Molly: typical activation order

[Franchute]

Hello

with the announced edition, I decided to play new things. I have been focusing on Molly since the begining of August and I'm trying to get better with her. 

I would like to ask you what is the typical activation order you follow with her. After turn 1, what I typically do is to activate her first to summon stuff or cycle cards with revelation, and then I typically chain activate into a beat stick or a punk zombie to do some damage. Do you generally activate her first?

I dont really know when to activate Philip though. On the one hand, I want to activate the nanny early to get cards to better defend my main pieces. On the other hand, I'm always tempted to activate other minis that are about to die before, typically those summons with few wounds left so that they do some damage before they actually die. In the end, it is not easy to get cards from the nanny, because I need to activate the necropunk first and thats two activations I need to place first before activating these minis who are about to die: this means they'll probably die just after I activate the necropunk. When do you activate Philip? Contrary to my initial plan, I have been actually activating the nanny relatively late in the turn and using the cards for the attack of another beat stick to kill minis at the end of the turn: Hence I dont use Philip's cards for defense, but rather to attack.

[Anung Un Rama]

Turn one i try to activate Molly as late as possible. I usually get the necropunk or whatever to drop markers for Phillip and leave him as late as possible too. Molly is better later in first turn because the closer the enemy gets the better she can summon and  then hopefully they have finished all activations so the summons can then do something.

Ill normally activate one of the minions first to scheme (necropunk is good to drop marker leap then drop another one for phillip. The i do Belle stuff maybe lure a model im keen to kill in range and hit it with my beatstick. then Phillip gets the cards then Molly activates. Hopefully Belles and doxies or whatever have moved her so she doesnt need to waste AP walking. get her up to within 8 of an enemy or two and summon punk zombies. As many as possible. I used the red joker last night to get one and the 12 crows in my hands to get a second. The use her 0 to give one of the summoned an AP to hit. Normally then if they are all outactivated it doesnt matter if you chain into on or not. If they still have activations that have the possibility of killing new summons then chain into them. I like to take Bete Noir and if the summons do get killed she pops out.

Molly is great fun and i havent played a ton of games with her but she is fast becoming my favourite. Im learning still but this is what has worked for me.

[Franchute]

@Saucy Jack I wasnt clear, sorry. I meant the activation order from turn 2 on. Of course the typical turn 1 would be different from the other turns and I may choose to activate Molly last or first depending on who is the opponent master.

I too have been enjoying her playstyle quite a lot. I'm sad it's supposed to change for M3E.

[Adran]

If you adapt the turn 1 a little you can make the other turns easier. So use 2 models to drop schemes for Philip turn one then after he has the cards you activate the necropunk to drop markers for turn 2, and so forth. It allows Philip to activate when you need without having to wait. Then if you have a bad hands you can activate before Molly, and if not you can still activate her first. 

[Argentbadger]

I generally agree with you that I want to activate Molly first in turn 2 onward.  Being able to get her activation plus chain activate Izamu, a Rogue Necromancy or whatever can be back-breaking in attrition games.  This goes doubly if the other crew are spending precious AP playing whack-a-mole with your summons and getting showered in Black Blood for their troubles.  One of the big benefits about using Molly first in turns 2 and 3 is that I'm quite likely to summon something.  With good placement I can really throw off whatever the other player had planned.  If they have to re-evaluate on the fly, this gives them more opportunity to incorrectly prioritise targets and hopefully I can capitalise on any mistakes.

I've moved away from using Philip with Molly, but when I did use him I got best value by activating in the mid turn so I could recharge my hand from all the good cards I spent at the start of the turn.  I recall a post from @mo11usq expanding on this approach but I can't find it now.  I do like Adran's idea to mine the backfield with scheme markers in turn 1 so that Philip can eat them whenever you have the opportunity.