusionary Forest and Wicked Vines with Tangle Shadows is there's a good target. I thought it was just a +1" to her engagement range and a Pounce.

Then someone on this board pointed out a very important addition of Living Blade. Her Greatsword gives :+fate to attack flips, but her Living Blade gives it to damage flips as well. Given that it's Ml 7, with a decent attack flip most of the time your opponent is going to be cheating to reduce your accuracy to give you a negative to your damage rather than to draw or beat you.

But going for anything less than a draw with Lilith on models without HtW results in a flat damage flip at worst,  positive if you win by 6 or more. Even if they have Hard/Impossible to Wound, those models tend to have a lower Df anyway, making it easier to go for the 6+ bracket win with Ml 7 and a good card to still get a flat damage flip. While, like all abilities that flip more cards, you've got a higher chance of flipping the Black Joker, you've also got a higher change of flipping a 6 damage severe and if you don't and really need it, the ability to cheat.

It's not something I take all the time on her now like Beckon Malifaux, but knowing that moved it from 'never take' to 'serious consideration'. Positives to your damage flip are just that good. And if you Tangle an enemy model into base to base contact with Lilith, it makes it much easier to finish that enemy model off before it can activate and hurt her.

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@-Loki- It's the other way around: her normal greatsword gets a :+fate to damage flips if you didn't charge just like all greatswords in the game. The living blade gives you a :+fateto hit. The living blade gives you a slightly better chance of not needing to cheat first in the duel (as well as increasing the risk of the black joker) but the damage flip is the same.

To add to that: tangle shadows isn't a push, you need to use the wicked mistress push or another nephilim (who have plenty of pushes, so there is that).

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Yes, Johan, lelo & lilitu, Teddy... are all in my shopping list, but for the future.

At the moment I prefer to play a while with what I already have. Also because I've all almost painted :D

 

I also read some good advices on last issue of Wyrd Chronicles about resource management... The funny thing is that it seem to learn on using things on malifaux you have to paly as if you don't have it ..... 

  • Play Lilith as if she has not the sword to learn how to maximize her power ( in S&S podcast on Lilith)
  • Play as if you don't have SS in cache to learn when it is good to use them 
  • play as if you don't have a control hand, so to learn when it is really worth to cheat
 
Which is your opinion about it?
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1 hour ago, mirparx said:
  • Play Lilith as if she has not the sword to learn how to maximize her power ( in S&S podcast on Lilith)
  • Play as if you don't have SS in cache to learn when it is good to use them 
  • play as if you don't have a control hand, so to learn when it is really worth to cheat
 
Which is your opinion about it?

Out of those three I think the first make sense because it actually forces you to think about something else than your sword.

As for the other ones, thinking "Damn, I wish I'd conserved that card/stone for this opportunity" is just as good a lesson, if not better. So I guess I would say be mindful of every situation and reflect if there was something you could have done differently if you find yourself out of stones or cards.

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Playing as if you didn't have the sword is a legit strategy to learn if you have up until now tried to charge Lilith in like she was Lady Justice. Some people seem to forget she has Ca actions. If you don't have that problem then I'm not sure how much it helps.

The other two seem counter-intuitive to me. I could get swithching things up so if you always use soulstones on damage prevention and drawing cards you could try a game where you forbid yourself from doing that and set them aside for suits and forcing neg flips on enemies instead to evolve but I don't see why you shouldn't use them at all.

The hand thing feels the same. One thing I would try if I'm having trouble making my hand last is assigning cards to specific actions and duels and not cheating until the very last activations to see the differnce in power between cheating early and late. Some players blow their load on the first two activations and then they suffer from losing the crucial duels later in the turn which the more experience player held back cards for. 

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1 hour ago, mirparx said:

Yes, Johan, lelo & lilitu, Teddy... are all in my shopping list, but for the future.

At the moment I prefer to play a while with what I already have. Also because I've all almost painted :D

 

I also read some good advices on last issue of Wyrd Chronicles about resource management... The funny thing is that it seem to learn on using things on malifaux you have to paly as if you don't have it ..... 

  • Play Lilith as if she has not the sword to learn how to maximize her power ( in S&S podcast on Lilith)
  • Play as if you don't have SS in cache to learn when it is good to use them 
  • play as if you don't have a control hand, so to learn when it is really worth to cheat
 
Which is your opinion about it?

If you read through the article in more detail, then it does make sense. But it can be relatively time consuming in number of games to learn it that way. Its hard to appreciate what having that soulstone does for you, until you can't use it at all. 

Ludvigs suggestion of dedicating your hand to set actions before you start the turn is a good way to do something similar. And the article suggestion of deciding what you want to use your soulstone for before the game begins is similar

So Looking at your Lilith list you probably want to use card draw at least 3 times to make purchasing wings of Darkness worthwhile. You may also expect to cast Tangle shadows twice in the game, so want to save a stone for each of those casts. That means You have already planned the expenditure of 5 stones. If you only have 5 stones then you "know" how you are spending those, so playing everything else with 0 stones but making a note every time you wished you could spend a stone may help plan your stone usage. And every Master (and most players) have quite a different stone usage, so even once you have got it sorted for Lilith,  you'll want to do something similar for Titania (although it should be easier when you know the game better). Its worth noting that Henhcmen can use your stones, so if you feel you are likely to want damage prevention on Nekima twice, then you are probably going to want a full cache. 

 

Over all, its a good article. I wouldn't always apply it exactly as written, but the concepts behind it are important to grasp,. 

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Yes, it is a good article indeed.

 

it make me thinking on how to maximize my resource usage, and trying to move from an "instinctual " game style to a more planned and efficient one. But I know it will take time to do that :) 

 

Regarding Tangle Shadows, I've mostly used that to Lilith herself, to keep her out of risks or place here in a better position for casting wicked vines. I've also used it on a friendly model, so to swap it with another one to maximize attacks. I've tried to tangle shadows the enemy, but I need to find enemies with low WP, otherwise I risk to an high card ( or a stone and an high card if I've stone d for the mask ).

 

Do you usually use it successfully on enemy?

 

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I will normally use it to catapult one of my unactivated big beaters forward to replace something like a terror tot, butt here are certainly times when it worth targetting an enemy model with. You are right, you will normally want to pick your target carefully,  but messing with enemy positioning can be really powerful. 

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Ok, made a game yesterday with my list.

Well, not completely true as it was a game against an almost new player (I'm almost new too ;) ) so we played at 35SS, with just a simple strategy, no schemes

The strategy was composed by an objective in the center. If you have 2 models in 6" of the objective you core 1 point. I've won 4-3 at the end of 4th turn.

 

Being at 35SS , I've put on the field : 

35 SS Neverborn Crew
Lilith + 6 Pool
 - Beckon Malifaux (1)
 - On Wings Of Darkness (1)
Cherub (3)
Nekima (13)
 - A Thousand Faces (1)
Young Nephilim (6)
Terror Tot (4)
Terror Tot (4)

 My opponend was playaing Gremlins:

35 SS Gremlins Crew
Ulix + 5 Pool
 - Huntin' Bow (2)
 - Husbandry (3)
Penelope (2)
Old Major (9)
Gracie (10)
The Sow (8)

 

I've managed to play Lilith in a slightly more effective way than last time, being able to Vicked Wines and root Gracie to prevent a charge, Creating forest to slow the enemy and firing a couple of my pieces with Tangle shadows to maximize charges and attacks.

Nekima is very powerful. I'm not a fan of the growing  option, but at the beginning of 2nd turn I had the change to transform a "A Thousand Faces" inot Rapid growth, killed a little pig (don't remember the name ) and growth a tot into a young. I also growth also the other tot and made the young a mature. ut it is true, it is a trap. In fact I've sacrificed a young neph just to try to kill an enemy and make it growing while I had better moves... 

The Cherub seems able to do lot of things, but I rarely mange to make something relevant with him. In reality this mission, where Interact was not necessary, was not the best for him ( Primordial magic would have been probably useless, except for Rush of Magic)

The Young Nephilim is a good beater, and the tots helped in scoring at the beginning, then evolved in young ad mainteined the position and inflicted some damage. So happy of that.

A funny thing : my oponent charged my tot with a pig (was summoned , don't remember the name), inflicted 3 dmg, pushed it by 4 to try to put it out of the scoring zone, and followed the push imself. Doing so  it activated the punch of my tot, that inflicted enough damage to kill it and evolve in young. :)

Apart that, I find pigs very hard to deal with. At one point Ulik forced one of his pigs to charge, the  charging pig managed to trigger another charge and it was an endless pain. Probably the "single strategy in the middle",resulting in a big rumble in the middle of the table, was favoureable for though pieces like those.

 

Hope to be able to test better the list next  tuesday, so to become more confortable with the my pieces. I'm starting to remember some stats, so it's good ;)

 

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, mirparx said:

Nekima is very powerful. I'm not a fan of the growing  option, but at the beginning of 2nd turn I had the change to transform a "A Thousand Faces" inot Rapid growth, killed a little pig (don't remember the name ) and growth a tot into a young. I also growth also the other tot and made the young a mature. ut it is true, it is a trap. In fact I've sacrificed a young neph just to try to kill an enemy and make it growing while I had better moves... 

Sounds like you made mostly good use of it. :) 

If you make bad moves that's not really the fault of growth, you can't let a 1ss upgrade dictate your moves too much. See it like this: it's one soulstone, if even a single tot grows into a young the upgrade has made back it's stones twice, hopefully the tot had gone too so it helped you with activations that turn. If I could choose between possibly growing something or scoring for certain I would always go for the soring option. If the kill is more or less guaranteed and will likely lead to a snowball because it's a big enemy hitter that will then be out of the game you could do it but the kill itself needs to be a good move even if you wouldn't grow from it.

 

Quote

Apart that, I find pigs very hard to deal with. At one point Ulik forced one of his pigs to charge, the  charging pig managed to trigger another charge and it was an endless pain. Probably the "single strategy in the middle",resulting in a big rumble in the middle of the table, was favoureable for though pieces like those.

 

Ulix is pretty horrible, especially in small points because of that neverending charge thing. The trick to deal with pigs is having a lot of long engagement ranges that overlap because the charge from hunting bow isn't allowed if you are engaged with another model. Most pigs also have short engagement ranges so you can try to engage them so they can't hit you back. Waldgeists are also sturdier than nephilim if you had access to those, pigs destroy glass cannons.

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Thanks for the comments @Ludvig :)

You are right, cannot be slave of a 1SS upgrade.Need to learn how to resist ;)

Regarding Waldgeists, I've ordered them at FLGS, so I should receive them shortly. Having them occupying space, putting forests and threaten at 4" would have been highly beneficial :)

Apart that I'm really happy as I start to see improvements in my knowledge, and so look less at the card and more at the table !

 

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I agree, unfortunately I won... :P

 

Jokes apart, I was playin with a guy I used to play warmachine with, in a very small community (something like 5-6 playersin my city)

So it was a very friendly, relaxed and fun game, where we helped each otherto understand what was happening :)

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