Outcasts Henchman Hardcore - Malifaux Burns edition

[touchdown]

After a couple erratas and a big expansion, we have a lot of new options.

One I just tried and worked amazingly was: Taelor, Bishop, Big Jake, Student of Conflict. Taelor and Bishop provide a huge fear factor, as long as they're able to back each other up, you have a 9-10" circle of the board your opponent has to be real careful about entering. Student is feeding fast to Taelor and then can score late if needed (I think people overlook that 6" move, she's scooting across the board when she wants to). Finally the MVP of the show is Big Jake. Outside your opponent teching against him (bringing anti-bury or demise), he's basically a guaranteed 2 strategy points and can easily help with assassinate or vendetta and is extremely difficulty to score vendetta off of. You can just run in and drop a bomb, let your opponent kill him and then unbury him at any point to drop a 2nd. In this game, he only ended up dropping 1 but that's because I made him a super decoy/bait and he was able to 1 activation murder my opponent's leader (I had the RJ in hand and flipped a 13 rams on another attack, so I'm not sure this should be expected, but with flurry and critical strike, there's always a chance). My opponent was running Tri-Chi lead by Popcorn, and while we both decided Popcorn kind of sucks, I think it still shows Jake is awesome.

The above list worked so well it might just stay as my Mercenary HH list but I also want to try Kenshiro. Not sure how to complete the list though, replace Bishop and then the Student with a Ronin? Put SoDP on Taelor?

It wasn't a problem this match, but there's no healing and no condition removal in the list which could be a problem

Some other lists I want to try:
Starter Box
Hannah, Metallurgist, 2x Engineer
I think there's got to be a good Barbaros list but I haven't figured it out yet

[Thatguy]

The starter box looks like a pretty solid HH crew.

[Azahul]

I'm quite a fan of Nix, Wretch, Jake with Soldier for Hire, Effigy with Effigy of Fate. Nix is annoying to score Assassinate off of. Wretch is a great cheap model that can usually sneak you the Vendetta points. Jake should get you two Strategy points on his own and is very difficult to prevent. Effigy will usually play safe until it becomes the Emissary and delivers a late game Strategy point. And everything is so cheap it will usually be very clear what the opponent's Vendetta model is, giving you a good chance to deny it.

 

Some builds even run the risk of not being able to declare a Vendetta target when all non-leader models are Cost 5 or less, which is funny.

[RayMet]

12 hours ago, touchdown said:

After a couple erratas and a big expansion, we have a lot of new options.

One I just tried and worked amazingly was: Taelor, Bishop, Big Jake, Student of Conflict. Taelor and Bishop provide a huge fear factor, as long as they're able to back each other up, you have a 9-10" circle of the board your opponent has to be real careful about entering. Student is feeding fast to Taelor and then can score late if needed (I think people overlook that 6" move, she's scooting across the board when she wants to). Finally the MVP of the show is Big Jake. Outside your opponent teching against him (bringing anti-bury or demise), he's basically a guaranteed 2 strategy points and can easily help with assassinate or vendetta and is extremely difficulty to score vendetta off of. You can just run in and drop a bomb, let your opponent kill him and then unbury him at any point to drop a 2nd. In this game, he only ended up dropping 1 but that's because I made him a super decoy/bait and he was able to 1 activation murder my opponent's leader (I had the RJ in hand and flipped a 13 rams on another attack, so I'm not sure this should be expected, but with flurry and critical strike, there's always a chance). My opponent was running Tri-Chi lead by Popcorn, and while we both decided Popcorn kind of sucks, I think it still shows Jake is awesome.

The above list worked so well it might just stay as my Mercenary HH list but I also want to try Kenshiro. Not sure how to complete the list though, replace Bishop and then the Student with a Ronin? Put SoDP on Taelor?

It wasn't a problem this match, but there's no healing and no condition removal in the list which could be a problem

Some other lists I want to try:
Starter Box
Hannah, Metallurgist, 2x EngineeI think there's got to be a good Barbaros list but I haven't figured it out ye

I don't like Bishop his 0 range are so bad and 9 cost for model that have 0 defence tool. Jake good for his cost but he only have 5 health and die very fast only with hard to kill upgrate he will a problem for opponent to kill. Student of Conflict pretty good if you pick Taylor and Vanessa and give them fast. Starter set have a great models for Victorias to make them more durable.

[Azahul]

9 minutes ago, RayMet said:

I don't like Bishop his 0 range are so bad and 9 cost for model that have 0 defence tool. Jake good for his cost but he only have 5 health and die very fast only with hard to kill upgrate he will a problem for opponent to kill. Student of Conflict pretty good if you pick Taylor and Vanessa and give them fast. Starter set have a great models for Victorias to make them more durable.

I've never understood the problem with Bisbop being melee 0. Sure, he's not super good at keeping people locked in melee with him, but at least he doesn't need to worry about getting engaged by enemies and being unable to hit back since he gets an easy 5" of free movement every turn. He is still on the squishy side, but he gets a ton done and works great as both schemer and pocket beater, or he can lock down an opposing beater with multiple negative conditions. You can't really toss him into the brawl and expect him to live but by and large he can do anything else and hopefully the rest of the crew is keeping the pressure off of him while he gets work done.

[Thatguy]

I was pretty impressed with him. He has little DF tech, but has df6 and with fast, battle tempo and chain gang can usually dictate what combats he wants to be in. That and you can Challenge your already activated models to get self heals for a bit more survivability.

Challenge is also pretty great for tagging a beater and then wandering off with either forcing them to chase you or drain they hand to target something else. Also pretty good if you can tag them with Slow and Staggered before disengaging to do something else. 

In the last game we played he managed to kill a Fermented River Monk who was sitting in 3 chi and 4 poison in a single activation. Though that was so in post to my terribly hand it's so a feat that would give most Masters trouble. 

 

 

[touchdown]

HH changes the math on some models. Bishop can carry 2 bombs who can drop, walk, drop and can get another 5" of movement besides. With only 4 models, he can't really be swarmed so the fragility is not as bad of a flaw. Also my list adds up to exactly 27 stones, so going with a cheaper model would be leaving value on the table as our upgrades aren't really worth it.