M3e Henchman Hardcore- Outcasts

[RisingPhoenix]

I mean you could probably bring in even Barbaros to beat Deso engine (and I don't like him).  Taelor and Montresor both cost you 10 soulstones.  As does Mad Dog.

Actually Mad Dog and Alyce is a simply disgusting amount of shooting taken together.  I could see a world where a Necropunk plants a scheme marker and runs off, and a Fast Mad Dog and a Rapid Fire Alyce go and simply evaporate the enemy crew.

[touchdown]

I tried the amalgam crew to a reasonable success.

My crew:

Rusty Alyce
Marlena Webster
2x Necropunks

Opponent
Popcorn Turner
Cooper Jones
2x Whiskey Gamin

I won 5-3. 3 points from plant explosives 2 from assassinate. He got 2 from plant explosives and 1 from assassinate.

He was just doing some testing with some models he doesn't get to use very often (the whiskey gamin in particular are very cool looking but he doesn't have Brewmaster). I picked Vendetta really stupidly with a necropunk against Cooper. Just assumed I wanted to kill that model anyway so it would be a good target. Absolutely should have picked one of the gamin. He deployed mostly to one side, while I did a symmetrical deployment. I should have put the vendetta punk on it's own, drop the explosive marker and then go hunting for vendetta, but I did the opposite. I also didn't play Alyce well, he kept trying her up in melee with Cooper who kept having 2 shielded.

Marlena is actually really good in this format. 8 wounds, armor 1, and a self heal that cycles a card is pretty tough for this format. Withering away came up twice, preventing him from healing. I got Teddy Help to trigger 4 times I think, one of the reasons I got assassinate. Steadfast protector didn't come up as much as I expected. He was able to work around it (we had a lot of scatter terrain so I couldn't push easily). Soul tether is also more handy than you might expect in this format for preventing assassinate. Although that would be better if there was an external source of healing. I could see an argument for replacing 1 necropunk with a scavenger. I also came within 1 point of hitting a whiskey gamin on a black joker flip for attack

The necropunks worked exactly as expected. Got me my explosive markers and after that, ran around making things suffer from entropy and landing a few random attacks. Also since my opponent was doing a lot of burning, did 2 assists. One each on Alyce and Marlena (preventing the 2nd assassinate point, and making him spend more AP to put Marlena down on turn 5).

Overall, armor was super nice against a tri-chi crew. Since he was trying to burn and poison me to death, on some models it was preventing 3 damage a turn (attack, poison. and burning all procing separately). I should just avoided Cooper, using Alyce to take his gamin out early and using pit traps to try to force Cooper to take long routes and thus not taking shielded.

[NoisyAssassin]

1 hour ago, touchdown said:

Overall, armor was super nice against a tri-chi crew. Since he was trying to burn and poison me to death, on some models it was preventing 3 damage a turn (attack, poison. and burning all procing separately). 

Uh-oh, sounds like you may have been playing this wrong. Armor reduces damage, to a minimum of 1. So things that only deal 1 damage (such as burning or poison) are unaffected by armor.

[Adran]

9 minutes ago, NoisyAssassin said:

Uh-oh, sounds like you may have been playing this wrong. Armor reduces damage, to a minimum of 1. So things that only deal 1 damage (such as burning or poison) are unaffected by armor.

That depends on the level of burning or poison, they can do more than 1 damage if you have enough of them. 

[Jesy Blue]

1 hour ago, Adran said:

That depends on the level of burning or poison, they can do more than 1 damage if you have enough of them. 

.... and that build deals a lot of Burning & the Poison has Alcohol Poisoning affecting it.

Armor overall is the weakness of Bayou.

[touchdown]

Yep, at the end of the game Alyce had 10 burning lol

[NoisyAssassin]

Played another 2 games tonight

First was Alyce, Barbaros, 2x Necropunk, 2ss vs Samuel, Witchling Handler, Witchling Stalker, WItchling Thrall, 1ss

Absolutely brutal first turn; I killed the Stalker with Alyce and put a little damage on his Thrall and Sam with Barbaros, dropped 2 bombs with the Necropunks. In return he did 4 damage to Alyce and 6 to Barbaros, lit ALyce, Barbaros, and a Punk on fire, and dropped no bombs. Turn 2 he drew a terrible hand and stoned for more bad cards. I won initiative and was able to kill Sam with Barbaros using a cheated severe. At that point he scooped, which seemed fair; final score is hard to guess, but probably ~5 or 6-0. If he had won initiative it would have been very different, as Barbaros would likely have died before getting to attack. Lesson learned: keep Barbaros more than an inch away from Alyce; Black Blood hurts!

 

Second game was Alyce, Desolation Engine, 2x Necropunk, 1ss vs Jonathan Reichart, Paul Crockett, Frontiersman, Pathfinder, 3ss

Nothing died T1, but Reichart decided to Bring It! vs the Deso who had gotten near (but couldn't quite charge) the Pathfinder. Unfortunately for him, it landed the attack and a triple negative revealed the red joker, so that was a great start. Necropunks leapt and dropped bombs, and Home on the Range meant I was able to get in range for some Entropy pings, and one charged Paul to stop him dropping a bomb. Pathfinder shot at Alyce, and she shot the Frontiersman. 1-0

T2 the Frontiersman died to Entropy, Paul dropped a bomb then shot Alyce and kicked up dust, Necropunk and Alyce both targetted the Pathfinder, who squeaked out of danger on 1 health, and Jonathan smacked the Necropunk while Deso chased him around (he bonused moved out of engagement with it, then it got shot and Slowed, and he's got Disguised, so no attack this round).  Alyce Aetheric Healed her way out of Assassinate's first point, but Jonathan was hurt enough to score it. 3-1

T3 Alyce went first and shot Paul dead, then moved up toward the centerline and within 3" of the Pathfinder (who would then die when he activated). This left him with just Jonathan, who whiffed both his attacks against the wounded Necropunk, and then conceded. Final score would likely have been 8-1. Lessons learned: need to remember Studied Opponent on the Necropunks, Frontier is a very squishy crew in HH, and as much as it hurts, I do like the move nerf on Alyce, as it forces more decisions with positioning her. Deso seems to be a decent distraction Carnifex, and while it may be underwhelming for 10 against those who are prepared for it, in the case that they don't have a good plan to take it down fast it can be a huge threat. 

Overall really liking Alyce for Hardcore!

[touchdown]

I got 2 virtual games in with the Montresor, Hanged, Dead Outlaw 2x and it works really well. Won the 2nd game 4-2 with 3 plant explosives, 1 assassinate, and got really close to both vendetta points but couldn't quite manage it (lost at least one point because I blacked jokered on damage). In retrospect I probably could have focused the target (Chiaki) more and got the 2nd point.

Terrifying becomes even more powerful with 4 card hards. Hanged is almost unkillable without a ridiculous investment from your opponent. Forbidden Knowledge is hell for your opponent. On Your Heels is great too..

Dead Outlaws being able to charge shoot and ignore friendly fire is also very good. Staggered and slow are both great for stopping them getting out bombs.

Montresor has 2 roles depending how the game goes. He's either obeying your models which means your opponent cannot really stop you from doing anything (disengaging out of activation means you can still interact, brutal), or he's tarpitting and making sure 1 maybe 2 models are stuck fighting him until they die. Possibly a really good beater could just outright kill him, but it's not easy.

Have to come up with a new list now so I don't annoy my main opponent 😄

[NoisyAssassin]

Nice, that sounds like a really strong list.