Lucius - what’s his trick.

[Regelridderen]

I’d love to play around with Lucius at some point, as I love the idea of stopping a bunch of cheeky demons with a lawsuit. But I’m not entire sure, what to do...

I’m looking at mimic/elite tricks :

Mimic there are lots of unique abilities/attacks, that can be great to reproduce/abuse in multiples, and with doppelganger, agent 46 and changelings, you’ve got lots of opportunities.

Obey Zoraida has gotten a bad reputation from this, and with lawyers, mimics and possibly the jury, you get plenty of chances to turn the opponents crew against him - or throw idols around, And obeying your own is of course a great way to direct damage towards a particular target.

Card Draw Activating models out of turn, can give you cards, however only if the activation came from a more expensive model... Within keyword this mean Lucius can draw cards from everybody, while lawyers can obey investigators to draw cards... I feel, I’m overlooking some clever tricks here.

Staggering Garrotes this seems inefficient, but interesting. Hitting opponents with staggered for extra damage with stat7 attacks. But 0’ reach makes these dependent on good planning.

Out of keyword, I’m looking for hard hitting minions - such as Executioners, or good unique attacks such as the pale rider (to copy), and make the most of Lucius.

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But how do you play him? What models do you hire for him? What strats does he excel at? Do you prefer him Neverborn or Guild.

[Ludvig]

Lawyers get cards from obeying each other as well I think. No idea how to play him but pumping attacks out of a couple of beaters (yours or the enemy's) with two lawyers seems efficient since you can concentrate a lot of force on a single model and hopefully remove it. A single decent beater copied by agent 46 and then both of them being obeyed seems nice. He's got lots of scheme-buggery going on. As long as you have an obey left you can make people just pick up their own scoring markers or move to where you want them to score take prisoner or whatever. 

Taking him with 2-3 lawyers in idols seems good.

[Regelridderen]

31 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

Taking him with 2-3 lawyers in idols seems good.

How do think you about lawyers vs The Jury. Lawyers seem great, but dependent on you getting a low mask (per lawyer), while the Jury is more reliable in every sense (although at at 3 stones more).

[Ogid]

Lucius seems good, some extra tricks for your list:

• Strong scheme play: A lot of ways to make it harder for the other player and easier for his crew; they even have False Claim in the keyword (False Witness). Scheme heavy pools would be probably very good for him.
• Changelings: Can copy Issue Command from Lucius; that's an extra action for important models per changeling.
• Mimic: It seems to keep the suit and fate modifier; keep this in mind when looking for good targets (specialy with the Doppleganger and her stat 7); this also make the crew very versatile, being able to field good firepower and good close combat models.
• Totem: Very good totem with Dispel Magic, focused, Betrayal, some chip heals and a decent defensive tech.
• Tools for the job: Amazing ability to keep the hand filled with high cards in the Lawyer and give him the right suits for the turn.
• Inhuman Physiology: Strong ability, specialy in a model that can mimic good ranged actions
• Order funeling: He can be sure that the job gets done (being it keep a beater beating or droping a lot of scheme markers with False Claim); this also make the staggering attacks better, as an investigator already in place, can be obeyed to take advantage of his damage track and stat. And the crew can do that while drawing cards, lots of them.

About NVB or GUI... not sure where he would be better, it's probably good in both.

[KingJocko]

I've had some luck running a list focused on Staggering Garrotes. It was against a Nekima crew and the combination of Alan Reid, 2 Investigators, and The Scribe was surprisingly powerful. Not only were the Garrotes landing with every hit because of their high stats, but the enemy models could barely touch me from all the negative effects they put out (Betrayal, Intimidating Authority, Diversion, and Boring Conversation). There were still issues, the 0" range meant I was always taking Black Blood damage and needing Lucius to Issue Order them into engagement since all the Nephilim out range them in melee. After the dust settled I took out Nekima, 2 Mature Nephilim, the Blood Hunter, and I think Heyreddin as well (that kill might've been from Lucius obeying an Executioner) while I only lost Reid, though the 2 Investigators were barely holding on. I do plan on trying this list again, but with the Asylum models as well to double down on Staggered effects.

[Ludvig]

@Regelridderen you're probably right, I'm just a sucker for themed models. I'm also assuming I'll draw plenty of masks or activate the lawyers when my discard pile has a tasty mask on the top to feed their abilities. Their zero also uses a mask for double shielding and they make it painful to interact near them which is nice.

@KingJocko no doppleganger for auto stagger or copying matures?

[Ogid]

1 minute ago, Regelridderen said:

How do you about lawyers vs The Jury. Lawyers seem great, but dependent on you getting a low mask (per lawyer), while the Jury is more reliable in every sense (although at at 3 stones more).

The layers... an stat 5 is a bit low but if the other crew has low Wp then it may work well (also with the amount of card draw, you could ditch a medium mask to get the trigger with little regret) and the model is quite good. The Jury obey is much better, and it can be Mimic keeping the suit by the Doppleganger or the Agent but that's more points and force you to bubble a bit... both seems good depending on the situation.

[Cursed25]

one list I really want to try is a gunline mimic heavy list! Using either Melissa KORE or a Rifleman for lots of 14'' long range shooting! Also this gives a lot of execute trigger with the rifleman! don't know if it's good yet but I really want to try it soon!

[4thstringer]

Agent 46 mimicking a gun is scary.  I've wanted to use him to copy pale riders gun, and take lots of stones to proc the trigger a bunch and stagger the entire enemy while doing tons of damage. Then when they get close, pale rider can make everyone charge and get you lots of cards.

Mimicking that gun could also make investigators scary.  +2 damage and stat 7 against an injured enemy feels like something serious.

[Angelshard]

Are we sure you get built in suits for a mimicked action? As I understand it the built in suits are part of the Stat and gets replaced by the Stat of the mimic action. 

Edit: that was also how it worked in m2e

[Regelridderen]

19 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

@Regelridderen you're probably right, I'm just a sucker for themed models. I'm also assuming I'll draw plenty of masks or activate the lawyers when my discard pile has a tasty mask on the top to feed their abilities. Their zero also uses a mask for double shielding and they make it painful to interact near them which is nice.

I’m a sucker for a good theme as well - and love how keywords impact crew selection in M3E - but you could say have an out-of-keyword courtroom drama theme of judge, jury and executioners etc.

‘And I just realized that the lawyer draw is from the discard pile, which makes it so much better. E.g. discarding low masks and reclaim high cards, or just ditch a random useless card for a high mask, whatever is available. 

[Regelridderen]

2 hours ago, Angelshard said:

Are we sure you get built in suits for a mimicked action? As I understand it the built in suits are part of the Stat and gets replaced by the Stat of the mimic action. 

Edit: that was also how it worked in m2e

Stat  only refers to the numerical, so suits and bonus flips are copied with a Stat7/6. The rule book is pretty clear on this, even though the card layout may suggest otherwise. 

[Ludvig]

If you have a bunch of models with tools for the job you can cheat an awful lot of red jokers on defensive flips if you know the enemy can't force another duel before its your time to activate. 

[le_wahou]

1 hour ago, Regelridderen said:

Stat  only refers to the numerical, so suits and bonus flips are copied with a Stat7/6. The rule book is pretty clear on this, even though the card layout may suggest otherwise. 

The only post in the rule section question points otherwise :

This is a forum answer, not a final answer. I guess we will have to wait for the FAQ to be sure. I would tend to agree with the "do not keep modifiers" version.

[Angelshard]

@Regelridderen I'm afraid I disagree. As I read it the Stat is a number, that may also have a build in suit. The suit is still part of the Stat and not a separate factor. Also this is the exact same way it was written in m2e and there you removed the suit. 

Regarding lucius, has anyone tried a Bury list? Doppel and agent can pretty much guarantee burying enemy models. 

I could see the fun in ordering the agent from enemy to enemy, burying them. If he copies a death marshal the opponent can't cheat to defend and will then be distracted (so most likely can't cheat) trying to get his model back. Add jury for extra damage on all the buried models. 

[Adran]

Rules aren't always discussed in the rules forum. Since that discussion there was another one in the Malifaux discussion section. I think Ogid has now linked that rules thread to there.

[Cursed25]

2 hours ago, Angelshard said:

I could see the fun in ordering the agent from enemy to enemy, burying them. If he copies a death marshal the opponent can't cheat to defend and will then be distracted (so most likely can't cheat) trying to get his model back. Add jury for extra damage on all the buried models. 

distracted only works when you target an enemy model with an action! So he does not suffer a  for the unbury duel with distracted!

[Regelridderen]

3 hours ago, Angelshard said:

@Regelridderen I'm afraid I disagree.  

Be as afraid as you want, but p. 22 of the rules is pretty specific, in defining suits and bonus flips as something separate from the Stat. 

[4thstringer]

What I've run into with lucius is that his crew hates getting punched in the face.  It just can't handle any sort of aggression.  Is anyone else having this experience?

[le_wahou]

The only I played Lucius was against Leveticus. I conceided on turn 4 because I had no model left, and every actions I made were to kill/survive. I should maybe have spread and ran for points.

This is my only experience, that's not enough to have a real opinion.

[Angelshard]

@Regelridderen no they're not, I'm not gonna derail this thread by discussing it here, so I'll discuss it in the rules forum.

@Cursed25 you're right, I somehow convinced myself it was an opposed duel, still think it might work though.

Has anyone tried Papa loco in a lucius crew? Spamming mv 13 shockwaves could be quite devestating.

[le_wahou]

1 minute ago, Angelshard said:

@Regelridderen no they're not, I'm not gonna derail this thread by discussing it here, so I'll discuss it in the rules forum.

@Cursed25 you're right, I somehow convinced myself it was an opposed duel, still think it might work though.

Has anyone tried Papa loco in a lucius crew? Spamming mv 13 shockwaves could be quite devestating.

You can already spam them in a family crew with A por El. I tried it. I was able to melt my opponent's hand, but I did not deal that much damage. An experienced player will accept to take shockwave damage on some models, and cheat on the important ones.

[Yore Huckleberry]

29 minutes ago, 4thstringer said:

What I've run into with lucius is that his crew hates getting punched in the face.  It just can't handle any sort of aggression.  Is anyone else having this experience?

I’ve only done theorycrafting, but it seems like you want to use the ability where you discard to put the opponent at - flip to attack, given that you’re able to draw a bunch in this deck.

Two fun draw tricks:

Alison Dade’s blackmail ability resonates really nicely with Lucius: the opponent must choose whether to discard 0, 1, or 2 cards or give you pass tokens for every card they don’t. Then she has a built in  to trigger an effect where she can discard any number of pass tokens to draw a card. Since Lucius gives you a draw whenever ANYONE discards a pass token, you could draw four cards here. She can do it twice (or three times after auto-fast from the opponent revealing a scheme) although she needs two distinct targets to do so — stat 6  vs WP within 6”. So now you’re looking at a potential top end of a 12-card draw out of Allison’s activation ... and that’s assuming you’re not just there with an elite crew and can discard your own pass tokens to double up in the first place.
 

The second trick may or may not work, but it’s obey stacking: you use Lucius to obey a lawyer to obey someone else. Maybe throw the doppelgänger or Agent 46 into the chain if you want (and string the order across the board a la telephone?). This relies a bit more on flips going your way ... but if you only want the card draw out of it and are treating the resulting action as a bonus, you can cycle a ton of cards. One note: longer chains take pacing, since mimic keeps the ability until the end phase but means those powerful figures have to go earlier.

[Myyrä]

Drawing cards and not doing anything with them is pretty pointless.

[Angelshard]

@le_wahou  but a family crew can't spam staggered. A mv 13 duel becomes a lot less fun with -2 mv.