First impressions: McMourning.

[Maniacal_cackle]

5 minutes ago, thewrathchilde said:

I like the Rogue Necro as well. He is a baller and with a little gas in the tank at the beginning he will stick around for a while. I also dig the Nurse and 1 x Little Gasser and usually field one of each in my McMourning lists as well. The only problem with them is they usually get left behind after their activation on turn 1. They work best for me in games like Turf and Ley Lines where their is something productive they can do in the back the first couple of turns while the rest of the crew is applying pressure. Typically the Gasser will spam poison first turn, the Nurse will give Painkillers to Doc, and then carry the Stone or Flip the marker.

I found with the Little Gasser, I do a turn 1 poison spew, then by turn 3 it can be pretty far up the board scheming. Especially this season, we've got Leylines, Turf War, and Break the Lines - all things you can be productive without crossing the centreline.

6 minutes ago, thewrathchilde said:

I do like the Kentauroi and usually field 2 in my crews. 2 x Kentauroi with the Rogue and Doc can make a seriously maneuverable crew that can apply pressure from turn I and quickly position or reposition to attack where you want enabling them to inflict a lot of damage while minimizing what the opponent can do to respond.  

Will have to try this once I get them assembled (or on Vassal xD). From memory, you don't tend to take GST on them, do you?

6 minutes ago, thewrathchilde said:

The downside to Doc for me is a feel seriously card pressured every time I play him. I want a card for Doc's Orders, Rams for Critical Strike on Doc, high Masks for the Rogue, sometimes a card for Ambush, and more Rams for Rear Up and always hurt for the lack of card draw in the crew. The Tools help's from the Nurse to get a key card back but it dictates your activation with her and you have to have the card to discard. 

I have the same issue xD The crew wants a lot of cards, not just high quality cards... And so even the Nurses' card selection doesn't necessarily solve the problem (though it alleviates it).

Ressers don't really have much card draw options outside of Molly, and I suppose you could import Transmortis, but I think it is probably just the sort of thing that you work around rather than bend over backwards to solve?

I do find that Molly + McMourning + Rogue Necromancy feels a lot better on the card front, but then you end up with an even card-hungrier crew xD

[thewrathchilde]

13 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

I found with the Little Gasser, I do a turn 1 poison spew, then by turn 3 it can be pretty far up the board scheming. Especially this season, we've got Leylines, Turf War, and Break the Lines - all things you can be productive without crossing the centreline.

That is the same approach I take. He fuels the machine 1st turn to stack the survivability of the crew and then converts to a scheme runner(ash) in later turns. 

Quote

Will have to try this once I get them assembled (or on Vassal xD). From memory, you don't tend to take GST on them, do you?

No, generally I haven't found that they need it. About the only place I take an upgrade in the crew is Killer Instinct on Doc. With a stack of poison on the Kentauroi first turn from the Chihuahua, Gasser, Doc's Field Testing ability, etc in conjunction with Catalysm on Doc and Sebby to heal them 1 on activation and then more at end phase they are pretty resilient even without the upgrades. First turn if you don't have somewhere to be then Sebby can drop some shockwaves also.....usually he has somewhere to be instead. 

[bakaryu135]

Well it took a couple of days but ibhave smashed out my McMourning list on the painting table

[zeffid]

Gorgeous! Was that skin on centauri and constructs some washes applied?

[Stumpyfjord]

I’ve been thinking about McMourning again. I’ve been struggling to frame where Experimental really succeeds and further, where it excels past/differs from other Resser keywords.

Has anyone found a good framing for them yet?

[bakaryu135]

On 5/25/2021 at 11:15 AM, zeffid said:

Gorgeous! Was that skin on centauri and constructs some washes applied?

The flesh was actually surprisingly easy and took no time at all.

Step 1: Primed with games workshop Grey Seer primer
Step 2: A thin coat of games workshop Darkoath Flesh to avoid pooling
Step 3: A coat of games workshop Plaguebearer Flesh to tint the flesh

Comes out great and when I stage painted the Flesh Constructs the flesh parts for all three combined took me less than 20 minutes.

[thewrathchilde]

On 5/25/2021 at 1:30 PM, Stumpyfjord said:

I’ve been thinking about McMourning again. I’ve been struggling to frame where Experimental really succeeds and further, where it excels past/differs from other Resser keywords.

Has anyone found a good framing for them yet?

I mentioned this on the previous page- they are pretty good into GG2.

The main strengths of the crew are resiliency and movement- in GG2 the resiliency helps with Turf War so you aren't giving back markers easily and the movement is good in all the strategies. Specifically in Ley Lines the movement is great because it is pushes not places so can help get the Stone into position better than the crews that rely on places (teleports, leaps) for their movement since stone warriors can't be placed. The push movement is also really useful in Break the Line because it gives you models that can double interact in an activation to enable you to move the marker, Ride With Me/Ambush back up to the marker, and place it again. 

The crew is also fast enough to do Symbols that it doesn't have the same types of maneuverability and tools to really excel there more than some fo the other crews. Break, Turf, and Ley Lines are probably their best 3 of the current 4 strategies. When you add in versatile models or even one OOK choice then they also a pretty wide range of schemes pretty effectively as well. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

Faction wise, I know a lot of ES crews hate to see McMourning. He has loads of healing and he ignores the defensive tech of basically the entire faction. And as a leader, they don't have much condition removal.

He seems good against Arcanists for the same reason? Can't remember what condition removal they have.

[Jinn]

59 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Faction wise, I know a lot of ES crews hate to see McMourning. He has loads of healing and he ignores the defensive tech of basically the entire faction. And as a leader, they don't have much condition removal.

He seems good against Arcanists for the same reason? Can't remember what condition removal they have.

He's probably good against any Arcanist Master that isn't Sandeep, who has Oxfordians and Poison Gamin. The main cleanse of the faction is Dispel Magic on the Effigy, which is just a 5 Df, 4 health model vs. McMourning. There is also the Medical Automaton which is 4 Df, 4 Wounds with Armour +1 and has to damage to cleanse and is 5SS for most crews. If people hire the Oxfordian OOK for 7SS they do get (for a 1 action) a 5" bubble of end a condition when you activate, but they're pretty squishy with their only real defence being Arcane Shield. Other than that, Ironsides can cleanse herself of all conditions as a bonus action and you really don't want to be hitting her in melee.

Also, technically you can shoot a friendly with Envy to get Prey on Nothingness to end a condition and deal 3/5/7 damage to them, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Arcanists has no anti healing tech either, so overall probably a good matchup a lot of the time.

[Maniacal_cackle]

1 minute ago, Jinn said:

He's probably good against any Arcanist Master that isn't Sandeep, who has Oxfordians and Poison Gamin. The main cleanse of the faction is Dispel Magic on the Effigy, which is just a 5 Df, 4 health model vs. McMourning. There is also the Medical Automaton which is 4 Df, 4 Wounds with Armour +1 and has to damage to cleanse and is 5SS for most crews. If people hire the Oxfordian OOK for 7SS they do get (for a 1 action) a 5" bubble of end a condition when you activate, but they're pretty squishy with their only real defence being Arcane Shield. Other than that, Ironsides can cleanse herself of all conditions as a bonus action and you really don't want to be hitting her in melee.

Also, technically you can shoot a friendly with Envy to get Prey on Nothingness to end a condition and deal 3/5/7 damage to them, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Arcanists has no anti healing tech either, so overall probably a good matchup a lot of the time.

The bigger issue is removing poison on McMourning's models, so Envy is a massive problem

Still, I think you can fight through it. And McMourning will murder Envy super fast.

[grundil]

One other concern for Mc Mourning against Arcanist is the Scorpius ; if you don't kill him, he will kill you pretty fast. Mc Mourning can shut him down but Mc Mourning can't kill Scorpius + Envy + something else in the same time. Arcanist keep having trouble to face conditions crew but Mc Mourning have to think about these models.

[zeffid]

On 5/26/2021 at 7:13 PM, bakaryu135 said:

all three combined took me less than 20 minutes.

I envy you ) I’m still painting flesh “the old way”. Working on some Experimental models now as well. It takes me much longer 

[bakaryu135]

The Games Workshop contrast paints can be incredible if used right

[Stumpyfjord]

45 minutes ago, bakaryu135 said:

The Games Workshop contrast paints can be incredible if used right

They also just lower the energy barrier to get painting. And some color is so much better than grey. 
 

I have to have the “this doesn’t have to be the beat thing ever” talk with myself relatively frequently on painting.

[bakaryu135]

Very true.  Nothing improves the motivation to paint than seeing minis take shape with paint on them, and the contrast paints can reduce the time it takes to paint a model the size and complexity of a flesh construct from several hours to 30-60 minutes depending on just how much effort you want to put in.

[Stumpyfjord]

If Experimental is operating off of not dying and getting big heal swings, can you play strategically in two or three pods? Is it the whole crew marching together? 
 

If it is pods, what pieces do you use as a grouping to win a flank? Are they coming back into the middle afterwards?

[Maniacal_cackle]

8 hours ago, Stumpyfjord said:

If Experimental is operating off of not dying and getting big heal swings, can you play strategically in two or three pods? Is it the whole crew marching together? 
 

If it is pods, what pieces do you use as a grouping to win a flank? Are they coming back into the middle afterwards?

I end up spreading out quite a bit, since blood poisoning can be done with move, move blood poison.

[bakaryu135]

8 hours ago, Stumpyfjord said:

If Experimental is operating off of not dying and getting big heal swings, can you play strategically in two or three pods? Is it the whole crew marching together? 
 

If it is pods, what pieces do you use as a grouping to win a flank? Are they coming back into the middle afterwards?

My experience has been that the raw speed of Experimental is high enough that you can cluster 1st turn and use Rafkin to load up between 5 and 9 poison counters (1 for his passive and 2 each per formaldehyde you throw) onto the vast majority of your list.  Then use a Kentauroi with Ride with Me to pull him up the field so that he isn't left out of the action.

Between the fast flesh constructs and kentauroi with Mv6 and Ride with me you can pretty reliably have all five of them sitting on or near the halfway point of the board with anywhere between 7 and 11 poison tokens on them depending on your luck with Rafkin triggers.

My list for what it was worth last night against Yuoko from 10 thunders was:
McMourning, Zombie Chihuahua, Rafkin, 2x Flesh Construct, 2x Kentauroi, 2x Gravedigger

I won 6-4 on corrupted leylines, models healing for 3-4 hp in the end phase meant that my opponent quickly realised the futility of spreading damage out against my crew instead focusing fire on 1 or 2 models at a time.  Eventually attrition won out in my favour and turn 5 saw only Yuoko left vs McMourning, Rafkin, 2 gravediggers and 2 summoned flesh constructs, surrounded and dying to give me 2 vp for assassination while 1 construct had run off with the leystone to score the zone.