Ideas for beating Hamelin the Plagued

[magicpockets]

I love how the unstoppable, overpowered, unbalanced, broken Hamelin is starting to creak a little now these discussions have taken place

[LoboStele]

Here's a thought...

Requires to activate at least 2 pieces in a situation where you'd already be out-activated, but I think it can work.

Using Colette's crew, you use Companion so that both the Coryphees and Cassandra are activating (and maybe Colette too, if you want). Have Cassandra move up near a Swarm, and then via Understudy, cast Colette's Disappearing Act on a Rat Catcher. Then either have Cassandra use Dance Partner to move the Coryphees into position, or run them up, probably into the same space which the Rat Catcher just vacated. Then launch assault with Orchestral Crescendo. Depending on how many AP the Coryphee have at the moment, there's multiple options here. You could Dance Apart and then move/Crescendo for maximum area of coverage. You could also leave them in Duet form, and do Crescendo more than once, utilizing the :masks Swirl of Motion trigger to move a bit and then cast it again. Play a 12 or higher (or Soulstone...probably worth it in this case) from your hand during the spell cast, and the rats won't be able to beat you.

Otherwise, I would likely keep Colette back, and spam Doves to be sent as dive-bomb attackers to keep Hamelin occupied. If you can manage to finish him off once, he's easy to tackle from then on, with an effective Ca of 1 vs. Magician's Duel.

I'm thinking mostly about Arcanists here, as that's my main faction. Raspy has already been covered in detail here. I think targetting the Rat-catchers with December's curse should still be OK, as you could focus any blast damage in the same direction each time, and you might be able to get away with only killing 1-2 rats with each blast. Use your first spell cast and the blast damage to remove the two rats which are granting Armor to the Rat Catcher. You might not end up doing any Wds in the end on that spell cast due to Devoured. But then you get two more Spell Casts, and he's got no Armor now. Just have to get at least Moderate damage on both hits, and you have a dead Rat Catcher.

This is another situation where the Mechanical Rider with Raspy might be advantageous. My other favorite with Raspy lately though, is Hans, who could also be brutal here. He could kill a Ratcatcher in one turn with the right cards (thank you Critical Strike) as he could ignore the armor with his spell. Plus, he can stay WAY outside of range for any of Hamelin's abilities, especially with a Silent One's help.

What about Ramos? The Steamborg can obviously help a bit with his Terrifying and good damage stats. Knock Aside might be helpful, and Decapitate would certainly be good against the semi card starved Hamelin. Ramos has his Electrical Fire spell which ignores Armor, so that could work well. You've also got the Electrical Creation which would do very well at clearing out any rats that manage to get a bit too far from a Rat Catcher. What else can you guys think of? Obviously, I don't think blowing up Spiders will do much good.

I also play Hoffman, so thinking about how to make him work out. The Peacekeeper's Terrifying should help. Hoffman's Open Circuit would be good for killing the rats quickly, but you've got to get the Rat Catcher out of the way first, and I have no clue how to do that at the moment. I guess use the Hunter's/Peacekeeper's Drag triggers with their Chain Spear? Ryle might be able to put a hurting on a Rat Catcher, but again, he has to be within 12 to do it, which means he probably dies immediately afterwards. Hoffman himself would be great at killing the Rat Catchers (his Soulstone Torch ignores armor, and is a minimum 4 damage with Machine Puppet), but then he's got to be smack-dab in the middle of the action. Still though...that might be your best bet. Have Hoffman hitch a ride with something into the middle of the fray, then use his Machine Puppet on himself twice in order to kill the Rat Catcher, then Tap Power on whatever he rode with, in order to gain Fast and then use Open Circuit to kill any nearby rats. The biggest problem it that I see is that it takes you two activations to do that is that Hoffman probably gets hit by something in the meantime there, whether it's all the rats nearby, or Hamelin gives him Insignificant, or some crap like that. Would have to depend on good cards and Soulstones to defend against Hammy's spells.

[Necromorph]

@ Lobo

Very nice advice. Terrifying in particular really does put the swarm in a tough position with rats running all over the damn place, lol.

Though the Hamelin player will be trying to neutralize the terrifying models as quickly as possible, especially from crews like the dreamer where stopping him from making all of his nightmares terrifying is BIG. In crews with only 1 or 2 terrifying models, you will have to be very very careful with their placement and use of cover (steamborg has an obvious advantage) in order to get them to the swarm. Hamelin will be avoiding them and gunning for them haaard. You may need some kind of distraction to get them there.

[LoboStele]

I don't see how Cover would help all that much though. Would only stop Hamelin's pipes. Bleeding Disease, Inevitable Truth, and Obedience are all just normal Rg spells, no symbol. The real trick would be to set up in such a way that the Steamborg can charge the Rat Catcher and then have to pull off Moderate/Severe damage twice for the instant kill. Then Hamelin player has to choose between summoning a new Rat Catcher right away, or potentially losing the Rats on Ramos' next activation (only good way to do that though is run up an Arachnid Swarm and then Self-Detonate). Even so, I don't really like most of Ramos' options.

Seems like the Rat Catchers almost HAVE to be killed in a single activation though, as otherwise, they could easily do Slaughter Rats on the next activation and heal back up. For the Hamelin vs. Ramos matchup, I actually think I like the idea of Ramos using Electrical Fire the best. Ramos' CA already beats the Catcher's Df by 4 to start with, and you just need to get two Moderates, or a Weak and a Severe to kill the RC. Keeps your other pieces at a safe distance as well. If you play it right, you should have an Electrical Creation in play somewhere that can then float into the rats and explode on them.

[WUWU]

Doves are Ht 1 and cannot target Hamelin, fyi. The best bet with Colette is to generally avoid his crew at all costs and just use your superior mobility to score VP. Disappearing Act on a Rat Catcher when you have the chance is pretty ace though.

[Hookers]

Doves are Ht 1 and cannot target Hamelin, fyi.

can't they just blow up though? no targeting required

[WUWU]

Yeah, I guess. And six doves later you might have a dead Hamelin. If he doesn't heal.

[Necromorph]

Yeah, I guess. And six doves later you might have a dead Hamelin. If he doesn't heal.

Or move up and (1) Irresistable Lure them to death before they get to him, lol.

[LoboStele]

Doh, forgot about the Ht 1 business. Grr. I guess one-on-one, Colette might stand a decent chance to bring him down with Magician's duel, but man, that'd be tough.

Definitely would plan on playing the Avoid game though as much as possible early on. I would say it might be worth it to hunt down any Stolen and take them out, but it's just so dang easy for Hamelin to just summon more....sigh. At least with Levi the Coryphee can assassinate the Waifs very easily, and keep Levi from coming back. Works good if Levi has already killed himself at some point.

[Elazar]

The horror of Coryphee getting amongst the Hollow Waifs. Still having nightmares from the last time that happened to me!

[Hookers]

Yeah, I guess. And six doves later you might have a dead Hamelin. If he doesn't heal.

haha

just saying, you know, you work with what ya got :blowup:

[Sandwich]

I hate theoryfauxing. :[

//

I don't know if its just me, but Terrifying never really stemmed my game at all.

It's not hard to just regroup with Stolen and move on from there, really.

/

Also, remember that the Rat Catchers have Ruffian.

Ruffian states that enemy Ht 1 and Insignificant models must win a Wp 13 duel each time they try to target the RC.

It is not hard, at all, for Hamelin to pop anything he wants with Insignificant and then reduce your Wp by at LEAST 2 easily.

(Maximum -4)

And any well played Hamelin crew isn't going to spread far and wide unless they're begging to be obliterated.

If you want extra cheese, picture Hookers' scenario of two Rat Catchers maintaining a swarm.

That's just not good at all.

Your best bet to take down the swarm is to use the Rule of "YOU CANT PUT RATS THAR HAR HAR HAR" and slowly drain the numbers of the swarm until it is nil.

- - -

The first order of business against Hamelin is to remove Nix from play. Nix is going to be causing very high amounts of via (0)Emptiness as well as buffing the Rat's damage via (0)Unconscious Behavior and possibly increasing mobility via (0)Herd Dog.

His biggest asset is the fact he is an additional beacon for Nihilism.

The ideal way to take Nix down is through ranged strikes and spells. that ignore Armor. He may be highly durable, but if you waste him from a distance, he should be no problem.

This will force the Hamelin player to be much more defensive (Or overly agressive, depending on the paintjob of Nix) and should then reduce the mobility of their master.

From there, avoid the swarm and complete objectives.

They're moving a maximum of 10" a turn, so it shouldn't be too hard to not engage.

I can elaborate but I'm really hungry. :[

[LoboStele]

haha

just saying, you know, you work with what ya got :blowup:

In 8 months of playing Colette, I can honestly say that I don't think I have EVER used Detonate Soulstones on the doves.

As for Coryphee....yeah, buddy at my shop playing Levi got his Waifs nicked on Round 1 against me one time....he conceded right then. I'm sure he won't do it again. I normally wouldn't have done that, but it was a tournament, and the chance was too nice to pass up.

Wait a sec...was just looking at the book....Do Stolen really only have 1 Wd??? Granted, for the abilities that they have, they're still pretty solid. I just didn't realize they were that squishy. Hmm...Coryphee don't have great Willpower, but decent enough, and obviously, could one-hit-kill Stolen. Might be a worthwhile strategy. Also be a good time to utilize Steamborg's Knock Aside if you think it will help you reach said Stolen. I guess the problem is similar with Levi. Gotta kill both Hamelin AND the Stolen in the same turn. Seems like that'll be tougher with Hamelin that it is with Levi, that's for sure.

[Dolomyte]

I've never been a fan of ignoring your opponents forces to try and win by strategy. i've never seen someone win against a decent player doing that. I would use colette's superior range and speed to come in and kill high value targets and then hop back out again, colette should be able to take hamelin down late in the game if you can keep her from getting insignificant.

I've not had issues with it at least. I disagree with sandwich, I would kill the ratcatchers first, then I would target / stolen - nix as I saw the opportunity to do so. Although I did kill nix the first or second turn most times I've used the leliitu bomb.

If you really want to beat hamelin, play as perdita and the family, the hamelin player should just forfeit. Its almost as worthless as playing as gremlins versus hamelin.

[Dark Alleycat]

I think another interesting tactic,given that stolen only have one wound. using Sonnia criid to replace them with witchling stalkers. This could do a bit to stave off the "overactivation" problems when facing hamelin.

using a governor's proxy and putting up multiple Flame walls would also do wonderful for channeling the models.

[Hookers]

In 8 months of playing Colette, I can honestly say that I don't think I have EVER used Detonate Soulstones on the doves.

yeah... something about the times being desperate and the measures you take accordingly...

Wait a sec...was just looking at the book....Do Stolen really only have 1 Wd??? Granted, for the abilities that they have, they're still pretty solid. I just didn't realize they were that squishy. Hmm...Coryphee don't have great Willpower, but decent enough, and obviously, could one-hit-kill Stolen. Might be a worthwhile strategy.

the only problem is that stolen are worth more dead than alive.

[Sandwich]

Wait a sec...was just looking at the book....Do Stolen really only have 1 Wd??? Granted, for the abilities that they have, they're still pretty solid. I just didn't realize they were that squishy. Hmm...Coryphee don't have great Willpower, but decent enough, and obviously, could one-hit-kill Stolen. Might be a worthwhile strategy. Also be a good time to utilize Steamborg's Knock Aside if you think it will help you reach said Stolen. I guess the problem is similar with Levi. Gotta kill both Hamelin AND the Stolen in the same turn. Seems like that'll be tougher with Hamelin that it is with Levi, that's for sure.

They actually get really tanky towards the latter half of the game due to Harmless. (Given they haven't cast anything yet)

It's because during Turn 3 and on, your Wp gets dropped really low with No Humanity and Rabies.

And once the Harmless check is met, they're still rocking a Df of 5.

[Dark Alleycat]

Also...a interesting question. Is there any model other then the doppelganger that can copy another model's abilities?

I was thinking that Perdita's see the unseen would be an awesome thing to have spread around,since it would mean that he could be targeted even with bully.

[tadaka]

If you really want to beat hamelin, play as perdita and the family, the hamelin player should just forfeit. Its almost as worthless as playing as gremlins versus hamelin.

Thats intresting. What do you find about them that is so potent? It takes a bunch of shots to take down a single catcher and that only kills off 4 points. Killing off hamiin is not exactly worthwile as he just respawns from a stolen. Nix is the only solid target to kill and you can just keep him in cover and with spirit he is pritty tough to take down. I have not found them to be all that potent vs this crew at all let alone an auto win like you have sugjested. Only thing that changes imho is you cant just insignificant every thing. Rat swarms do a number on them its just a tactics change.

[Buhallin]

What do you find about them that is so potent? It takes a bunch of shots to take down a single catcher and that only kills off 4 points. Killing off hamiin is not exactly worthwile as he just respawns from a stolen.

Nino's range should screw with hiding Stolen. and have a good chance to pop Rat Catchers.

Lots of pulse damage, especially from Santiago and Papa. Obey Papa into range, move from there, and Take Ya With Me = dead mass of flesh.

Most of them have Wp 8 with Stubborn, which makes the "I'll make you Insignificant" shenanigans harder. Throw in the Proxy (which is low risk, since there's no Terrifying in Hamelin's crew) and you're looking at Wp 10.

Abuela's "Play Nice!" screws with Rats in a big way - they rely on a lot of attacks, and even with a from Impetuous, a 9+ is by no means guaranteed.

Obey allows surprising mobility to get them into position, combined with Companion to go boom before you get to react.

Perdita's Anticipation + Hamelin's limited card management system + easy to hit targets = strong control of Hamelin's hand.

And the Ortega Alpha means that your opponent doesn't get the chance to recuperate between your activations. How many times has someone in this thread said "Sure you have to kill the Ratcatchers, but I just bring them back next turn"? How about instead Nino snipes a Ratcatcher, and then Santiago or Papa make a mass of Rats vanish all at once?

Is it a guaranteed win? Not sure, haven't played it yet. But at least on paper, the Ortegas seem to play right into every chink in Hamelin's armor, or Hamelin's crew setup makes it easy for them to get their tricks off.

Edited April 13, 2011 by Buhallin

[Dolomyte]

What Buhallin said mostly.

They are really fast, so even the speed scenarios they are strong at, they put out a ton of damage, and even if you make them insignificant, they can just shrug it off.

[Necromorph]

Obey Papa into range, move from there, and Take Ya With Me = dead mass of flesh.

Just make sure Hamelin doesn't Obedience him first....or his Take Ya With Me = a dead mass of Ortega's, lol.

[Buhallin]

Just make sure Hamelin doesn't Obedience him first....or his Take Ya With Me = a dead mass of Ortega's, lol.

That's where the Alpha comes in. A single Obey/Walk/Boom gives him 13" of movement + 6" blast = 19" threat range. Throw a second Obey in from granny or the Enslaved Nephilim, and you've got a 27" threat range. Shouldn't be too hard to make that happen without exposing him first.

[Necromorph]

True.

Now I haven't been following the whole Papa / Pere debate closely, but how would that work with Rat Catchers? A single Take Ya With Me or Whoopsie isn't going to kill a rat catcher outright, but it will kill the rats, who then heal the catcher and spawn new rats, correct?

Seeing as though all the damage is simultaneous, which overkills the rats and leaves the catcher at 1 wound when the effect is resolved, then the rats are killed, which then triggers their healing ability while spawning more rats due to the catchers ability...or am I missing something? So you would have to companion something, kill a catcher, or wound him and THEN blow up the rats...all assuming Hamelin isn't within 6 inches...sounds like it's not the easiest thing in the world to pull off consistantly.

[LoboStele]

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. You'd have to use Nino/Santiago/Perdita to shoot the Rat Catcher and kill it first, and then have Papa wade into the middle and blow up the rats afterwards. The bigger problem is....You can probably only do that one time. If Hamelin is running a 2nd Rat Catcher and a 2nd group of rats....not sure if would be able to eliminate the other one.