Lynch Shenanigans

[InvokeChaos]

Hey there, fellow Wyrdos!

It's been a while. Hope everyone is doing well. Haven't been on the forums in months due to life and work. You know how it goes. But I'm going to be trying to be a bit more active again, and I figured my tournament prep would be a good starting point!

So I got asked by the infamous Alex Schmid to run mono lynch in an upcoming tourney here in NC. So I've been running exclusive Lynch for the last month as practice! And I've discovered some fun and interesting things I thought I'd share with everyone.  

What have all of you been looking at and doing with our favorite card shark/drug pusher?

Wave 5

Gwyneth Maddox - First of all, for those who have not tried Gwyneth with him... do yourselves a favor. TRY HER. Rigged deck and Hit Me are cool, as is her Come Play at My Table. But what I've really been using her for lately is a point holder. She isn't going to stand up to a dedicated onslaught of beaters, but I've found she effectively has Hard to Wound, and her healing on missed attacks is fantastic. Pip the Ace to drop down scheme markers is fan-freaking-tastic and has won me games by itself. Being a henchman, being able to stone for that ram or just to help with damage prevention, she's not died in any of my outings so far. 

Cheating Bastard - This freaking upgrade, man. Ok so it's hit and miss on the masks in hand. I almost always have 1. And sometimes 2. But when I do get that mystical 3rd, it usually makes a pretty big impact. What I've found is that against really aggressive lists, you just can't hold onto the cards in your hand. So that makes getting to the almighty 3 a lot harder. But more control lists I'm usually able to do that, which makes this sometimes devastating. They may already be struggling to deal with some of my bigger models as it is. Adding in the global 2 heal just kind of makes the uphill battle even worse. 
The real money here though is cheating second while within 6" of huggy and lynch. It's incredible how that changes the entire dynamic of the game. I can't tell you how many times someone has flipped a 9 to my 2-5, and they have to cheat first. I've been on the side of watching a 13 get dropped to ensure, while I had planned on not cheating and watching them pass, only to cheat a 10 and get great value out of the high mod. I've only had huggy die once, and that was from a lucky red joker flip on cast when I was out of stones. Nothing you can do there. Every other time, I've found the healing provided by the crew innately alongside the adjusted paradigm to make him survivable enough (though I do also run smoke and equality).
It's my new go-to upgrade for limited. I try to consider it as Huggy is free. Treat Lynch like an outcast master with a cache of 1, and just consider huggy the free bonus. That makes losing him seem less of an issue, and even throwing upgrades on him for added survivability, I'm just finding that it's worth losing the immortal huggy for having so much control on the field for the whole crew.

Burn Out - I like this upgrade, or more I want to like it. But it's expensive and I just don't have the room for it in most of my builds with Lynch. I've come to just running  Trick and Bastard, and using the rest of the stones for cache. Though I may start looking at going lower to add in Woke Up.  Final debt is just so strong, it's hard to leave it aside, especially when you only need a single mask and someone within 8" to guarantee a debt attack right off the cuff. 

Charm Warder - I've run them several times, and pulled them out to try out the errata'd High River Monks. With moving away from Obsidian Oni, I'm going to go back to them. Vanishing on Huggy is amazing and disguised on Lynch helps tremendously against melee crews. I've had a samurai sit in the middle of the table getting wailed on, but  because my opponent didn't have a great control hand, Vanishing basically kept him up vs 8 attacks, and then he got healed afterwards. Definitely at least a one-of unless you have some specific reason to not bring it. 

Obsidian Statue/Lotus Eaters/Crime Boss/Tanuki - Haven't played with these with Lynch.  Though the more I mess around with my lists, the more I'm looking at using them.  I had been testing out running double Obsidian Oni with double High River Monks (due to Jan errata) and actually, I quite liked it. But I recently went down to only one Obsidian Oni and I'm thinking of dropping them out entirely which removes some of the synergy from High River Monks. So I am thinking of bringing in a Crime Boss or two. Maybe a Lotus Eater. Lotus Eater just is a fantastic schemer and utility piece and I've got an 8ss slot lurking around for a beater piece. And I think that Crime Boss might fit that bill. Obsidian Statue is definitely on my list of "want to use this model" thanks to Dark Energies and it's overall tankiness.

General Crew Thoughts

So I've been running the Samurai regularly. And I find it's harrier potential and overall ability to take some hits (assuming you don't get red jokered for 8 damage ) has been good for me. I also feel like he makes a definitely noticeable impact on my ability to hunt aces. Which makes sense. I often walking fire between huggy and an enemy, dealing 1 damage to huggy per ping and just cycling through my deck A couple of lucky flips is normally all I need to load up on my aces. I've been debating on how much I want to keep him in simply because he is very easy to mitigate (only 1" reach) unless I keep him far back which doesn't help.  That being said, I've thrown him up to mid table fairly early on as a "come at me bro" kind of thing that also makes opponent's a little wary. Triple positive is no joke, and even 2-3 points of damage is still 2-3 points of damage. For now I'm sidelining him just to get a feel for if he is "necessary" to help fuel 52 pickup or not. I do know that if I run him, as long as he doesn't die immediately I get all 4 aces fairly regularly. If I don't run him, I tend to not see more than one or two on my activations.

As to the rest of my crew let's talk beaters. I've not been using Yasunori. I need to try him.  I've been attempting to keep my activations up at 9, which is usually pretty easy, but that tends to lead to Lynch and Huggy being the major removal of the list. Which isn't necessarily bad, but they definitely have some bad matchups where they can be blitzed off the table. I have looked at a few lists with Yasunori, and am trying to get a list to 8 activations, but I feel like getting to 8 is done by running "fluff". I really want to keep gwyn and emissary in if I can. And if I run Yasu there, I've already accounted for 35 pts after ugprades on 3 models.  I need 8 more for lynch in cache and upgrades give or take 1-2.  That leaves like 7-10 points. Which doesn't account for a whole lot. Either my cache is a bit lacking or I'm running like 2 depleted or something. Which isn't exactly bad, but not exactly good either.

As to scheme runners, I've been using huggy for that a lot lately. Walk 6, incorporeal, high damage, built in healing, terrifying and an obey all add up to a massive anti-schemer. He's been suiting that role well for and I've been splitting my forces up a lot lately. This crew seems to struggle the most when everything is bunched up in the center and all the dudes can swing on a single target and focus it down. By splitting, I tend to see my opponent either split as well, which absolutely benefits me, or push up center/towards a flank.  This allows me to either play super cagey and hopefully control the far side of the table, or I pincher in.  It's working right now, and minimizes my need for scheme runners in general. Though AP economy is at a premium in some pools, and in those cases I'm defaulting to charm warders, yokai, 10T bros and high river monks. You know, the usual suspects plus a new entry. I think Yokai are the strongest with 10T bros being the most versatile. But High River has some interesting combinations and charm warder is... well charm warder. 0

I really think I'm going to give a tankier 7 model crew a try and see how it plays out.  I'm intrigued with running Emissary with a normal conflux purely to buff a sniper for triple positives on a single attack.  It's more of a threat, and while it doesn't purge my deck like walking fire does, it's a more significant threat when I can do potentially 6 damage from across the board. It just creates a bit better board control. I've also considered throwing in a thunder archer with blot. May try that tonight actually. If I'm going to be running models designed to stick around and tie up opponents, having the ranged threat of a model that ignores engagement while passing out slow isn't a bad thing. It benefits from rapid fire and hail is a solid ability. Then there's lotus eater and charm warder... so many options for this last spot.  Just need more testing.

 

 

[InvokeChaos]

Ran this tonight against Nico Engine:

Lynch (Cache 4)
-Woke Up With a Hand
-Wanna See A Trick
-Cheating Bastard
Hungering Darkness
-Smoke Grenades
Gwyneth Maddox
-Hidden Agenda
Shadow Emissary
-Conflux of Hunger
Katanaka Crime Boss
-Equality
Obsidian Statue
-Servant of the Five Dragons
Ten Thunder Brother

Corner and Ours with Take One For The Team. Inescapable Trap, Guarded Treasure, Undercover Entourage and Take Prisoner.

I ran Inescapable and Guarded.

First thing I will say is that I was very hesitant coming into this matchup with only 7 activations with Nico on the other side of the table and his engine. First turn was mostly positioning and he got 3-4 extra models from summons and Asura/Carrion zombies. So my thought process was to turtle into Guarded Treasure and make him come to me for Insescapable. 

The pain started turn 2 when he began summoning Kentauroi.  I have not played against them yet and I have never seen a model that so fundamentally changes a master like that model does. He spiked two severe damage flips on my statue, and then next turn charged into my Emissary. Due to my deck fixing I realized that I needed to avoid those hits, so I cheated, but the threat of those damned things was insane. The problem was, he wasn't really coming at me more than to poke my defenses, so I was running thin on ideas for Inescapable without risking committing something to his bubble of potential death.

Third turn he summoned two more and I decided I needed to take out Nico if I got the chance. I was steadily scoring Guarded and resisting his pokes at my front lines with Cheating Bastard heals, reconstitute, equality and destined. So he started advancing a bit further to try to deny me an Ours. He used the Carrion for a sneak play on turning a corpse into a scheme and scoring Inescapable. Great play. His only hench was ASura so I was pretty confident he didn't have undercover. That meant take one or take prisoner. He had necros and doxies. If he had guarded treasure he would have moved philip and the emissary into position until Asura could move up, so I was confident.  That meant I needed to not kill anything but summons and to prepare for denial of take prisoner somehow.  It would come down to activations, which he had.

Fourth turn I decided I had to commit.  I pushed up my crime boss with the Emissary and basically said come at me bro. I really like Crime Boss. Does his job. Nico was in range and he tied up a doxy and the emissary. He did his job wonderfully. My opponent pulled Lynch to center of table. I thought he'd taken the bait of luring him now that he wasn't guarded by the unmovable crime boss. Turns out his take one target was his sole belle. But I checked range and was just within 6" of nico with 3 aces in my hand and 7 cards; 3 of them masks. It was now or never. Lynch activated, brillianced Nico, final debted then played twice into a 6 pt ace pitch.  Only one stone left, so down went Nico.

I capped out Guarded, he got another on Inescapable. I scored one as well off the belle and doxy tieing up Lynch. 

My only fear now was Take Prisoner. But if I could kill three models before they activated next turn I could do that. Two zombies and a summoned model later he realized I wasn't going to kill any of his main crew beyond Nico and we called it. 9-5 Lynch.

Obsidian was nice. I'm not sure it's an auto take, and I think it would play better in a pool that required more mixing it up and less do your own thing. This pool has two schemes that score at end of game, one that wants a turn 4 score and a scheme  & strat that requires zero interaction with your opponent. I think in this instance I might have preferred two crime bosses. The hard to wound would have worked better with Call of Chi. Granted the armor 3 that my obsidian had after defensive scales from emissary kept him alive, but if I was htw, I wouldn't have taken 2 severes.  Hard to say.  Laugh Off is really strong against rezzers, so I really think at least one Crime Boss is in vs rezzers. I think the Kentauroi were the right play, but if he summoned shikomi, I would have been crying at 2 severes eviscerating my statue.

It was interesting to play such a passive game where I was turtling hard and just going "come at me bro." It worked though. My opponent didn't really make any bad mistakes, other than taking Take One, which being in the pool basically makes me never want to kill anything  I'm horrible at guessing who's the sucker.

[I'm a Teapot!]

I've played against Cheating Bastard a few times. And it has been absurdly strong in defensive situations (for lynch) and for his and huggys own activations. But that was due to the crew beein mostly melee centric and therefore his minions not always beein inside the auras. 

I cant stand the thaught, that ranged options might excell with cheating bastard, cause they almost always benefit from the aura. 

A recalled training Lazarus that always cheats second and discards an ace for auto fire seems pretty strong to me. Also Ten Thunders Archers might be worth a shot with blot the sky and their rapid fire without randomization. 

In my experience cheating bastard is one of the strongest effects in malifaux and building the whole crew around utilizing this effect is worth every penny and I dont understand why anyone would take another limited on lynch, like ever... 

[Sanik]

If you don't mind, what is your usual 9 activation lists? Just a bunch of 5-6ss models? Who is your main beater im that case? 

 

 

[Amayasu]

I've been running Lust with Lynch recently. She's a good model anyway, and can be amazing with him.

Turn one is all about building a hand and shaping the deck. I've often finished a turn with 15-19 cards in hand. Final Debt gets kinda silly. Now that many cards may seem silly, but, when you consider that you're going into the next turn with a great hand, a deck full of moderates and many weak cards discarded, it sets you up well.

So my turn one is to have the Emissary discard for focus (ace) and spend it on the (0) push on Lust, fishing for the Tome for a card. Then (1) Right of Strength Lust for another push and Fast. Lust activates and goes triple defensive, (0) to push something else.

Then, as turn one is typically about movement, I have my ML5 models charge Lust.

Every attack is flipping five cards; 1 for attack, 4 for defence. You're getting your Tomes, picking up a card from Lust's defensive trigger and any Aces that come out. The ideal is getting the Ace of Tomes in hard, and any other Ace; they become your standard cheat for attack and defence. As defensive lasts until next activation, you can also do this again next turn without spending Lust's AP.

 

And Lust herself is just a solid model; the first time she moves a beater 8" away from Lynch and places it behind your opponents own models to deny a charge you'll appreciate her.

[InvokeChaos]

6 hours ago, Sanik said:

If you don't mind, what is your usual 9 activation lists? Just a bunch of 5-6ss models? Who is your main beater im that case? 

 

 

I've recently tried 2 different lists that were 9 activations.  First one got minorly changed with the errata. Originally it had a different six-stone minion (flux) but beckoner is really solid in that slot now. 

Lynch (4 cache)
-Cheating Bastard
-Wanna See A Trick
Hungering Darkness
-Equality
-Smoke Grenades
Gwyneth Maddox
-The Peaceful Waters
Samurai
-Favor of Jigoku
Obsidian Oni
Obsidian Oni
Charm Warder
Beckoner
Monk of Low River

The goal behind this list in its initial testing was to use Samurai with Cheating Bastard to maximize the walking fire triggers. It worked really well. I typically got 2+ aces a turn from his constant attacks (I typically cycle between Huggy and a target, especially if I pull the ace of rams). Monk of Low River provides some support but he's really there to provide a second way of producing scheme markers at range with the enemy (alongside Gwyneth). Because Huggy and Lynch are effectively my kill models, I put equality and smoke on Huggy. But I find that Obsidian Oni can more than pull their weight between healing and a focused cast at 1/4/5 damage track. Beckoner is more often than not used on my own models for positioning, but she also is a third source of ranged brilliance for Wanna See A Trick.  Plus she is a decent melee tarpit with the healing from Cheating Bastard and Monk of Low River. 
I don't tend to take this list in a heavy kill pool, as I need another beater. But it's proven to be a pretty decent catch all list in GG18, which focuses a bit more on being tankier. And Obsidian are pretty tanky for 6ss, as is Beckoner.  No one tends to waste AP on a Monk of Low River, especially because it full heals on a 0 in this list (from all the casts) if they don't kill it in 2AP.
Where this list has been shining for me is things like Guarded Treasure, Inescapable Trap and Dig their Graves. I can place Scheme markers pretty much wherever I want. If it's flank/close, Covert is almost an autotake.

The other list was effectively the same but the idea was try out some new silliness.  It actually worked pretty well.

Lynch (4 cache)
-Cheating Bastard
-Wanna See A Trick
Hungering Darkness
-Smoke Grenades
Gwyneth Maddox
Yamaziko
-Hidden Agenda
Samurai
-Favor of Jigoku
Obsidian Oni
Obsidian Oni
Monk of High River
Monk of High River

The goal here was to see if Monk of High River was any good now. I was already running 2 Oni which want to see burning, and Lynch allowed me to pitch an Ace for their charge. So I figured if they were going to shine anywhere it would be here. And honestly, they do work now. They have the same HP and defensive setup as most of our 5ss minions (barring say a tome-d 10T bros) but they just bring damage. Three attacks on charge at Ml6 that auto applies burning is great on a 5ss minion. Their 0 push just means your opponent probably isn't going to avoid the charge if you really want to get it off. I've been running them behind blocking terrain and just pushing out to charge a key target and tie it up, drop like 3-5 burning on it and a few points of damage. Then obsidian walks up, conflagrates it from the heavens and if it's not dead it will be at EoT. I had a run of a couple of games where I literally landed 0 attacks out of 12... but that's because my opponents seemed to just want to flip 11+ against my monks. And I decided it wasn't worth cheating. So for a couple of games they were just severe wasters, still solid haha. But when they finally were allowed to hit things, I was surprised just how much damage I could put out. I even had a df5 pass to cheat first on a 2 flip, so I cheated in the ace of tomes for burning 2 . I don't think they're auto takes anymore, but they're definitely no longer never takes.
Yamaziko was an experiment. We were playing an interact heavy pool and I was playing a gremlin player. I figured he'd bring Zipp to shut down the interacts and get passed some of my defenses (he knew I was playing Lynch as it's been a solo play for me for a while), and she did not disappoint. From Lynch's and Gwyneth's abilities, I always had a 13 in hand, and he lost 5 cards a turn to Yamaziko because he hadn't score any schemes and HAD to try to cheat or lose 4 cards flat out. Talk about a horrifying ability. She was a lot tougher than I thought she would be too with Obsidian's healing her and the occasional Cheating Bastard. 

[InvokeChaos]

7 hours ago, I'm a Teapot! said:

I've played against Cheating Bastard a few times. And it has been absurdly strong in defensive situations (for lynch) and for his and huggys own activations. But that was due to the crew beein mostly melee centric and therefore his minions not always beein inside the auras. 

I cant stand the thaught, that ranged options might excell with cheating bastard, cause they almost always benefit from the aura. 

A recalled training Lazarus that always cheats second and discards an ace for auto fire seems pretty strong to me. Also Ten Thunders Archers might be worth a shot with blot the sky and their rapid fire without randomization. 

In my experience cheating bastard is one of the strongest effects in malifaux and building the whole crew around utilizing this effect is worth every penny and I dont understand why anyone would take another limited on lynch, like ever... 

Yeah see, that's what I've been thinking. I had actually been mulling over a list that ran Samurai/Lazarus/Envy/Archer.  Looks like this:

Jakob Lynch (Cache 6)
-Cheating Bastard
-Wanna See A Trick
-Woke Up With A Hand
Hungering Darkness
-Smoke Grenades
Samurai
-Favor of Jigoku
Lazarus
-Recalled Training
Envy
-Blot the Sky
Thunder Archer
Wastrel

My issue at the moment is that Laz and Envy cost a lot of points. So I've been just tossing the idea around in my head. I might drop Envy for Gwyneth. But Archer's seem their strongest if I'm going to go in and engage things. Which I tend to not do willy-nilly with Lynch. 

After playing with Crime Boss last night, I may look at this:

Jakob Lynch (Cache 6)
-Cheating Bastard
-Wanna See A Trick
-Woke Up With A Hand
Hungering Darkness
-Smoke Grenades
-Equality
Gwyneth
-Blot the Sky
Katanaka Crime Boss
Katanaka Crime Boss
Thunder Archer
Thunder Archer
Wastrel

Crime Boss is just a really solid looking model for me. Doesn't stand up against major hits, but I definitely think he's a mid-game bruiser. Can put out damage, take some damage and heal himself. It's just solid. Again, with Cheating Bastard helping the healing, it's maybe viable. No samurai does mean I'm not digging aces as much, but I've found that I tend to roll quite a bit of cards oonce the turns start going. I also only try to focus when I actually need the hit. If I'm just purging cards, I will absolutely shoot into cover on negatives for the extra cards. It's all about feeling out your deck. I keep an eye on my severes and if I have 4 in hand and have already flipped 4-5 more, I'm ok with wasting the cards to ace hunt if I don't have anything more pressing to do with the AP.  It's all about the game plan.  And if I can't kill you with my pinger and my goal is to have Lynch murder, then ace hunting is typically a better option than not, in my experience. It's totally a feel thing, with a bit of luck thrown in... and I'm totally ok with that playing Lynch. 
 

[InvokeChaos]

Few things from my games I want to throw in:

So I needed Gwyn to shoot a Kentauroi last night... she had to randomize with two targets. So when I did her rigged deck I left a low card second card in, hit me to draw the severe I saw, then attacked. I chose to flip randomization in the order of the enemy first, who got the low card and my dude got the mid card, guaranteeing the hit.  This makes her interesting for shooting into melee, so if you have only 3 models engaged, you can guarantee who is going to get hit, then just hit me afterwards. Also good for getting that scheme marker down. I've left a 13 of rams in, just for the attack to get that marker down and drawn either after that or taken a mid card. 

Cheating Bastard has absolutely changed how I handle my control hand.  I've found myself going defensive a lot more to pitch moderates back into rotation on early turns when there isn't a lot of action, stocking up on 4 severes and making sure to keep at least two masks in hand. I'll keep even keep a weak mask in hand if it gets me the 3rd, because getting the 2 heal on my whole crew is just flat better than MAYBE drawing a fifth severe.  I try not to keep any Aces unless I really need it. You don't HAVE to pick them up. If they end up in my hand early turn, they stay obviously, but if it's obvious Lynch isn't going to murder anything that turn, I roll em to mulligan or pitch them as needed. It's not worth clogging your hand and the worst thing is to have a hand of great cards and two aces and you either pitch them at end of turn to not see them next turn or you keep them and deny yourself some possibly better cards. It also enables a playstyle where I don't cheat as often.

Example:
My opponent is coming at me with some attacks. Min 2/3 type things. The standard. If one attack misses, I'm almost always guaranteed to let the 2nd one hit me when I have three masks in hand. Unless they are hunting straight for cheating in severe, it's generally just ok to take the damage. And if there top end is 4... I totally take it and I don't care.

What this does is keeps cards in my hand for CRITICAL attacks. And that definition changes completely with how the board state is and what's left. If I have obsidian oni up and my opponent has only 2 beaters and one has already gone... I'm probably just going to take blows to the face. Then obsidian heals, cheating bastard heals, and I've negated 2AP from my opponent (and possibly some cheated cards) with a 0 and a start of activation ability. It's just really strong. I've found my hardest issue is dealing with alpha strikes that realize how lynchpin my master is (hehe) and go straight for the throat. Same for Huggy.

I find that the best way to deal with these threats is literally removal.  If you don't kill Lynch in your charge, because of how I'm playing I expect that I have a full grip. And that means I'm going to activate, brilliance you, maybe hit you with an unload and then final debt into 52 pickup. With 2 aces in hand I've had one model survive this combo. One. And that's accounting for having to cheat to only do 5 on a final debt. Between a min unload and a final debt with 2 aces you are doing 13 damage.  And that's leaving an AP left. I often will Final Debt, then cycle with mulligan to hunt for another severe or ace. The less experienced players I've gone up against I always warn, "if you are within 12" of lynch, I can and will delete you. Have a game plan."

And so far it's been absolutely true.  I had some real rough trouble with Sandeep (who doesn't?) but even Nellie has to respect Lynch's threat. He doesn't use damage tracks if I don't want him to, so you're at the mercy of stones. Armor continues to be our biggest problem.  And the only way I've been able to trump an armor 2 high wound model has been to hunt for aces, keep them if I have to and engineer a final debt 6 + ace dump 8 to do 10 damage flat out. I shiver at the thought of dealing with a peacekeeper.  Another reason I'm seriously considering making Crime Bosses a more major part of my lists. Their ability to ignore armor if you've taken a hit cannot be understated in its power for 10T. 

 

So for the other side of the fence, how do you deal with this? 

Honestly focus fire is hands down the best way to deal with Lynch. I WANT you to spread out and flank me, go after huggy and gwyn at the same time, tie up lynch with a tanky model. That is exactly what I want. I have absolutely gone from almost all of my models having damage on them to healing 10-14 in a single turn. That removes AP from your opponent. It's why obsidian are good. It's why cheating bastard is SO good.  They both effectively remove an attack AP at no cost. Obsidian take a 0 to do it (and an ace) and Lynch can negate several AP with a single triple mask reveal. Armor is great with Lynch and is why I've started going tanky and bringing emissary here and there. I pitch aces to go defensive, say come at me bro and watch as their attacks do 1-2 damage tops... then Lynch activates and heals a bunch. This all gets mitigated (at least a little bit) by focusing on a single model. It forces me to change my activation orders to deal with the constant attacks, forces me to cheat to keep a key piece alive, etc. On my standard lists, I still can heal 6wds easily on any one model, but you're forcing me to devote attention. And because it's spread across activations it's a losing attrition battle.

Focusing is also way better against this list than others. I want the min damage. Focusing makes you able to pump some harder hits in.  Healing 2 damage on an activation isn't as impactful when you did 6 damage, not 2. It's why I try to take a Monk of Low River in all my lists now. I've had to dump 3-4 cards out of my hand to get 6wds healed so I didn't lose a super-critical piece (like Lynch!) from focused assaults.  It all comes down to what I'm up against. 'Nother notch on the crime boss' belt... hard to wound negates focus's punch for the most part. 

[ElPuto]

On 24/1/2018 at 5:54 AM, InvokeChaos said:

Ran this tonight against Nico Engine:

Lynch (Cache 4)
-Woke Up With a Hand
-Wanna See A Trick
-Cheating Bastard
Hungering Darkness
-Smoke Grenades
Gwyneth Maddox
-Hidden Agenda
Shadow Emissary
-Conflux of Hunger
Katanaka Crime Boss
-Equality
Obsidian Statue
-Servant of the Five Dragons
Ten Thunder Brother

Why Gwyneth with Agenda? 

[InvokeChaos]

10 minutes ago, ElPuto said:

Why Gwyneth with Agenda? 

Emissary can push and fast a model with an upgrade attached. If I don't have an upgrade on any enforcer/hench, I tend to pitch hidden agenda as it's a 0 cost upgrade that now allows the emissary to target them.

[ElPuto]

18 minutes ago, InvokeChaos said:

Emissary can push and fast a model with an upgrade attached. If I don't have an upgrade on any enforcer/hench, I tend to pitch hidden agenda as it's a 0 cost upgrade that now allows the emissary to target them.

Awesome, thanks!

[InvokeChaos]

On 1/24/2018 at 6:06 AM, Amayasu said:

I've been running Lust with Lynch recently. She's a good model anyway, and can be amazing with him.

Turn one is all about building a hand and shaping the deck. I've often finished a turn with 15-19 cards in hand. Final Debt gets kinda silly. Now that many cards may seem silly, but, when you consider that you're going into the next turn with a great hand, a deck full of moderates and many weak cards discarded, it sets you up well.

So my turn one is to have the Emissary discard for focus (ace) and spend it on the (0) push on Lust, fishing for the Tome for a card. Then (1) Right of Strength Lust for another push and Fast. Lust activates and goes triple defensive, (0) to push something else.

Then, as turn one is typically about movement, I have my ML5 models charge Lust.

Every attack is flipping five cards; 1 for attack, 4 for defence. You're getting your Tomes, picking up a card from Lust's defensive trigger and any Aces that come out. The ideal is getting the Ace of Tomes in hard, and any other Ace; they become your standard cheat for attack and defence. As defensive lasts until next activation, you can also do this again next turn without spending Lust's AP.

 

And Lust herself is just a solid model; the first time she moves a beater 8" away from Lynch and places it behind your opponents own models to deny a charge you'll appreciate her.

This is a modification on the "Melbourne Shuffle" that was thrown around a year or two ago. 

It used a samurai to walking fire between huggy and lust until you got the 2 aces, then spammed torakage rapid fire to draw 3 cards per torakage. The goal was run two torakage, get all 4 aces and have a 16 card hand.  The engine was a bit silly, IMO, because you brought mediocre models to basically generate hand advantage.  It only goes so far. 

I have a couple of viewpoints on this.

First, I like what you're doing here much better than the melbourne shuffle. It also keeps the crew in a bubble, which is actually pretty solid for Lynch. I like that you don't need a samurai for it, and I do agree that Lust in general is a good model to run with Lynch. I think the double focus push is a great trick as well. 

That being said I still wonder if that's a valid tactic. For a couple of reasons. First this trick is limited by the number of ml5 models in your crew. And that's not entirely something you want to have a lot of. One or two, maybe.

Second problem you run into is card management. With a 10+ hand, if you get the misfortune of not drawing many weak cards you are in an interesting position.  You have to FIND ways to ditch cards out of your hand to get them back in your deck for round 2. Same with the aces. Otherwise you inadvertently create a spike deck.

To get to a 14 card hand with this method you have to 1) draw into all four aces and 2) after drawing the 2 required aces attack into lust 4 times with a Ml5 model.  I did the math on this, and it's basically as random as you'd think. Generally speaking you have a less than 40% chance of drawing an ace in your opening hand, and when rolling cards it varies from 20-35% chance. And that's AT flipping 5 cards a go. 

Just too much investment in my opinion. But there IS a silver lining here. As long as you have 2 aces, you can keep damage off her... which opens up some crime boss shenanigans. I would be interested to throw Gwyneth, Lust and 2 crime bosses in a list with the emissary and see what happens. Especially if you get that ace of tomes early. I think it's one of those if you get the cards cool, but if you don't, don't worry about it. 

Regardless it is an interesting and efficient way at hunting for aces without using the triple positive samurai!

[I'm a Teapot!]

Is there a similar way of deckfeeling with neverborn lynch? 

[Amayasu]

On 25/01/2018 at 7:44 PM, InvokeChaos said:

That being said I still wonder if that's a valid tactic. For a couple of reasons. First this trick is limited by the number of ml5 models in your crew. And that's not entirely something you want to have a lot of. One or two, maybe.

There are many great ML5 models that naturally fit Lynch and achieve a ton. Charm Warders and Brothers spring to mind. Warders are particularly good as you gain another Def flip on Lust if you'd prefer not to give her fast.

Secondly the charge is nice as it's free movement, but, if you're running an Illuminated heavy crew they have a Sh5 ranged attack which works just as well. You could even consider Torakage with their (2) Rapid Fire, but i'm not sold on those.

But the reality is that Charm Warders are amazing with Lynch, as are Brothers. 18 Stones Total for three very good models that fit the Master and give Card Draw for days is worth it imho.

On 25/01/2018 at 7:44 PM, InvokeChaos said:

Second problem you run into is card management. With a 10+ hand, if you get the misfortune of not drawing many weak cards you are in an interesting position.  You have to FIND ways to ditch cards out of your hand to get them back in your deck for round 2. Same with the aces. Otherwise you inadvertently create a spike deck.

I've used this approach in quite a few games now; i've consistently finished turn 1 with a massive hand and all the aces. Don't forget that these melee attacks on Lust are also an opportunity to cycle stuff back into the deck; you don't *need* aces, you just need Lust to win on a Tome, and there's a very good chance that will happen as she's flipping 4x the cards. If Lust flips the 10 of Tomes, cheat the attack with a moderate to get it back into the deck, ideally a Tome. You also have Lynch's mulligan which is a nice chance to shape the deck, and finally, you don't have to pick the ace up; cheat the Mask and Crow and let them go.

On 25/01/2018 at 7:44 PM, InvokeChaos said:

To get to a 14 card hand with this method you have to 1) draw into all four aces and 2) after drawing the 2 required aces attack into lust 4 times with a Ml5 model.  I did the math on this, and it's basically as random as you'd think. Generally speaking you have a less than 40% chance of drawing an ace in your opening hand, and when rolling cards it varies from 20-35% chance. And that's AT flipping 5 cards a go. 

Just too much investment in my opinion. But there IS a silver lining here. As long as you have 2 aces, you can keep damage off her... which opens up some crime boss shenanigans. I would be interested to throw Gwyneth, Lust and 2 crime bosses in a list with the emissary and see what happens. Especially if you get that ace of tomes early. I think it's one of those if you get the cards cool, but if you don't, don't worry about it. 

I think it's important to remember that the two required aces aren't required, they just garauntee it happening. The cards you naturally flip will, a lot of the time, give you everything you need.

As a side note, i've run Gwyn with Lust in this setup and it's good. But Gwyn feels slightly redundant to me in this setup. To each their own though.

[Amayasu]

31 minutes ago, I'm a Teapot! said:

Is there a similar way of deckfeeling with neverborn lynch? 

I imagine the same basic pattern works, but is considerably less efficient; the Charm Warder and/or easy Fast in TT, as well as Lust being a TT model make it work well.

[I'm a Teapot!]

I was thinking of using both the healing and the offensive potential of cheating bastard with ranged models in a kind of tanky and slow lynch crew. 

This is what I got:

 

Ps: Once you have the ace of rams, each tt brother draws you a card for free?!?! Is that correct? Also: they don’t have a rare limit and are ml5 for lust!!

[InvokeChaos]

@Amayasu I hear what you are saying. And I don't disagree per se.  But no opponent is that isn't alpha striking is going to be in range for that monster hand turn 1.  And by turn 2 it's not as viable a tactic I feel. Really it depends on the board state and scheme pool. 

I played with the melbourne shuffle quite a bit, and it was decently consistent.  I just feel it's more of a cute trick than a competitive tactic.

 

3 hours ago, I'm a Teapot! said:

Ps: Once you have the ace of rams, each tt brother draws you a card for free?!?! Is that correct? Also: they don’t have a rare limit and are ml5 for lust!!

Yup. That is accurate.  Or any time you flip a ram with an ace in hand.

10T bros are solid stalwarts of our crew choices. Rarely are they a bad choice. Are there better choices? Sure. But rarely are they bad.
 

So let me clarify something here. I don't think the lust trick is bad. I don't even think it's ineffective. If you have fun with it, that's more important than anything. I just look at all the moving parts and what I see is bunching everyone up in a bubble with specific crew choices that may or may not be optimal for the sole purpose of exploiting a card drawing trick that is only effective if you can get an opposing model within 8" of lynch and brillianced.

We can argue about the finer points of it all day long. Fact of the matter is, if you like it, cool... rock it all day long. I play a slightly more competitive than casual game and I feel you're giving your opponent a chance to maximize what they can do to you by better positioning. I've played against the melbourne shuffle as well. It doesn't scare me in the slightest. I look at it usually as a card fixing trick for a monster hand.  I react accordingly.

And if hand fixing is your primary goal here, Lynch can practically get a hand of 5-6 severes just on the standard tricks he brings without the Lust/draw mechanic. Most turns I never had less than 3-4 severes in hand with Lynch just from playing him. And I almost always walked into turn 2 with 5. It's what he does. 

YMMV, just my opinions