Starter models

[Ludvig]

I recenty got the starter second hand for demos but was considering how to run them in real games. Are they just crap?

I think a few people use Grimwell or Heartsbane for moving Sonnia?

Grimwell hanging out with Abuela or Lucius to give him focus could also give some opponents a slight scare I guess.

Orderlies could be used by Sonnia as scheme runners and blast points since an undamaged orderly could survive one of her blasts but I think I'd rather have watchers for schemes and witchlings in a general 5ss role.

Heartsbane have some interesting control options if you luck out with suited face cards but maybe Dade just outshines her?

Orderlies and Heartsbane could regen some soulstones for Lucius but I'm not sure what else they would accomplish.

[Myyrä]

Orderlies have the ability to benefit from that to Ca actions aura (the name of which I can't remember right now), which can be useful in tying down leaping scheme runners, which isn't something Watchers can really do.

[Ludvig]

True that. I guess an all out witch hunter list could find use for them as scheme runners.

 

Would be fun to give Sonnia a spin after the new upgrades. I wonder if the emissary should focus on her unique burning (0) or just boost stalkers and thralls into insane melee machines. I want it because I have her avatar, not sure if it's the best choice for her at all.

[Legislat]

Emissary is kinda crappy with her in my experience.

Orderlies are fast and kinda tough for 5 stones. They are not much, but can be pretty good on some tables with lots of severe terrain. And they can sometimes win a spontaneous fight with the enemy scheme runner (watchers cant do that).

I was never able to produce a spot for Nurse HB in any of my lists. She is 8 stones and super suit hungry. Nope.

Grimwell has his uses. He is really really fast. He can Debt delete some poor chap turn 1 and then be a real threat for anything nearby. But he is generally a bad idea against HTW and HTK crews. Most of the time investing in him is more work then just playing normally. But he has his moments in a spotlight, thats for sure. Especially with Loco's buff.

[Ludvig]

20 minutes ago, Legislat said:

Emissary is kinda crappy with her in my experience.

Orderlies are fast and kinda tough for 4 stones. They are not much, but can be pretty good on some tables with lots of severe terrain. And they can sometimes win a spontaneous fight with the enemy scheme runner (watchers cant do that).

I was never able to produce a spot for Nurse in any of my lists. She is 8 stones and super suit hungry. Nope.

Grimwell has his uses. He is really really fast. He can Debt delete some poor chap turn 1 and then be a real threat for anything nearby. But he is generally a bad idea against HTW and HTK crews. Most of the time investing in him is more work then just playing normally. But he has his moments in a spotlight, thats for sure. Especially with Loco's buff.

Orderlies are five stones so not super survivable for that. I agree that they might hold their own against other scheme runners, a watcher would probably count on someone bailing it out by shooting whoever had it engaged.

I see Nurse heartsbane using mostly masks and crows which I don't think anyone else in my typical Sonnia crew uses. Turn one she could spend a single ap and a low crow to push Sonnia 6" which is a lot further than most other pushes. I would probably take a shot at her (0) and take another attack against Sonnia if I had another crow in my hand. Sure, Sonnia is down 4hp but if the effigy has already put FNTS on Sonnia I'll probably regain those wounds. The tome to prevent walks and charges would compete with Sonnia I guess but if I really need burning I can stone for that.

If you use debt on Grimwell I think it's better to attack twice than with the (2) and at that point I think Francisco has better output. I think Grimwell relies on someone giving him focus, a general  from Loco is probably better on Sonnia who will use it three times.

[Ludvig]

One use for the emissary that I've never heard anyone report about would be to bury Sonnia and use her Ca with it. Basically you go aggressive with her turn 1 to blast some shit and then the emissary puts her in it's box to get her away from whatever is engaging her after that. Turn 2 the emissary can then use her attacks and chose to drop her at a conveniently placed marker. Lets say a watcher walked onto a roof where you need flying to get up but can see most of the board and you pop her out there or you just put her out of harms way. If the emissary has been successful there might be a safe zone for her where it is. The emissary could be on the wrong side of a building, use the (0) to put fire onto something and then blast, hopefully with a cheated tome to put more targets on fire before letting Sonnia out.

 

Emissary 10ss

Heartsbane 8ss

Watcher 4ss

Effigy 4ss

Upgrades for Sonnia 3-4ss

That's about 30 ss on five activations. Heartsbane might not make the cut.

[Legislat]

Grimwell:

Dont use him with Sonnia. Nellie, McCabe, Lucius are far better for him.

Emissary:

Thats a hefty investment for such a plan. If you willing to better to hang out with deathmarshall and use Emissary separatedly. Dont ball up: it is bad for your health). Sonnia in danger? bury her with Death Marshall then blast away with emissary in other part of table) He can use any burried friendly model, so he does not even need to bother.

[Atoli]

5 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

One use for the emissary that I've never heard anyone report about would be to bury Sonnia and use her Ca with it. Basically you go aggressive with her turn 1 to blast some shit and then the emissary puts her in it's box to get her away from whatever is engaging her after that. Turn 2 the emissary can then use her attacks and chose to drop her at a conveniently placed marker. Lets say a watcher walked onto a roof where you need flying to get up but can see most of the board and you pop her out there or you just put her out of harms way. If the emissary has been successful there might be a safe zone for her where it is. The emissary could be on the wrong side of a building, use the (0) to put fire onto something and then blast, hopefully with a cheated tome to put more targets on fire before letting Sonnia out.

hmm only Lady j can be buried by emisary, i think :/

[Ludvig]

2 minutes ago, Legislat said:

Grimwell:

Dont use him with Sonnia. Nellie, McCabe, Lucius are far better for him.

Emissary:

Thats a hefty investment for such a plan. If you willing to better to hang out with deathmarshall and use Emissary separatedly. Dont ball up: it is bad for your health). Sonnia in danger? bury her with Death Marshall then blast away with emissary in other part of table) He can use any burried friendly model, so he does not even need to bother.

True, a death marshal could work. That would allow me to threaten more or less any part of the board with blasts.

@Atoli Thanks for that, had forgotten. Makes the marshal a staple of this list.

[RustAndTheCity]

I've used them quite a bit. I often put them in my crew if I'm playing a newer player. 

They all feel a bit overcosted compared to other guild models. Grimwell and heartsbane are competing with the super efficient 8ss guild henchmen. 

Grimwell can be really good for schemes like putting conditions on models. He's really fast. He can claim jump on his own. Heartsbane can sometimes put out decent damage if she gets her push and free attack. She can put out some good conditions but it's often hard to justify the high suited card for it when it can be used by someone else, even without the suit.

[STO]

When I got Nellie's crew, I think the only scheme runners I'm using - reporters, maybe one wstalker, talking about Orderly. Hmm, Dr.Grimwell ... maybe for Frame For Murder only.

[PanzerHarris]

I've actually got a lot of mileage out of Grimwell.

Doctor's Orders is incredibly useful - for a card, you just push a friendly model. That can be Lady Justice towards melee. It can be Sonnia out of melee. It can be a Guardian into a scoring zone. It can be Francisco next to his designated El Mayor target. Or even just a scheme runner out of harm's way to skip off and do its job.

A lot of times I find the threat of Lobotomise is enough to make an opponent sandbag a high card in their hand just in case, or if they can't then they suddenly get very nervous. If he hits that Red Joker it's 14 damage - I don't think there's a model in the game that could take that to the face and walk away. I've been known to remind my opponents of that at crucial times when they're weighing up whether to cheat on something else!

Goes without saying positive flips are his friend, or free Focus, or Fast if he can get it. Lucius, Nellie and Perdita (Obey) can all help with that. Even without those though he can still do a job cleaning out a flank, and with Research Grant he gets you soulstones back for all the Terror Tots or Gamin he hunts down.

I did like Heartsbane when I ran her - I wrote the Pull My Finger - but these days I think you're better served using Allison Dade. She's a lot more versatile and still a top tier denial model.

Have never found much mileage in Orderlies, but then again I'm the idiot with 4 Watchers. I have Walk 6 with a bit of defensive tech right there.

[trikk]

I think both Grimwell and HB would be pretty decent at -1SS

[Myyrä]

2 hours ago, PanzerHarris said:

A lot of times I find the threat of Lobotomise is enough to make an opponent sandbag a high card in their hand just in case, or if they can't then they suddenly get very nervous. If he hits that Red Joker it's 14 damage - I don't think there's a model in the game that could take that to the face and walk away. I've been known to remind my opponents of that at crucial times when they're weighing up whether to cheat on something else!

There's probably something like 10 models that can take that in the face and barely flinch. It isn't proportionally that many out of the 456 or something models, but it's a lot more than 0.

[Math Mathonwy]

4 minutes ago, Myyrä said:

There's probably something like 10 models that can take that in the face and barely flinch.

I can't think of many models that wouldn't flinch (other than any Gremlin with Stilts, natch!) but I can think of several dozen models who can survive it with extreme certainty (anything with HtK, for one). Most of them would prefer not taking it in the face, though, so I think that the point kinda stands.

[Myyrä]

Just now, Math Mathonwy said:

I can't think of many models that wouldn't flinch (other than any Gremlin with Stilts, natch!) but I can think of several dozen models who can survive it with extreme certainty. Most of them would prefer not taking it in the face, though, so I think that the point kinda stands.

There's also anything with Badge and Molly, Colette, Collodi and probably quite a few others I'm forgetting.

[Math Mathonwy]

Just now, Myyrä said:

There's also anything with Badge and Molly, Colette, Collodi and probably quite a few others I'm forgetting.

Yeah, not to mention Incorporeal Henchmen/Masters with seven or more wounds, any Master with 14 wounds, and so on and so forth, but I think that Panzerharris' point was that being able to threaten with 14 damage is a potent threat even when it doesn't materialize which I agree with.

[STO]

Do you mean 14 damage from Dr. Grimwell lobotomy attack ?

[Ludvig]

1 hour ago, STO said:

Do you mean 14 damage from Dr. Grimwell lobotomy attack ?

Yep, fishing for a red joker by tieing the flip you could just luck into it but as he mentions, any master that can give him focus will create a decent area of "sitshitshit" where models will likely stay away until they know you will not be doing that. They won't know you're not holding the red joker until they see it flipped in your deck. A resser master with hard or impossible to wound will not relish the thought of you flipping four cards if the red joker is still out there somewhere.

[4thstringer]

Things I have done with Dr G: 1st turn deep claim marker after getting dumped out of a fast emissary in corner deploy(Nellie)

Give him papa locos buff, franks buff and focus from envy, then delivered him fast into my opponent's crew with the emissary to one turn a dawn serpent (Nellie)

Gotten right up to a deep symbols of authority marker with cyborg grimwell, turned it over the next turn (he actually got two markers and one hit asura rotten that game, with help from Hoff and a mounted guard)

 

Fun things ive done with nurse HB

Held up mei and Howard for several turns on a flank by herself

Used her and changelings to repeatedly strap a rail golem even with an effigy to remove conditions

Ran schemes while repeatedly holding back Gracie

She is also my favorite holder for disrupt magic in my Lucius witch hunter list

Orderlies run schemes decently and are better at surviving than watchers or field reporters. 

I can tell you that they both are immediately noticed when I bring them now.  Noons likes em and so they are often targets.

 

 

[Ludvig]

Cheers 4thstringer, sounds like some devious tricks!

If you want disrupt magic on something they're suddenly only competing with Sam and handlers which is a good spot for any model to shine.