I was wrong about the Dead Man Walking

[ElPuto]

19 hours ago, Azahul said:

This is exactly what my very first Parker2 list looked like. Great minds!

 

I eventually moved to cutting the Prospectors for a higher starting cache and one more workhorse/scheming/support model (that final choice after the Mad Dog, Benny, Pearl, Emissary core is pretty flexible and I vary it by pool) but I don't think the Prospectors are a poor choice by any means.

 

I would lean away from bringing a small cache and one Prospector though. Two is ok, if you eat Pearl's marker turn one you should have a 6 stone cache to work with early and that should be fine, but this crew's front line lives via soulstones and healing and you really want to be able to burn stones to live through a strong alpha strike if necessary. 2-3 stones and one Prospector won't cut it. In my view you either go a big cache and one other model of choice or a small cache and two Prospectors. Small cache and one Prospector is too risky for me.

You're perfectly right, I'm still tryin to decide if I want the upgrade on Mad Dog and what could be worth in the list as a workhorse/runner. Thought about Ashes&Dust, Midnight Stalker, Wokou Raider(s) and so on, but nothing seems to convince me.

Anyways, I'd cut at least one Prospector 'cause two feel like a weak spot and the crew needs more variety in my opinion.

[Azahul]

I have a bit of an archive of battle reports that I write for my local meta's Discord server, but at the request of someone not on said server I'm going to copy over a couple of battle reports to this thread in the hopes it illustrates the list in action (particularly Benny, that seems to be the part people find hardest to use well).

 

So without further ado, first report:

 

The game was Covert Operations on Wedge Deployment with a scheme pool including In Your Face, Sabotage, Leave Your Mark, Assassinate, and Hidden Martyrs.

I took Parker, Dead Man Walking with Doc Mitchell, Mad Dog Brackett, Benny Wolcomb, Pearl Musgrove, the Hodgepodge Emissary, and a Scavenger. I had an 8 stone cache.

I was up against Marcus with the Jackalope, Cojo, Myranda, the Beast Within, a Sabertooth Cerberus with Inhuman Reflexes, and the Scorpius. Marcus was packing a 6 stone cache.

My schemes were Leave Your Mark and In Your Face. Marcus had In Your Face and Sabotage on... I think the building that Doc Mitchell is cowering behind?

Turn 1 got off to a bit of a slow start at first, with most of my crew just walking and interacting. Even Mad Dog just advanced and dropped a marker for later. Towards the end of the turn though the Beast Within, Cojo, and the Scorpius all dove into my lines. Most of their attacks missed, but Cojo did pick up a bunch of scheme markers to shut down a future Benny rat summon and the Scorpius took about half the health off the Emissary by engaging it on the right. I counter-attacked with Benny and got the Scorpius down about half health myself.

Turn 2 began with the Emissary attacking and the donkey trampled the big mecha-scorpion into the ground. Which is when I remembered to take a picture.

Mad Dog is tucked behind that building on the left, which is unfortunate because he proved the focus of this turn with most of Marcus's monsters throwing attacks his way. Pearl was able to heal him up a bit because of the fun way her healing works (she needs LOS to the markers, Mad Dog needs LOS to the markers, but she doesn't need LOS to Mad Dog) and keep him in the game but by the end of the turn he was at 1 hit point and engaged by the Jackalope after trying repeatedly to disengage and get to centre-left strategy marker. With him engaged I ended up having to run the Scavenger to the centre-right marker to score the strategy myself. For my part I was able to focus down the Beast Within, forcing it to shift into Vogel to heal. I chipped it down to 1 hit point and managed to get the kill by running a rat up to Cojo, shooting it with Doc Mitchell's Hidden Flintlock (keeping him hidden from Parker2 so that he wouldn't die in turn), and using Benny to turn the rat into a scheme marker to pulse damage with Perdition to kill Vogel.

I revealed In Your Face at this stage. We both scored the strategy.

Turn 3 began with Marcus killing Mad Dog himself, then accomplicing into the Cerberus who dove into the middle of the clump of my models to try and deal some damage to Benny but it largely couldn't land hits. I mostly just milled around with my rats while Myranda charged the Scavenger but only managed to drop him to half health, while Cojo shoved Parker out of the way to get a line on Benny but also couldn't do much to the nimble little guy. I was able to focus down Cojo in return by barraging him with Perdition pulses and I think we called the game there.

With Cojo dead it would be impossible for Marcus to score the end point of In Your Face, I still had a turn to get to the middle of the board and start scoring Leave Your Mark, and with how few of Marcus's models were still standing it was going to be hard to score any more strategy points let alone Sabotage.

[Azahul]

I played Parker a second time that night with the same crew composition, up against a Ten Thunders player on the same board. Our pool this time was Carve a Path on Flank Deployment with Sabotage, Secret Meetup, Assassinate, Breakthrough, and Load 'Em Up as schemes. My opponent's crew was:

Shenlong, the Teacher, with his two Aspiring Students, Sensei Yu, the Four Winds Golem, a High River Monk, a Low River Monk with the Trained Ninja upgrade, a Samurai, and a Terracotta Warrior. He had a 4 stone cache.

I deployed my crew around my two markers on the far left and centre with the intention of driving them together. My opponent's markers (the two black markers up the top) seemed angled for a bit more of a split approach.

For schemes I took Secret Meetup (the Golem, Mad Dog, on the building to the left of the cloud) and Breakthrough. My opponent took Secret Meetup (the Golem, Mad Dog, at the cloud, so clearly a very well coordinated meetup) and Sabotage on one of the structures near my deployment.

Now, Turn 1 began with most of my crew working together to push my strategy markers together on the left. There was a point though where my opponent moved the High River Monk forward to drive his left-hand marker up the table, and I decided to try and jump him with Parker while he was outside of the Four Wind Golem's protective aura with no Terracotta Warrior nearby. Unfortunately my attacks all missed, but fortunately this burned through all the Monk's Chi and my opponent didn't move up the Golem in response since he was busy doing something with his back line (I wasn't paying attention, once I saw the Golem wasn't advancing my vision had gone red). That let me rush Mad Dog up, with a Focus he'd been given by the Scavenger, and in two shots he managed to down the High River Monk and do a bit of damage to Shenlong in the process.
 

Turn 2 was a bit of a waiting game waiting for the other person to leave their respective bubbles. After activating basically all my support models, I ran Mad Dog up to take some potshots at the clump around the Golem but made sure to use my last AP to run back to safety near my healers rather than risk overextending and being kidnapped by the Golem. In the end the Golem came to me anyway, diving into the cloud and throwing the Emissary back towards my deployment zone in order to set up Secret Meetup for both my opponent and myself. Love it when my opponents do my schemes for me. Parker did advance a bit, sniping out one of the Aspiring Students, pinging the Samurai a bit and dragging the Samurai in towards my clump of models on the left. By the end of the turn the Samurai had just 1 hit point remaining

We both scored the strategy and Secret Meetup this turn. My opponent's Low River Monk is busy pushing the strategy marker across the table on the top, but I have got both of mine and one of his largely under control on the left at this stage.

This picture was also taken a couple of activations into Turn 3, after I went first, killed the Samurai by Interacting with Parker, and the Golem responded by leaping around, pushing his own marker towards my deployment, and punching Mad Dog and Doc Mitchell a bit without achieving much of note.

As for the rest of Turn 3, Sensei Yu ran into my backlines and managed to drop the Emissary down to Hard to Kill. Pearl's healing auras managed to get Doc Mitchell back up on his feet and he in turn managed to heal the Emissary, with the Scavenger pitching in an getting it back to half health. The rest of my crew threw down markers to ping the Golem and Pearl hit it for a big hit to get it to the cusp of death, but Shenlong came forward and healed it. I had enough markers down at this stage for a big rat swarm though, so Benny summoned them in and hit the Golem with a single Swarm Them for 5 damage I think, killing it off. I was able to get both my markers and my opponent's on the left over the centreline.
 

Shen is over on the left after being moved by the Golem's Demise, fighting a Rat Catcher that I made out of the rats I used to kill the Golem who is trying (and failing) to put Slow on Shenlong.

Turn 4 had Sensei Yu decide that his mission in life was to kill something, so he bludgeoned poor Doc Mitchell to death. My Rat Catcher wanted to avoid the same thing happening to him so he went early and gave slow to Shenlong, but turns out that wily Teacher has the ability to remove conditions from himself so it didn't do much. A few damage pulses removed the rats and left the Rat Catcher stunned and at half health. I was able to get both my markers into Shenlong's deployment zone though with Benny, while Mad Dog ran in and killed the remaining Aspiring Student to get into position for Breakthrough. Parker shifted towards the middle in case my opponent also had Breakthrough. The Low River Monk got the marker on the far right into my deployment zone.

We talked out the rest of the game from here. There was pretty much no chance that my opponent was going to get another strategy point, and he didn't have the actions to score Sabotage. There was an outside chance he might have got Secret Meetup since I kept dropping his scheme markers into that cloud, but I was planning to use Parker to turn at least one of those markers friendly so it was unlikely. With only 2 strategy points that meant the score was probably going to be 8-3 (seeing as I had plenty of AP to get down the five markers I needed for both my schemes).
 

[Azahul]

And the third game I have on hand to report was a game of Guard the Stash. We had Flank Deployment with a scheme pool of Assassinate, Set the Trap, Sabotage, Catch and Release, and Public Demonstration.

My crew was Parker, Dead Man Walking with Doc Mitchell, Mad Dog Brackett, Benny Wolcomb, the Hodgepodge Emissary, Pearl Musgrove, and Johann Creedy. I had an 8 stone cache.

My opponent took Titania with Gorar, Aeslin, the Mysterious Emissary, the Malisaurus Rex, and two Autumn Knights with Inhuman Reflexes. He had a four stone Cache.

My schemes were Set the Trap and Sabotage (the Shrine on the right-hand side of the table). The Neverborn crew had Catch and Release (one of the Autumn Knights) and Public Demonstration (both Autumn Knights, Gorar).

Turn 1 I used Parker to make a scheme marker and then use it to clear the left-hand Underbrush away with Chaos in the Badlands, which is probably only the second time I've ever used that action. The rest of my crew on the left created markers for Benny, while Johann made one for Mad Dog over on the right-hand side. Unfortunately I couldn't quite clear the Underbrush marker in front of him while doing so, and ended up in severe terrain. This let the Mysterious Emissary get a bead on him and pull him through some hazardous terrain, dropping him immediately to 3 health. Mad Dog retaliated though by rushing up into the forest and hitting two moderate damage attacks on negative flips, bringing the Emissary down to 2 health. The rest of the Titania crew just ran up into position, and I think Titania went for a potshot on someone and missed because of the Red Joker.

Turn 2 saw Titania win initiative and the Mysterious Emissary immediately killed Johann. I responded by having Mad Dog immediately kill the Emissary. The Malisaurus Rex rushed into the middle of my crew, putting up the Wild Hunt and pinging Benny a couple of times, leading to a good few rats hitting the table. The Emissary healed Benny back the health he had suffered. Titania Germinated to get an angle on Pearl and tried to remove her from the board, but Pearl was saved by the Red Joker (two turns in two of Titania getting messed around by that). Benny summoned a good few rats in order to heal Pearl and then landed a massive 7 damage hit on the Malisaurus, since at this stage he'd been pinged for damage quite a few times and the area was swimming in rats.

(Picture taken before Benny put like six more rats on the table).

Over the course of the rest of the turn I moved Pearl off towards the top-left marker to secure a strategy marker. I pinged the Malisaurus to death with a couple of Perdition pulses between Pearl and Parker. The two Autumn Knights just moved up to join the fight. Gorar turned into the Emissary and sat himself next to the bottom-right strategy marker. The one surviving rat from the previous turn became a Rat King and moved to engage the Autumn Knight.

We both scored the strategy. Strictly speaking had we been paying attention both of us should also have scored a scheme this turn, but I removed the marker I needed to score Set the Trap without thinking it through and my opponent hadn't quite computed how Public Demonstration worked so should have had both Autumn Knights over near Parker rather than having one chase down Pearl who didn't qualify.

Turn 3 led off with Titania murdering the Rat King and one of the Rats before they could go, healing the Autumn Knight a little in the process. Pearl healed herself with a Draw Them In, trying to stay out of imminent murder range. The brawl in the middle between Titania and her knights versus most of the Parker grew led to both Knights getting chipped down to low health while all the healing from Pearl's Reformed aura and the Hodgepodge Emissary was keeping the Parker crew on its feet. Mad Dog and Doc Mitchell on the right-flank were able to shenanigan their way out of getting locked into Hazardous terrain by the Emissary and Mad Dog fell just shy of killing the Autumn Knight in the centre. Aeslin hauled Mad Dog back into Hazardous terrain at the end of the turn though, bringing him very low in health with only a couple of Soulstones left in the cache. Parker had been challenged by an Autumn Knight and had no cards in hand, so he had to spend his turn just disengaging from Titania and throwing a lasso at the knight to free up Pearl to score.

I scored the top-left and centre-left markers this turn, while Aeslin secured the centre-right marker and the Emissary the bottom-right. The score was 2-2, with no revealed schemes.

Turn 4 rolled in and Titania went first (burning two good cards to win initiative). She Germinated out of the melee and killed Mad Dog through his remaining Soulstones. Doc Mitchell responded by rushing towards her with a battlecry and firing his Hidden Flintlock at point blank range. He Black Jokered the attack and Parker executed him on the spot for such a silly attempt... but the resulting Perdition pulse from the scheme marker killed the nearby Autumn Knight. So that was funny.

The rest of the turn was just jostling for position. My opponent realised he didn't have the pieces to contest another centreline marker so the Emissary bee-lined it for my deployment zone marker. I had Parker spend his entire activation lassoing Benny close enough to drop the one last marker I needed for set the trap. I chipped the remaining Autumn Knight pretty low on health so that it would die easily next turn.

I scored the top-left, centre-left, and centre-right markers, and had the scheme markers in place to secure Set the Trap on the Autumn Knight in the top-left, Titania, and Aeslin. My opponent did not score, putting us at 4-2 going into the final turn.

Turn 5 basically just saw Titania and Aeslin kill Benny and set up to score one last strategy point. Pearl killed the last Autumn Knight. The Emissary moved to the bottom-left strat marker. Parker was able to walk twice and push a marker with Chaos in the Badlands to set up the end point of Sabotage.

In the end we each had scored the Strategy three times, but I had scored each scheme once and Titania had just barely missed out on scoring either of hers at several points in the game. The final score was a 5-3 win to the Dead Man Walking.

[Pieter]

Was wondering if anyone had any input on using Montressor in this build? Kinda pricey at 10 stones OOK but might pay off keeping staggered on and hitting with Noose, which targets MV.

 

Also, the new Bygone Aua Warrior targets MV at 6 stones OOK. Also, maybe even Kett with his shockwaves. 

 

Any thoughts?

[KID55]

Use him few times, works well. Plus it's second execute in crew (one time I even killed full health Cooper). And Parker can move enemies inside his aura. So, I think it pays off, especially because Parker played from elite crew due to lack of good cheap minions.

[sakurazuka38]

I have some question about points in the conversation I didn’t understood.

 

Quote : He generates so much healing, damage, a good bit of card draw
 

=>The healing is from Pearl’s reformed ability ?

 

How does the reformed trigger works when you treat a scheme marker as a blast ? It has 50mm range like a blast marker ?

 

thank you

[Adran]

7 hours ago, sakurazuka38 said:

 

How does the reformed trigger works when you treat a scheme marker as a blast ? It has 50mm range like a blast marker ?

 it's just counted as a blast for the section "all models, apart from the original target, that are in base contact with one or more take damage that is 1 segment lower than the category of damage flip against the original target. " 

If you are in base contact of the scheme you suffer the blast effect. 

I think that the way it is written you get the reformed healing from the removal of the marker. 

[Pieter]

23 hours ago, KID55 said:

Use him few times, works well. Plus it's second execute in crew (one time I even killed full health Cooper). And Parker can move enemies inside his aura. So, I think it pays off, especially because Parker played from elite crew due to lack of good cheap minions.

Thanks, I will give him a go

 

21 hours ago, sakurazuka38 said:

I have some question about points in the conversation I didn’t understood.

 

Quote : He generates so much healing, damage, a good bit of card draw
 

=>The healing is from Pearl’s reformed ability ?

 

How does the reformed trigger works when you treat a scheme marker as a blast ? It has 50mm range like a blast marker ?

 

thank you

 

I've been trying it, so I think when benny spawns the rats, if it removes 4 markers, you can heal 4 health if in range of Pearl. Then, each rat that dies draws you a card, which you can keep or you discard that card to ping perdition. Lastly if someone is staggered, the swarm them is stat 6 vs stat 5(or 4)

[Azahul]

Yeah, pretty much. Without Benny you don't have a way to remove big clumps of markers all at once for massive burst healing, so he makes Pearl's Reformed healing a bit more impactful. 

 

Let me know how the Montresor build goes. I like the idea but I don't like going so low on stones in Bandit. I hope it pays off!

[Pieter]

Looking at the new Yannic, she has nice synergy as well. Drops markers with bonus (though suit not built in), and turns discards into marker removal for ping healing. Not bad.