Starting with Colette Du Bois to change my thinking

[Nohwear]

Since Malifaux is more about points then kills, I am thinking that I should start with Colette Du Bois to get me thinking less about combat.  I suppose that I should pick up a more combat focuses Master at some point to have options, though.  The Arcanist appeal to me overall, and I really like to old stage magician who knows real magic trope.  Advice and other thoughts would be appreciated.

[mythicFOX]

Start with what you like the look of is always a good bet, as is going in with your eyes open about the objectives based nature of the game.

Colette is a tough master to learn the game with but if she’s who you’re interested in the I say go for it. 

Tip wise:  what points to play for and sacrifice is going to be key. Fight the battles you can win. 

[Ogid]

Colette can be risky depending on your meta. If you have too many fast crews with easy access to focused or too much indirect damage, then it can be hard. 

But in Arcanist you have a lot of amazing versatile models and some very solid OOK picks if you need to make a crew with punch while still being nimble and very objective focused.

Coryphees and the duet are fast schemers but can also be dangerous; Steam Arachnids Swarm with Diesel engine is pretty broken too and Joss (also with Diesel Engine) is a great OOK pick if you want to put some killy pressure. The rider is another top notch schemer with her double activation or it can use the double activation in other models of the crew like the duet.

Colette crew isn't combat focused, but if needed you can field a fast crew with some punch.

[Nagi21]

So the issue you're going to run into with Colette is two-fold: Remembering everything your crew does and how it synergizes and at what time, and figuring out how to stop your opponent's points.  Colette has a lot of little things that rely on knowing what your enemy can do so you don't get put in a poor position or lose a key piece.  By the same token, you need to know what your opponent is going for in order to stop them from scoring, since while you can technically react to just about anything, stopping it is another issue entirely.  The crew suffers somewhat from lack of punch at times, and it's not uncommon to see high scoring draws when new to Colette since both of you can avoid each other given enough effort.