Sell me on rusty alice

[Tiny]

Hey guys,

I've recently started playing levy a lot for the malifaux world league. Before that i had maybe 4 games with him. In each of those 4 games i took rusty alice and she was disappointing in all of them.

I hear people singing her praises but I honestly dont see it.

How do you use her and get your 8ss out of her?

[Tiny]

Dont quote me but i believe it was something fairly generic like this:

Outcasts Crew - 35 - Scrap

Leveticus, Steampunk Necromancer -- 4 Cache

Canine Remains [2ss]

Rusty Alyce [8ss]

Steampunk Abomination [3ss]

Steampunk Abomination [3ss]

Steampunk Abomination [3ss]

Steampunk Abomination [3ss]

Steampunk Arachnid Swarm [9ss]

[infernosolarc]

I have had similar experiences.

I find that when I am facing a primarily melee crew, she is pretty good, but dies very easily against other ranged opponents.

Her offense is very nice, but without defenses or movement to back it up, she is just very hard to get into position.

So, seems to me that is just depends on what you are doing. If you have a Strategy / Scheme and opponent that is going to reward hanging back, playing defensively, and protecting you part of the board, she will be pretty dang good.

If you are going to have to be on the offensive, I would recommend replacing her with other models.

Alternatively, if you are taking less SPA's and relying on summoning, I would also be more tempted to take her. But if you are bringing your own set of four....

[gregdorf]

I have never had her do anything more but try and stick near levi for the extra fate cards. When I stopped taking her and using other models like Ryle my list became more competitive. She may be ok against a more construct heavy list, but she is so expensive that I would rather use the SS to get more productive minions.

[Sliver Chocobo]

She has got both rappid fire and head shot, in my opinion she's the shooting minion in Malifaux also

NEVER RUN LEVETICUS WITHOUT HER

[Adanedhel]

Don't underestimate her card draw.

There may be turns in which swift models get rid of all your waifs, so Levi needs to survive, and drawing no cards really, really sucks.

Rapid Fire is hard to pull off, I know, but once you do, you can kill something with almost ease.

In combination with Arachnids you can reactivate them and make them explode, while having an extra activation to get there.

When Leveticus can't do himself enough wounds, Alyce can off him easiest.

Myself I never start with Steampunk Abominations, all my opponents are fast enough that they can off one before I go desolation engine, unless I immediatly go to DE, but what's the use of the Steampunks then? Desolation engine will take the wounds then regardless to do something usefull.

So I see steam punk abominations more as a detterent which will cost my opponent AP to get rid off, AP they could perhaps use better for other things, so if there is a scrap counter, and not enough wounds/AP left on Levi (or you simply got something better to do, which is most of the time), and Alyce has no usefull target in range, and does not want to expose herself, just raise a Steam Punk abomination.

[Zengar]

I freely admit that against an opponent that isn't using constructs, Rusty Alyce's 8 soulstone cost is a hard sell. However, there are situations where a friend of mine is perfectly willing to pay the 10 soulstones to use her with Ramos.

First off, as I'm sure you are aware, she's got that clockwork seeker. 12 inch range, 6 CB, 3/4/5 damage, rapid fire, and a Headshot trigger. But against constructs or targets with Armor, she should be using her signature spell Rust. Sure the damage is one less in each category, but it ignores armor so if the target has any it does the same or better damage, applies Slow, and when she's got a CA of 7 when teamed with Levi or 8 when working with Ramos, making it easier to hit.

Destabilize is a freebie trigger when you hit a construct with her melee attack and it lasts until the end of game. Considering that Hollow Waifs can also make the opponent discard cards, this can help counteract the card advantage opponents often have over Levi.

Burn Out and Willful Animation are the abilities that are most likely to get mentioned but really,they're rather situational. Really nice when the right situation comes around, but strictly situational.

Defensively, 7 willpower is nice, but the 4 defense turns some people off. This is where her zero action comes into play. Remember, Hard cover gives a negative flip on the attack which means that unless they can pick up a positive flip somewhere, they can't cheat it while you can cheat your defense. And the point of armor from the hard cover makes it safer to use Nothing to Live For if you need an extra card or two. And Boobytraps gives you yet another way to do direct wounds, albeit at significant risk to Alyce, and can be quite a deterrent to people running up to melee her if they don't think they can kill her right off.

I think that if she was cheaper than 8, she would be a must have, so that even if she isn't worth the soulstones when you're going against someone like the Marcus or the Ortegas, she's worth having in a sideboard for matchups against Hoffman, say, or to persuade Rasputina not to take gamin/ice golems.

[Tiny]

@ silver chocobo, why never run levy without her? I've probably won more games without her than with using levy.

@Adenedhel, with teh card draw do you find you get that most turns? When i've used her i pretty much send levy into the thick of it with a waif hanging back as an anchor. To get within card draw range of him would probably be suicide for Alice.

@zengar, Thanks alot for the post, I think im with you on this one, great sideboard model for when you will likely be going up against constructs but not an auto include.

[Buck Dog]

I find that she tends to run around after Levy and shoots him in the back of the head a lot. Funny, but not a great use of 8 s/s.

Also, I play against a lot of Lilith players and she tends to get transponsed and eaten fairly frequently - although that is probably down to me rather than a reflection on Alice's abilities

[Sliver Chocobo]

She gives you card draw

She's good with guns

She can summon SPAs

She gives you card draw

Her (0) means you can't charge her, youw take damage when you attack her or she can get hard cover against ranged attacks

Also did I mention card draw