The Piper: Disregard Rats, Acquire Outcast All-stars?

[Avatar of Butter]

So, I've been having trouble getting rats to work with the Piper. Without Unclean Influence, Tangle Together is a much, much harder action to effectively use. If I stop trying to summon Rat Kings, then I don't really need Rat Catchers for Moldy Cheese, and there's no real reason to bring Benny, either. All of a sudden, my Plague crew is the Piper, Nix, and the Obedient Wretch... and I'm kind of ok with that?

So, that opens up 37 Soulstones to fit in as many Outcast All-stars as possible. That could be the entire Syndicate mini-crew, or pretty much any 2-model combo from another crew. Who is it that really punches above their pay-grade these days?

[Azahul]

Yep, that's how you run him.

Models I like with the Piper are:

-The DCU and the Catalan Brawler (a model that targets Mv and a model that applies Staggered on an attack that generates attacks that target Mv)

-Rusty Alyce (the Piper can force a lot of movement from opposing models, so the Pit Traps can do a crazy amount of damage)

-Pride (The Piper is often in the situation of needing to win 4 opposed duels in an activation, has no card draw, Pride helps make this happen)

-Scavenger (models like the DCU like Focus, the Piper really wants Focus to get around Concealment in a pinch, and Tools for the Job lets you secure more Severe cards)

-Mad Dog (just a solid model and the most efficient model to hit with a friendly Obey, since you can get both movement and an attack quite flexibly)

-A Winged Plague (good for ramping up Blight on targets, takes some pressure off of the Piper to be both set-up and payoff)

-Midnight Stalker (some pools require fast schemers, which can be hard to come by in Outcasts)

[HomelessOne]

Winged Plagues willingly being taken? Lordy the game really has changed since the errata huh.

[Azahul]

Basically boils down to if you're willing to spend 4 stones in the hope you get 3-5 Blight on an important enemy model early without needing to spend Hamelin's AP. Can take some of the burden off of otherwise needing to land all of Hamelin's attacks to set up effective turns.

[admiralvorkraft]

Yeah, I thought there was some fun stuff you could do with him when he first dropped, but there's nothing that comes close to touching, "hire a grab bag of efficient models."

You can listen to my crushing defeat on Schemes and Stones for more 😛

 

[Jordon]

I don't think the rat catchers are a bad pick. Since Ham2 can ramp blight up so fast, Black Death can absolutely delete models basically right away. Also, even though rats are not really Ham2's thing, his ability to add suits to a designated target can auto trigger Infestation, giving you up to two rats per rat catchers activation. Those rats can then be used for cards, which definitely helps Ham2's resource issue. 

[Avatar of Butter]

4 hours ago, admiralvorkraft said:

Yeah, I thought there was some fun stuff you could do with him when he first dropped, but there's nothing that comes close to touching, "hire a grab bag of efficient models."

You can listen to my crushing defeat on Schemes and Stones for more 😛

 

Believe it or not, your crushing defeat is what convinced me to pick the Piper up in the first place! I've been holding off, because the Piper's synergy with the Plague keyword is just exponentially weaker than Hamelin 1's, but you at least got me thinking about things you could do that are not the "perform Benny summoning ritual to throw Rat Kings at people" that was essentially everything I did with Plague crews.

I also think that the game was a perfect example of what separates the "haves" from the "have nots" in this era of Malifaux. The era of summoning being the be-all and end-all is pretty much over, and now exponential value generation, like is the case with Old One Eye, is the new order of the day.

 

1 hour ago, Jordon said:

I don't think the rat catchers are a bad pick. Since Ham2 can ramp blight up so fast, Black Death can absolutely delete models basically right away. Also, even though rats are not really Ham2's thing, his ability to add suits to a designated target can auto trigger Infestation, giving you up to two rats per rat catchers activation. Those rats can then be used for cards, which definitely helps Ham2's resource issue. 

I agree that Rat Catchers are not bad picks, but I also don't think that they are excellent. Once you strip away the Rat synergies, they are "generic human" melee dudes, and I'm just not sure that generic humans are worth taking, no matter how good their melee attack is.

[HomelessOne]

Your pain is inspiring, admiral.

[admiralvorkraft]

16 hours ago, HomelessOne said:

Your pain is inspiring, admiral.

Well then it was all worth it