The Arcane Effigy/Emissary

[archivista]

Hey, Arcanists! I'm pretty new to game, and have gotten my toes into a few different factions by picking crews with badass women (Colette and Guild's Nellie first, but I'm looking at Raspi, Toni, etc). While trying to find enough models to fill out a crew, I picked up the Arcane Fate box.

Question: What is a good use of the box? I've tried running effigy, which got murdered before it could upgrade, and another game saw my emissary get slaughtered by the Neverborn's Teddy (dat Flurry... UGH.) Do any of you guys run these units? If so, with who, and in what capacity?

Thanks. ♥️

[Nikodemus]

I might hire the Effigy if I feel a pressing need for condition removal.

I'm a big fan of the bull. I use it as a standalone beater. So long as he kicks some butt he's done his job. Often with Diesel Engine. Concealment is always useful. +dmg flip is great once you realise that the Bull has 2" engagement (more than majority models in the game) and can charge multiple times per activation, with a 3/4/6 track. Then you add in 3" 'discard to cheat' aura.

Downside is that it's really expensive, it's df5, it only has 2ap to do stuff with. But I've been happy with him. Maybe don't bring him against charge immune crews though.

[Adran]

The effigy is a fairly durable 4 ss model. Its aura of discard to cheat is pretty useful if you are playing a crew that bunches up and against a short ranged crew (So it affects multiple models). I oftyen look to hiring it just as a cheap body.  Condition removal can be very useful, but that might depend on who you are facing.

Personally I don't look to upgrade my effigy to an emissary, I find it is too much of a tempo hit (you spend the early game trying to keep it safe rather than doing what you would normally want it to do). Others may well play it differently.

The emissary is a fairly hard beater (shove aside means it can get 3 attacks per turn with only a  little effort) and it attacking while its negation aura is up is quite nasty. Teddy needs quite a bit of luck to kill the emissary in 1 activation, especially if you've got the Aura up.

 

[Gnomezilla]

I haven’t had luck keeping the emissary alive long enough to stomp things (though to be fair, my opponent did warn me ‘I know this list is probably going to hit your stompybots hard, but I don’t know how hard’—it was ‘experimental’ in every sense of the word).

We’re in a weird place, Arcanists. Most factions, the effigy is the sturdiest and most survivable cheapest unit we can hire, just for staking out an isolated area and scoring points...but we have steam arachnids, almost as sturdy yet cheaper. Other factions, I will use the effigy in turf war to claim a marker and then flee that quadrant before it’s caught and killed; in Arcanists I’ll prefer the spider. Still, if you’re new the 1ss difference will matter less, and HtK is always a very good thing.

The secret ingredient to making a reach 2”, frenzied charge model a true unholy terror is careful positioning of it just outside of 1” of most models (so they can’t stop it charging) and somewhere it has room to move its 50mm base. Colette can move the emissary cheaply (low card) and easily with False Reality, or if the enemy position is advantageous can both ruin the enemy and move the emissary with Presto-Chango (that’s harder to get everything set up just right, but triply effective once you get the hang of it). I’m usually playing Hoffman so instead I just make the emissary fast and delegate other stompybots to do the pushes for its positioning.

[Mycellanious]

The Emissarys are just really good models that any faction can take into any scheme pool. Its not really like "Take him into Reckoning but dont take him into Plant Explosives"

In general, you hire the Effigy if you want condition removal (defensive or aggressive). If you are vs Pandora you can bring the Effigy to remove Stunned off a key model (relenting), then Accomplice into it before it can be applied. Vs Kaeris you can remove the burning off the Fire Golem to kill it very easily. I also wouldnt underestimate the power of the front of its card, its a lot of value for 4 stones. I took it in a game Shenlong, and because my opponent saved Shen for last turn 1 I was able to throw up the Negation Aura to make things difficult for him. In response, this forced him to cheat initiative, activate Shenlong first turn 2 and spend 2 AP to kill the Effigy. This gave me free run of the rest of the board and meant that was 2 AP he didnt use on Kang (my Claim Jump target) which kept Kang alive and scored me 2 points. Thats a lot of value for 4 stones, even if all it did was get attacked. 

Imo our Effigy is the best to grow out of all of them, due to a combination of our Effigy being useful at long range and our Emissary being able to Regen back up. I think its likely that you deployed the Effigy too far foward or were against a crew with a long of threat range (Raspy, Nekima) where you probably shouldnt be trying to grow the Effigy (or are using the Upgrade to bait the opponent out of position). When trying to grow the Effigy, deploy it far back in your deployment zone (its a good model to drop a scheme marker for / to bluff Power Ritual). Then have it walk-focus, walk-focus and evolve it at the start of turn 3 (before initiative is flipped).

A trick you can pull with the Effigy is to take Vendetta on it against a 4/5 ss model, then grow it into the Emissary. As per the Replace rules its still a valid Vendetta target, and now you just have to kill a 5 ss model with your 10ss model.

You hire the Emissary to hold one side of the board with minimal support from your other models. So if you compare it to some other 10ss models, Fire, Ice, and Metal Golem, while they tend to serve a similar purpose each of the Golems needs support from their Keyword to function properly (Fire needs burning, Ice needs Ice Pillars, and Metal needs Scrap Markers) while the Emissary needs absolutely nothing expect maybe a card for Negation Aura. So if you want to control an area with minimal investment or bubble up elsewhere, the Emissary is a good pick. 

The Emissary himself is good at scoring and denying Dig Their Graves. His 2" range means he can engage a model to prevent them from interacting, but drop a Scheme marker himself and then kill them next turn. His pulse has a trigger to remove corpse and scrap markers which is an efficient way to prevent your opponent from scoring the 2nd point of Dig. For this reason, he's also good against crews that like to drop Corpse or Scrap markers. Hes also good against bubble crews because he can pulse out damage and pulse out Slow. 

Because the Emissary has a min 3 damage track he can be effective against Hard to Wound models. Because he has a 2" mele range he can often tie up models with smaller ranges forcing them to Walk-Attack instead of Charge-Attack-Attack, effectively robbing then of an AP. If you do then, then Slow the model, it effecively loses its entire Turn. Other tricks for this guy revolve around being able to Charge twice. You can Charge-Charge even if there are no enemies for a free 4" of movement thanks to Rush (if its a straight line). It also allows him to chase down models with Butterfly Jump or Scamper with ease, which are two of the most complaines about abilities in the game. Plus, Frenzed Charge on a model with a 2" Engagement range is EXTREMELY strong because models cannot Charge if they are Engaged, but may Charge whike Engaging. So you can Charge the same model twice without moving if theres a benefit to it, like if you put Deisel Engine on him for positives to damage from the Charge action.

As for specific combos with the Emissary, Hoff can give it Fast and because it has Armor Amina and Sparks can give it Fast without damage by putting Shieldes on it first. I also like to do a dirty thing and take the Mech Rider while growing the Effigy into the Emissary because both models come online Turn 3. I use the Ridee to Reavtivate the Emissary which is pretty brutal, and it also triggers his Regen for extra healing. Railworkers can Pnematic Toss the Emissary to help it get over terrain. 

But it sounds like you are a new player, so as you get better just by playing the game you will be able to use the Effigy and Emissary more effectively. Malifaux is a game of positioning and making trades. Because of the Control Hand, both you and your opponent will get to choose 1-2 things that are definitely going to happen this Turn. Because of this, you will often end of trading models and games are won by securing better trades than your opponent. The Emissary is great for this because he does go down, which temps your opponent to spend resources killing him, but he has the tools to make it very costly for your opponent (Armor, Regen, high HP, and Negation Aura) while using very few resources of your own. 

[archivista]

Thanks for all the tidbits! I have a lot to think about, and am definitely going to give them another few tries to work things out.  My friends like playing Youko and Pandora, so it sounds like the effigy would be useful to deal with the status effects there. And the other guy in our developing scene likes largely punchy crews like Sonnia, so emissary's charge would probably be handy there to quickly close gaps and distract him from schemes... 🤔