Ressers in the MWS, New Year's Retribution 2.

[Maniacal_cackle]

Well, it's finally time to play in the Malifaux World Series, and so I thought I'd start a thread for the ressers!

You don't have to actually be participating in the World Series to take part. It's just a good opportunity to discuss pools and see what everyone thinks. So let's look at the first pool!

What do you think? What should we consider playing here? Some things to consider...

• High amount of scheme marker schemes.
• LOTS of severe terrain.
• A substantial amount of blocking/impassable.
• Chokepoints on the bridges if you can't bypass the rest of the terrain.
• Corner symbols - mobility is king!
  • And similarly, AP denial like Ashigaru and Toshiro is something to watch for.

The map is so impactful this game! What are people thinking?

[Astrozombie1991]

This just scream Kirai1 or 2 to me, but I would lean Kirai1. The vast majority of her crew ignores the hazardous/Blocking and for the same reasons the choke points she can bypass. Enslaved spirits can detonate as well as giving more mobility, and Kirai1 can bring Manos, Toshiro, Restless spirit and just defend incredibly well while using shikome and Datsu Ba to grab symbol (Manos can defend or gather symbols). Seems like all doable schemes for her and she has to worry less about the map. Just my take though

[Maniacal_cackle]

3 minutes ago, Astrozombie1991 said:

This just scream Kirai1 or 2 to me, but I would lean Kirai1. The vast majority of her crew ignores the hazardous/Blocking and for the same reasons the choke points she can bypass. Enslaved spirits can detonate as well as giving more mobility, and Kirai1 can bring Manos, Toshiro, Restless spirit and just defend incredibly well while using shikome and Datsu Ba to grab symbol (Manos can defend or gather symbols). Seems like all doable schemes for her and she has to worry less about the map. Just my take though

Ooo, interesting!

Enslaved spirits in particular are a great call (although of course anyone can hire them, only Kirai can summon them).

Kirai 2's swirling spirits means she is pretty amazing at corner I hear?

Toshiro - that sounds interesting, but now that he needs a 12, isn't it very difficult to get the cards to summon for both Kirai and Toshiro?

[Meddlesome]

I don't have a ton of reps in, but perhaps Molly2? Parade Route works wonders for dealing with guarded symbols, her keyword has a lot of minions in it that would work well for vendetta and nightmares have flight. Her baton can shove people around when needed.

 

Cons are Archie and Philip have big bases so they'll need some shuttling. Perhaps an enslaved spirit (maaaaybe 2) to help unpack?

[Maniacal_cackle]

5 minutes ago, Meddlesome said:

I don't have a ton of reps in, but perhaps Molly2? Parade Route works wonders for dealing with guarded symbols, her keyword has a lot of minions in it that would work well for vendetta and nightmares have flight. Her baton can shove people around when needed.

 

Cons are Archie and Philip have big bases so they'll need some shuttling. Perhaps an enslaved spirit (maaaaybe 2) to help unpack?

Also Molly's Parade route ignores terrain, so you can just throw enemies into terrain and cackle as they then take an entire activation to walk out of it xD

[Spyrer]

I do feel this is a Kirai2 game waiting to happen, i can see Jaakuna being a major pain in one of the chokepoints. Summoning enslaved spirits and using their own action to die for the scheme drops will assist in many schemes, be careful of movement tricks from the opponent. Of course Anna is good if opponent has lots of fly. Also lots of boxes you can stand on for los.

 

Out of left field i'm saying reva. Burn up the bridges and set wanyudo to get you symbols.

[Maniacal_cackle]

12 minutes ago, Spyrer said:

Out of left field i'm saying reva. Burn up the bridges and set wanyudo to get you symbols.

I think Reva is great on severe maps!

Reva + Dead Rider (or Wanyudo) is a ton of mobility.

Restless spirit ignores terrain, and can drop corpses for Bete/Bone piles to teleport around if you're going with that build.

Plenty of options!

[Aemaru]

Yan lo 2 with yin and manos maybe ?

[Maniacal_cackle]

4 minutes ago, Aemaru said:

Yan lo 2 with yin and manos maybe ?

And if you use Toshiro for symbol guarding, you've suddenly got every aspect of the pool covered which seems super strong!

[Aemaru]

Yeah

It feels like Yan lo 2 is perfecly taylored for this strat (and I would choose Spread them out and detonate modulo  what your opponent will bring)

[Maniacal_cackle]

One struggle I have with Yan Lo 2 on maps like this is to make a good list that has Kenshiro + all the other stuff that's good in the crew. Kenshiro feels awkward on corner, but not having him feels awkward with severe terrain.

Of course, tons of crews can run Toshiro, but that's a bit awkward getting the 12...

[Astrozombie1991]

There’s a part of me that wants to try McM2 into this pool. Corner allows the time you need to set up marks for upgrades and a Flesh Construct with Legs upgrade is a move 7 model with access to 3 actions, pretty good symbol grabber. Not to mention the flesh construct and a Kentauroi can spread them out quickly, McMourning will provide cards with RRR. The crew might struggle with terrain a bit but I am in love with McM2 so I see him as good at every pool. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

I ended up settling on Yan Lo with my opponent playing Guild Lucius!

Got a deep dive video on why I built my crew the way I did, so coming soon! I took:

• Yan Lo 1 & Soul Porter
• Manos
• Yin
• 3 Ashigaru
• 2 Gwisin
• 6 stones

Any predictions on what I'll say about my reasoning?

[Azahul]

Um Manos cos Manos is good and Yan Lo has this special rule where he gets to hire him at a 1 stone discount, Yin cos the map is obnoxious and helps with scoring, Ashigaru cos it's Symbols, Gwisin cos they're good and Incorporeal and can keep the other stuff alive?

[Maniacal_cackle]

5 minutes ago, Azahul said:

Um Manos cos Manos is good and Yan Lo has this special rule where he gets to hire him at a 1 stone discount, Yin cos the map is obnoxious and helps with scoring, Ashigaru cos it's Symbols, Gwisin cos they're good and Incorporeal and can keep the other stuff alive?

Close! But why no Yan Lo 2?

EDIT: The gwisin part is wrong though 😧

[Azahul]

3 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Close! But why no Yan Lo 2?

EDIT: The gwisin part is wrong though 😧

Hard for him to get around on this map at a guess? He's tied to Minions, right? And none of those are able to ignore all the severe terrain. It's not like Yan Lo1 is all that slow anyway.

 

I dunno, my Resser knowledge is mostly just reading your posts and I don't think I've seen you talk about Gwisin much.

[Maniacal_cackle]

 

[SEV]

Great content. Your opponent is in the same tough spot as you are regarding his own Rider. I would be surprised if Pale is not in his list tough. 

The problem is you're running low in models that can actually score vendetta. Bot Yin and Manos will have a lot to do in this scenario. 

Also, Lucius has a great way to move your static symbols defender (down the wrong path) and have access to Dopleganger with don't mind me... All in all I'm not sure I'm a big fan of that static defense. 

On the other hand I really like the Gwisin choice. Spread them out / detonate are to scheme that are really likely to be taken by the Lucius player. I'm not sure you can denied both with only 2 Gwisin but you'll surely makes your oponent life harder. If you're lucky that will skew his scheme choice and he'll go for something else like LTB (wich I think would definitely be a mistake).

All in all it was interesting to hear about your tough process. Keep the content flow.

P.S. what is your opponent list?

[Maniacal_cackle]

8 minutes ago, SEV said:

Great content.

Thanks

Opponent's list:

• Lucius 2 with LLC
• Pale Rider
• Guild Steward
• Alan Reid
• Guild Lawyer
• Agent 46 with LLC

8 minutes ago, SEV said:

Your opponent is in the same tough spot as you are regarding his own Rider. I would be surprised if Pale is not in his list tough. 

Yeah, he grabbed it and I think guild doesn't really have any other options. There's definitely an argument to go Seamus against Guild in these circumstances as you're basically guaranteed they are going to have the horses for you to gun down xD

9 minutes ago, SEV said:

The problem is you're running low in models that can actually score vendetta. Bot Yin and Manos will have a lot to do in this scenario. 

You underestimate my power 😈 But yeah it is actually really awkward to score unless I'm using a Gwisin for a one-pointer. Vendetta is just a hard scheme to double point if you're in this pool. It is very difficult to predict exactly where any given model is going to be.

10 minutes ago, SEV said:

Also, Lucius has a great way to move your static symbols defender (down the wrong path) and have access to Dopleganger with don't mind me... All in all I'm not sure I'm a big fan of that static defense. 

That's still one more AP, but yeah that did almost make me consider going another build... But I think I have plans to deal with Down the Wrong Path.

I completely forgot Doppleganger... But don't think it is mobile enough unless he took changeling for mimicing secret passage. And even then, he'd just give me a clear vendetta target - can't score if you're dead!

[SEV]

15 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

• Lucius 2 with LLC
• Pale Rider
• Guild Steward
• Alan Reid
• Guild Lawyer
• Agent 46 with LLC

The lack of Changeling is disturbing. The fact that he didn't slam LLC on his rider make it even more interesting as a vendetta target.

I'm not sure what 46 is suppose to do here since he's not fast enough to hunt manos / yin. I guess he can copy Pale gun... Finally, it will be hard for him to defend his symbols... Beside hopping you to fail a boring conversation simple duel I don't see much in term of defense here. 

But hey, I have a hard time figuring out how to play Lucius in NB, so guild is definitely out of my range of expertise 🤣.

But now I'm curious in the outcome of this game.

My bet You : 4 symbols 1 vendetta (because you're sneaky and will take it anyway) 1 let them bleed. 

Your oponent: 2 symbols, 1 detonate charges, 1 vendetta (his build is clearly more of a vendetta build than a STO build). 

GL

[Maniacal_cackle]

Well, lost my game (2-1). Some shenanigans happened and I probably should have had the tie at least, but didn't spot it in time!

The pass token generation of the Ashigauru is a huge downside of this approach, so I have to wonder if I had just built an elite crew focused on murdering all his models capable of picking up symbols how it would have gone...

Video will be up sometime this week!

[SEV]

2-1! Wow. 

Maybe you went a bit too defensive on this one? 

I'll definitely watch the vid. Low scoring game are intriguing... and you can fast forward most of i1 😜

[Maniacal_cackle]

4 minutes ago, SEV said:

2-1! Wow. 

Maybe you went a bit too defensive on this one? 

I'll definitely watch the vid. Low scoring game are intriguing... and you can fast forward most of i1 😜

I think I wasn't defensive enough xD

He used down the wrong path twice on Manos turn 1... Which led to him dying first activation of turn 2 xD With Manos alive for the game I'd have won solidly I think.

[Maniacal_cackle]

The video! Turn 4 we make a mistake with the totem (it can't bury when it wins the duel), so if we had caught the mistake in time it would likely have been a tie. But that's how the cookie crumbles!

[hydranixx]

3 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

The video! Turn 4 we make a mistake with the totem (it can't bury when it wins the duel), so if we had caught the mistake in time it would likely have been a tie. But that's how the cookie crumbles!

Yeah, that Red Joker really came up clutch there. 

I'm curious what the reasoning behind that being a mistake is though? The Fade Away trigger timing is "When resolving," - so on my first read I would have actually thought it may be declared, suit depending, regardless of who wins the duel as the Action resolves whether it hits or misses. What stops it? Is it that the Scribe has to have lost the duel, outright, or that the Scribe has to receive damage as part of the duel in order to reduce the damage and Bury?

Overall it looks like a game of lots of small things happening that were largely overshadowed by 3 really big moments:

• Manos gets kidnapped and killed before doing anything (other than removing a crate).
• Yan Lo's Treacherous Paths on the Scribe failing.
• Agent 46 stoning for and simultaneously top decking a high Ram to one shot the Soul Porter so that he could immediately pick up a Symbol.

Look at it in retrospect, would you have made any changes in list creation, or Scheme selection?

Or do you reckon it's largely just a case of the crew and Schemes being ok, but that exposing Manos alone cost you one of your best scoring assets, Activation control and all your Soulstones at the same time, all extremely early in the game.