Obedient Wretch in GG4

[feagaur]

Is the Obedient Wretch still viable in GG4. I don't seem to be getting mush use out of her. She seems to either die before doing anything or just sits around not being able to affect anything. 

Not having an engagement range means she can't tie things up and stop them interacting/moving.  And with her ranged attack having a gun symbol it seems to be affected by everything (Concealment, cover, friendly fire, etc). So really her only use is Bleeding Disease. 

Please let me know if I'm missing something.

[TeddyBear]

I'm adding to the post to ask: is it just my impression, or have you also noticed that Hamelin is no longer played in the most important tournaments? It seems like this since the doubt about the number of ap of the rat kings was clarified.

I believe that such an iconic master with a unique playing style in Malifaux needs to be seen played much more often.
 

[feagaur]

If it helps, I solo'd him this Saturday at Enforcers Assemble. 

Of course, as he's fairly new to me I only managed a draw and 2 losses. But all close games and lots of fun.

 

[TeddyBear]

6 hours ago, feagaur said:

If it helps, I solo'd him this Saturday at Enforcers Assemble. 

Of course, as he's fairly new to me I only managed a draw and 2 losses. But all close games and lots of fun.

 

Very interesting!
Could you, if you want, share your experience?
Do you think anything needs to change currently? It's a keyword that I've practically never seen played; every now and then I try it, but I have the feeling of making a mistake or forgetting something... I could be wrong, but I also share your opinion on the obedient w. she should at least ignore friendly fires to be more useful. Furthermore, summoned rat kings can now have a maximum of 2 focuses, compared to before.

I also find that between summoning effects, models for interact or spread out are very few if played in-keywords. For example, by choosing a midnight stalker, i lose too many points to have an efficient rat-engine.

[feagaur]

16 hours ago, TeddyBear said:

Very interesting!
Could you, if you want, share your experience?
Do you think anything needs to change currently? It's a keyword that I've practically never seen played; every now and then I try it, but I have the feeling of making a mistake or forgetting something... I could be wrong, but I also share your opinion on the obedient w. she should at least ignore friendly fires to be more useful. Furthermore, summoned rat kings can now have a maximum of 2 focuses, compared to before.

I also find that between summoning effects, models for interact or spread out are very few if played in-keywords. For example, by choosing a midnight stalker, i lose too many points to have an efficient rat-engine.

First game I played  was raid the vaults against Maxine 1. I took Hamelin, Stolen, Benny, Nix, Wretch, Prospector, Rat Catcher and 4 rats.

I lost the game turn 1 when Kia charged Nix and red jokered irreducible damage on him. That kind of scuppered my ability to limit his interacting. I managed to turn the rats into a rat king and put some damage on his emissary but that was about it.

Turn 2 was pretty much the same with him taking taking out the rat king and getting his models in a good position.

Turn 3 it started going in my favour. I took out Kia and a machinist and had the prospector in a good position holding up Calypso and the tidecaller whilst putting down scheme markers for protected territory. I also stopped him scoring the strat.

Turn 4 I killed maxine and the emissary but he'd got done enough to make it a 4-3 loss to me.

 

Round 2 was Plant explosives against Kaeris. so I took Hamelin, stolen, Benny, Nix, Disease Contam Unit, Prospector, winged plague and 4 rats.

This game was going better until the last turn. I killed Kaeris turn 2, The fire Golem and Elijah borgman turn 3. This, along with Nix being incorporeal got me the 2 points for In your Face. Unfortunately I misplaced Hamelin on the last turn to try and have him clear of engagements and put him just out of 6" of a stolen so he died which gave my opponent the points for sweating bullets which meant he won 6-5.

Round 3 was Cloak and Dagger vs Dreamer 1. I decided to try something different this time and took Hamelin, stolen, Nix, Wretch a prospector and 8 rats. I tried the rat pass game to get activation control which payed off as I managed to take out Teddy turn 1. My opponent concentrated on killing the rats to stop rat kings, which worked well for me as Benny was in place to turn them into scheme markers for Ensnare. Unfortunately all the low WP rats meant that I was failing lots of duels which was keeping Chompy alive a little longer, and bringing out summoned alps. I did manage to kill chompy turn 3 and start to go after points but the game finished a little into turn 4 with us both on 3 points. If it had gone on a little longer I was in a good position to score death beds and the strat.

I found the wretch worked well in the first two games after Hamelin had put injured +lots on models but died too easily to make a real impact. Benny died quite quickly too, but I think that was down to opponents concentrating on him. Hamelin put out a lot of damage and injured which meant the rest of the crew could put out  alot of damage. Especially the stolen who were generally doing 8 damage an attack.  And the rats proved to be rather good speed bumps and the threat of rat kings really does give your opponent something to think about.

[Azahul]

On 1/30/2024 at 7:57 PM, feagaur said:

I lost the game turn 1 when Kia charged Nix and red jokered irreducible damage on him.

Just double-checking, he did hit you with a second attack, right? Cruel Disappointment means irreducible red joker from Kiya should only do 4 damage.

[Azahul]

I think Hamelin's lack of top tier play is mostly down to it being a complicated crew that isn't easy to run under clock pressure, so for the pools where he's strong (Cloak and Dagger and Raid the Vaults primarily in GG4) most competitive players swing for an equally strong Keyword without the time pressure.

As a regular Hamelin player I think the Obedient Wretch is too cheap to ever leave at home. All she has to do is drop schemes for Benny early on and maybe hit one Bleeding Disease in the game for her to be worthwhile. And you can kill her yourself Turn 5 with Inevitable Fate for the card draw.

[feagaur]

On 2/2/2024 at 12:14 AM, Azahul said:

Just double-checking, he did hit you with a second attack, right? Cruel Disappointment means irreducible red joker from Kiya should only do 4 damage.

Yes, hit NIx again. Wasn't a one hit kill. I think it took all three of his AP (was fast).