Best way to use Betty?

[osoi]

Well I have Seamus and his Belles and was looking at adding Betty to the crew but she is quite expensive so I was wondering two things what size game do think she performs best at and how do you use Betty.

Models I use and cycle through:

Seamus

Copycat Killer

3 Belles

Sybelle

Betty

3 Punk Zombies

2 Hanged

Convict Gunslinger

Edited May 3, 2010 by osoi

[shekbo]

Ok, Ive used betty a few times to great success (Though some would say I had a lot of luck) but I know a few things. One thing I can't really help with yet is game size, because the people I play with and I almost exclusively play 25ss games, because a lot of my friends havent' gotten around to painting lots of figs, so we play with what we've got.

As for how to use betty, here goes: Summon her whenever she would be reasonably within striking distance of any enemy model, especially if she'd be within melee, because she will destroy that model. Whenever betty's on the board, always, always keep a 10+ card handy for her, because she needs one to disappear. You will notice that she has the disappear ability and slow to die. If you disappear as your slow to die action, she simply won't die. she'll just go away and heal all her wounds.

So, essentially, you have an indestructible figure capable of insane amounts of destruction.

Now, her daggers don't do too much in the way of damage, so if you really want to be hurting something you'll almost always want to use the depraved tactics to get ++ on damage flips. However, one strategy I've found brutal in the right situations is instead going with the paralyze option and throw her into melee against your opponent's important figures, both damaging them and making it so that your opponent can't move, this is especially effective against summoning or buffing masters such as some'er teeth or Nicodem, or for low defense heavy hitters like the desolation engine.

Also, although she has a ranged attack, you really want to plunge her into melee.

and that's what I know about betty!

[chaosobscuros]

I occasionally use Bette in 40ss games, and rarely use her in 30ss. She is too pricey, in my opinion to use her in a lower cost game, and I almost never use her with any Master other than Nico; that boost to her CB and Def is too good to pass up!

She can be a challenge to use. Although her special attacks are nice, her damage output and wounds don't live up to her point cost. You need to have a plan before you bring her onto the table. I tend to use her to tie up my more feared opponents, controlling their activations to reduce their threat. Against living models, Sever Spine is tremendous. If my opponents are not living, I will usually go for Mutilate. Groin Strike is great if you can kill a model quickly, and take advantage of her Fast to get into melee with a second. Regardless of her high Def, she rarely lasts over a turn or two before she needs to Become One with the Night, at least that has been the case in most of my games with her.

I'm not really sure that I would take her in a Seamus army. The Belles are a staple, Luring your opponents to you so that you can pick them off one at a time. You have already got some hefty damage dealing models, and I'm not really sure that Bette will add a lot to them.

Of course, the next poster will probably prove me completely wrong, using some wicked combo that i have never though of.

[MrScotty]

Now I'll be the first to admit betty's a situational figure, but boy does she play hell with some masters. Mcmourning? Can't sacrifice a dog or you get Betty. Some'er teeth? Sorry, no gremlin sacrificing. She practically shuts down Leveticus, slicing him up as soon as he resurrects himself or cutting up vulnerable waifs. The psycological fear of Betty popping up can even make your opponent think twice about killing a vulnerable fig in melée and you can almost always get her on the field every turn. As for damage output, if you really want bang for your buck stab up your opponents master or high value figures, and she can take down big nasty low defense opponents like the desolation engine or Teddy with a well placed flurry as well as slowing or paralyzing them.

[snakeking]

Used Betty today for the first time and after a looong layoff from playing. I had left Sebastian out to dry after he killed a witchling stalker. Well, he died and i brought Betty in to play and charged Soniaa, should have used the slow or paralyze, but chose the ++ flip option. She spent soulstone resisting me.

Next turn I won the INI flip, flurried Betty and again had the ++ flip up and was able to kill her.

I liked her for this first game even with a nearbye witchling that was going to prevent me from healing. She is a great tool for hassling and draws some attention.

The 9ss is pricey, but worked out.

[Hookers]

I use her with Seamus all the time. She is good at killing stuff, so take her in slaughter and assassinate.

I would never use her in a match that was less than 35ss because you usually just need more models at lower point games.

The key is to bring her in when you opponent kills a guy and not when you just killed someone because she'll be gone before you know it.

[Lucidicide]

Agreed, I once brought her in off my own kill, and she died my opponent's next activation. Granted, I could have played it better, but it was still absurd.

[Aldyhide]

I've found that it's best to deploy Bete Noire once the target model has exhausted all of his/her actions in killing one of yours. Then you deploy Bete, and since its now your activation you can start shanking with her right away. This will almost always kill or at least cripple the opposing model, unless of course you have insanely bad luck like I do and flip, 3, 2,8 for damage. She might even be able to kill another fig that's close by if there's enough models around her. Since there's the firing into friendly melee Wp-> duel, coupled with her gloom and doom aura. But, she'll rarely take more than two down. This is why I like to think of her as a revenge figure.

[Q'iq'el]

I've bought Betty for my wife's Nicodem crew. That was a mistake.

She's really scary. Her low damage output is a trap - if you summon her when having hand good enough to pull out her triggers, you do flurry and she tears models apart.

With Groin Strike active and her flurry attack, pulling out ~10-ish damage is well within realm of possibility and she can go up to 16 if she kills her first target and gains fast. In other words, even masters are not safe from her, if your hand is good.

Good stuff:

- Very reliable: Paired knives means to hit, then you get :+fate to damage or even :+fate if you can get Rot. Her damage is nominally low, but unlike some other models, she almost always pulls it out. If she's bolstered by Nico, she sits at Cb8 - better than some melee oriented masters, if you consider her paired weapons.

- A nasty tool to deal with Control-Card intensive opponent: Just attack his important model with flurry and cheat for Slit Jugular. See his 4~6 control cards go (or the model).

- Great defensive tool: Sever Spine or Mutilate opponents who threaten your master (if you paralyze the assailant, your master can disengage with no fear of the disengaging strike - especially important for Nico, because his melee is bad but after just one walk he can Decay the attackers twice) or your objectives.

- Reasonably survivable against physical attacks - Df of 7 is not bad at all and it goes up to 9 when bolstered by Nico.

- Great frustrator & mistake inducer - whenever your opponent decides to eliminate a model, he must account for possibility of her appearing. People (me) get scared, make mistakes, lose games.

- She gets fast if she (or someone around) kills something. Flurry someone and if you kill him asses the situation - if there are other weak targets in the area, strike them. If not, you can move to cover or do One with the Night and wait for next chance.

Weakness:

- Low Wd count. It is very easy to get her to 0.

- Wp is low - while you need strong melee character or even a master to kill her quickly with weapons, a caster can get rid of her quite easily.

Keep a spare 10+ in your Control Hand so that you can use your Slow to Die for (1) One with Night and you can mitigate that weakness.

Some practical hints:

Deploy her when your models die and opponent's activation ends. That way it will be your activation turn and you can immediately use her (unless there's some sort of companion situation, better skip those).

Don't be afraid of going after strong targets if you have a really good hand to spend on her, but otherwise pick up easy targets with her - she'll kill them for sure, get fast and wound or kill some more. If your master activates after her, he'll have a bunch of corpse counters to reanimate - an easy way to completely turn the table against an opponent expecting an easy kill.

Also, am I right that she doesn't get "Slow" when she appears? She isn't a summoned model, but rather deploys through a special rule, so I figured out "Slow" doesn't affect her...

Edited May 19, 2010 by Q'iq'el

[chaosobscuros]

Also, am I right that she doesn't get "Slow" when she appears? She isn't a summoned model, but rather deploys through a special rule, so I figured out "Slow" doesn't affect her...

You are right. Bette is a "Place" and not a "Summon."

[ProdigalPunk]

First, I will suggest you buy some dogs or necropunks asap. I feel rezzers work best with a hand full of cheap models in their mix.

Almost all Masters are living models, so if you outnumber your opponent, which with dogs in your list you just might, you should be able to keep their master from doing much of anything the rest of the game unless they make a commitment to get rid of her.

I would never pull her out unless I had a 10 in my hand to keep her safe, but that should not be too hard to do. I see her as a resource depletion tool. If you can run a dog up to their master and just sit there and wait for the dog to get killed. Paralyze and flurry your heart out. I would not even worry too much about killing the master just keep chopping away at the hand and soul stones. With paired and a decent CB I would not even bother cheating to much unless it is a guaranteed kill, I would just try to get my opponent to drop as many cards from his hand without using any of mine.

[Q'iq'el]

In my yesterday's game Bête Noire has utterly upset a trap I've sprung up on my opponent. It's a very good illustration she's a really versatile tool.

My opponent played Treasure Hunt with Nicodem's Lot (including Betty). A 30 SS game.

At certain point Lilith, Young Nephilim and Mature Nephilim had sprung an elaborate trap to stop and eliminate "Treasure Hunters" group composed of 2 Punk Zombies (buffed by Bolster Undead) and Mortimer.

First Lilith Transpositioned herself nearby, charged and killed one of the Zombies. Bête Noire used that death to pop up. She took Sever Spine as her Depraved Tactics and promptly paralyzed Lilith (it's enough to hit the target to paralyze it and it's not hard to do with to hit from her Paired Knives at attacks at Cb 8 with Nico's buff). Bête got one wound from Black Blood. The idea was to stop Lilith from blocking the Treasure Hunt group from moving away (Lilith is particularly good at this thanks to her "Wicked" ability - to move away from her is to give her free strikes). It worked perfectly.

However, that was not the end of my trap. The Mature Nephilim charged the Punk Zombie carrying the treasure, cheated fate to get Knock Aside trigger, pushed the zombie away (forcing it to drop the treasure) and charged Mortimer so that it can keep both Mortimer and Bête in his melee range (so that nobody can pick up the treasure and get away), causing 5 wounds to him too.

Then my Young Nephilim charged Bête and caused only 2 wounds to her (she was Bolstered by Nicodem, and debuffed by Alluring aura from Lilith, leaving her at nominal Df of 7. It's still hard to get through it with Cb 6 Young Nephilim). This was the end of the turn.

In the next turn Nico's team gained initiative, Bête charged Mature Nephilim (while staying in range of the Young Nephilim so there's no disengaging strike), promptly paralyzed him and lost her last wound to his Black Blood. She used Slow to Die to bury and heal herself. I should've activated Mature Nephilim first, so that I still keep Mortimer in combat, but I activated Lilith first instead (hoping that she will have enough range to do the same, which was a miscalculation). Mortimer used that lapse to disengage and get away (paralyzed models can't do disengaging strike) and after my Mature Nephilim activated (only to remove paralysis counter), Nicodem killed it with Decay (no longer in melee, so an easy target), raised ton of mindless zombies (empty vessel) and reanimated the previously killed Punk Zombie.

In the end I delayed my opponent's treasure hunters enough to grab a win (game ended in turn 6), but it could easily end as my loss if the game extended to turn 7 and all because Bête Noire dismantled my trap so quickly.

Edited May 23, 2010 by Q'iq'el

[Chucklemonkey]

You are right. Bette is a "Place" and not a "Summon."

This makes a huge difference, I had always played her as slow on that first activation.

Played her a few times and it didn't really work out. Last week though - after reading the thoughts on the first page- I was far more careful and she ripped apart practically an entire guild crew.

[Monkey]

One trick i have with seamus.

If you are faceing a player with 2 modles close to each other and lacking a bell in position to pull one away.

Seamus moves up and shoots one dead.

Use that death to get out betty

opponant sees a threat and charges her.

Betty with a def of 7 can make them waste good cards to get the needed hit in.

Then use return to the grave

Next turn activate seamus first and drop the moddle that just killed betty.... poof out comes betty.

In this game i found after a few times she popped in and out my opponant got fixated on betty and let me run about and get every objective i wanted... ended up on 10VP to 0 and betty was still on the table.

[Alondir]

Q'iq'el, how i read that is Bete paralysed ur master, than you proceeded to activate as normal next turn, and not take paralysed debuff??? Did I read that right? if not I apologise.

But still yea countered much ^^

[tenabrae]

Q'iq'el, how i read that is Bete paralysed ur master, than you proceeded to activate as normal next turn, and not take paralysed debuff??? Did I read that right? if not I apologise.

But still yea countered much ^^

A paralyzed model still activates but can't do anything. He was talking about activating the model to 'burn off' its paralyzed status so it would be able to make disengaging strikes (i.e. the model does nothing, but is not paralyzed anymore).

[Q'iq'el]

A paralyzed model still activates but can't do anything. He was talking about activating the model to 'burn off' its paralyzed status so it would be able to make disengaging strikes (i.e. the model does nothing, but is not paralyzed anymore).

Yup.

I'll just add that Lilith is Wicked so her disengaging strikes not only hold opponent in melee, but also do actual damage. It was worth activating her first, over Mature Nephilim (also paralyzed), except for the fact that Mature Nephilim had Mortimer in range, and Lilith missed him by .1~.2 of an inch.