How do you keep Levi coming back

[Zalantos]

I have been playing levi and having real problems keeping him going.

I run a variaty of lists, but nearly always have a dog to kill for a second hollow waif.

I have real issues with Perdida, The dreamer, coryphree. But anything that can ignore line of sight or move over terain is a real issue for me.

Thoughts? solutions?

[Scurry]

a guardian is a good option, protect then stalwart a hollow waif so its armour 2 and all wounds go to the guardian who then uses self repair to make a healing flip next turn.

remeber perdiat can no longer ignore line of sight with bullett bending

[sephiroa]

even if 1 of them survives, levi lives, i don't know how you acctually manage to get 2 waifs and levi killed in 1 turn,,

perdita crews can be a pain, try to ingore dita and go for nina and papa, they have to die, after that santiago and fransisco,

dreamer, well, kill him, and don't get near alps (if he has them)

coryphee, is 1 model, keep 1 of them protected and you should be allright

[Adanedhel]

Sephiroa, it's not that difficult, especially fast crews like Lilith can easily off them both before you have a chance to do anything.

A couple guidelines:

1) keep at least one Waif outside 12" from Austringers, unless he brought Lucius that means at least one is safe from them

2) vs Fast, but low on blast/pulse crews (like Lilith, Colette without Cassandra) huddle up, those crews live from finding the weak elements in your crew, so don't give them a chance to pick off any straglers.

3) vs slow, blasty crews (like Rasputina) the opposite, keep some distance, nothing is more frustrating then 2 waifs gone in 1 blast

4) If you have the chance to put a Waif in a shallow bottle neck, with a strong model to block the way (Alyce, Teddy, Guardian) do so, that way your other waif can be far more proactive, forcing your opponent wasting time killing one waifs, wasting AP for it since he can't get the other one down.

5) Cutthroat crew:make sure your crew is used aggressively, force him to deal with your crew, with the exception of a couple Belle's Levi doesn't profit that much from support models because usually that just set people to go hunting for the Waifs, thereby shutting your crew down. Take dangerous models in and off themself, so that killing Levi would cost them so much your crew wrecks his. (killing 3 models which are placed a distance from each other eats AP)

6) At the start of your turn, judge your position, are the Waifs in a position they can be offed this turn? Then activate them first and bring them to safety, or if you can't do that, either bring Leveticus to safety, or activate him last, so you already know wether your waifs live or die, and wether you need to keep leveticus at a decent amount of wounds; remember; having few carddraw (Alyce should come close to leveticus in such a case) is better then a dead master

These are some pointers I picked up at the tourny, and funnily sephiroa, before the tourney, in my practice matches vs menace and the keeper Leveticus always got offed, I never could keep him alive till the tourney, where he didn't utterly die once ^^

Practice doesn't make perfect, Zalantos, but it will bring you as far as you can get thwarts it ^^

[Tiny]

Are you not able to send one wench forward and have another behind a building or out of LOS so they have no possibility of being killed?

How much terrain are you using?

[tadaka]

Levi is just not very good after book 2 came out. I quit playing him once he started dieing on the first turn of games and i could do nothing to stop it. To many crews in book 2 make useing terrain not be effective for keeping them alive. People will disagree and i hate to say it but levi is a master who is rock solid vs some crews and total garbage vs a lot of others. Tou just have to accept that your going to have a lot of bad matchups with him.

[Tiny]

I honestly dont see that at all, who is a bad match up?

[tadaka]

Chomp, collodi, showgirls, anything with austringers have all ways been a nightmare. Kirai in the hands of some one who knows what they are doing and levi is a dead man. Hoffman can also tear him apart pritty easy

.

[Zalantos]

I have been sending one forward and keeping one back. However things like Coryphree simply have too much movement for me to just be able to hide.

I am glad that Perdita can't shoot through terrain like she used to.

[Necromorph]

I would generally go with the little step by step provided above...it's actually pretty solid.

Yes, I've found he's much tougher to keep alive, for many of the reasons Tadaka said. However, as has been said, if you're super agressive, you can force them to deal with your crew. Yes, there are crews that have his number pretty hard...which is basically anything fast, that can ignore many terrain rules: crews like Dreamer, Kirai, Lilith, and Colette...and as Tadaka mentioned, any Guild crew with Austringers.

Against Austringers, I would take a Guardian and have it Protect one of them. Keep that Waif behind your crew as you move up and use the other waif as a distraction. Against the super fast crews, you'll have to keep one just about always in a corner to make it not worth the positioning for your opponent to go after it (granted a smart opponent will just kill the other one, making you start in a corner every time). Not literally in a corner, but you get what I mean, all the way in the back. This is kinda gimp, but as we said, he get's hosed by a lot of the book 2 masters and any "super fast" masters.

Another option is to run Levi's avatar. Sure, you need to run riders, which is cool, but not always super effective. However, Levi uses the Riders as his Waifs when in avatar form, and he becomes a 10wd Spirit, so he's much harder to take down. This will help against some of those bad matchups, but again, a super fast crew may be able to take you down before you can even manifest...which sucks, but it's something at least.

[Zengar]

5) Cutthroat crew:make sure your crew is used aggressively, force him to deal with your crew, with the exception of a couple Belle's Levi doesn't profit that much from support models because usually that just set people to go hunting for the Waifs, thereby shutting your crew down. Take dangerous models in and off themself, so that killing Levi would cost them so much your crew wrecks his. (killing 3 models which are placed a distance from each other eats AP)

Really, in the situation you're talking about, this is the best answer. If you've got your usual opponents scared enough of Levi that they are focusing on taking him out as fast as possible, use your waifs as bait for traps.

Also, remember that Unnatural Wasting followed by Entropic Transformation (with a Necrotic Unmaking in between if the target has 8-13 Wds) will turn most living or undead models into a replacement Hollow Waif, so if you activate Levi after they've already killed a Waif, they'll need to take down 3 instead of just 2.

Lastly, you don't have to let Levi die. It can be hard to prevent it with a defense of two and so many of his abilities injuring himself but, if after killing your waifs your opponents don't finish him off, then you can use a soulstone to (most likely) prevent Unstable Necromacy from killing him and get your waifs back so that they have to kill them again next turn. Yes, you'll be limited, but if Alyce is in range of levi you'll get two cards there, and can get up to three card from Disciplined Caster no matter how low your Wds are, since Unnatural Wasting doesn't inflict wounds on you, assuming you can get a target.

But mostly, if they are that focused on taking out Levi, use that fact to lure them out of position. Take a small (or even no) soulstone pool and send every minion out to complete objectives. Don't even make a second waif unless you can make it out of one of your opponents models. They'll either have to choose between taking out your master or your objective grabbers or you're facing something as "unsporting" as Alp bombs, which require specific tactics to deal with.