Some intermediate thoughts on Seamus.

[Maniacal_cackle]

I've played Seamus a few more times, and I'm starting to get a better feel for how to run him (although still a bit lost as to how I want my crew to look). I thought I'd share some of my initial thoughts on him, and see if any of the more experienced Seamus players can offer insights.

Seamus seems more like a scheme runner than a damage dealer.

To me, Seamus seems like the best scheme runner in the faction.

Between secret passage and 4 ap, he is going to be wherever he wants to be. With a stat 7 terrorize, he can deal with any annoying model trying to guard a marker (like a Hard To Kill Ashigaru). In a pinch, he can easily drop two markers a turn, even for Spread Them Out. He is absolutely nuts when it comes to scheming, even stronger than Reva (except for Ley Lines).

Damage wise, I'm not impressed. It seems like he can use one AP to deal 8 damage, but that's not really the case. Typically he needs to secret passage in and secret passage out to take that shot (and sometimes focus, although I think you should use his crew to give him that focus). So more realistically it is about 3 AP for 8 damage - a bit on the low side compared to our big hitters.

True, you can theoretically blast someone for 16 damage in one turn - if you have 4 severe cards to guarantee landing the hits and cheating the damage. 12 is a lot more likely/doable, which does start to be the high end of damage. Except again, you need to do pretty significant setup. A reasonable payoff, but not something that I think you can count on getting every turn.

Not to mention this play is telegraphed miles in advance. If you declare Seamus, you can pretty much guarantee your opponent is not giving you any 8 health enforcers to put down in a single shot.

So I like him for scheming, with his damage playing an important secondary role.

Seamus forces very particular crew compositions

One fantastic thing about running Seamus is that it forces your opponent to run a more elite crew. They can't afford to take a bunch of squishy minions and enforcers - you'll be removing them at the rate of 1 per turn, and probably using the secret passages such that you're doing it reasonably efficiently.

So your opponent is likely going to take a fairly elite crew, full of henchmen and tough models. This is something you can abuse - henchmen and tough models tend not to be efficient schemers, so you can start to out-efficiency the opposing crew.

In my limited experience, the threat of the hand-cannon is the useful tool here. Actually firing it for 8 damage is not as critical as being able to fire it for 8 damage.

Crew composition

This is where I'm struggling the most.

You can take a whole crew that powers up Seamus (giving him 1, 2, or even 3 focus on turn one). And he can make pretty good use of it, but it runs into the other limits of his hand-cannon I listed above.

You can take an elite crew with Dead Rider, Yin the Penangalan, etc. I think this works well when using them as elite schemers/beaters, but it doesn't work to use them purely as beaters (if you want to take a crew full of beaters, you want to run a support master like Molly IMO). But for instance scoring Take Prisoner + Spread Them Out when you have Seamus, Yin, and Rider in the crew is pretty trivial. I think Dead Rider/Yin/Seamus is definitely a combo I'll be considering for a scheme-y pool where I don't want to take Molly or Reva for whatever reason.

Nurse I think is a must take in the crew? The extra severe in hand is just so impactful with Seamus. I could see an argument for at least trying out two nurses in the crew (as then you likely could achieve the 4-severe hand necessary to reliably hit 16 damage - assuming you're not hitting henchmen).

I also want to try a variant of my Reva crew - Emissary, Bete Noire, Bone Pile, Gravedigger, Dead Rider. This would play extremely similar to my Reva crew, but would have to be a bit more careful with corpse generation/use. The upside of course is that Gravedigger produces triple the corpses compared to restless spirit when killed turn one, so corpses are usually doable.

Bete Noire is one of the strongest models in the keyword, so making her playable is something that I like a lot. I could also see a middle-of-the-road solution where I take Bete Noire but not Bone Pile. Ironically Bete Noire is another one of those models that looks like she should be a damage-dealer, but her kit ends up being better at scheming... Perhaps that's the secret theme of Redchapel?

One last thing I want to try is just flood the board with Belles and Doxies. Redchapel models are TOUGH for their costs, and you can actually lock the board down really well with them. Drowning the opponent in tough models while Seamus runs around the board scoring all the points (and killing their scheme runners) seems like a good way to go. Certainly running the triple-Belle crew was one of my best experiences with him so far. I tried a Belle/Mourner combo and it felt a lot worse (although that may have been the pool). Belles definitely feel like they're stronger in multiples.

Well, that's my current thoughts on Seamus! Hopefully I'll have some more to report back on after playing him some more, and I definitely welcome input since I have no clue what I'm doing at this stage.

TLDR: Basically Seamus says "jump through a bunch of hoops, or I'll one shot you." So you make your opponent jump through all those hoops, and while they are busy jumping through hoops you just use him as the strongest scheme runner in the faction, occasionally pausing to shoot something that didn't quite make it through the hoop. Is that what other people are finding?

[Graf]

8 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

TLDR: Basically Seamus says "jump through a bunch of hoops, or I'll one shot you." So you make your opponent jump through all those hoops, and while they are busy jumping through hoops you just use him as the strongest scheme runner in the faction, occasionally pausing to shoot something that didn't quite make it through the hoop. Is that what other people are finding?

Yeah, this is what experienced Seamus players already said more than a year ago. Even on the well known podcasts. So not really a secret? If nothing else, it at least shows, you're on a good track.

I'm always happy, if less experienced players don't use his scheming options. Gives me much less of a headache.

[Tales]

Yeah, I generally find the threat of Seamus' gun is enough to force your opponent into awkward situations, and let you control the pace of the match pretty well. He's incredibly good at anti scheming as well as scheming with a combination of his gun and just being able to push people off of points with a combination of the daze trigger and terrorize. Seamus can just about guarantee any of the "Put scheme markers on your opponent's half of the board" schemes relatively easily, and usually with enough freedom to let him help out with the strategy as well.

Seamus usually frees up the rest of your crew to focus on whatever scheme he isn't doing, as well as play the strategy. I find I generally like to take him into Recover and Symbols pools, and he's not particularly bad at the other two. He's no Von Schtook, but I think he's always at least a consideration when the pool is relatively scheme marker heavy. I usually find I'm taking both the Rider and the Emissary with him, because he's generally too busy to want to play around with his crew mechanics all that often. They're nice when they happen, but I don't think he suffers playing with a more versatile crew, and Ressurs have some excellent versatile models.

 

If you do decide to take his keyword models, however, I think both Doxies and Belles are pretty reasonable for their cost. They have a ton of wounds and lure/take by the hand can occasionally be incredibly clutch. I'm a little more iffy on the Dandies, but only because of how card intensive Seamus can be himself. Setting a 7 aside for a 4 point model can be pretty rough, although the Dandy has put in work whenever I've managed to make room for it. Bete's an oddity in that she looks like she should be killing things, but I find she performs best as an additional scheme runner, as long as you have someone who can get corpse markers where you need them(Shoutouts to the Carrion Emissary). I've been generally unenthused with Sybelle, and I admittedly have not tried the Mourner since the beta, but overall, I think Seamus' keyword models perform adequately. I reach for most of them on occasion, when I think the scheme pool calls for them, and that's an alright place to be.

Overall, I don't think Seamus is going to be topping anybody's list as the best Ressur master, but I think he's a solid pick into a lot of scheme pools. He's definitely got game and I think if we see some of our better options get tuned down a little, he'll show up more. Besides, he's a blast to play.

[ShinChan]

Seamus has an impact from master select. That gun means that the opponent won't be bringing high cost minions&enforcers that can be oneshot by him, and that's already big.

He's good as scheme running, but being able to kill most of the 8-10 Wds models with 2 actions is something to take into account. Secret passage + Gun + Carge + A cause for celebration = 1 model dead and Seamus out of danger.

Once he does that 1-2 times, he can just go score some points. The Whisper is almost mandatory on him, in order to prepare the attack and get 1 card back.

[Maniacal_cackle]

9 hours ago, Graf said:

Yeah, this is what experienced Seamus players already said more than a year ago. Even on the well known podcasts. So not really a secret? If nothing else, it at least shows, you're on a good track.

I don't really listen to podcasts, but good to know I'm on the right track!

7 hours ago, Tales said:

If you do decide to take his keyword models, however, I think both Doxies and Belles are pretty reasonable for their cost. They have a ton of wounds and lure/take by the hand can occasionally be incredibly clutch. I'm a little more iffy on the Dandies, but only because of how card intensive Seamus can be himself. Setting a 7 aside for a 4 point model can be pretty rough, although the Dandy has put in work whenever I've managed to make room for it. Bete's an oddity in that she looks like she should be killing things, but I find she performs best as an additional scheme runner, as long as you have someone who can get corpse markers where you need them(Shoutouts to the Carrion Emissary). I've been generally unenthused with Sybelle, and I admittedly have not tried the Mourner since the beta, but overall, I think Seamus' keyword models perform adequately. I reach for most of them on occasion, when I think the scheme pool calls for them, and that's an alright place to be.

Yeah, Dandies I've been sceptical as corpse generators since they need such a high card to do it (but at 4 stones, it is pretty good incidental value). I probably have a natural inclination against them because my first crew was Molly, so 4-stone crooligans set a pretty high bar xD In terms of scheme denial they definitely have a good kit!

I guess this means I have to paint them eventually 😜

[Mr. Crows]

Thanks for your input. I got kind of frustrated with the nerf to Archie, it left me feeling at a loss for crew building as well. I like the idea of trying a Belles & Doxies crew with him and maybe Bete or Sybelle?

I tried the melee focused strategy from the third floor wars podcast but pushing enemy models into Seamus kind of requires alot of hoops to jump through also. It also leaves Seamus pretty vulnerable (or you sacrifice CCK to save him).

I am a relatively new player though (~5 games with Seamus) so take everything I say with a grain of salt haha.

[Maniacal_cackle]

1 hour ago, cchase33 said:

Thanks for your input. I got kind of frustrated with the nerf to Archie, it left me feeling at a loss for crew building as well. I like the idea of trying a Belles & Doxies crew with him and maybe Bete or Sybelle?

I tried the melee focused strategy from the third floor wars podcast but pushing enemy models into Seamus kind of requires alot of hoops to jump through also. It also leaves Seamus pretty vulnerable (or you sacrifice CCK to save him).

I am a relatively new player though (~5 games with Seamus) so take everything I say with a grain of salt haha.

Yeah, often I'm looking for a good terrifying model and am sad Archie doesn't quite fit anymore. Yin is a fantastic alternative though.

Sybelle is a bit weak, and fails the '3ap test.' Typically you want a 10 stone model to be able to do three effective things on its turn (so needs leap, flurry, cause for celebration, a useful bonus action, etc). That said, her 2 inch engagement range and potentially min 5 attack is cool, and she has a useful trigger on every suit.

Bete is nuts if you can provide the corpses, but seems bad on recover evidence.

Yeah, the melee focused build seems weird to me - Seamus is so mobile and so squishy, it seems weird to just plant him in the middle of the enemy crew.

[Mr. Crows]

19 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Sybelle is a bit weak, and fails the '3ap test.' Typically you want a 10 stone model to be able to do three effective things on its turn (so needs leap, flurry, cause for celebration, a useful bonus action, etc).

Wow thats a very useful thing to know. I am surprised I haven't heard about that yet, makes sense. Too bad they didn't make an adjustment to her with the GG1 errata to make her more useful. Hopefully next season. . .

[Adran]

I'd say its a guide line rather than a rule, but if you spend a lot of points on a model you should get a return for those points. It is possible to have a good 10 ss model that only does 2 things in a turn, but its much less likely. 

If you just look at damage output then its possible for a 2 action model to out damage a 3 action model, but for Sybelle to out damage Archie then she needs to be getting 5 as her minimum damage against Archies 3. 

A malifaux models power is much more complicated than just how much damage they do, but it is a simple example as to the power of the "3AP". Likewise Archie can attack something that is 17" away (Twice) where as Sybelle can only attack twice at 7" and once at 12". 

 

[touchdown]

It can be very hard to tell what an AP is sometimes. Like Montresor I think is a strong model but mostly for his aura that prevents staggered from ending combined with how hard he is to kill. How do you quantify that with AP?

[Maniacal_cackle]

2 hours ago, touchdown said:

It can be very hard to tell what an AP is sometimes. Like Montresor I think is a strong model but mostly for his aura that prevents staggered from ending combined with how hard he is to kill. How do you quantify that with AP?

I think Adran is quite right to call it a guideline.

I guess you want your 10 stone model to be useful. One example of that is being able to do three useful things a turn. But lots of helpful auras is another possibility, or even if you want a particular synergy (I think grave golem is a good model despite failing the test).

[Maniacal_cackle]

Oh, another few things about Sybelle:

You are paying all those stones for a decent attack (with 2" range) and a bunch of synergies with the crew. But the Redchapel synergies aren't that strong (arguably the weakest in the faction) and Redchapel has access to good damage already. So she doesn't bring much to the table other than a tanky 2" engagement range, and I don't think that is enough for ten stones.

Overall, she just doesn't do enough to warrant 10 stones is the overall conclusion.