Considering getting into Outcasts...

[Rengrave]

So as the title says, I am considering getting into Outcasts. The two Masters that are most appealing to me in the faction are Parker and Tara.

From almost everything I read and watch Parker is very underpowered and just does not preform well. That leads me to look at Tara. I haven't found as much analysis on Tara so any resources that people think give a good picture of how to play her and what crews to bring would be appreciated.

That being said, what do people who know Tara think of this list (assuming I could even get the models, Wyrd is notorious for never producing enough that once they get sold out that's it, you'll never see them again).

 

Timeless Tara Crew (Outcasts)

Size: 50 - Pool: 2

Leader:

  Tara, Timeless

Totem(s):

  Karina

Hires:

  The Nothing Beast

  Scion of the Void

  Thirty-Three

  Aionus

  Talos

  Void Hunter

 

Is this list viable? Is it competitive? What are the weaknesses that are easily exploited? What other models should I consider to cover those weaknesses?

 

[Maniacal_cackle]

Parker is very strong, but challenging to play.  But some of the world series players do very well with him.

Tara is also very strong, challenging to play, and is so different from everything else that she is a bit of a mind blower.

Regardless of what you choose, you don't make a competitive list because you change your list from game to game.

For new players to a crew or faction, I suggest focusing on purchases. If you buy Tara's whole keyword, you're mostly set. Some of the versatiles can come in handy.

For Bandit, beyond the keyword you want malifaux rats for Benny to summon and Hodgepodge Emissary. The Emissary has been in every Parker crew I've seen xD

Not an expert though.

[SEV]

Parker is a great first master. He scale very well with the learning curve of a new player. 

As Cackle said, I think he can be competitive... He just have a weak KW (except Mad Dog and Pearl... and Benny in the weird @Azahullist 😋).

[Azahul]

I would agree that Parker is a good starting point, he's not super complicated and he has good synergies with a lot of Versatiles like the Hodgepodge Emissary and the contents of the Starter set that may find use if you expand to the rest of the faction.

 

Parker1 specifically is, I think, in strong contention for weakest Master in the faction, but he is still where I would start. Even our weakest Master is still solid. I don't feel like he's ever really recovered from losing access to the Protection Money ability, which leaves him competing against a lot of Masters who are generally better at his own niche than he is, but he's still good for learning and has some fun tricks.

 

Parker2 is very good, a competitive Master at even the pointiest end of the competitive game, but where Parker1 can run almost anything well I tend to feel Parker2 has a very limited build (and that build will include Benny, who is a Bandit model, but who summons models from the Plague Keyword so you'll end up needing to buy basically the whole of Hamelin's Keyword too).

 

But hey@SEV there's nothing weird about my Parker2 build! It's almost 100% Keyword models, it's definitely how Parker2 was designed to be played

 

As for Tara, I would advise playing Tara1 rather than Tara2 to begin with. Both are exceptionally strong, Tara would be my pick for the best Master in the faction, but Tara2 specifically is really game warping and revolves around a fixating on a single specific trick to delete enemy models each turn. Tara1 will give you a more well-rounded approach to the game.

 

One thing I will note is that both Tara and Parker lean on Soulstones to stay alive. As Maniacal_cackle says you will be tailoring your crew for the scenario (though to be honest Tara1 can usually just hire all the non-Minion models in her Keyword and summon the Minions when she needs them and have a really good list), but both Masters will generally bring a very large cache. I personally feel uncomfortable with Parker2 if I go below 7 stones in the cache. Parker1 can go a little lower because he can make stones by fighting. But for Tara even 7 stones is feeling on the low end. That "hire all the non-Minions" approach leaves you with 9 stones, and I'm usually pretty happy with that. Tara2 can go a little earlier, but I'd still hover around the 6-7 mark for both Masters as a rule of thumb.

[KID55]

Parker struggle from lack of good cheap minions. Bandidos are awful. I use Catalan riflemans instead.

[Adran]

In my view Malifaux is not a very good game to try and use a fixed list for. You can do it, but its very hard to do well and requires you to really know the crew forwards and backwards. You don't need to create your list until you know the table, the statergy and the schemes and what leader your opponent is using, all of which can make you want to change what you use. 

I would say your Tara list is a viable list, but overall I wouldn't call it competitive  if by competitive you mean you are going to be challenging to win tournaments.  There probably isn't a game set up where it has no chance of winning, but there will be things it's not so good at.

But if you consider the other models that you would also own buying this list, you probably have a reasonable range of models to build lists to face most challenges. 

I haven't played Tara timeless,  but I like having student of conflict in my tara1 lists for adding fast to get unbury options.  I would probably also look at the effigy/emissary and the outcast starter box as some useful versatile models I would look to hire in some circumstances 

 

[Rengrave]

Yeah, that is one of the tougher parts of Malifaux. I can't just buy everything for a faction right off the bat. I have to start somewhere. So looking at what comes in boxes together made that list seem like a reasonable starting point.

[Adran]

On 9/22/2022 at 4:59 PM, Rengrave said:

Yeah, that is one of the tougher parts of Malifaux. I can't just buy everything for a faction right off the bat. I have to start somewhere. So looking at what comes in boxes together made that list seem like a reasonable starting point.

It's probably just me, but I'd have answered the question " is this a good selection of boxes to start with?" As yes, but " Is this a good list?" As no. 

The only time I'd recommend a fixed list is for learning to play the game, and then I'd try and duplicate models as much ad possible as it makes it easier to learn, and once you have learnt the game to change the list around to learn what other things do before I'd think about being competitive,  and in general its easier to be competitive if you have a selection of models you know to pick from, rather than a completely fixed selection. But like I said, that is my view, and it isn't true for everyone.  

[Rengrave]

3 hours ago, Adran said:

It's probably just me, but I'd have answered the question " is this a good selection of boxes to start with?" As yes, but " Is this a good list?" As no. 

The only time I'd recommend a fixed list is for learning to play the game, and then I'd try and duplicate models as much ad possible as it makes it easier to learn, and once you have learnt the game to change the list around to learn what other things do before I'd think about being competitive,  and in general its easier to be competitive if you have a selection of models you know to pick from, rather than a completely fixed selection. But like I said, that is my view, and it isn't true for everyone.  

Thanks! That makes a lot of sense.

That being said is there a better starting list I could make from those boxes? Is there a better selection of boxes for a similar price point you would suggest as a starting point?

[Adran]

54 minutes ago, Rengrave said:

Thanks! That makes a lot of sense.

That being said is there a better starting list I could make from those boxes? Is there a better selection of boxes for a similar price point you would suggest as a starting point?

For starting Tara, possibly not a better selection. I may have gone for a different box rather than her title, but that's possibly personal taste ( and if you are just picking them up from a store I would suggest getting the first 3 boxes, seeing how that went and deciding on what to get to expand depending on how you play). 

 

List wise, it depends on what sort of person you are. If you want to learn the basics with a fixed list then I would probably suggest something like Timeless, nothing beast, 2 hunters, scion of the void, Aionius and 33. Its a bit more samey which is normally easier to work out what you are doing.

Otherwise customise your list to the task at hand each game. You should be able to adapt based on what you need to do, and go from there. ( I pretty much always build my list from scratch every game to account for what I know, even if I'm playing with a small pool of models, but I'm on the extreme end of the list spectrum and most probably have a core list and just a few adaptations for the game). 

[Rengrave]

Thanks.

Overall what I'm gathering is playing Malifaux you need a tool box of different units. And a big part is going to be to know what units to take based on the strat and schemes. I think this will take some time and experimentation. Its tough though because minis aren't cheap. For example I think if I am going to go into Outcasts (still a debate internally on if I will do Outcasts or Neverborn) I would need to have a Hodgepodge, Midnight Stalker, and Prospector (which is 3 more boxes with a bunch of other stuff I find way less useful all around) no matter what masters I use. I can't see using more than 1 prospector at a time. The Hodgepodge Effigy is of questionable use to me. 

Those three seem way to useful to not have access to them.  This would be a lot less of an issue if they didn't have everything force bundled...

[Azahul]

1 hour ago, Rengrave said:

Thanks.

Overall what I'm gathering is playing Malifaux you need a tool box of different units. And a big part is going to be to know what units to take based on the strat and schemes. I think this will take some time and experimentation. Its tough though because minis aren't cheap. For example I think if I am going to go into Outcasts (still a debate internally on if I will do Outcasts or Neverborn) I would need to have a Hodgepodge, Midnight Stalker, and Prospector (which is 3 more boxes with a bunch of other stuff I find way less useful all around) no matter what masters I use. I can't see using more than 1 prospector at a time. The Hodgepodge Effigy is of questionable use to me. 

Those three seem way to useful to not have access to them.  This would be a lot less of an issue if they didn't have everything force bundled...

For what it's worth, Tara specifically is a small Keyword with options to handle most scenarios on her own and doesn't really need anything from her faction's Versatiles or from different Keywords. If you just focus on building up her Keyword with her four boxes (core, Scion+hunters, Talos+Aionus, and the Tara2+33 box) that will contain everything you need to play Tara even into the upper echelons of competitive play.

 

Not all Keywords can do that, but Tara's Keyword is very well designed and there aren't really any dud models, so even though it is small as Keywords go it's still got a lot of depth and strength to it. That plus its highly unique approach to the game mean you can often play it without tailoring and succeed so long as you have a clear plan for how you are going to score your points.

[Rengrave]

If I do go Outcasts after Tara I think I would expand into Parker/Dead Man. I particularly liked your posts on Dead Man in the thread you started about him.

[Azahul]

Aw, thanks! That is a crew that requires a bit of an investment, since you need the Emissary, a good chunk of Parker's crew, and basically the entirety of Hamelin's Keyword to get it to work. Plus there's a bit more space to flex in some tech pieces OOK in some pools than Tara normally bothers with. But I'm glad you liked the thread.

[Adran]

6 hours ago, Rengrave said:

Thanks.

Overall what I'm gathering is playing Malifaux you need a tool box of different units. And a big part is going to be to know what units to take based on the strat and schemes. I think this will take some time and experimentation. Its tough though because minis aren't cheap. For example I think if I am going to go into Outcasts (still a debate internally on if I will do Outcasts or Neverborn) I would need to have a Hodgepodge, Midnight Stalker, and Prospector (which is 3 more boxes with a bunch of other stuff I find way less useful all around) no matter what masters I use. I can't see using more than 1 prospector at a time. The Hodgepodge Effigy is of questionable use to me. 

Those three seem way to useful to not have access to them.  This would be a lot less of an issue if they didn't have everything force bundled...

Yes, I would say to play a series of 50 ss games in malifaux you really want between 100 and 200 ss of model. But on the upside that will probably give you models that will see you happy for 40-50 games while you learn and understand and learn where you might want to change your list. And whilst there is always a degree of " oh maybe if I owned X it would help here...  "  you probably can have a collection of less than 300 ss that is good for pretty much everything,  but your 300 ss would probably be different to my 300 ss based on the way you play, and what your meta contains. 

Malifaux isn't as cheap a game as it first appears, but I think it still  ends as good value based on the large variety of game play you can get for that outlay.