Bayou Versatiles - mandatory or obsolete?

[Gheist]

Hi guys i regularly teach Malifaux to people and get them started on the Hobby, but i need some help here.

I can't decide which Bayou versatiles are worth their salt and don't want to give crappy advice, because i myself do not play bayou, so if some of you could get me up to speed on the subject?

Cheers

[Math Mathonwy]

I don't think that any are required (I believe that all Bayou crews can be used fully in keyword) but OTOH none are horrible, though Burt and McTavish are generally considered pretty weak. Several are very good for specific situations.

Some standouts (all IMO):

Lucky Emissary is very fast, reasonably durable and pretty killy. The biggest things going for it are that it can travel far without Place so works nicely for Corrupted Leylines and the marker removal can be huge against marker dependent crews.

When it comes to markers, Gluttony is also pretty golden. Cheaper and more precise.

Gracie is a solid fighter and has Ride With Me. Durable if the opponent doesn't have the proper tools for dealing with her. The 0" Ml reach is a big liability, though.

Mech Pork is a solid 7-drop. Vent Steam can be very useful sometimes. If you need a bit of muscle he can be good to round out a crew.

Some people love Gators but I've never been very impressed by them. Ruthless is naturally nice but they die to a stiff breeze so if they threaten the opponent they most likely can take care of them. Still, as said, some people really like them so maybe the problem is me and not them. They do pack a punch in melee for their points cost.

Bayou Gremlin is two points if you need a Corpse or something. Can also damage your stuff if they like that sort of thing.

Finally, Pigapult is a strange contraption that can do amazing things and lead to bizarre shenanigans or be tied into combat and be useless. Certainly opens up interesting possibilities.

[SEV]

The best bayou versatile are indeed the Bokors 😜.

Seriously what @Math Mathonwy said. I think the most important right now is the Emissary (because of Leyline). But in general it's a great model and, imo, the only one that is a must buy. 

[Thatguy]

I think math and sev got it. 

Emissary is probably the versatile model you see the most. It's fast. Even faster if you have a ways to give it more AP.

I really like Gluttony too. But he does better in crews that have lots of markers that he can push people to and remove. He works really great with all the corpse markers that Somer were generates. I like him in Zipp too, not because he's great there, but because I really like the mental imagery of a an enemy eating an entire piano.

Between Hard Knock Life and their Deja Vu trigger, Bokors might be the best 7ss "versatile" model in the Bayou.

[Gheist]

Cool, thanks a million

helps when people are on a budget to know that kind of thing.

 

[Maniacal_cackle]

One thing to note is that some of this stuff will be super meta-dependent.

Like if you're playing against a burning Reva player every week, you probably want to pick up a gluttony if you can.

[Barmution]

Wouldn't sleep on the Smugglers, esp. if you're playing Mah. Card draw is pretty decent and lugging around Pit Traps is nifty. Their bonus is potentially pretty great with Brin as well.

[Thatguy]

8 hours ago, Barmution said:

Wouldn't sleep on the Smugglers, esp. if you're playing Mah. Card draw is pretty decent and lugging around Pit Traps is nifty. Their bonus is potentially pretty great with Brin as well.

Could you give us some of your smuggler tips? Every time I look at them they seem like a worse Prospector. 

[Barmution]

On 8/13/2021 at 4:11 PM, Thatguy said:

Could you give us some of your smuggler tips? Every time I look at them they seem like a worse Prospector. 

They're definitely at their best in Mah but I'll try to give general examples of usefulness:

- First move and place a pit trap underneath an opposing model, then charge for an automatic +2 damage and +2 injured before your attack

- If you've brought Sparks or other models w Ride the Rails you gain some pretty sweet movement options through moving scrap or traps around. With Sparks you also gain the option to appraise Pit Traps

- Brin gives you a corner case but pretty good option if you see 2 cards you want on your hand w his Intuition: Use Pulling the Strings on the Smuggler to activate Tides of Fate, it has no TN so you'll only use the unwanted card on a single duel

- Being able to move around markers can help you score 5 of the gg2 schemes and makes you a lot more flexible and harder to play against

- Showboating makes it so that your worst, non-Bj result of Appraise is to effectively cycle 2 cards, Carry the Loot makes it so that your best will be to draw 2 cards (when the opposing scheme's removed)

All that said they are definitely finesse models, break if given a hard look and should perhaps only be played with models that can produce appraisable markers incidentally. And they will almost never net you soul stones, so it's going to be hard to win a comparison with Prospectors based on that criterion. 

[Rufess]

Speaking of the versatile, has anyone proxied and tried the starter box models yet? How do they preform outside of their own keyword?

[SEV]

4 hours ago, Rufess said:

Speaking of the versatile, has anyone proxied and tried the starter box models yet? How do they preform outside of their own keyword?

I only saw the rabbit in action in a wong crew (my opponent)... It was... not spectacular. 

[Thatguy]

13 hours ago, Barmution said:

First move and place a pit trap underneath an opposing model, then charge for an automatic +2 damage and +2 injured before your attack

Nice. I've never thought of that. Would be good with a crew with a lot of pushes. 

[Rufess]

12 hours ago, SEV said:

I only saw the rabbit in action in a wong crew (my opponent)... It was... not spectacular. 

This pretty much my thought too. The enforcers are not bad, but not impressive enough neither on the paper. The henchman however seems like an interesting healing and mobility option.

[Barmution]

9 hours ago, Thatguy said:

Nice. I've never thought of that. Would be good with a crew with a lot of pushes. 

Indeed, looking forward to playing it with Kurgan: Shifting Earth into 1-2 Avalanches and potentially another push from the healing trigger on Mudslide sounds like a bad time for anybody in the vicinity. 

[Scoffer]

On 8/15/2021 at 9:52 AM, Barmution said:

First move and place a pit trap underneath an opposing model, then charge for an automatic +2 damage and +2 injured before your attack

With the last errata Smuggler+pit trap combo became much worse. Smuggler has to place marker in base contact - it means that the next action Smuggler takes will trigger hazardous damage for him.

[Gheist]

1 hour ago, Scoffer said:

With the last errata Smuggler+pit trap combo became much worse. Smuggler has to place marker in base contact - it means that the next action Smuggler takes will trigger hazardous damage for him.

True but giving out injured 2 to something can seal the deal on hat models fate... worth taking 1 damage imho

 

On 8/15/2021 at 8:52 AM, Barmution said:

All that said they are definitely finesse models, break if given a hard look and should perhaps only be played with models that can produce appraisable markers incidentally. And they will almost never net you soul stones, so it's going to be hard to win a comparison with Prospectors based on that criterion. 

i don't know , the comparison only ever comes up if playing Parker Barrows, apart from that we don't get to choose between them. i found that the smugglers fill a completely different role, because you can actually get up the board with them to scheme and take those tasty scheme markers with you to either appraise or have them eaten by maddog to go fast. (or worst case: score research or detonate or else) Prospectors are more for sittin back in the deployment zone and laying eggs. Either one will die if your opponent wants them to

[Morgan Vening]

14 hours ago, Gheist said:

True but giving out injured 2 to something can seal the deal on hat models fate... worth taking 1 damage imho

Also, with Full Pack, at least partially mitigated.

[Barmution]

22 hours ago, Scoffer said:

With the last errata Smuggler+pit trap combo became much worse. Smuggler has to place marker in base contact - it means that the next action Smuggler takes will trigger hazardous damage for him.

Not disagreeing that it got worse but if you can find room for Sparks you've got 2 ways to deal with it:

• Keep the Pit Trap it within Sparks' Scrapyard Mines aura
• Put a Bombs In Yer Belly onto the Smuggler to both shield it and make it pulse 1 damage everytime you reduce shielded. You'll still get the Injured so it might be a suicide run for the Smuggler but that's fine as long as you make it worth it.

[Rufess]

51 minutes ago, Barmution said:

Keep the Pit Trap it within Sparks' Scrapyard Mines aura

I am still not sure about Scrapyard Mines and Pit Trap marker. It feels too anti-synergy against Test Subject which is same keyword with Sparks.

[Barmution]

5 minutes ago, Rufess said:

I am still not sure about Scrapyard Mines and Pit Trap marker. It feels too anti-synergy against Test Subject which is same keyword with Sparks.

You can quite easily make the same argument in reverse about using it to Ride the Rails, so I'm personally not sold on your interpretation. And any which way one plays it it's not exactly hard to play around.

[Rufess]

6 minutes ago, Barmution said:

You can quite easily make the same argument in reverse about using it to Ride the Rails, so I'm personally not sold on your interpretation. And any which way one plays it it's not exactly hard to play around.

I mean I have no doubt on the ability allowing friendly models ignoring the Pit Trap markers which are original Scrap markers. I just doubting the Pit Trap markers which are original Pit Trap markers.

Unfortunately I cannot provide further argument for this moment, so I think I will just come back to this later on.

[Math Mathonwy]

Scrapyard Mines says "Friendly models are unaffected by these Pit Traps Markers." I think it's crystal clear that "these Pit Trap Markers" doesn't refer to normal, real Pit Trap Markers but only to Scrap Markers that also count as Pit Traps (due to the word 'these').

Edit: Unless I mistunderstoof the point of contention here.

[Barmution]

6 minutes ago, Math Mathonwy said:

Scrapyard Mines says "Friendly models are unaffected by these Pit Traps Markers." I think it's crystal clear that "these Pit Trap Markers" doesn't refer to normal, real Pit Trap Markers but only to Scrap Markers that also count as Pit Traps (due to the word 'these').

Edit: Unless I mistunderstoof the point of contention here.

There seems to be a some disagreement about that crystal clarity here.

[Math Mathonwy]

3 hours ago, Barmution said:

There seems to be a some disagreement about that crystal clarity here.

Thank you! I can see the confusion now and can see both interpretations. Ignoring all Pit Traps would make Sparks better for Mah which would be rather welcome.

[ShinChan]

On 8/15/2021 at 10:47 AM, SEV said:

I only saw the rabbit in action in a wong crew (my opponent)... It was... not spectacular. 

I've played him twice and did little to nothing. We'll see if Wong2 has some use for him.