Jury/Domador/Emissary in Henchman Hardcore

[saberstrike000]

So, last weekend I played a friend of mine who is a new Rezzer player and for our last game, he recommended Henchman hardcore. I'd never played HH before and didn't have a list ready and the first 30pts that came to mind was the Brutal Emissary, Jury, Domador and a DM. I'd been eager to put the emissary on the table since I painted it last year, but my friend is a newbie Rezzer main and Lady J seems like a NPE for him. Well...the Emissary with 4AP had him conceding by the end of turn 2.

Obviously in a larger game with more scheming, locking down the center with four models isn't as useful, but for Henchman Hardcore, it feels like a pretty potent combo. My friend certainly requested I not play it again until he "found a broken combo" of his own. Just for my own peace of mind, anyone care to point out the flaws?

[Cursed25]

how have you done a 4AP Brutal Emissary?

 

or do you mean using 2 Domador to obey the Emissary? if this is what made your friend concede tell him that there's way nastier tricks than this one!

[saberstrike000]

I could only fit one Domador in the Henchman hardcore, but the Jury has Obey. Emissary had kicked the tar out of the grave golem (a really gorgeous paint I have to get him to post somewhere) and on my last activation, the Jury ordered it to charge Vincent. He correctly predicted that if I won initiative, I'dve killed the golem for good when the Jury activated and have ordered another attack on Vincent. As I said, this was his fourth game ever, but he's very good at figuring things out once they've happened to him.
Anyways, I actually agree with you, it required luck and cards to make sure the obeys went off every time. I think it might have been just a little frustration with how much he had forgotten since the previous time we had played and having seen how bad a matchup the Marshals are for Rezzers

[Corn]

Quote

"Just for my own peace of mind, anyone care to point out the flaws?"

From what I can see, there are two main weaknesses with suck a deck.   No Soul Stones, and a lot of eggs in one basket.

Basically you are barely able to fit everything in, every point spent and no upgrades or soul stones.   In HH Assassinate is always in play, and you've got no damage prevention and no lead lined coat for the Jury.   No Soul Stones also means you can't burn one for cards at the beginning of a turn, hurting your consistency a bit more as well.

The other big thing is that you are relying heavily on the Emissary.  He is 1/3 of your total points.  Your next two biggest models (the Jury and Domador) are expensive support pieces who you've taken to power up Brutal, and you've only got a DM as a backup target.   Brutal is tough, but far far from unkillable, and if he goes down or gets disabled your crew loses its best obey target, command corpse on a Death Marshal is much much less impressive than that greatsword.  This is doubly so because you have very limited healing options for Brutal, making him rely entirely on his own Aura of Vengeance.  

One big lesson I've learned from playing a lot of Lucius in 2E is that you need to take the right balance of support models, if you take too many support models you can easily find yourself in a position where your beaters are gone and you are left without anything for your support pieces to buff but themselves... and your efficiency plummets.   I think both the Jury and the Domador is too much invested in support for a game mode with only 4 models.  I think 1 support piece is a safer and more consistent ratio.  

That said, I think its a really strong deck, and Marshals in general are pretty scary and underrated in HH because of Pine Box.  In a game mode where many crews are focused around a strong Henchmen and a strong beater, being able to threaten to box them is terrifying- especially when their control hand is a lot smaller and its more taxing to keep important models out of the boxes / the cage- as it gives you an option to bypass certain defenses like the armor from Augmented crews which might otherwise give you trouble.  Its a solid crew, that relies on a very powerful gimmick.  It has weaknesses, it isn't unbeatable, but it would be very daunting for a new player to face, especially in a faction like Ressers which often plays into the Marshal's gameplan and the Marshal crew gets bonuses against.  

 

 

[Regelridderen]

HH is a great format, but not all crews are equal - just like not all crews stand an equal chance in all combinations of strats and schemes. And as has been pointed out, had your opponent figured your onetrick pony out, you’d likely had had a much more difficult time.