Molly Tactica

[Brilliance Laced Whiskey]

Hello, since other Masters have tactica of their own, I decided to start one for Molly.  This is clearly a WiP given that it's only really talked about Molly/Necrotic Machine thusfar...

 

The Forgotten Keyword’s primary ability is called Fading.  Fading grants various benefits for discarding cards.  Many models have abilities that allow you to discard a card to gain said benefit.  It’s easy to forget, but when an enemy forces one of your Forgotten models to discard a card, they then get to use their fading ability.  If an opponent makes Archie discard a card, he gets to heal based on the value of the discarded card.

 

Molly’s team as a whole is a bit softer than most resurrectionists.  However, she more than makes up for it with countless movement shenanigans.  With Molly, you can never assume something is done moving or activating.  Combine that with some of the best schemers in the game, any interact heavy strategies/schemes are something she excels at.

 

Molly 1 abilities:

Molly is a bit of a support master.  Typically I like to have her somewhat in the back of the field, often accompanied by the Necrotic Machine.  This is largely a result of her long range abilities, and due to the fact she is relatively squishy.  While she has “serene countenance” and “hard to wound”, it generally isn’t all that hard to pick her off.  This is why I typically have the Necrotic Machine nearby as he can provide some much needed healing as your opponent tries to pick her off. 

 

Her signature ability is “Lethe’s Caress”.  Any time an enemy declares an action for a second time in a single activation within her line of sight, they automatically take 2 damage.  This is brutal for teams that like to spam the same actions over and over again.  The beauty of this is, Molly doesn’t even need to see the first action take place.  She just needs to see that model when they declare the second action.   This is particularly annoying for models slogging it across the board as they will typically have to move and charge to avoid taking damage.  Pay close attention to when your opponent charges in order to avoid Lethe’s Caress, as it is a push action and must be a straight line.

 

Many of her abilities are best utilized mid-late turn, with the possible exception of the first turn of the game.  No more is this evident with her “Gorgon’s Influence” ability.  This allows her to fill up her control hand to the same size as the opponents.  Try and use your crucial fading abilities early on in the turn, before your opponent burns through their control hand, and then stock back up on cards.  If you screw this up, don’t worry, Molly has many ways of gathering more cards which we will go into in a second.

 

Molly is often accompanied by the “Whisper” upgrade.  This allows her to control her activation pretty well by making sure you can hit your TN’s. 

 

Molly 1 interlude:  The Necrotic Machine

But before we get to Molly’s actions, we are going to want to explore her totem, the Necrotic Machine, who due to his “Accomplice” ability, is often performing a back to back activation with itself and another model.  Early on this is likely Molly, though it can be used in tandem with some beaters as well.  Given Molly’s relative squishiness, generally I like having the Necrotic Machine nearby Molly mostly due to it’s ability to heal her at least 2 hitpoints in one turn.  It also pairs decently well with the rogue necromancy due to how it affects models with poison. 

 

The Necrotic Machine may not be the flashiest of totems, but it has it where it counts.  Like many of Molly’s models, it can do some real sneaky underhanded stuff to catch the opponent off guard.  First off, the Necrotic Machine is significant, and relatively durable compared to most totems with Df5 and armor 2.  You can use “accomplice” to activate another model back to back, which also triggers his fading ability which allows Molly to heal 1.  Combine that with the “emergency syrette”, which can also heal her 1/2/3. 

 

Like I said, I like to have it nearby Molly at the start of the game, out of the enemy’s line of sight if possible, and he focuses and drops a scheme marker.  I like to do this in the second turn as well, depending on the case I might need to Strange Behavior it to make it work.  The scheme marker is there for one of Molly’s actions, and I like to make sure the enemy can’t see it.  Molly can use this marker as a last resort to draw 2 cards if the card gods are not in your favor (we all know how finicky the card gods can be).  Depending on how the game is progressing he might run off and do other things such as scheme or assist other models.  He’s also a solid choice for Crooligan’s “By Your Side” depending on its board location in the later turns.  It kind of serves as a bodyguard for Molly, and I have him react to the battlefield as things progress.

 

Strange Behavior:  He can do some interesting things, especially in later turns, or, in the later part of an individual turn.  This comes in the form of his “strange behavior” action, which is indeed very strange at first glance.  On a 4, the opponent picks up the top card of their discard pile, and if it is a severe or moderate the Necrotic Machine can move 3 inches and take an action.  How can this be utilized?  Well, here’s a few instances.

 

Is it the end of turn and your schemes fell through?  With Strange Behavior he can interact, move, interact.  Since his 30mm base is slightly over 1 inch in length, as long as you move your full distance he can drop 2 scheme markers a turn (and not have to worry about having 2 scheme markers being within 4 of each other).  You can also get him to leave combat without a disengage, and then interact.  Or in pizza delivery, he can throw his pizza a few inches, move, and then push it for the full 6.  Or he can throw his pizza, and then the enemies pizza that’s nearby (sorry, I can’t remember the name of that strategy off the top of my head…) 

 

Strange Behavior can also be useful early on in the turn when the enemy hasn’t utilized their control hand yet and there is a 6 or 7 on the top of their discard card pile.  Though you do have to be careful, because if they require a lot of specific suits for their abilities, you might be playing into their hand.  A 6 of masks is useful for most teams that have models with leap for example.  The action also works great if he is alive at the end of the game nearing the last activation.  You might not care if your opponent picks up a face card if it means you can potentially move out of combat and score a scheme at the very last second. 

 

Lastly, since I like to get him stacked up with focus early on in the game, it is relatively easy for him to dump poison on model’s getting to close to Molly by charging 1 threat, getting poison on him, strange behavioring into another, again dumping poison on them, and then all of a sudden they can’t use their precious triggers/stone due to his “neurotoxin” ability.  Thanks to the focus he will likely have a slight advantage.  You can combine that with Rogue Necromancy’s poison blast, and really hinder some teams who rely heavily on triggers (don't forget this will turn off their defensive triggers as well).  Keep in mind, if you then immediately “accomplice” over to Molly after the Necrotic Machine’s activation is done, that is potentially one more card Molly would draw as a result of “Gorgon’s Influence” ability immediately afterwards.

 

As a result you might want the Necrotic Machine near Molly, at least early on.  You then chain activate her.  I suppose there is also the “Ceaseless Advance” action, which allows the Necrotic Machine to move 2 and take an action if your opponent has no cards in their control hand during the end phase.  You might be able to get off if you can make your opponent ditch some of their cards at the last second.  However, it will very rarely happen, and even more rarely will you even remember about it.

 

Molly’s 1 Actions:

Premonition:   Molly’s bonus action.  This action allows any friendlies within 4 to discard a card to gain focus +1 and push 2 inches.  Typically I use this action almost immediately on turn 1.  Later in the game it’s less relevant as things get spread out, though it can still be useful.  Generally this action is intended to utilize the teams fading abilities.

 

1.  Use this to maximize getting rid of bad cards, and utilizing your teams fading abilities .  Use it to get Rabble Riser’s focus +2 before they even activate.  Or use it on Night Terror’s to get them to slingshot them up the board 7 inches (potentially taking Philip with them since he copies their fading ability).  Try and combine it with any number of models and fading abilities.

2.  If Philip and the Necrotic Machine nearby and Molly’s been hit hard?  Discard a low level card to get Molly to heal up.

3.  It’s also a sneaky way to get friendlies nearby out of close combat.  Later in the game you can do some unbelievably dirty stuff with it.  You can commit your Rabble Riser’s to close combat later in the game, say “Psych!”, move them out of combat with the ability and then immediately Constructive Criticism them so they can run off and scheme at the last second due to the secondary activations.

4.  This action is not keyword locked.  If you take OoK models, you can give them easy focus without having to waste their own actions to do it.  They also get a little bit of unpacking in the process.

 

Lost Knowledge:  Does this ability even need an explanation?  Remove a marker within 8 inches to draw 2 cards.  An enemy scheme marker?  Gone.  Hoffman’s pylon?  Gone.  Underbrush marker?  Gone.  Scrap/Corpses markers that can be potentially used to summon?  Gone.  This action is also the reason why I drop scheme markers with my Necrotic Machine near Molly early on in the game.  If I am desperate, and need cards, the option is there for me.  This pairs well with “Premonition” if you ended up discarding a whole bunch of cards during Molly’s turn.

 

Constructive Criticism:  This amazing action does several things at once.  First it grants a forgotten minion model/Molly a fading ability, and then that forgotten minion gets a second activation.  This is stellar for all the obvious reasons as it pairs well with all her minions.  You had a crooligan interact, and then move into base contact with an enemy scheme marker earlier in the turn?  Get it to remove the scheme marker and then get a second whole second activation to do whatever it needs to.  Did a rabble riser fail to take down a flank runner during their 1^st activation even with all their focus?  Give him another focus and a second activation to take them out.  Or, one of my favorites, make sure a night terror with Grave Spirit’s Touch is harassing a master while hindering their ability to cheat.  Since it is a Tactical Action, it ignores the night terror’s concealment aura.  The terror makes them a nuisance to deal with, and they aren’t going to want to waste their master’s AP on it.  They will struggle to target nearby friendlies due to the concealment aura. 

 

Disturbing Story:  Disturbing Story is an ability I don’t like to use all the time, as I like to lure my opponent into a false sense of security.  Disturbing story inflicts up to 3 irreducible damage on an opponent (with a potential stagger trigger) based on the difference of number of cards between their current control hand, and their starting control hand.  I usually don’t use this until turn 3 when my opponent is really committing themselves to the fight and spending cards like crazy.  You can absolutely nuke some models due to your stellar card hand you’ve built up, and there is very little they can do about it.  Nuking a heavy beater for 9 irreducible damage is gnarly, especially when they don’t see it coming.

 

Lastly we have “One More Question”:  A solid enough ability.  Pairs well when anything in your list get’s into combat, and due to the built in ram trigger, also works well immediately after dual activated her with the Necrotic Machine engaging an enemy and poisoning them.  Inflicting “Slow” with 2/4/5 damage?  Not shabby.  The debt of Gratitude trigger is also a good way to also deal some damage early on in the game.

[Brilliance Laced Whiskey]

Reserved space for henchman/enforcers discussion later so it doesn't get so cluttered...

[Brilliance Laced Whiskey]

Ditto.  Same as above, except for minions.

[Brilliance Laced Whiskey]

Reserved for Out of Keyword model talk.

[Brilliance Laced Whiskey]

Reserved for Card Hand/Ability/Trigger list (I like to sort things out by groups.  Ie Healing, friendly auras, enemy only auras, movement tricks, discards, card draw, etc) effects.  I like to play to my hand and having some sort of ability priority list.

[Maniacal_cackle]

Looking forward to reading the rest! I wrote one ages ago but love reading other perspectives.

[Deviant_H0rse]

Any chance of continuing the topic?

[OracleToronto]

On 5/4/2023 at 8:00 PM, Maniacal_cackle said:

Looking forward to reading the rest! I wrote one ages ago but love reading other perspectives.

I hear you - I think I promised a Molly2 Tactica a year ago?! lol 

[Brilliance Laced Whiskey]

Sorry, life caught up with me hard (both work and personal) when I thought I was going to be able to commit more time to it.  I'll get to it, I promise, it could just be a little longer than anticipated...  I must apologize.