Hoffman Vs Kirai Crew/Viks Crew

[Resonance]

Hello Everybody,

Looking for a bit of help with Hoffman against Kirai Crew and Viks Crew.

I was having a 4 Way Multiplayer game yesterday against a Viks crew, Kirai and Dreamer/LCB and was finding it hard to achieve anything in terms of combat.

My Crew 25SS Game

Hoff

Peacekeeper

Guardian

watcher

Mobile Toolkit

6 Soulstones left

Most of the Viks crew and Kirai crew attacks ignore armour, which makes the Guardian not exactly the most useful Minion in the game, most of its defence buffs are ignored its only real use is to take Wds from Hoff/Peace.

This only really leaves me the Peacekeeper and Hoffman to deal out any damage in combat if needs be, and Ive had it a game where a Ronnin in 1 activation took out the Peacekeeper and Guardian

I know Hoffman can survive quite a while due to Soulstone burns and become a melee beast when he performs Machine puppet on himself but still if the Peacekeeper get taken out, which it will eventually he is left on his own and won’t last for too long.

My question is what sort of crew can I bring to the table in a 25SS game or even a 35SS game which will help me out in the combat front?

Thanks

Resonance

[LoboStele]

Ugh...well, unfortunately, this is simply one of those times where a match-up is just sort of bad in general. Hoffman vs. Leveticus is similar as well, since almost all of Levi's spells do straight Wds and bypass all of Hoffman's armor bonuses.

The thing to remember about Malifaux is that it is very much a Rock, Paper, Scissors type of game sometimes, and you will find matchups here and there that are tough ones to pull off.

To beat Kirai, you're just going to have to do a TON of damage with your Constructs in order to get past their Spirit. However, I would HIGHLY recommend using Hoffman's Open Circuit spell as much as possible in this matchup, since it's a Spell, and will bypass the 1/2 Dg issue with Spirits. Be careful though, as Kirai can sacrifice a Seishin in order to make herself and other Seishin immune to . So use it wisely against Kirai herself. Her defense is really bad though, so most of your pieces should have no trouble hitting her. She can use the Seishin as Bodyguards, but since she can only have 5 of them, a single round of the Peacekeeper wailing on her, combined with some Hoffman Machine Puppet action should be able to do her in pretty badly. You'd get neutral damage flips pretty often, I'd bet. One of the worst things about this matchup is that Hoffman almost always has small crew sizes, while Kirai has very large crew sizes. So you'll typically be out-activated all the time. So, gotta learn how to plan around that.

As for the Viks....well, the Viktorias themselves shouldn't be too much of a problem. They do a lot of damage, but they can't ignore your armor. So it's the Ronin you have to worry about. I'd use the Guardian's Stalwart and Protect pretty judiciously. In turn 1, have Hoffman Assimilate Protect, and then cast it on the Peacekeeper. Then have the Guardian cast Protect on Hoffman. Then you can chain Wds from the Peacekeeper all the way to the Guardian as necessary. (That tactic might be useful against Kirai too, for that matter). A Viks crew is likely to attack you all at once (if they're smart) so that you don't have much time for healing in between. So again, I'd use Open Circuit pretty judiciously here. If there are 2 or more Ronin nearby, and you have at least 1 Construct in Base Contact, you can do 3 Dg per spell cast with Open Circuit, and kill a Ronin or two with 3 AP. Then you could still Link In and activate the Guardian next. The Viks could be trouble with their higher Df, but they're a 6 to your 6 Cb with Machine Puppet or the Peacekeeper too. Also, don't forget about Terrifying on your Peacekeeper!

For the Dreamer, I suppose it depends on what kind of crew they're playing. Is it an Alp Bomb, or is Teddy heavy, or is it Lilitu and Lelu? Again, the Guardian Protect trick works quite well here. Chompy himself will be slightly less effective because of all your armor. And Chompy's low Df means your Machine Puppet hits should strike home pretty easily. Also, Open Circuit with only 1 adjacent Construct is enough to kill Alps. Teddy is always a pain in the rear, but he shouldn't kill you very quickly either thanks to Armor. So just keep at him. Your best bet with Teddy is to focus on him with everything in one turn, to make sure he dies and doesn't get to use Regen the next turn.

Lastly...I'm not sure if I would bother with taking the Mobile Toolkit. For 4 points, the only thing it will offer you is the extra Tome for casting Combat Mechanic. I would guess that you're finding that by the time there are Scrap Counters in play, you've lost either the Peacekeeper or the Guardian, (or perhaps both in the same round, if your opponent is smart), so the ease of healing makes little difference by then. I would honestly just play the Hunter instead at these low point levels. It's Cb isn't that great, but it works really well for hunting down other low Df models, and would work especially well against Kirai in general since you'd get to use Ambush more often. Plus, the Hunter is often the first piece to get killed, which will drop 3 Scrap Counters, giving you something to work with for healing on your other pieces. Then you just have to hang onto 1-2 Tome cards throughout the game. Not too tough to do that, instead of having the Mobile toolkit, which won't be able to do a whole lot otherwise.

[mylastnerv]

The Hunter also will give you scrap counters to blow up. Ryle is also always a good choice for Hoffman, if you plan to play a little more defensive. Against all those spirits being about to spread out the damage and multiple damage flips on the attack will help to mitigate the "half damage" you'll deal on spirits.

Also . . . don't underestimate Drag. One your peacekeeper and Hunters you can drag folks right into your Open Circuit or even "flurry" range of other models. It is also annoying to pull someone out of Companion range as well.

You were in a very tough match-up to begin with. All of that nastiness in one game is hard to try to build a crew to handle all of it.

[Resonance]

Thank you so much for the reply LoboStele!

So much usefull information in your reply, just a couple of querys though.

When your talking about the hunter being killed and dropping the scrap counters doesnt Hoffman have to walk over them to collect them and thus be able to use them for his combat mechanic?

Also you mentioned

Be careful though, as Kirai can sacrifice a Seishin in order to make herself and other Seishin immune to . So use it wisely against Kirai herself.

So if Hoffman did a Open circuit which was in range of Kirai and the Seishin she can just stop it from happening??

How does she do that? Is it an ability on her activiation or can she choose to sacrifice a Seishin as soon as Hoffman activates?

Also one final question (Sorry!) The only way that most of Kirai crew inflict damage is via Will power duels and Spells I think? So would the immune to influence be helpful with the constructs by being immune to most of her damage attacks or am I getting confused?

Thanks again

Richard

[LoboStele]

When your talking about the hunter being killed and dropping the scrap counters doesnt Hoffman have to walk over them to collect them and thus be able to use them for his combat mechanic?

The Rg on Combat Mechanic is 6". So, Hoffman doesn't have to be carrying the Scrap Counter himself, it just has to be within 6".

Also you mentioned

So if Hoffman did a Open circuit which was in range of Kirai and the Seishin she can just stop it from happening??

How does she do that? Is it an ability on her activiation or can she choose to sacrifice a Seishin as soon as Hoffman activates?

The Seishin have an ability that allows you to Sacrifice 1 Seishin at the beginning of any model's activation, and it will make any friendly Kirai or other Seishin within 3" immune to , , and . Now, the Kirai player has to declare they are doing this right away, so once you have taken either a (1) AP or a (0) with Hoffman already, then they wouldn't be able to go back-wards and declare it. So, that's why I pointed out that the Kirai player has to be paying attention. On the flip side, don't be a jerk with Hoffman either and activate him and immediately say "(0) Action to Assimiliate such-and-such" and then fuss at your opponent when he tries to say "Hold on, I want to sacrifice a Seishin.

The key with this however, is to use your other models to kill as many of the Seishin as you can early in the round (not too hard, they have crappy defense and only 2 Wds). Then Kirai won't have any left to do the ignoring or other bodyguarding stuff.

Also one final question (Sorry!)

Never be sorry about questions.

The only way that most of Kirai crew inflict damage is via Will power duels and Spells I think? So would the immune to influence be helpful with the constructs by being immune to most of her damage attacks or am I getting confused?

Yep, Immune to Influence will be very helpful for whenever you are the defender in a duel. So, anytime one of Kirai's pieces attack you with a spell requiring a Wp Resist, or an attack that does something like Cb -> Wp, then you would be immune. Many of her pieces can choose to target either Df or Wp though, so they'll get around that a little bit. Plus, Kirai's Pitiful ability only comes into play whenever you try to target her, which makes you the attacker in the duel, and then Immune to Influence doesn't help you. If you're finding that Pitiful is particularly frustrating you, then I would recommend adding a piece to your crew with the Ruthless ability, like the Convict Gunslinger perhaps.