30/50 McMourning and Sideboard Q?

[Obeisance]

So I played a few games of Malifaux about 8 months ago- then Warmachine/Hordes addiction gripped me hard and didn't let go. Back then, I was playing Rasputina.

I'm picking up a McMourning box set in a trade- so I'm gonna give Malifaux another shot.

Locally, I'm told tournaments are 30pts with a 20pt sideboard.

At 30pts, I think I'll run this:

McMourning

Zombie Chihuahua

Convict Gunslinger

Sebastian

2x Rotten Belle

4x Canine Remains

7 SS

And apparently you can't use the Rogue Necromancy in tournaments due to the conversion rules or something. So I'll grab another couple Flesh Constructs.

So, couple questions:

- How's the list?

- Is there anything else I can summon besides Canine Remains, Rogue Necromancy and Flesh Constructs?

- There's a 20pt sideboard. What do I need to go in the sideboard? What do I need to sideboard against? I don't know the game well enough to know the meta.

- Any other tips?

[pfuetzi]

- Is there anything else I can summon besides Canine Remains, Rogue Necromancy and Flesh Constructs?

- Guild Autopsies

List looks fine. I have played similar ones and was quite pleased with them.

[Obeisance]

Are Guild Autopsies any good?

Seems they're only 3 parts so summon. Dog is 2, Autopsy for 3, Construct for 5.. etc.

[Teal]

They're situational. They have a gun, which Ressers don't have many of, but compared to other faction's 3ss shooters they leave a lot to be desired. It's nice to have them around to summon in case you really need to shoot something, but I usually find that they aren't worth the body parts. Dogs seem to perform better in almost all situations.

[Dr.Feelgood]

If you are looking for additional pieces, i would take a look at the Necropunks. I have found them very useful depending upon what your main strategy is. Also the Crooked Men, can be useful even though they are rather slow.

[Calmdown]

Sideboard wise, you don't really need to sideboard against specific lists as you would in most games - you need to sideboard for specific schemes that you may not be very good at. McMourning is actually pretty versatile in terms of combat, as are most solid melee based lists, so you just need to be sure that you can take VP. Reconnoiter is typically quite hard so you might want to run more significant models when it comes up (drop hounds > more Belles). The level of board control that some lists can exert through movement compared to McM can be quite a lot too, so you may want to consider another Belle for that reason too. Your list also lacks hard hitting and assassination potential outside of McM and summons, so you may want to consider adding another big guy like a Dead Rider or a Shikome (DR at 10 is potentially a bit too much for 30 points, so feel free to replace him with something else hard hitting in the following paragraph).

I'd say drop Sebastian from the main list; he isn't very good. I'd try dropping him and a dog for a Shikome, or 2 dogs for the Dead Rider. Also, Mercenary Slinger is an incredibly solid model for 6 points, but again Rezzers have so many great models you don't really need to go out of faction to make up the numbers, so he's a potential candidate to be dropped also.

I'm personally not a fan of multiple, weak models in Malifaux, at least not in your starting crew. Your crew is the 'fluff' McMourning list, but all of those dogs don't really need to be there. I'd probably go with this:

McMourning (7ss)

Chihuahua

Dead Rider

Shikome

2x Belle

1x Dog

[Obeisance]

A 10 SS and 8 SS model?

I guess that's less of a reanimator list and more of a face beating list.

[Obeisance]

The Shikome looks brutal.

Regarding it's trigger, Maul. Maul gives a double positive flip to damage.

Prey gives a single positive flip.

Does it stack, resulting in severe damage?

[Hookers]

autopsies are good because they can shoot. you won't summon them because the main resource to summon things is the high crow card, not the body parts. in other words if you are casting the spell you are doing so to summon the biggest thing you can.

i would grab some crooked men and either bete noire or killjoy

also for your initial 30 points don't count the soulstones you are going to have. you can change that when you actually hire the crew for the match. my understanding of how a sideboard would work is that you should jam as many models as possible into it.

so just try to take exactly 50 pts worth of models or as close as possible, and then you can vary your list and take however many soulstones you want.

The Shikome looks brutal.

Regarding it's trigger, Maul. Maul gives a double positive flip to damage.

Prey gives a single positive flip.

Does it stack, resulting in severe damage?

as for shikome, positive flips just let you flip more cards, you still have to flip or cheat the severe to do severe damage. its not guaranteed.

[Hatchethead]

autopsies are good because they can shoot. you won't summon them because the main resource to summon things is the high crow card, not the body parts. in other words if you are casting the spell you are doing so to summon the biggest thing you can.

True that. I've always secretly hoped Wyrd would change Monstrous Creation to either reduce the required CC for lesser summons (17 for constructs, lower for autopsies, lowest for dogs) OR allow a player to summon multiple autopsies/dogs for the 17 double crow assuming I have the body parts (one successful casting action and 6 parts equals three dogs, for instance). Probably the first option, the second strikes me as OP.

As it stands, summoning anything other than a construct is rare and super situational. High crows are too precious.

[Obeisance]

Ah- I didn't realize I needed a high crow to summon. I just thought it was a 17+.

Anyone else have any examples of awesome 30SS crews?

Are there any good McMourning battle reports around?

[Calmdown]

A 10 SS and 8 SS model?

I guess that's less of a reanimator list and more of a face beating list.

Yep, reanimation is not as a general strategy. The best thing to do is to summon Flesh Constructs or even better, Rogue Necromancy. The extra 0ap action on McMourning attacking is more valuable than summoning a dog even if you succeed the flip (as well as the high crow that people have mentioned already).

The Shikome looks brutal.

Regarding it's trigger, Maul. Maul gives a double positive flip to damage.

Prey gives a single positive flip.

Does it stack, resulting in severe damage?

I know you said you never really got into Malifaux so maybe you're not understanding the rules here? Forgive me if you're not. That is correct, they do stack, resulting in a triple positive flip which would mean flipping 4 cards and choosing the highest for damage - not a severe wound, that's not how damage works. Of course, you'll often have a negative from the fact that you will have gotten one from the attack flip as you generally dont win by 6 or more (though much more likely with her Prey). All that said, yes, if you hit Maul you will very often do Severe anyway. Shikome rules

[Obeisance]

I remember now- positive/negative flips mean more cards not upgrade damage type. It's literally been 8 months since I played a game.

Shikome looks good. I assume you'd mark the enemy master as prey- zoom in, eat it and forfeit your action to choose a new prey.

Does the tank type build work well?

ie; the list with Dead Rider and Shikome. 7 models (instead of 11) seems really low on the activations and.. yeah.

[Calmdown]

I remember now- positive/negative flips mean more cards not upgrade damage type. It's literally been 8 months since I played a game.

Shikome looks good. I assume you'd mark the enemy master as prey- zoom in, eat it and forfeit your action to choose a new prey.

Does the tank type build work well?

ie; the list with Dead Rider and Shikome. 7 models (instead of 11) seems really low on the activations and.. yeah.

7 models is average for a 35 point list. McMourning doesn't need many extra SS, so you have that working in your favour there; 7 is fine at 30ss. The dog is really there in my list to make up numbers and stop you getting outactivated though. If you're uncomfortable you can change it up, but I'd run at least one hard hitter that isn't McMourning.

For Shikome discussions see this thread:

http://www.wyrd-games.net/forum/showthread.php?t=22793

It's being discussed a lot there at the moment. But no, you generally won't mark a master as masters can burn SS to prevent your Shikome killing them quite easily. They generally prey priority targets, zoom in, kill them, and then either die (absorbing a good number of hits in the process, since they're a 7 wound spirit) or manage to zoom off next turn (or kill something else before they die). They're really good with Belles setting up kills for them, too.

Edited July 22, 2011 by Calmdown

[Obeisance]

I ordered the Shikome/Dead Rider list. It looks fun.

I probably should have ordered the T4 Mortenebra list instead, that I've been putting off for weeks.

[Obeisance]

My crew arrived, yay. I've started work on McMourning's Radioactive Graveyard. Craggy cork bases with tombstones. Going to paint green sludge, using paint/inks, like I do for Necroventing on Cryx stuff. PVA glue over the top makes it look slimy.

Turns out the next event is 35ss - No sideboard, single list only.

McMourning

Zombie Chihuahua

Canine Remains

Shikome

Dead Rider

2x Rotten Belle

Cache of 6

29ss at the moment, add 6 to come up to 35.

Being a total noob to the system, what do I need to add to cover my bases?

A pair of Necropunks for some speed/objective taking/etc?

[gru6y]

Hi,

Yeah, two Necropunks seem a good choice. I also really like Mortimer, but you're 1SS short and in the list you posted, he would probably not fare too good.

What is your plan regarding the Chihuahua? IMO it went from one of the best totems in the game (first turn 1SS RN anyone?) to a very medicore one (cheap body parts). If you're running the Dead Rider, maybe consider a Grave Spirit as they seem to be made for themselves. It all depends on your strategy and approach to McM's body parts tricks, but since the V2 change of Dissection and Get the stick, there is no place for the little doggie in my lists.

[Obeisance]

Um. V2 changes? Should I have V2 cards for all my stuff?

I didn't really have a plan for the Chihuahua. He just seemed like the right totem.

edit:

Also, looking at Grave Spirit.. he doesn't give +2 ARM to McMourning, because he's not undead. Kinda pointless totem?

Edited August 3, 2011 by Obeisance

[gru6y]

You can find all the resser v2 cards here:

http://www.wyrd-games.net/StatCards/Resurrectionistsv2.pdf

Link on the left hand side menu of this site under malifaux matters.

Before the errata, Get the stick allowed you to pull body parts out of air, now it only fetches existing corpse counters.

Dissection used to give you 3 body parts on top of the corpse counter dropped by the killed model. Now the model killed does not provide corpse counters.

All this accumulated to 2 body parts from get the stick, 1 body part from a piece for me, 3 body parts from dissection and 2 from the corpse counter. Voila, a Rogue Necromancy turn 1

Those days are over, though a first turn RN is still possible, though the recources needed are bigger.

[gru6y]

Double post - sorry.

Edited August 3, 2011 by gru6y

[gru6y]

No, he does not, but you do not have to give it to the Master. Thats why it goes so great with the Dead Rider. Hard to Wound 2, Regeneration 1, Armor 2 model with an ability to heal 2 wounds a turn and possible Hard to kill is very... well- hard to kill

Grave Spirit works with Flesh Constructs as well.

Edited August 3, 2011 by gru6y

[Obeisance]

Man. The "Get the stick" changes suck.

Between the Chihuahua needing existing tokens and the Grave Spirit not giving McMourning the armour buff, I'm not sure it's worth giving him a totem.

Giving it to the Dead Rider makes sense.

What's Wyrd's protocol with proxies? The model for Grave Spirit is just terrible. I might pick up something that looks more suitable.

Edited August 4, 2011 by Obeisance

[gru6y]

Well, it is your choice, but Grave Spirit is in my opinion a very solid choice. It only costs 1SS and greatly increases survivability of one of your models. Also, the Mounted Combat rule and the way Link is worded, allow you to easily hide Grave Spirit behind the 50mm base Dead Rider to keep it safe from Charges.

[Hatchethead]

The Chihuahua's not a total waste. He's still two body part counters for 1ss, without wasting any of McM's AP on an attack, able to grant them regardless of his proximity to Doug. That alone is well worth his cost, and, admittedly, the old "Get the Stick!" body part generator was more than a little OP.

Edited August 4, 2011 by Hatchethead

[gru6y]

By no means it is a waste. I was just pointing that it no longer is a no-brainer and the model actually requires some planning and skill to use now.

The whole Chihuahua vs Grave Spirit is a matter of crew composition and preference, but in this particular crew (very in-your-face style), I think aiding the main hitter minion with additional means of survival is well worth the single soul stone.