Thoughts on Angelica

[swordsman82]

I got my new book and am really liking the Angelica character, my problem is, is she worth it at 35 ss? My usual list for a Colette crew is box set plus Corph Duet. So to take her at that level of a game i would have to drop a Performer, making Angelica less useful.

Any thoughts on her and why to take her at lower cost games?

[Drake]

She is a useful addition when you know which Master you are going against, or in scenarios like Claim Jump where you need to be at a certain point of the board, otherwise you could be forced away from the area you want to be, and her Aura Ability stops that happening from Terror sources or any other sources that cause a Fall Back move.

Also, at 35ss, you can ditch the typical Dove and 3ss to fit her in, still gives you the rest of the standard crew and 4 stones to start with...then ss factory the first 2 turns and summong 1-2 doves to piggyback the Duet....

[jty3]

I like this idea but it will feel weird taking less than 7 stones with Colette, even with the stones I make in the first 1-2 turns. I was thinking about only adding Angelica in at 40ss but will give it a try at 35ss, too.

[Bread]

I think she is useful as a sideboard choice. Against certain masters that put out a lot of terror (Pandora, Avatar Seamus, etc.), she can shut down your opponent. Otherwise, I don't intend to take her. In 35ss it would be Cassie, Duet, Performer/Mannequin, and Angelica. The 4 SS cache means you will probably have to play slower than usual to give Colette a chance to make some stones.

[Odin1981]

I like this idea but it will feel weird taking less than 7 stones with Colette, even with the stones I make in the first 1-2 turns. I was thinking about only adding Angelica in at 40ss but will give it a try at 35ss, too.

See I really don't understand this comment but it is not just said by you on the forum. I know you can go threw ss with a colette crew pretty fast and all but if you were to start with say 5 ss in your cache barring drawing a god hand turn 1 it is not that hard to make 2 ss turn one. With the movement you have on "the big three" do you really run threw them that fast? With the duet potentially going 13" every ap (sword dance and the mask book 4" push, and 7" from blinding 3" successful casting and 4" from book mask trigger) how do you not manage to 90% of the time being 10-12" away from a enemy crew when your done activating her?

Cassandra I admit is most likely to plow threw stones but her with southern charm up means she only is ever really threatened by a paired combat ss user. And often is switched out with colette (via illusionist) for her to deliver the kill shot to whatever model cassie weakened.

On to the actual topic of the thread I believe angelica will find a way into more living model based show girl crews (ie no duet) she really benefits any living show girl so I could see her being run at 35 with like cassie, 2x performer, angelica, bunch of doves maybe a gunsmith or two. Personally for me outside of a list like that (I plan on running a list like that just to see how much of a crutch the duet has become for me) I really wouldn't put her in my "normal list" only because the companion on the mannequin to me is worth all 6ss the "performer" costs.

However if major tournaments are being run at 40ss (ie like masters at gencon) She would be what I add to the 35 ss list I run to get to 40.

[jty3]

Thanks for the analysis, Odin1981. I'm still trying to figure out the crew and you've definitely given me a new perspective. I think I've been playing my crew too aggressively without thinking about the synergies between the "Big three."

[Hedningen]

I've actually ended up using a proxied Angelica in several games so far. After my initial outrage at comparing her Showstopper trigger to the Warden's Restraint Claw trigger (No damage/Card-draining or Paralysis/Only non-Masters vs Damage/Non-preventable Paralysis), I figured out that her ability is fairly useful, and is fluffy.

Few important things I've noticed, which may or may not need some rules clarifications;

As far as I can tell, Projected Voice is meant to be shot into melee. There's no chance of it harming your girls, if it hits them you can cheat the damage up to spread a few (weak) blasts without hurting your own units. RAI question; if Projected Voice is shot into melee involving Showgirls, then does this mean that you don't have to flip to see if they're hit? I've played it both ways, and while luck made it not make a huge difference, I'd be quite happy for a ruling that said you don't have any chance of accidentally wasting an attack shooting into a melee involving Showgirls and whatever models your opponent has brought to the table.

Bring Out The Next Act is an almost automatic action when playing her and when you need to get your models into position/doing a 1-2 strike. Admittedly, it's dependent on having at least a 6, but considering that's a 61.1% chance on an untouched deck, that's decent, and the range makes it even more useful.

(As an aside; the math for Malifaux presents some entertaining areas for exploration for the overly-concerned-about-theory-and-percentages types. Consider that, discounting the possibility of drawing the Black Joker in your opening control hand, there's a ~2.1% chance for any randomization-requiring action to fail perfectly [barring strange luck on both players' parts i.e. both players flipping Black Jokers when the attacker has Cb higher than defender's defense, negative flips causing the final value to be lower/equal to a basic stat value], which increases by the same ~2.1% for every single card flipped. If I were more of a statistician, it'd be an interesting area for study).

Her abilities as a WP debuffer are also quite useful. While anecdotal evidence is rarely good evidence, I was able to do some quite nasty things using her in combination with Performers, and her prevention of terror within her particular bubble makes her exceedingly useful when you need a 'safe zone' around an objective. Combined with BOTHA and a shot at Showstopper, you now have a useful tool for pulling off Poison Gift. It also makes Mesmerizing a little bit more possible.

Give Them An Encore has been situational for me, at best. I ended up using it once, in order to get Cassandra out of melee before her activation while playing against a Nicodem crew. I suspect its use will become clearer once I've had a few more games with her. One use I can see for it would be pushing Mannequins around to make use of Mirrors; while keeping them Linked to Angelica would make this fairly useless (as it would snap back once her activation ends), it is one way to alter the positioning of your Mannequin after it's activated.

Get Off The Stage came up all of once, so this portion is just theory, but by combining it with other nearby models and Bring on the Next Act, it increases the damage potential of your models or opens things up for a Showstopper, which makes pushing them into place for a possible Poison Gift do-able. Personally, I used it to juggle a model into Cassandra, who was running support for her and proceeded to finish them off.

I've run her in several lists so far; right now, my favorite at 25SS was 2 Performers/Mannequins, Angelica, and 3 Doves. Gives me a cache of 5 to start with, manages to do some terrible things to my opponents and allows for relatively good out-activation early in the game. I've been trying to move away from Coryphee-centric lists as of late, so it's been fun experimenting with different stuff.

So far, it's won against Nicodem, Ortegas, and Hamelin (That single use of GOTS? Rat Catcher. Worked wonders, it did. Suicidal move, but she was nearly dead anyways.) and lost against Rasputina.

I think that more will be discovered as time goes on, but this is my experiences with her so far, along with a bit of theory here and there.

[Halflingspy]

As far as I can tell, Projected Voice is meant to be shot into melee. There's no chance of it harming your girls, if it hits them you can cheat the damage up to spread a few (weak) blasts without hurting your own units. RAI question; if Projected Voice is shot into melee involving Showgirls, then does this mean that you don't have to flip to see if they're hit? I've played it both ways, and while luck made it not make a huge difference, I'd be quite happy for a ruling that said you don't have any chance of accidentally wasting an attack shooting into a melee involving Showgirls and whatever models your opponent has brought to the table.

I'm really curious on the rules clarification on this as well - if she can shoot into melee, she'll be an immediate pick-up from my perspective.