Levi @ UK nats (#2 place)

[ttsgosadow]

This weekend at the Malifaux Nationals I navigated my outcasts to a #2 spot. Got a lot of questions what I played, etc, if there's any tricks, rtf. Figured I might as well write it down here and spread the love for the old man.

During the event I ran Levi fixed list. I didn't get much practice in beforehand, maybe 2-3 games, and even though the crew isn't that complicated I didn't want to swap out stuff between games; so I was sure what everything did. Turned out the crew was flexible enough to do well.

The list:

Leveticus Basic (Outcasts)
Size: 50 - Pool: 6
Leader:
  Leveticus
    Servant of Dark Powers
Totem(s):
  Hollow Waif
  Hollow Waif 2
Hires:
  Rusty Alyce
  Marlena Webster
  Ashes and Dust
  Necropunk
  Necropunk 2
  Scavenger

It ran 6 wins one loss, wins over 2 Zoraida, Yan Lo, Kirai, 2 Tara' s. The loss was against Nekima, and was pretty bad (though I thoroughly enjoyed the game).

Will add more bits/details later. If there's anything you want to know about it, ask away!

[Wyamphri]

Would you run more than 1 scavenger, or did you find that 1 was enough?

[Fingalen]

Seems you have been lucky not to face Shenlong during the tournament. 😉

Would you mind elaborate a bit those Tara games? What s&s did you play against her?

[Jkkb]

What would your plan have been if you'd faced Shenlong? His anti-demise tech seems really strong against Leveticus and Ashes.

[Ming]

Similar to my Levi list, but I usually take the Emissary. However I am yet to test scavengers due to them being banned on tournaments as not yet released models.

[Gnomezilla]

You’re one of the Marlena people! (We all seem to play a fixed list Leveticus, but none of said lists are the same.) Did you hide her just for tanking, or use her other facets?

[ebolazaire]

Nice list! And congratulations on your showing!

I wish I could get my hand on Marlena... 

[Zebo]

Glad to see Leveticus doing such a good performance all in keyword.

It would be great to read at least a short resume of each match, what gone good and wrong, which model proved most useful in each, erc...

 I love battle reports xD

[ttsgosadow]

On 11/11/2019 at 9:03 AM, Wyamphri said:

Would you run more than 1 scavenger, or did you find that 1 was enough?

Scavengers are really good and would play 2 of I could. But I feel there's no room for it in the crew. Every model has it's use and wouldnt run only 1 soulstone. 

On 11/11/2019 at 9:31 AM, malyzubor said:

Seems you have been lucky not to face Shenlong during the tournament. 😉

Would you mind elaborate a bit those Tara games? What s&s did you play against her?

You could say I was lucky, but would have loved the chance to face 10t some more! Think I would have better chances vs shen long than Nekima

More info about the Tara games coming up!

On 11/11/2019 at 9:38 AM, Jkkb said:

What would your plan have been if you'd faced Shenlong? His anti-demise tech seems really strong against Leveticus and Ashes.

Tbh I wouldn't really know until I have played it. But I have faced the anti demise stuff on other occasions. Against kirai he took Manos and datsue bah, and also some models with a bonus action to prevent healong. That last thing was nastier. I think I can play the mini game for that, but it sure makes it way more difficult. At this point in the game you will have much more experience as the Levi player playing this mini game, giving you the edge. Also, keep Leo's activation as late as possible and kill yourself when low to prevent the snipe!

13 hours ago, Gnomezilla said:

You’re one of the Marlena people! (We all seem to play a fixed list Leveticus, but none of said lists are the same.) Did you hide her just for tanking, or use her other facets?

Mostly hide her for the card draw and tanking. But also to deny healing where needed. In some games she just was a would battery and card draw, in other games the no heal proves really strong! She's a good claim jump target as well. The charge on interacting opponents never came up in 7 games.

[ttsgosadow]

Some tricks I liked:

• Killing ashes and dust myself to instant score outrank
• Killing ashes and dust turn 4 and place the dust in the corner easiest to deny power ritual. Then just interact to remove the marker.
• Killing ashes and dust in general to place the dust somewhere to deny a scheme or tie up a model. It's easy to think you just need to reform, but I never did as just having a dust spawn way over gave/denied me more points.
• Don't forget a lot of your models drop scrap markers when dead. Scavenger as well. You can make ridiculous movement with ashes, getting to places people don't expext. Even if it's just push 1 inch to get out of melee to interact or charge something else.
• Kill Levi with his 0 action for an in activation teleport. One case I was down at 5 sounds. Used the bonus action and channelled for it, Then ditch all three cards, get three damage, redrawn next to a waif 30ish inches away with still 3 so left. It was glorious
• get stuff to 1 wd and leap a necropunk next to it! It dies at activation and so easy to position.
• Mask on scavenger for 8 inch pls. Plus a walk and the bonus action it's removing a marker at ~16 inch. It's so good. 

[ttsgosadow]

A summary and experiences for the games I played at Nationals. As said before, I played the mentioned fixed list into every pool.

Game 1, versus Gremlin Zoraida
Score 5-3 (1 reckoning, 2 outflank, 2 deliver a message vs 2 reckoning, 1 harness the ley line, 0 outflank)
First turn charge with a fast/focused Ashes & Dust killed a Silurid straight away. Softened up the first mate and bad juju, so they bit the dust turn 2. I gave myself a disadvantage on reckoning by killing this fast, but that gave me quite the edge on the schemes.
Zoraida put the voodoo doll upgrade on ashes and dust and kept him occupied the entire game. Ended up getting killed so I could have the dust storm to score outflank for me. Marlena was very helpful in killing bad juju – her anti-healing aura is strong. Last turn I made a necropunk fast to put a marker next to zoraida for last point deliver.
Opponent scored harness by obeying me to drop a scheme marker for him. Later learned that when obeyed you still drop your own markers.

Game 2, versus Neverborn Zoraida
Score 7-3 (3 plant explosives, 2 assassinate, 2 vendetta vs 1 plant explosives, 1 breakthrough, 1 assasinate)
Forgot to move Ashes and Dust turn 1. Was so busy with making sure I could do the vendetta on Bad Juju with rusty. This is the game where it became clear to me that when people attack my crew they are softening themselves up enough to get oneshot. In this case I got Levi 6” up for his upgrade. Zoraida obeyed McTavish forward and made him shoot Levi. He then activated and shot some more. With Marlena/stones/high cards I got only a bit of dg, and McTavish went to 6 wounds. So I charged in and one-shot him. This became a theme of the tournament. People softening up wd7-9 models with entropy triggers and then getting one-shot. Also, people forgot to stone for minus flip to damage. I should have focust more to offset this, because not being able to cheat dg with a neg flip is really unfortunate for him.
Stuff died so quick that getting all the points wasn’t that hard. He had a great turn of an obeyed Ashes almost killing Levi.

Game 3, versus 10T Yan Lo
Score 3-2 (1 idols, 1 deliver a message, 1 vendetta vs 1 idols, 1 deliver a message, 0 search the ruins)
First time encountering the no demise aura of Manos. Was intent on vendetta on him with Rusty, but he jumped in at Levi and put himself on 6 wounds through entropy. Then just one shot him to get rid of him and got the one point vendetta. He put a buffed Izamu in my face, which was nasty, and I tried to ignore him as much as possible as I wanted to kill other models who where more threatening/making schemes. I got Yan Lo to low wounds and he hid a bit, giving me space to score a strategy point. The Scavenger with 8”place, 5”move and 2”remove a scheme marker denied search what would otherwise have been a draw. Tight fought game! Nasty to have Manos come back all the time!

Game 4, versus Nekima
Score 2-7 (2 turf war, 0 dig, 0 claim jump vs 3 turn war, 2 take prisoner, 2 claim jump)
Boy I got myself handed to me. I had no idea mature nephilem are that strong. He threw in Nekima on turn 1 (lured with Hinamatsu) and distracted me the first turn. Because of the black blood I didn’t want to declare the unmade triggers. That made it that I just didn’t kill Nekima. Then turn 2 he got initiative and went with her again killing a necropunk before I could finish her off. And then the Mature Nephilem where in my crew. I couldn’t cheat my melee attacks on them, and that totally shut me down. The stat 5 on melee for Levi is easily outcheated then. Very well crew selection of my opponent. And he took out Marlena real quick which gave me way less options of damage mitigation. This cascaded quite quick, and he only left alive his take prisoner target and ashes and dust to prevent the break-off. One lose necropunk managed to score 2 from turn war.
Reflecting on it I feel black blood and combat finesse (of just high df stats) are very strong against Levi. I thought it was nastier then all the aura’s/no heals ressers could bring, for example. I should have set up more for a shooting game. Something my crew could do, but was totally overwhelmed with the speed of the nephilem crew. Also it was a great game and had lots of fun with my opponent. One of the nephilem snacked on Levi’s corpse!

Game 5, versus Kirai
Score 6-5 (2 reckoning, 2 breakthrough, 2 search the ruins vs 1 reckoning, 2 breakthrough, 2 search the ruins).
I made him deploy Manos first. I choose the other half of the board to deploy my crew. In the game Manos and a few other models went scheming. I could focus on slaughtering the rest and scheme as well. We ended up having trouble killing eachothers models. Kirai has lots of heals (and too dangerous to just through Marlena in), and he just couldn’t really damage me as well. He scored reckoning only once, I managed it twice. Almost lost Levi to a ‘no heal’ bonus action of a Goryo, but kept high cards to fend it off. Very cagey game.

Game 6 & 7 versus Tara tbc

[ttsgosadow]

Game 6, versus Tara (1)
Score 6-4 (2 idols, 2 search the ruins, 2 assasinate vs 2 idols, 1 search the ruins, 1 power ritual)
Was torn between deliver a message, dig their graves and assasinate. I figured I should only pick one interacting scheme max, but in hindsight deliver or dig might have been easier to score. My opponent did a great job healing Tara like crazy, making it damn hard to get assasinate. In general I just went full on to the corner where the first idol marker dropt, and sent Ashes and Dust the other way. My waifs a bit behind that. First turn saw him trying to beast bomb a necropunk but they are so tough he couldn't manage it.
Having cleared one corner of the board I could establish search the ruins and 1 idols point there. Then everything walked towards the opposing corner. It was really tight fought. On turn four he killed my scavenger because he was threatening an idols marker. That dropped a scrap marker enabling my Nothing Beast to leave combat with Aionus and get back into scheming/killing stuf. Also I killed my own levi, jumped over to his corner of the board, and murdered over there. This enabled me to suprise Tara and kill her the last turn. My opponent didnt see that coming, as he could have put pressure on the waifs instead of the scavenger. Also denying me the scrap I needed for the Ashes to move out of combat. It was a great move to pull on him though  Ended up 6-4 with him being almost tabled. Next time I should try to kill Karina way sooner. Otherwise I feel the game went pretty well. Also his scavenger management was better than mine; he managed to get back the red joker back 2-3 times. That was very strong! 

Game 7, versus Tara (2)
Score 7-6 (Plant explosives 4, Claim Jump 2, Vendetta 1 vs Plant 3, Power Ritual 1, Outflank 2)
From one Tara into the next He brought a different Tara crew though. With Hannah. Not sure what she was for, as she died top turn 2 - I managed a charge with a focussed Ashes on her turn one for 7 damage, and then hit her again top turn 2. She dropped to one and jumping a necropunk next to her sealed the deal. Messed up my vendetta though, just scoring me 1 point. My opponent was very afraid of rusty alice, and really blocked her well with engaging summons. I feel this game was closer that it could have been, as I black jokered the damage flip against the nothing beast twice in a row, and the Beast ended up making turn 5 while he should have been dead top turn 2. Lesson for me: always play as if the next damage flip is going to be the black joker. A bit better management of my AP turn 2 could have given me a second attack on the nothing beast. My opponent played really well getting him out of there, while still clogging me up. But my threat was still too strong: while he was making schemes/strats I was doing mine, but also deleting his crew. In the end I could outplay his second point for power ritual (killed own ashes, and had dust spawn in the furthest corner for him). Also he just couldnt get Marlena to below half wd for Claim jump sealing me the deal!

[Alerteddonkey42]

2 hours ago, ttsgosadow said:

Game 4, versus Nekima

I've played a decent amount against Nekima as Leveticus. My regular opponent is Neverborn (though he plays more Zoraida and Collodi). The black blood is really annoying and definitely makes the pinging from unmade less good. One model I've found to be particularly obnoxious for the nephilim crew is Arik (strongarm suit). Armor is really hard for them to deal with and their black blood can be used to just give him more focus! I think it is worth the out of keyword tax in that matchup. 

[darksoul281]

6 hours ago, ttsgosadow said:

Kill Levi with his 0 action for an in activation teleport. One case I was down at 5 sounds. Used the bonus action and channelled for it, Then ditch all three cards, get three damage, redrawn next to a waif 30ish inches away with still 3 so left. It was gloriou

You Can't suicide, its a generic rule 

[Alerteddonkey42]

1 hour ago, darksoul281 said:

You Can't suicide, its a generic rule 

You can with essence transfer, but you're right about other actions. Can't kill Leveticus with his own bonus action. 

[LeperColony]

10 hours ago, ttsgosadow said:

Later learned that when obeyed you still drop your own markers.

Unless Gaining Grounds changed it (which I couldn't find), that's not accurate.  The rules state that markers are friendly to the "Crew controlling the model that dropped it."  (digital, pg 28)

 

 

[Jesy Blue]

8 hours ago, Alerteddonkey42 said:

I've played a decent amount against Nekima as Leveticus. My regular opponent is Neverborn (though he plays more Zoraida and Collodi). The black blood is really annoying and definitely makes the pinging from unmade less good. One model I've found to be particularly obnoxious for the nephilim crew is Arik (strongarm suit). Armor is really hard for them to deal with and their black blood can be used to just give him more focus! I think it is worth the out of keyword tax in that matchup. 

Arik is almost a tailor built antiNephelim piece.  Gravity Well stops flying, Kenitic Amplifier stops Black Blood, Armor 2 stops big beater damage, Diving Charge gets you out oif being bogged down in melee.

But, at 11 stones out of keyword......?

[Zebo]

4 hours ago, darksoul281 said:

You Can't suicide, its a generic rule 

"Some models in Malifaux may generate effects that require them to suffer damage, such as the cost of an Action, or an ability that may be used by suffering damage. A model can never choose to suffer damage this way if that damage would reduce their health to 0 or below"

 

"Look at the top three cards of the model's fate deck, discard any number of them, and place the remaining cards back on top of the deck in any order. This model suffers 1 damage for discarded card."

 

Not sure, but wording don't allow Leveticus to choose damage, but cards, and damage is a consequence of the action. It could be doable. 

[ttsgosadow]

That's the way I read it as well, Zebo.

On the other hand, we would have this problems as well:

• Can a model declare an action when at 1 wound and in hazardous terrain?
• Can a model at 1 Wd attack Levi (and then die due to his df trigger)?

[ttsgosadow]

5 hours ago, LeperColony said:

Unless Gaining Grounds changed it (which I couldn't find), that's not accurate.  The rules state that markers are friendly to the "Crew controlling the model that dropped it."  (digital, pg 28)

 

 

So you can obey an enemy to complete your own scheme! Nice, don't think a lot of people think it works that way.

[Adran]

3 minutes ago, ttsgosadow said:

That's the way I read it as well, Zebo.

On the other hand, we would have this problems as well:

• Can a model declare an action when at 1 wound and in hazardous terrain?
• Can a model at 1 Wd attack Levi (and then die due to his df trigger)?

These are certainly both fine, neither of these is a cost of the action they are declaring.

[ttsgosadow]

On the subject of rules questions, another one came up that I couldn't wrap my head around. How would you think these work out?

• Yan Lo attaches an upgrade at the start of his activation which has regenerate +2 on it. Can Yan Lo can benefit from the regenerate on the same turn this upgrade is attached?
• A model with by your side can teleport at the start of his activation. He teleports within 3" of Ashes and Dust, which has aura for 1dg for models activating within 3". Does the model suffer the 1 dg?

1 minute ago, Adran said:

These are certainly both fine, neither of these is a cost of the action they are declaring.

Aye, I thought so as well! So Sanguine Ecovations can kill Levi as well

[Adran]

1 minute ago, ttsgosadow said:

Aye, I thought so as well! So Sanguine Ecovations can kill Levi as well

I think so, although this one is less clear. You can discard 0 cards to take 0 damage, but its not Leviticus choosing to suffer damage to discard the card due to the way it is written

 

 

[LeperColony]

On 11/13/2019 at 12:45 AM, ttsgosadow said:

On the subject of rules questions, another one came up that I couldn't wrap my head around. How would you think these work out?

• Yan Lo attaches an upgrade at the start of his activation which has regenerate +2 on it. Can Yan Lo can benefit from the regenerate on the same turn this upgrade is attached?
• A model with by your side can teleport at the start of his activation. He teleports within 3" of Ashes and Dust, which has aura for 1dg for models activating within 3". Does the model suffer the 1 dg?

How these "start of activation" abilities work has been argued on the rules forum, to no clear consensus. 

The two main positions that emerged are (in no particular order):

1)  "Start of Activation" language in effects refers to the point in time in which the model is selected for activation.  Any effects that are legal at that instant are resolved, but not effects that would emerge subsequent to, and because of, the resolution of the previous effects.

The logic here is that subsequent effects are no longer occurring at the "start of activation."

2)  "Start of Activation" language in effects refers to the timing step C1 (page 35 digital), which is essentially the period of time between selecting the model for activation and taking an action.  Anything that can occur during that period, whether or not the effect would have been legal or existed at the actual start of the model's activation, happens.  

The logic here is that subphase C1 says "Resolve any effects that happen at the start of a model's Activation," and so "start of activation" doesn't refer to the model's actual start, but rather to this subphase.

Or to put it another way, the model's "Start of Activation" is not one single point in time when it actually starts its activation, but is instead a period that can encompass a wider range of effects.

 

The rules are ambiguous, so it is a matter of interpretation.  I am in camp 1, because I think it's cleaner.  But either interpretation can lead to questionable outcomes in specific cases.

I've also proposed (a few times) that it's entirely possible Wyrd was not as rigorously consistent with this wording as we would have all wished, and that different effects were meant to operate differently, despite having the same timing.

For instance:

I will admit that Wyrd probably intends for Yan Lo to heal on the same turn he attached the upgrade, even though my reading of "start of activation" wording would not allow it.

However, I do not believe that Wyrd intended Colette to unbury within Hamelin's aura and take damage.  Or for two effects to ping off each other and be potentially infinitely repeatable.

 

Ultimately, you're going to need to discuss it with your opponent.  Unless and until Wyrd releases a definitive FAQ on how "start of activation" works, it's going to be a matter of interpretation.  

 

[Undercostedhenchman]

I have worked with this list however I tend to bring mad dog in place of scavenger depending on crews i am playing. If I’m expecting a lot of bunching or armour from my opponent I feel like he is amazing. He also works well with rusty as most people that have played against rusty want to engage her so to have mad dog within charge range of her to push them away give them injured and let rusty unload in to them next activation. I understand you lose a fair amount of healing and denial but I find that mostly I end up killing them faster than they can get schemes done. Or I can use threat of range to make them have to work harder to get them done. Also removing cover for rusty and Levi is pretty handy. Or on the other if it’s a crew with lots of terrifying I would switch in taelor. Outcast have some incredibly powerful undercosted henchmen and they work well on there own and in other keywords. I think this gives outcast our insane flexibility and I haven’t found that the two stones has had too much of an effect on the games I have played. This being said I understand that it is meta based and our meta does seem to play with A fairly Killy mindset to kill more and get schemes done after, Levi just does it better because of access to necropunks.