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Myranda, Skinwalker, and Symbols


KingCrow

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I'm looking at finally getting a chance to play a game of Malifaux with the Symbols of Authority strategy and found something interesting. I saw it had been stated before with previous GG strats and schemes but I think this time might actually be worth it. It's the old Myranda with the Skinwalker upgrade using the ability of the Malifaux Raptor to bury itself.
 
For those who don't know what it is, Myranda starts the game buried with both IE and Skinwalker. You fly (or bury and place) the Raptor up to where you need it and hopefully in a decently protected spot. Next turn, you bury it and out pops Myranda.
 
Now, for Symbols, the idea is to bury the Raptor first turn so that it unburies at the end of the turn next to a marker. Turn two, it then re-buries to have Myranda pop out to then interact and take the marker. If the next marker is far away, you can move her and shapeshift into something to get closer to the next marker all while your crew is focusing on the last marker. You still get the 4 cards from IE, have a point for the strategy and now have a rather large threat in the your opponents backfield all by turn two. Also, zero counterplay unless you're playing vs Tara or other models that can attack buried models.
 
Sounds pretty nice, right?
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16 hours ago, KingCrow said:

I'm looking at finally getting a chance to play a game of Malifaux with the Symbols of Authority strategy and found something interesting.  I saw it had been stated before with previous GG strats and schemes but I think this time might actually be worth it.  It's the old Myranda with the Skinwalker upgrade using the ability of the Malifaux Raptor to bury itself. 

For those who don't know what it is, Myranda starts the game buried with both IE and Skinwalker.  You fly the Raptor up to where you need it and hopefully in a decently protected spot.  Next turn, you bury it and out pops Myranda.  Now, for Symbols, the idea is to fly the Raptor all the way up to one of your opponents markers and have Myranda pop out to then interact and take the marker.  If the other marker is far away, you can move her and shapeshift into something to get closer to the next marker all while your crew is focusing on the other marker.  You still get the 4 cards from IE, have a point for the strategy and now have a rather large threat in the your opponents backfield turn two.

Sounds pretty nice, right?

You actually don't need to fly the bird up. Skinwalker says you may unbury, not that you have to. So in theory you could just bury the Raptor as normal turn 1. Then bring it up wherever you want at the end of the turn (probably behind a symbols marker to be out of LoS). Next turn rebury the Raptor and out pops Myranda. 

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Used this combo in a Symbols game last night and it worked great! Managed to collect all 3 enemy Symbols.  Still lost 8-6 though.  Kaeris kept being terrible and it was worse because my Guild opponent had condition removal.  The Jury is so OP... especially with McCabe upgrades and Debt to the Guild.  Shouldve just ran Marcus... Lol. 

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49 minutes ago, KingCrow said:

Used this combo in a Symbols game last night and it worked great! Managed to collect all 3 enemy Symbols.  Still lost 8-6 though.  Kaeris kept being terrible and it was worse because my Guild opponent had condition removal.  The Jury is so OP... especially with McCabe upgrades and Debt to the Guild.  Shouldve just ran Marcus... Lol. 

I wouldn't say The Jury is OP.  She's just really solid.

Masters like Kaeris and any others that focus a lot on putting conditions on your opponents crew, like Hamelin, will have a tougher time if she's removing all the conditions. Take her out first, she goes down easily enough if you dedicate some AP to her. She has no defensive tricks that'll keep her alive (except burning soul stones), unless she takes armor or receives armor in the case of McCabe. She's Df6, 9Wds. A beater model like Langston or the Cerebrus should make short work of her if they get the chance.

Also, Kaeris puts out so much burning on multiple models a turn, The Jury's condition removal shouldn't be a problem as she can only do it once per activation as it is a 0 action. Also, The Jury's condition removal is an attack action, so she can't target herself with it. So pile up the burning on her first, punch her a few time with Kaeris and you can have her dead by turn 3.

Also, The Jury's condition removal only works on friendly models.

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Those are all good points.  I just had a reactivating Witchling Thrall with Nimble who ignores armor and McCabe are in Kaeris's face turn two which meant a dead Kaeris turn 3.  Also, Kaeris shooting and randomizing into melee and hitting your own models, even if it is Carlos, is terrible.  Hell, the Friekorps Specialist I brought to try out did more damage and burning than Kaeris.  Kaeris really does need some sort of overhaul... even if it's just to make her tankier or make her abilities better (i.e. No :ranged on her actions or make more of her actions so she doesn't have to be so close to melee.

If I would've played Marcus or basically any other Master, I probably would've done a lot better.  I just wanted to try out Kaeris to again affirm just how bad she is.  lol.

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4 hours ago, KingCrow said:

Those are all good points.  I just had a reactivating Witchling Thrall with Nimble who ignores armor and McCabe are in Kaeris's face turn two which meant a dead Kaeris turn 3.  Also, Kaeris shooting and randomizing into melee and hitting your own models, even if it is Carlos, is terrible.  Hell, the Friekorps Specialist I brought to try out did more damage and burning than Kaeris.  Kaeris really does need some sort of overhaul... even if it's just to make her tankier or make her abilities better (i.e. No :ranged on her actions or make more of her actions so she doesn't have to be so close to melee.

If I would've played Marcus or basically any other Master, I probably would've done a lot better.  I just wanted to try out Kaeris to again affirm just how bad she is.  lol.

I think you were in it, but if you weren't check out my Topic Flaming Angel in the Room. You'll get to see exactly what she is about.

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6 minutes ago, Fluffaluffacus said:

I think you were in it, but if you weren't check out my Topic Flaming Angel in the Room. You'll get to see exactly what she is about.

Thanks and yea, I was in the discussion and I still say that Kaeris is a subpar master in respect to most of the other Arcanist masters.  She's fun and I love her theme but I'd rather play Marcus, Ironsides, Colette and Sandeep over her in a competitive scene. 

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21 hours ago, KingCrow said:

Those are all good points.  I just had a reactivating Witchling Thrall with Nimble who ignores armor and McCabe are in Kaeris's face turn two which meant a dead Kaeris turn 3.  Also, Kaeris shooting and randomizing into melee and hitting your own models, even if it is Carlos, is terrible.  Hell, the Friekorps Specialist I brought to try out did more damage and burning than Kaeris.  Kaeris really does need some sort of overhaul... even if it's just to make her tankier or make her abilities better (i.e. No :ranged on her actions or make more of her actions so she doesn't have to be so close to melee.

If I would've played Marcus or basically any other Master, I probably would've done a lot better.  I just wanted to try out Kaeris to again affirm just how bad she is.  lol.

Which upgrades are you using on Kaeris? I've been up against Kaeris a fair bit and she definitely does not need an overhaul. Her new upgrades really make her a force to be reckoned with on the table. Flaming angel and heatwave are great.

One of my regular opponents plays her quite a bit and he runs her with Imbued Defense, Flaming Angel and Heatwave with a decent cache of stones. He charges her up the board early on dropping burning onto my crew with flaming angel, pumps out more burning with heatwave. He does this early on while parts of my crew are still within close proximity of each other, so tying them up. Kaeris then usually dies by turn 3 or 4, but she's killed a fair bit of stuff before she goes and I've spent the first half of the game trying to deal with her in my backlines as she pushes around with Flaming Angel. He then uses the rest of his crew to go score strat and schemes as I deal with her. A Df 7 master with armor a big cache of stones requires a lot of AP to take down.

As someone who doesn't play Kaeris, but has played against someone who plays her well and plays her often. I would say the way to play Kaeris is as a big beater/distraction. Throw her at your opponents crew quick and early. Make them deal with her and while they have that major distraction, go score your points for the win with the rest of the crew. Anyway, that how my buddy plays her with a lot of success.

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14 hours ago, doubledragon said:

Which upgrades are you using on Kaeris? I've been up against Kaeris a fair bit and she definitely does not need an overhaul. Her new upgrades really make her a force to be reckoned with on the table. Flaming angel and heatwave are great.

One of my regular opponents plays her quite a bit and he runs her with Imbued Defense, Flaming Angel and Heatwave with a decent cache of stones. He charges her up the board early on dropping burning onto my crew with flaming angel, pumps out more burning with heatwave. He does this early on while parts of my crew are still within close proximity of each other, so tying them up. Kaeris then usually dies by turn 3 or 4, but she's killed a fair bit of stuff before she goes and I've spent the first half of the game trying to deal with her in my backlines as she pushes around with Flaming Angel. He then uses the rest of his crew to go score strat and schemes as I deal with her. A Df 7 master with armor a big cache of stones requires a lot of AP to take down.

As someone who doesn't play Kaeris, but has played against someone who plays her well and plays her often. I would say the way to play Kaeris is as a big beater/distraction. Throw her at your opponents crew quick and early. Make them deal with her and while they have that major distraction, go score your points for the win with the rest of the crew. Anyway, that how my buddy plays her with a lot of success.

Kaeris is definitely not a big beater. Like at all. She does such small damage for a master. And she is one of the easiest to kill masters in our faction, honestly.

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8 hours ago, Fluffaluffacus said:

 

Kaeris is definitely not a big beater. Like at all. She does such small damage for a master. And she is one of the easiest to kill masters in our faction, honestly.

I 100% agree with this.  Her only way of healing is by putting burning on herself and taking the upgrade and that still isn't until the end of turn.  Armor is easily bypassed now-a-days and most things are still going to hit Df 6 models.  Kaeris basically has to be played as someone who runs along the outskirts of battles throwing fire onto models, but then you have to worry about randomizing because of the :ranged on her abilities.  *sigh* I want her to work well but with the stronger models coming out that basically bypass any way of keeping her safe and her own abilities severely limit her damage output. 

@doubledragon , the opponent I played against knew to just engage most of my models (and thus have most of his engaged) and throw a heavy hitter at Kaeris.  Maybe try that next time vs your opponent and watch them cry? lol.

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I'll post what I posted in my Kaeris topic.
Colette has all her defensive triggers to save her and the same 6/6 defenses and a free ss to use to protect herself every turn, only 4 less wounds.
Ramos is 2 less df but has healing, armor 2, a defensive trigger to increase his df and push the attacker away, and rarely wants to be on front lines anyways, 2 less wds.
Raspy doesn't want to be on the front lines, has counter spell and subzero to defend against mi attacks, has the worst df but again subzero and never wants to be on the front anyways.
Ironsides is now by far our tankiest master with all her ways to heal, hard to kill, and the good shot trigger built in. 1 less df.
Mei feng has the same stats with a better defensive trigger on a mask to push 5in.
Sandeep has 1 less df but Arcane shield (which is better and worse than armor), and impossible to wound with the same amount of wds, and a heal on his push.
Marcus has 1 less df, same wds, but has Defend me. 

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18 hours ago, KingCrow said:

 

@doubledragon , the opponent I played against knew to just engage most of my models (and thus have most of his engaged) and throw a heavy hitter at Kaeris.  Maybe try that next time vs your opponent and watch them cry? lol.

Isn't that the sort of situation where Kaeris excels? If the heavy hitter is to big for her to kill she can use it as a delivery system for her to go and attack something esle. If it isn't too big she can just kill it. 

I know I've tried that against a good kaeris player, and he then crossed half the board and was able to push my models out of the places where they had gone to score points. 

On 06/03/2018 at 7:30 AM, Fluffaluffacus said:

 

Kaeris is definitely not a big beater. Like at all. She does such small damage for a master. And she is one of the easiest to kill masters in our faction, honestly.

I'm not sure I agree, she is sitting about the same as most of the Arcanist masters in terms of Damage. I still disagree with your defence claims, since a model with 2 lower df, lower wounds and better armour (which seems useless for kaeris in other comparisons)  is apparently more durable. Prehaps we can agree that you two don't like her, but other people do seem to like her and get good results with her so there must be something there.   From what I've read its that she doesn't play well in the style you want to play her, which is not the same as not playing well ever

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18 hours ago, Adran said:

Isn't that the sort of situation where Kaeris excels? If the heavy hitter is to big for her to kill she can use it as a delivery system for her to go and attack something esle. If it isn't too big she can just kill it. 

I know I've tried that against a good kaeris player, and he then crossed half the board and was able to push my models out of the places where they had gone to score points. 

I'm not sure I agree, she is sitting about the same as most of the Arcanist masters in terms of Damage. I still disagree with your defence claims, since a model with 2 lower df, lower wounds and better armour (which seems useless for kaeris in other comparisons)  is apparently more durable. Prehaps we can agree that you two don't like her, but other people do seem to like her and get good results with her so there must be something there.   From what I've read its that she doesn't play well in the style you want to play her, which is not the same as not playing well ever

How exactly did he go across half the board if he was engaged? 
And what Arcanist master is easier to kill than her?

And I love Kaeris. She is by far my favorite master. I just know she isn't great and is bottom tier of Arcanist with Colette.

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1 hour ago, Fluffaluffacus said:

How exactly did he go across half the board if he was engaged? 
And what Arcanist master is easier to kill than her?

And I love Kaeris. She is by far my favorite master. I just know she isn't great and is bottom tier of Arcanist with Colette.

Flaming Angel would let you her push out of engagement or grab and drop can let her place her target and then place her self out of LoS (or outside of a 1 inch engagement range) so she doesn’t suffer a disengaging strike.

 

Kaeris is sitting right in the middle of the pack when it comes to toughness.

Colette can be much easier to kill than Kaeris if she’s facing something that ignores triggers, prevents healing, or deals damage that can’t be reduced. She only gets the free SS for adding suits and can’t use it for damage prevention.

Rasputina only has much durability when she’s being hit by Ml attacks that target Df. Her only real defense against ranged attacks that target Df is to stay out of LoS. Close attacks against Df that use Ca or Sh instead of melee will chew her up quickly.

Ramos depends on his armor to survive. Even if he’s running his Arcing Screen, Df 4 is going to get hit by just about everything. Anything that can ignore that will shred him. His Df trigger is easy enough to play around. 

It seems like Kaeris is probably right behind where Marcus, Sandeep, and Mei Feng are for durability. Marcus can potentially be very tough but that all depends on hitting his Df trigger. If he isn’t able to do that he’s not quite as tough as Kaeris. Impossible to Wound puts Sandeep over the top.

Ironside is probably the tankiest of them all. 

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3 hours ago, Fluffaluffacus said:

How exactly did he go across half the board if he was engaged? 
And what Arcanist master is easier to kill than her?

And I love Kaeris. She is by far my favorite master. I just know she isn't great and is bottom tier of Arcanist with Colette.

As WWHSD said, the push trigger on flaming halo and Grab and drop make it impossible to tie up kaeris and mean that she has the potential to charge something that is 16" away. 

She has the highest Df/wp, natural armour, second highest wounds. The only master that might be tankier is Ironsides, and she has the problem that she really needs to be engaged with several models to be at her best, so is probably more likely to die. Ramos dies pretty fast if you want to kill him because he is 2 df lower. His trigger might make a matching df if you have manged to flip/cheat a tome and spend a soulstone.  Rasputina dies a horrible death if you can reach her, and whilst her ice mirros do give her a greater range than kaeris, she has little movement of her own. Impossible to wound on Sandeep helps a little against assasination attempts, but since most of the time I expect my opponent to have negative on their flips anyway, it doesn't help too much. Defend me is a great trigger, but I rarely am in positions to use it (Marcus is a sacrifical model in many of my games with him, so his death is almost the plan). Colette is great with the right set up, but has some huge frailties because she relies so much on triggers to live so any area damage really hurts her. 

Honestly, I expect Marcus, Colette, Rasputina, Ramos and Ironsides to die more often. That could easily be part of the way I play them or play against them, but Ramos and Rasputina rely on not being in a fight to live, once they are attacked they can die quickly, and Marcus and Ironsides are much more likely to suffer lots of attacks against them so die faster. (Sure I can make them die slower, but then I'm not using them to their full effect). Colette either is immortal or dies really easily, depending on what the opponent takes, but I think on the whole she is easier to kill. 

Your use of them might give you different results, but in my experience Kaeris gets to pick what fights she is in, and can operate effectively at any range so doesn't need to end up brawling with brawler or shooting against shooters, she can brawl with shooters and shoot brawlers. 

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On ‎3‎/‎8‎/‎2018 at 1:24 AM, WWHSD said:

Flaming Angel would let you her push out of engagement or grab and drop can let her place her target and then place her self out of LoS (or outside of a 1 inch engagement range) so she doesn’t suffer a disengaging strike.

 

Kaeris is sitting right in the middle of the pack when it comes to toughness.

Colette can be much easier to kill than Kaeris if she’s facing something that ignores triggers, prevents healing, or deals damage that can’t be reduced. She only gets the free SS for adding suits and can’t use it for damage prevention.

Rasputina only has much durability when she’s being hit by Ml attacks that target Df. Her only real defense against ranged attacks that target Df is to stay out of LoS. Close attacks against Df that use Ca or Sh instead of melee will chew her up quickly.

Ramos depends on his armor to survive. Even if he’s running his Arcing Screen, Df 4 is going to get hit by just about everything. Anything that can ignore that will shred him. His Df trigger is easy enough to play around. 

It seems like Kaeris is probably right behind where Marcus, Sandeep, and Mei Feng are for durability. Marcus can potentially be very tough but that all depends on hitting his Df trigger. If he isn’t able to do that he’s not quite as tough as Kaeris. Impossible to Wound puts Sandeep over the top.

Ironside is probably the tankiest of them all. 

She will always be engaged with an enemy after using G&D unless she has terrain between them blocking LOS. Kaeris has a 2 inch engagement.

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5 minutes ago, bluepanther said:

She will always be engaged with an enemy after using G&D unless she has terrain between them blocking LOS. Kaeris has a 2 inch engagement.

Right, but you don’t take disenging strikes for becoming unengaged. You take disengaging strikes for moving out of an enemy model’s engagement range. If she Grab and Drops model with a 1 inch engagement range two inches away then she’s free to walk away.

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On 3/8/2018 at 3:48 AM, Adran said:

As WWHSD said, the push trigger on flaming halo and Grab and drop make it impossible to tie up kaeris and mean that she has the potential to charge something that is 16" away. 

She has the highest Df/wp, natural armour, second highest wounds. The only master that might be tankier is Ironsides, and she has the problem that she really needs to be engaged with several models to be at her best, so is probably more likely to die. Ramos dies pretty fast if you want to kill him because he is 2 df lower. His trigger might make a matching df if you have manged to flip/cheat a tome and spend a soulstone.  Rasputina dies a horrible death if you can reach her, and whilst her ice mirros do give her a greater range than kaeris, she has little movement of her own. Impossible to wound on Sandeep helps a little against assasination attempts, but since most of the time I expect my opponent to have negative on their flips anyway, it doesn't help too much. Defend me is a great trigger, but I rarely am in positions to use it (Marcus is a sacrifical model in many of my games with him, so his death is almost the plan). Colette is great with the right set up, but has some huge frailties because she relies so much on triggers to live so any area damage really hurts her. 

Honestly, I expect Marcus, Colette, Rasputina, Ramos and Ironsides to die more often. That could easily be part of the way I play them or play against them, but Ramos and Rasputina rely on not being in a fight to live, once they are attacked they can die quickly, and Marcus and Ironsides are much more likely to suffer lots of attacks against them so die faster. (Sure I can make them die slower, but then I'm not using them to their full effect). Colette either is immortal or dies really easily, depending on what the opponent takes, but I think on the whole she is easier to kill. 

Your use of them might give you different results, but in my experience Kaeris gets to pick what fights she is in, and can operate effectively at any range so doesn't need to end up brawling with brawler or shooting against shooters, she can brawl with shooters and shoot brawlers. 

In regards to the first part of this quote and a part of your previous quote - it seems that to "be good" with Kaeris means you MUST take those upgrades you mentioned.  I'm more concerned about the fact that I try to play her a different way and that way is so sub-par that it is near useless.  Her other limited upgrade, Purifying Flame, is worthless and the fact that if you don't take Grab and Drop, she's screwed.  I know there are many masters that have an optimal build and playstyle (i.e. Marcus, etc) but it seems to me that a Master who seems to revolve around the burning condition should have better interactions with it. 

So yes, with the "optimal upgrade build" she probably does have more survivability than a couple of the top tier masters but vary from that and her survivability plummets. 

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Just now, KingCrow said:

In regards to the first part of this quote and a part of your previous quote - it seems that to "be good" with Kaeris means you MUST take those upgrades you mentioned.  I'm more concerned about the fact that I try to play her a different way and that way is so sub-par that it is near useless.  Her other limited upgrade, Purifying Flame, is worthless and the fact that if you don't take Grab and Drop, she's screwed.  I know there are many masters that have an optimal build and playstyle (i.e. Marcus, etc) but it seems to me that a Master who seems to revolve around the burning condition should have better interactions with it. 

So yes, with the "optimal upgrade build" she probably does have more survivability than a couple of the top tier masters but vary from that and her survivability plummets. 

Well as Adran said in my other post. Do you want to have fun with Burning, or do you want to win?

Because apparently we can't have both (Rezzers mcmourning).

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1 minute ago, Fluffaluffacus said:

Well as Adran said in my other post. Do you want to have fun with Burning, or do you want to win?

Because apparently we can't have both (Rezzers mcmourning).

True story. Lol.  #beastmasterisbestmaster #imeanMarcus #McMourningisnobeastmaster lol.

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