McMourning Tips and Tricks - "And that's how I lost my medical license."

[SteampunkCake]

As there doesn't seem to be a compilation of McMourning Tactics yet I thought I'd make this thread so people can share their tips and tricks for using the Experimental crew, what schemes and strats you would take them into.

What models would you recommend using?
How would you use them?
Is there anything you avoid using?
Any combos that you have used to good effect?
What does your usual crew composition look like?

[solkan]

I never realized before now how much I really wanted McMourning to have a PhD.  Still have an MD degree from somewhere, but just to be able to say “Just because I have a PhD doesn’t mean I’m not a real doctor!”

It seems like the important thing to remember is “Poison won’t hurt you,” and you’re probably going to want about a dozen (or two) spin dials for Poison.  And Catalyst (on Sebastian and McMourning) combined with Perverse Metabolism means “You Heal 1 Damage from Poison.”

[marke83]

I feel most lists will be similar. Mcmo+Totem, Rafkin, Nurse or two, Kentauroi or two, Sebastian, Flesh Construct, Rogue Necro, adjust to taste.

On another note, I have troubles trying him. I do have the models, but the overblown poison mechanic just seems laborous, and essentially achieving the same thing as anything else in the game. It just feels boring and annoying to track. People have different takes I suppose? Love the models tho..

[newsun]

14 hours ago, marke83 said:

I feel most lists will be similar. Mcmo+Totem, Rafkin, Nurse or two, Kentauroi or two, Sebastian, Flesh Construct, Rogue Necro, adjust to taste.

On another note, I have troubles trying him. I do have the models, but the overblown poison mechanic just seems laborous, and essentially achieving the same thing as anything else in the game. It just feels boring and annoying to track. People have different takes I suppose? Love the models tho..

While yes you do need to track the Poison and probably a lot of it, in addition to damaging huge bursts you can also use blood poisoning to heal a model for 5 with no heal flip and this is not something anything else in the game can do. Most other heals are 1-4 and require you to burn a severe for the nice heal. And you have this as bonus action on two models who can use stones. This forces your opponent to really strive to kill in one activation which is hard with the number of wounds this crew boosts.

[Harlekin]

17 hours ago, marke83 said:

I feel most lists will be similar. Mcmo+Totem, Rafkin, Nurse or two, Kentauroi or two, Sebastian, Flesh Construct, Rogue Necro, adjust to taste.

On another note, I have troubles trying him. I do have the models, but the overblown poison mechanic just seems laborous, and essentially achieving the same thing as anything else in the game. It just feels boring and annoying to track. People have different takes I suppose? Love the models tho..

This is definitely true to a certain degree. Mc D prolly brings one of the most tanking killy crews of the game. But it still offers a lot of options with handing out poison left and right, really good summons (without upgrades) and some mobility tricks on a few models. 
I consider him direct with a twist and playing him really forces the opponent to make difficult decisions (i.e. using the precious condition removal on his or my models). Nothing too tricky, though and it's mostly about killing to win. 
Not loosing track of scoring might the big challenge when it comes to playing Mc D as everything screems for more carnage.

[Clement]

I feel like the bulk tracking of poison here and any other mass condition crew (kaeris and burning) really highlights the way conditions are tracked.  If I had to update dice on 9 models, I think I might cry.  Card marks or the app though?  No big deal (very grateful the app can have a condition at 0).

[LeperColony]

I'm going to try McMourning for the first time tonight.  My list is mostly dictated by what I have and it's essentially just a keyword crew.  

Do any of the upgrades make sense in the crew?  

[SteampunkCake]

5 minutes ago, LeperColony said:

Do any of the upgrades make sense in the crew?  

I think Killer Instinct could be useful on McMourning for the ruthless.
Grave spirits touch is largely irrelevant as you have perverse metabolism, catalyst, pain killers and blood poisoning to heal with, although if you really need to heal it can be useful, put it onto a Kentauroi or Flesh construct and they suddenly have terrifying, healing when they activate and healing at the end of the turn.
The whisper could be useful so you can know when you need to stone/focus and to avoid getting a black joker on your attack that needs to kill something. Also on McMourning it will allow him to draw every time he kills something so not terrible.

[LeperColony]

32 minutes ago, SteampunkCake said:

Grave spirits touch is largely irrelevant as you have perverse metabolism, catalyst, pain killers and blood poisoning to heal with, although if you really need to heal it can be useful, put it onto a Kentauroi or Flesh construct and they suddenly have terrifying, healing when they activate and healing at the end of the turn.
 

I was wondering about the healing.  I'd expect that since McMourning's crew can heal fairly reliably at the end phase, opponents do a lot of focus firing to make that a non-issue.  A Flesh Construct with healing out in front might be an effective bulwark?

[SteampunkCake]

I'm yet to test out McMourning's crew so this is all just theory 'faux  at the moment.
With Hard to Wound on damn near everything and your ability to heal 5 damage with a bonus action it should be quite difficult to take out a FC in one activation. GST will certainly make it harder to kill, with terrifying eating some cards. But if it's in danger of dying next activation, activating the FC to heal 2 probably won't save it, whereas the chihuahua, McMourning or Sebastian can all use blood poisoning to heal it for 5 (provided you loaded it up with poison early on) and then they still have their full activation to kill and scheme.

If you opponent has to waste 2-3 activations a turn to try and kill a FC then they are welcoming a skull saw to the face from the good doctor. 

[LeperColony]

17 hours ago, Harlekin said:

Not loosing track of scoring might the big challenge when it comes to playing Mc D as everything screems for more carnage.

It seems like his crew also struggles against WP attacks, control effects and debuffs.  

[SteampunkCake]

They aren't terrible WP, it's just they have no tech against WP duels outside of getting into concealment.
Nurses can knock off conditions with their painkillers, get rid of burning and distracted with assist which gives them fast as well.
If you do end up playing into a control master, like Zoraida, then the best thing to do is send a FC into hit her and just focus and attack every turn as she will stop you from doing multiple attacks with her triggers.
Against Pandora you'll want McMourning to start outside of the bubble and idea have Killer Instinct to ignore manipulative and terrifying, then get into pandora and start making a mess of her face.
Use the shockwaves from Rafkin to tick away at their crew from range whilst the Kentauroi and FCs run about completing schemes that are away from the kill box. Keep a nurse on hand to remove stunned from the good doctor and to heal him up if things start going poorly for him.

[LeperColony]

I plan to play McMourning today into any strat/scheme pool (just want to try him out), but are there any issues I should look out for?

[Ogid]

2 hours ago, SteampunkCake said:

Against Pandora you'll want McMourning to start outside of the bubble and idea have Killer Instinct to ignore manipulative and terrifying, then get into pandora and start making a mess of her face.

Use the shockwaves from Rafkin to tick away at their crew from range whilst the Kentauroi and FCs run about completing schemes that are away from the kill box. Keep a nurse on hand to remove stunned from the good doctor and to heal him up if things start going poorly for him.

Careful with this tho, Pandora isn't an easy prey and have a few tricks you want to know before attacking, thinking "I'll just walk into her bubble and cut her to pieces" is the perfect recipe to get owned hard. Start outside of her buble but hide the Doctor from her LoS (with a Kentauroi or a FC for example) or she may force the good doctor to activate before he is ready to make his move.

You want to deal with Poltergeist first or all the ruthless in the world won't work versus her. Be sure to heal to full and bring some SS to reduce damage, the second you target Pandora with an attack she will use oportunistic to end all the Focused or Poison in the Doctor and a lot of his sustain with it. Don't overely in dealing damage with the attacks to heal because Pandora could delay his activation while one of the beaters of the crew handle the Doc (which may have injured after being attacked with Self-Loathing).

Don't get overconfident near of them with the poison poke because they can field a lot of lures to make a model enter in their killing zone. And bring some condition removal is important because her crew will handle a ton of states from a decent range, including stunned and slow.

56 minutes ago, LeperColony said:

but are there any issues I should look out for?

Condition removal, that may ruin your Poison/Injured stacks. Anything withto damage flips or that ignore hard to wound is also a priority target.  Built in onslaught trigger or models with a high base damage are also things to watch out.

[SteampunkCake]

I completely forget about opportunistic! The Pandora player at my local group basically never uses it outside of stunned.  Good point about keeping him out of LOS, Self loathing on himself is a nasty way to get the good doctor into a world of hurt, suddenly ignoring his own defensive tech.
It might even be worth it to bring a couple of nurses in that situation and get them to seduce enemy models into getting out of the death bubble or get teddy to attack kade or poltergiest to slap pandora

[Nikshe]

4 hours ago, LeperColony said:

I'd expect that since McMourning's crew can heal fairly reliably at the end phase, opponents do a lot of focus firing to make that a non-issue. 

Note that the Catalyst Ability affects your models too. That means McM, Sebastian, Rafkin and whoever of their band nearly will heal 1 damage at the start of the activation. It can save your Rogue Necromancy, for example.

 

Also, fear the Tri-Chi keyword crew. The Brewmaster will punish you by your own Poison, with all that Slow and additional Damage.

[Ogid]

12 hours ago, SteampunkCake said:

I completely forget about opportunistic! The Pandora player at my local group basically never uses it outside of stunned.  Good point about keeping him out of LOS, Self loathing on himself is a nasty way to get the good doctor into a world of hurt, suddenly ignoring his own defensive tech.

Haha! Oportunistic is one of the best abilities of Pandora! It affects every condition and even works when other models attacks her! Note that when self-loathing is used, the one attacking is Pandora not the Doc; that attack doesn't apply Precise.

12 hours ago, Nikshe said:

Also, fear the Tri-Chi keyword crew. The Brewmaster will punish you by your own Poison, with all that Slow and additional Damage.

The Brewmaster or Pandora are examples of masters with mechanics that counter his Poison. In those matches it would be better going light on Poison and focus in other parts of their strengths. Just having 1 Poison is equivalent to Regen+2 (1 per catalyst and 1 at the end of the turn). Versus the brewmaster for example blood poisoning can be used to reduce poison stacks before activating them to avoid the slow or to strip poison from full wds enemy models (it's almost a free dispel magic versus poison) and remember he can summon flesh constructs; get Sebastian, Mortimer and a Grave digger and summon 1 FC and 1 Canine Remains each turn for a different flavour of the Doc.

[SteampunkCake]

First game with McMourning yesterday Vs Marshals. Reckoning, standard deployment.
I took:
McMourning
Chihuahua
Sebastian
Rafkin
Nurse
Flesh Construct
2 Kentauroi

My Schemes:
Assassinate
Take Prisoner - one of the death marshals

My opponent had:
Lady Justice - LLC
The Judge - LLC
Scales of Justice
2 Death Marshals
Exorcist
Domedores de Cadaveres
Death Marshal Recruiter

my opponent's schemes:
Assassinate
Breakthrough

I started my first round by having the chihuahua and Rafkin loading the entire crew (except Sebastian - more on that later) with about 10 poison each. The two death marshals were on each flank and just ran forwards to the centre line.
Mistake 1 - I activated the FC and had it barrel straight for the death marshal on my right and hit it for 3 damage. When lady Justice activated at the end of the turn she immediately went and decapitated it.
I had the first Kentauroi drag McMourning forwards and then walk off and focus, to threaten the exorcist next turn. The second Kentauroi went to ride with me on the nurse to pull her forwards and failed. So it just went right to back up the FC.
Mistake 2 - I left the first Kentauroi in range of the Domedores who command corpsed on it and had it charge at Sebastian, doing 3 damage to him. This is a cascading issue that I only compounded on in turn 2 and 3
Basic turn 1 stuff, move forward + focus.

Turn 2 started with Mistake 3 - Sebastian charging at the death marshal with take prisoner and dealing a little damage to him, but engaging him to try and score. I should have waited until later in the turn to attempt this.
The Exorcist activated, made Sebastian undead and then proceeded to give him adversary. The death marshal moved forward, stabbed Sebastian and then put him in the pine box. I had the Kentauroi move back over to McMourning and drag him forward before charging the exorcist and engage the death marshal. The other death marshal moved forwards to try and get into my deployment zone for next turn, but the Kentauroi moved in and finished the job the FC started (then pushed back away from LJ).
McMourning charged forwards and killed the Exorcist before moving off into the trees for concealment (Mistake  4 - I should have kept Mcmourning back and moved back towards the blocking terrain in the centre).
The domadores moved up and started putting injured and some damage onto Mcmourning and then the judge flew forward and started stabbing him. The recruiter started shooting Sebastian 
Rafkin moved over to support the Kentauroi and then got eviscerated by LJ.

End of turn 2:
Both scored Reckoning
I scored the first point of Take Prisoner
2-1

Turn 3
With Sebastian in the box, the death marshal recruiter continued shooting him. With crit strike his min was 3 and Sebastian was on 2 health (Mistake 5 - I burned my last soulstone to keep Sebastian alive which didn't work as he only prevented 1 of 3. Mistake 6 - I didn't stack Sebastian with any poison other than what he started with, so when he took damage he was only healing 1 a turn rather then the 4-3-2 that the rest of the crew was getting).
Mistake 7 - I activated a full health McMourning and tried to attack the Judge. I did 5 damage to him but failed to do anything significant other than give him 3 poison and make him ditch 2 cards to avoid being injured. The Domadores and the Judge proceeded to annihilate Mcmourning.
The Chihuahua moved over, healed the severely injured Kentauroi back to full and then ran away.
The remaining Death Marshal proceeded to put the other Kentauroi in the box and walk towards my deployment zone.
Mistake 8 - The nurse would have been my only hope at saving McMourning, but she was too far away to reach him and thus he died.
The Kentauroi failed to get out of the box and the other one engagine LJ pushed out with ride with me, charged, did a point with stampede and did 2 damage, then got Rear up and did another point of damage. Second attack, missed and LJ riposted. LJ then removed the Kentauroi in her activation. Then used leap to get into my deployment zone and drop a scheme marker
 
End of turn 3:
Guild scored a second point for reckoning and break through
2-3

Turn 4:
At this point I had a buried Kentauroi, a nurse within range of the DMR, the judge, the scales of justice and the domadores, and the chihuahua.
The nurse charged into the scales and killed it before healing herself.
The judge then cut her down.
The Kentauroi broke out of the box, ride with me out of combat with the death marshal, at this point I could either hope not to get put in the box and last 2 turns with LJ still running about, or I could take out a death marshal and deny him break through. I charged into the DM and failed to do much of anything.
LJ moved around one of the buildings and removed the chihuahua.
The domadores moved up and nuked the Kentauroi.

End of turn 4:
Guild scored a third point of Reckoning and I scored a second point.
3-4

Turn 5:
Marshals tried to score breakthrough but were unable to get the last marker down.

End of game:
Guild scored a 4th point for Reckoning for wiping out my crew and scored a point for Assassinate.
3-6

First time using McMourning and I made quite a few mistakes. I shouldn't have blocked in all my movement on turn 1, the nurse and rafkin were stuck in the deployment zone without any means of getting further forward. The flesh construct should have gone to back up McMourning and make LJ's job a lot harder rather than hitting a death marshal once. Be wary of models with obey-like abilities when the Kentauroi are around because they can hit like a truck (essentially becoming a min 4 model if they get into B2B). Spread the poison around, the nurse, rafkin and chihuahua really didn't need to have 10 poison and Sebastian was left with the measly 2 he starts on which meant that he died to a few shots whilst in the box.

[Wyamphri]

Also watch for condition removal if you are hoping the poison will keep you alive

[thewrathchilde]

Doc is a flex crew for me. It is maneuverable enough that it can be a backup for Plant or Turf and it is resilient enough that it can push Idols really well too. Doc is rarely the number 1 choice for me in a given match but he is a great second choice if I am playing something that forces me to use different masters in each round. 

I used him in Nova as my choice for the duplicate Plant Explosives game (standard deployment) so I could save Molly for Plant (corner deployment). As mentioned above I have used him well in Turf and Idols as well. He can do Recokoning pretty well too with a  hit and run crew. 

Generally I play something similar to Doc w/Killer Instinct, Chihuahua, Rogue Necro, Rafkin, Kentauroi, Kentauroi, Nurse, Gasser + stones. 

I swap Sebby & Rafkin in and out depending on what I think I am more apt to need. I prefer Sebby but Rafkin helps with the setup. I usually do a minimal setup with them using the Chiuahua, Gasser, and Rafkin to put an initial poison load on the crew (Chihuahua also attacks with trigger Infect for more Poison)  and then shift to moving on the weak flank with the Rogue, and double Kentauroi taxi service. 

It is a great crew and a lot of fun. I haven't had a bad game with it at all.....it just never seems it is the best pick for the job though it is often a good pick for the job. 

[Ludvig]

I believe Kentauroi are plentiful (2) now. 

Are kentauroi a must take? I don't own them and had hoped to scrape by on what I already own since I'm not heavily invested in ressers.

 

[HadjiMurat]

5 hours ago, thewrathchilde said:

I swap Sebby & Rafkin in and out depending on what I think I am more apt to need. I prefer Sebby buy Rafkin helps with the setup.

Can you, or anyone, elaborate more about when you prefer Seb over Rafkin? I don't own Rafkin atm, so I haven't testet out my McM crew yet cause every list I see includes Rafkin. And he seems vital for the poison mechanic stacking.

[SteampunkCake]

2 hours ago, Ludvig said:

I believe Kentauroi are plentiful (2) now. 

Are kentauroi a must take? I don't own them and had hoped to scrape by on what I already own since I'm not heavily invested in ressers.

 

They are, which makes the 3 model box a little confusing.
They are really good minions, fast, durable, able to hit like a freight train. On the charge, if they can end in base contact they essentially become a min 4 damage beater, with a trigger to do a further 2 damage to everything around them. And then they can ride with me out of combat and charge in again.

[thewrathchilde]

4 hours ago, Ludvig said:

I believe Kentauroi are plentiful (2) now. 
 

good thing we only considered instead of tried using 3 then. I will edit my above accordingly. 

4 hours ago, Ludvig said:

Are kentauroi a must take? I don't own them and had hoped to scrape by on what I already own since I'm not heavily invested in ressers.

I think they are but that may be personal preference. They speed up the crew considerably  and help with the mobility of your slower models too. This is essential for being able to isolate and attack sections of the opponent’s crew on your terms . 
 

They also greatly enhance your ability to position models and accomplish a range of schemes- they can get deep for things like Search and Breakthrough, they can put out multiple markers for things like Harness, Search, and Detonate. They also have a good wound pool and stacked with poison have a lot of healing which lets them do things like push Idols. 
 

They also provide another source of solid damage output for the crew. I would never leave home without them in the Doc’s crew and would drop Sebby or Rafkin before I dropped a Kentauroi.

[thewrathchilde]

13 hours ago, HadjiMurat said:

Can you, or anyone, elaborate more about when you prefer Seb over Rafkin?

Sebby is considerably more survivable with HtW and the ability to use stones. He is also Size 1 which provides some benefits in terms of being able to hide and protect him while he is getting in position. It can also provide some drawbacks as well with his Auras so you have to be careful with that as well. 

Generally i prefer Sebby because in addition to the additional survivability he is better offensively as well. He has the same Shockwave attack as Rafkin but also has a better melee attack (Stat 7 vs. Stat 6, built in Infect, Critical Strike (not built in)). Rafkin does have Rip and Tear on his melee which is nice but without being able to use stones you have to have a high Ram in hand to guarantee the attack.  Sebby also brings options with Wicked on his attacks as well so he can do damage on the Disengage instead of reducing the push. Instead of swapping Poison he can Rip the poison off to do damage up t a 5 damage hit which is nice. 

He also brings Ruthless as well which can be a game changer against certain opposing crews. 

Quote

I don't own Rafkin atm, so I haven't testet out my McM crew yet cause every list I see includes Rafkin. And he seems vital for the poison mechanic stacking.

Rafkin does let you stack a couple of extra poison first turn but generally this isn’t needed. For players that are using his Shockwave to add poison Sebby has the same ability. 
 

the difference in the poison stack is really just his end of activation pulse (1 poison) and the pulse (1 poison) when he concentrates. In most matches you can put enough out on the key models with the starting poison from Doc, the Chihuahua, and a Gasser that you can live without Rafkin. Those tools give you 6 poison starting on most of the crew plus an extra 2 on the Doc for a total of 8 with the Chihuahua attacking him and you can stack a couple of more from the Smashed trigger from the Nurse. 
 

After the initial bursts you can use the Chihuahua and Gasser on following turns to bump up some more on the crew while also splashing it into the enemies. Similarly Sebby can catch your guys in the Shockwave ad well though generally I just prefer his melee attack over his Shockwave. 
 

the place I find the most use for Rafkin and the additional poison is those games where there is a lot of ping, pulse, or condition damage like from Kaeris where you are counting on the poison to offset the damage from things like burning or Lethe’s Caress. 
 

Even with only 6-8 poison starting out with models in the Catalyst range that is still 3-4 points of healing first turn through third turn without even being topped off. With the occasional pulse from the Chihuahua and Gasser that sustains it longer and increases the healing.