Raven-Rock-Tomes: I win

[Magno]

So, I played Malifaux heavily for the first few months it was out, then throttled back for awhile and after reading the new book, I'm excited to make it a tier 1 game for myself again.

One of the biggest problems I had after the initial whirlwind of awesomeness subsided, was I found there to be a definite paper-scissors-rock element to the game, depending which crews faced off against each other.

I don't have a tremendous playtime familiarity with crews outside the Ressurections, but what I found was the following.

Seamus (especially Terrifying) crews did very well against crews that had low WP and who couldn't ignore WP penalties or duels.

Same goes for Kirai and Colette.

Nicodem, Seamus and Kirai do terribly against Lady Justice Crews in general or any crews that ignore WP duels or penalities. Its a terrible taste to go against these crews (although I can appreciate the fluff angle) as Lady Justice with Death Marshals pack most of the Undead bonuses all while ignoring their debuffs. Doesn't seem appropriate, but so be it.

I'm asking the rest of the forums their opinions on crew match-ups (their general crews, starter boxes and most common crew builds) in general stand-up fights and/or with particular scenarios.

I want to know because I'm gonna fire up demos at my new LGS and want to design a home-brew campaign/story line. Knowing the inherent miss-matches will help steer me away from poor demo match-ups and also augment a campaign to have lots of flavor.

[eruletho]

Lillith and Justice are commonly referred to as one of the best sets of boxes to start off against each other for demo purposes.

As for masters who have problems against other masters (speaking strictly of starter boxes, outside that, almost any master can kill any other due to crew combinations):

Guild: I can't really speak on guild since I don't play them, but my Kirai team is undefeated against Justice.

Ressurectionist: Nico, Seamus, and McMourning all die fairly easily to Justice (obviously) and Lillith, who kind of cuts through their hordes. I'd imagine the Viktorias can do much the same. Kirai can put alot of those conventional resser bad match ups to rest, but has problems against magical weapons and spells. She dies to Sonia, Rasputina, and anyone else who is spell-heavy

Arcanists: Tina dies to Sonia and Lilith, Ramos dies to Kirai (not alot of magic on that team) and most of the other res teams, Marcus can't seem to beat Perdita (and Sonia would probably beat him too), and I haven't seen enough of Colette to say for her, but something FAST would do it, probably Kirai or Lilith

Neverborn: Pretty much the entire faction goes down to Perdita. Justice vs Lilith is a good match up, just because they are the "melee masters" of the game, and the terror tots are fast enough to catch the death marshals before they get shot to ribbons. Pandora dies fairly easily to Ramos (and by extension, Hoffman), and the undead, because they ignore morale duels, which she needs to win. I haven't really seen Zorida, so I can't say for her. The dreamer... well, I really have no idea what can kill him easily. Sonia can make it hard for him to play his tricks.

Outcast: I have no idea in this field, because I barely ever see them played. Only thing I know is Somer dies to just about anything if the guy playing him hasn't mastered him.

[Wodschow]

@eruletho:

I don't agree with all your assessments and when I read the part about Pandora I got the feeling that you have a wrong impression of what morale duels is. The only morale duels Pandoras standard crew causes are those from the terrifying Teddy and 'Baby's got a Knife!', the rest are merely Wp duels which neither constructs nor undead have any immunities against, and even if they did Pandora have an ability called 'The Box Opens'.

I'll wait for Book2 and errata V2 and see if anything's terribly unbalanced though.

[Berman]

Their is soe rock paper scissors with masters. But then again. Your supposed to pick a faction, know you strategy and opposing faction and then build a crew out.

[DireTrollJake]

I've never been in a 100% uphill battle as claimed in rock/paper/scissors, however I primarily play teeth so...I guess all my matches are to an extent and I am use to it?

[Xango]

well magno, we have only played: my wife Pandora, and me Zoraida and ramos against her, i have only managed to win 1 game, the thing is that overall i allways kill almost all her models, but the straegies and final balance, allways goes with pandora, in the forum people keep saying that she`s a weak box option, but imo, she`s a pain in the ass, so i agree with the sissors-paper-rock, but in the end the startegies and schemes play a huge rol and sometimes the win is in the last second, besides this, ramos and zoraida are really fun to play, so if you want to throw this crews to the newbs, they will have a hell of a time.

[pancake ss]

The box's are great starters but to better your crew you are going to have to tweak them. So you can have a choice of minis that you can pick from to combat the crew thats facing you. if you dont tinker your crew you may get R/P/S games.

[paradox]

I think one mistake I often see people make in alt activation games is take a small force of expensive models. There is really power in having MORE activation than the other guy. This is, IMO, where the real power lies in a gremlin force. In my experience, the sheer number of shots nd bodies a gremlin force can have can drag down an elite enemy.

I've played Perdita only once, but even her box has 5 models and some of those are expendable/throwaway activations (unless you just have the whole family go) where others are great 1st activaters, capable of outright killing an enemy unactivated model.

But I know Justice far better, so I'll talk about that.

Justice also has 5 models. If I'm playing a box game, I use the Judge as a speed bump and stagger the marshalls. The Judge is a big threat that alot of people fear, but his range is shorter and he's not as efficient at range as melee, so I like to get him up there and let him soak it up.

The marshalls are FANTASTIC at piling on ranged damage. They can drop similar 4 stone models in two shots pretty easier with crit strikes. And I get 3. After the Judge makes a threat move, the marshalls can begin to respond to enemy positioning, laying down a field of fire that can allow them to threaten an equal number of weaker models or combine to beat up on a harder threat. These guys in numbers are the real power of the Justice set. They are the mid-turn activaters that are going to be cranking out most of the damage while people are ignoring them in fear of Judge/Justice.

Justice is the last piece. She's normally the model I activate last (we'll get to that in a minute). She's also the one most people worry about. But she is really my clean-up crew. Early and mid-game she doesn't do much but threaten. It's her imminent activation that seems to make most of my opponents sweat it out over what to do. She hasn't gone yet and there's the Judge in their grill with 3 marshalls laying down cover fire behind.

Maybe I'm weird, but I very frequently put Justice on a far flank. The Judge and marshalls come up the middle (sometimes the Judge flanks one way or the other too) and Justiec flanks. This really throws people off. She doesn't seem to be in the game, but she can be in any given turn. It's a HUGE threat that activates last each round and as the game grinds on and they get weaker, it gets scarier.

And that's the power of a fast, heavy flanker. Justice is a death machine with a solid defense (plenty of stones to stop damage + riposte for melee). She's a weight hanging over their head every turn, waiting. It forces their activations and tends to let me control the pace. Then, when I've softened them up with a slow advance of marshalls and bullets and stuff in gummed up in the middle and beat up, Justice rolls in and sweeps up the mess. That's when she goes from activating last to first.

And that's the other side of it. I mention 5 models cause it matters. In a 30ss game, I can take a Justice box with 5 models, 4 of which are ultimately disposable. BUT, I will often see people take 4-5 models + a healthy amount of stones. This means I am equal or better in activations, and my ranged abilities are often better than theirs and/or I simply have a further range. This lets me get ahead in activatiosn early. Then I can sac a model to force them into a killbox. I can afford to throwaway a model early if need be to force an activation on their end.

I often see carefully constructed forces where every model is dangerous and plays a key role in a plan...but each is necessary for that plan. Losing one will often throw it off. But when I can afford to lose a model or to throw one out to die in order to get a leg up on numbers of activations, I will win that game.

I think that's why cheap hard hitters, especially cheap ranged hard-hitters are a great tool in alt action games. If you can draw a small elite force into range, you can trade blows in the early turn activations softening up models, then late turn kill them. Once you pull ahead in activatios, you can start beating up unactivated models every turn, further sapping their strength. But throwing that threat model out to draw them into range is key. If you have all threat models and no expendables, it's alot harder to do.

Perdita is so sick because Loco and Santiago ar prefect throwaways while Nino and Perdita are great earlier activaters than can hit with little to fear in return. Fransico is a good damage dealer to pick on models drawn in. And then when you're ready, you family up and have one huge activation of death.

[eruletho]

You're right up above, I had the wrong impression of Pandora's crew since I'd never played with or against her (though I own her... need to fix that) Most of my earlier post is just my perceptions and what I've seen personally. Other people can have other results

paradox, I agree with your write up. That's a philosophy I transfered over from the other minis game i play (Star Wars minis) that has serve me well. My Kirai box, I'll often start with 3 seishen in 30ss or 4 in 35ss, along with a few Onyro and Datsue, which gives me 8 models to most people's 5 or so. I burn seishens the first 3-4 activations, which lets me see what the opponent is going to do before moving Kirai and dropping the Ikiryo on someone.

[Iamwyrd]

Just wanted to let everybody know/remind them, if kirai goes against lady j the bonus to WP for unread doesn't apply, because spirits only count as not living, not undead. So they use base WP unless lady j says any non living model, then ill eat my words, but I don't play lady j so I don't know off the top of my head.

[Twizz666]

Just wanted to let everybody know/remind them, if kirai goes against lady j the bonus to WP for unread doesn't apply, because spirits only count as not living, not undead. So they use base WP unless lady j says any non living model, then ill eat my words, but I don't play lady j so I don't know off the top of my head.

If you're talking about "fear not death" she only gets +2 wp against undead when she's the defender. So you're right... she get's nothing against Kirai. =] that's good to know

[Brandubh]

Also please note that it's defense only, so it doesn't do anything against Harmless or Terrifying either.

-Patrick