New Player seeking advice.

[Werewolf]

Interested in jumping into the game with the new edition. 

I am looking at running Nekima. She seemed like a fairly powerful master with some great positioning abilities. I’m interested in running some smaller games to get familiar with the rules before gradually expanding. 

Obviously Nephilim/black blood seem to be a good choice with her. Does anyone have any good synergies or strategies that would be helpful?

 

thanks!

[Hawkoon]

I always bring a Black Blood Shaman. I use them turn1 to attack my own to make corpse markers, which I remove to hand out focus to everyone within 3". When the shaman removes a corpse marker it also gets a grow token, so if you spend both your attacks the first turn hitting your own guys and make 2 corpse markers you can remove 1 of them turn 1 for 1 grow token, then start the second turn removing the other for another token (and handing out more focus), then immediatly replace the shaman with a mature nephilim with 2 more actions left.

[Werewolf]

Thanks for the quick response!

That sounds absolutely nasty. I suppose I should ideally be sacrificing cheap minions such as the corrupted hounds?

[Da Git]

5 hours ago, Werewolf said:

Thanks for the quick response!

That sounds absolutely nasty. I suppose I should ideally be sacrificing cheap minions such as the corrupted hounds?

Don't kill your models, hit your bigger models like Mature or Nekima herself and use the Masks 🎭 trigger to make corpse markers. 

Sadly hand depenant, but any mask will do as you'll relent. Use Lelu and Lilitu to cycle. 

I like the crew for its ridiculous speed and mobility. 

Angel Eyes is a good choice to as Shamans can load her up with Focus, a mature can taxi her to to a good firing position for 2 focused shots first turn at short range. 

[Kharnage]

Welcome to the God-Empress Nekima fan club! She is indeed a fun, mobile master with more options than people credit her for.
So her totem (which hasn't gone to general release yet for some reason, if you weren't a beta tester) will puke up corpses for free (two wounds of his, but this is basically free) and you can use these to fuel the Blasphemous Rituals of the Shamans, in addition to the Blood Sacrifice mask triggers on their knives. Remember, the Blood Sacrifice trigger heals the target afterwards if they have Black Blood, so they don't actually die or suffer permanent damage when struck so you don't need dogs to stab. Usually. Sometimes you flip moderate on the relented damage flip, which is why I usually pick Nekima or a Mature to stab with shamans so they can heal any accidental damage with Regen +2.

As far as synergies, there's some more obvious ones and some less obvious ones. Synergies to note in my opinion include;
Lelus and Lilitus. Healing when the other heals is cool, but they also can combine for some serious Black Blood damage output between Masochistic Thoughts (Lelu), Blood for Blood (Lelu), and Sadistic Glee (Lilitu). This is also some really good, reliable card draw. If you're about to play into a heavy Armor crew or some other kind of defense you don't want to deal with, splashing it to death with one pair (or two pair!) of these is a very real option.

Hayreddin and a Mature. Hayreddin is Mv 6 with Flight, but by Winged-Nephilim definitions, he's still kinda slow. Dragging him around with a Mature gets him potentially into strike range turn 1, and starting fights where you want as quickly as you want is the Nephilim's strength. Also, the Mature can serve as a distraction while Hayreddin actually deals the big hits (Ml 6 3/4/6 is nice, but Necrotic Decay means that Hayreddin will be dealing 4/5/6 and a point from Black Blood for damaging himself, for 5 raw minimum damage!)

Nekima and Inhuman Reflexes. Seriously, just staple that upgrade onto her card. Her 2 inch reach means that Butterfly Jump is crazy annoying for 1 inch reach models and ranged models in general, and she's got Frenzied Charge, which means that as long as she keeps charging, she keeps getting Blade Rush damage. Note that you can engage people, which doesn't engage you; so charge through a 1 inch reach model and stay out of its reach, and even if it survives, you can keep charging!

Young Nephilim / Nekima and Black Blood Shamans. Young Nephilim with a 2/4/5 damage track and onslaught triggers to fish for, means that even with that natural 5+ to hit, they desperately crave focus. Black Blood Shamans, hand out focus to your whole crew (well, your whole crew within 3, which is usually doable turn 1). I usually take 2. By the time a Black Blood Shaman has completed a Blasphemous Ritual twice, they can grow into a Mature, while having handed out like 5-6 focus. Focus on Nekima's Ml 7 3/5/6 damage track is also a huge deal. Free heal pulses can also save lives.

My biggest advice is to use our supreme mobility to only pick fights you can win, and to pick those fights without fear. If you are choosing schemes and your opponent has declared Ironsides (or Hoffman, or whatever), don't take fighty schemes. They're probably gonna deathball, and you either want to send a Mature in and hope he splashes so much damage that even Ironsides feels bad, or just avoid the fight entirely, picking off flankers/scheme runners while running schemes, and making them waste AP to try and pick the fight. A common strategy of mine is to spread out at deployment (so the opponent does too), make my opponent think I'm going to rush a certain part of the map, watch them get ready for it, and then fly off 18 inches to a completely different part of the map that they're not prepared for me to attack. You'll be surprised at the number of Necropunks who didn't think the Mature and Young could make it that far and take swings turn 1 and just leapt up the field mindlessly. 

 

[Werewolf]

Thank you both for the thoughtful responses! It has definitely given me plenty to think over, and I have been brewing up all sorts of lists. I will definitely be adding all these suggestions to my collection. 

Any thoughts on an introductory list? Nekima seems like a significant investment at 30 stone games, tempting me to maximize my numbers with the likes of Tots and Dogs, though I could also see taking a shaman and two tots.

Things definitely open up at 40 and 50 for the likes of Hayreddin and some Matures. Once again, I appreciate the great advice. Hopefully I can get some games in this week.

 

[Kharnage]

1 hour ago, Werewolf said:

Nekima seems like a significant investment at 30 stone games

 

The Leader of a crew and Leader's totem are free during crew building. Are you talking about some other kind of investment?
Last sentence of Step E "Choose Faction and Leader" of the Encounter Setup rules, and the Totem call out box say this, just for your future reference.

[Da Git]

25 minutes ago, Kharnage said:

The Leader of a crew and Leader's totem are free during crew building. Are you talking about some other kind of investment?
Last sentence of Step E "Choose Faction and Leader" of the Encounter Setup rules, and the Totem call out box say this, just for your future reference.

Depends if he's playing real-faux or Henchman Hardcore. Leaders (and totems) aren't free (and don't get a 3rd AP) in Henchman Hardcore. Not sure a master is worth it in HH. They're very expensive without their 3rd AP. 

As always, your list should be strategy and scheme dependant. 

[Kharnage]

16 minutes ago, Da Git said:

Depends if he's playing real-faux or Henchman Hardcore. Leaders (and totems) aren't free (and don't get a 3rd AP) in Henchman Hardcore. 

Henchman hardcore to my understanding are also led by henchman. Saying Nekima is a heavy investment I figured precluded that possibility.

EDIT: Confirmed, posted Henchman Hardcore rules do in fact specify henchman-led. More likely he didn't know leaders were free.

[Hawkoon]

Here's a suggestion for a regular 30SS game:

Nekima w/IR: 2SS

Bloodhunter: 0SS

Lilitu/Young Nephilim: 7SS

2x Shaman: 6SS x2

Terror Tot: 4SS

Cache: 5SS.

This is a rather generic list where I'd go with Lilitu for schemes/strats that require killing and young nephilim when mobility is more important.

Lilitu can lure your own models up the board early turns, get them out of unfavourable engagements or pull out enemy models from safety.

The young nephilim is quite fast and can bring the terror tot along for scheming using fly with me. It's best to keep them close to eachother for protected and fly with me shenanigans.