Learning Lady J

[Starrius]

So I've recently started to use Lady J. And atm I'm struggling to get her right in my head. I use some of her keyword models in other crews and there are times death marshals are useful, but when I build a crew around lady J I am struggling to get it to work. 

 

Lady J position game seems really important but vs my main opponents I'm finding her to not really be able to get effective kills.

 

What models/schemes are you using her on and what's your overall plan/crew with her?

[Beta]

Lone Marshal, Steward, Pale Rider, Jury I would almost always consider.

Making sure to always have a Ram or Mask in your hand to get the leap of with the trigger helped me a lot.

I also have to admit I've used her quite sucessfully as a scheme runner...(Breakthrough, Power Ritual)
With Leap and 3 AP she is quite mobile and opponents usually try to avoid her.

[le_wahou]

I try to have a taxi with Lady Justice. I use her in a very aggressive way. On turn 1, I taxi her, and on last activation moves and leap to get a kill on a small cost model. On turn 2 I send her in the middle of the opponent's crew and try to kill a key model. I soulstone to keep her alive during turn 2-3 and I run away on turn 4 or 5 to scheme run with her.

She is really a wrecking ball. I was worried to send her in the middle of a crew. With 5 def, 12hit points and HtW, I thought she would die way too fast. After a few games, I understood that opponent are usually so scared of her that they tend to not focus her. This is not a bad decision for your opponent. If you soulstone to prevent damage, and target smaller models with her to get 2 kills and 4hp healed in one activation, it is really awfully long to take her down.

My advice would be : send her in your opponent's face until turn 3. Even if he kills her, he will have spend so many AP with his high cost models that this will cost him the game. After this, use her as scheme runner.

[Beta]

8 minutes ago, le_wahou said:

My advice would be : send her in your opponent's face until turn 3. Even if he kills her, he will have spend so many AP with his high cost models that this will cost him the game. After this, use her as scheme runner.

LLC helps a bit to get this going. Also I usually have 6+SS when playing her (for Leap trigger and damage prevention)

[le_wahou]

1 hour ago, Beta said:

LLC helps a bit to get this going. Also I usually have 6+SS when playing her (for Leap trigger and damage prevention)

With every boss except LJ, I go with around 5-6SS. For LJ, I know that I will need at least 3 soul stones for the leap trigger so I do not start with less than 8 SS. If your opponent focus her, it will be a lot of damage prevention. If he do not, i will use them on quick reflexe to get some damage on secondary targets.

[Lord J]

For the main core of the crew, i usually consider 2-3 models from: Lady j herself, Lone Marshal, Pale rider and Dr. Grimwell. These gives me mobility and some nice dmg. 

The rest of the crew depends on S&S and enemy faction/Master, but usually around Domadores, Jury, Exorcists and/or Judge. 

Ocasionally Steward, Brutal effigy+upgrade or directly Emissary. 

Rarely using DMR and DM. 

Can get enough tools for potentially good chances on each of the current 4 Strategies. Their lack of cheap scheme runners force you to be creative (and cautious) with schemes involving lots of Scheme Markers. 

 

[Yore Huckleberry]

I’ve also been learning Lady J. One major impact is that people (rightfully) respect the threat range she projects. She’s a 4-5 AP master when you’re pulling that leap off. I would agree that part of the game with her is pacing her health: very little can drop her in a single activation, and she can recover a ton of health by killing a small model or two, or simply running away. Her counter attack trigger is also solid if you have an extra stone or two.

I think the ideal is to scare your opponent back from a position (or punish them for taking it), then trick them into targeting her because she “just has DF 5.” Starting with a flanking model is fine, or leap her someplace where her 2” engagement means more than one model will have to either disengage/flee or walk/attack (which pressures their AP).

Getting the Steward up to help heal her meanwhile, or then activating her and using juggernaut for a big recover (people forget she has that second free action because the leap is such a big deal!). Hard to Wound does real work unless they can ignore it or create Drunken Kung Fu or something.

If you want to play her aggressively, adding at least one Domador is a good idea: Lady J locks something into melee with her 2” range. They come after her, but then the Domador basically does a remote life drain, damaging her foe and healing her up — it’s a really creative kind of support unit.

All of that said, she is also a good schemer. Leap gives her four AP for that, so she can complete everything from Search the Ruins to Detonate Charges by herself. Take prisoner is an option sheerly because of her mobility, though the rest of the crew doesn’t help. And she can team up with her “taxi” unit or some other thing to take on things like Harness or Power Ritual or Breakthrough (though I find the caution she instills usually stops people from leaving deployment undefended).
 

I’ve experimented with two upgrades: Lead Lined Coat (though it’s already tough to misposition her because lures Target her stat-7 willpower and obeys usually exclude masters) and No Prisoners, which upgrades her on-kill healing to 3 health and also allows her to push 2” after a kill ... including a kill during which you declare the Quick Reflexes trigger (so she pushes 2”, then adds a 2” engagement range: this is not incidental damage!).

As for other units:

Lone Marshal is gold; run and gun basically makes it a 3 AP unit that can stay safe and pressure your opponent at range.

The Judge is similarly “3 AP” bs undead crews because of the upgraded damage track on Crumble Away, but otherwise is a bit slow unless you’re in Flank Deployment or something.

Jury is situational too: the obey is good (its stat is one lower than Zoraida’s!), but you DO need an 8 or better. If you’re using it offensively, that’s fine: you probably mean to use a high moderate or a severe. But it’s a bit of a hand trap for repositioning your own units. That said, the free action to make something undead is good and the stoneable defense trigger your make them take the same damage as you (especially since YOU will heal from a Domador or the Steward or the Pale Rider!) is a potent deterrent.

Domadores are great healers and have interesting potential in a melee scrum. Teching them with exorcists for hand pressure from execute triggers are interesting but probably a resource and positioning trap.

Exorcists are a good 10” glass cannon: duck-walk them forward with a good beefy bodyguard like your master. The anti-summoning techno’s great but unsuited (splash in Agent 46 and copy it to insta-kill ice golems for a stone!).

Death Marshals are remarkable pawns for five stones: they have a 12” gun, a hand-pressuring and bubble-breaking tool in pine box (useable after charging of course!), and very good defenses, since little will drop them in even two attacks through hard to kill. That said, they aren’t very schemey.

Death Marshal Recruiters are interesting: tech in one to give everyone that push out of corner deployment, maybe, but their real use is denying reckoning points against exorcists or targeting buried Tara or Dreamer models.

Pale Rider and Guild Steward have plenty to do in this crew: you may well wind up using the Rider pulse to have Lady J and the Judge charge, rather than taking the big slow/fire pulse.

 

[Lord J]

5 minutes ago, Yore Huckleberry said:

 

Jury is situational too: the obey is good (its stat is one lower than Zoraida’s!), but you DO need an 8 or better. If you’re using it offensively, that’s fine: you probably mean to use a high moderate or a severe. But it’s a bit of a hand trap for repositioning your own units. That said, the free action to make something undead is good and the stoneable defense trigger your make them take the same damage as you (especially since YOU will heal from a Domador or the Steward or the Pale Rider!) is a potent deterrent.

Domadores are great healers and have interesting potential in a melee scrum. Teching them with exorcists for hand pressure from execute triggers are interesting but probably a resource and positioning trap.

Exorcists are a good 10” glass cannon: duck-walk them forward with a good beefy bodyguard like your master. The anti-summoning techno’s great but unsuited (splash in Agent 46 and copy it to insta-kill ice golems for a stone!).

 

Jury+Domadores+Exorcists work really well together to deliver a good amount of obeys/command corpse on enemy models. 

[le_wahou]

5 hours ago, Starrius said:

What models/schemes are you using her on and what's your overall plan/crew with her?

I use her usually on killy schemes like Turf war reckoning. She is not especially good on schemes, ecept claim jump. I usually like to not use this scheme, but I fake it by sending Judge middle. The opponent will often feed models and you will not have to run to find them

For models, I have a "standard" team :

LJ

Scales

Judge

Pale rider

Steward

Effigy + effigy of fate

domador

10 soulstones, or 8 + upgrade

Turn 1, Effigy focus moves. Steward focuses LJ or rider, and double move or gives 1 other focus+move. Judge double walk or walk focus. Domador obeys rider to place him 2" ahead of LJ or focuses him and walk. Steward double walk and draw if possible. Rider rides with LJ, places her just ahead, and double shot or move shot. Lj move as necessary, leap and attack a target, if possible by engaging many models.

Turn 2, if you can kill a high threat or may be stun, activates LJ early. Otherwise, wait to take some damage before activating, and moves the team leaving the Judgeon front line. Protect the rider if necessary. At this moment, I usually have 2 or 3 models killed by LJ, my opponent under pressure having trouble to maintain his plan.

Turn 3, the riders nukes and slow as many models as possible, and I try to remember my schemes to know how I must score my points 😛

[Pergli]

Just played my first game with Lady J yesterday so take anything after this with a grain of salt:

Lone Marshal is amazing. Run and Gun with movement 7 and a 14 inch gun makes his threat range ridiculous. With a 2/4/5 damage track, it's really easy to hit those moderates to put an enemy in the ground.

Lady J definitely needs summoner amounts of soulstones for damage prevention and her leap trigger. Her 2 inch melee is a defensive trigger on it's own! If you abuse it correctly, enemy models will typically only get 1 AP to hit her (1 AP to walk and then 1 to attack) unless they are using other models to push them around.

I ran 2x Death Marshals with the no prisoners upgrade. It seemed worth it as it gave them a useful bonus action for extra damage and run and gun which by itself is like a free AP! Then if they kill something, they get a 2 inch push and heal for 3 making them oddly tanky defense 4 models with HtK. Combine them with a domador + enemy living nearby and they gain fast which just adds additional value! Unsure if this is any good but it felt pretty powerful.

Domadors seem great too. Great way to provide healing to your models engaged (which to me feels like I don't need the guild stewart), changes enemy living models to undead for a wide variety of useful combinations and can potentially obey enemies!