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Crooked Men - Underrated?


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Personally i think crooked men are underrated. When people think crooked men they think shafted markers and ranged support. Sure shofted markers are probably their highlight, but they have other stuff as well, cave in isn't a great ranged spell as your enemy will probably resist it, but i think where crooked men are underrated is in melee. their attack has range 2, a good cb of 5 and and impressive damage line of 2/3/5, not to mention their lethal bury trigger. they are also very tough against ranged attacks due to crooked and are evasive 2 against blasts which i think is quite good, they have an average defense and 7 wounds which is pretty high.

does anyone else agree/disagree with my points?

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I wrote the wiki in pullmyfinger for them and love them. They work in all stages in the game, early with shafted and in combat. No one remembers about paralyze as all you see ( and make your opponent see) is shafted. I don't brag about them just so i can keep the surprise.

They would be stupidly good with levi as you can give one the +:crows to really break them midgame when your toe to toe. For 4ss i find 2 an almost auto include in my nic and seamus lists.

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I would never ever say crooked men are underated, they are solid 4ss minion. I would say one of the reasons they dont see more widespread use is the fact taht they dont come in any of the resser starter boxes and theres already soid minion choices in those. Theres sense in running 1-2 with any of the book1 masters.

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Having just got hold of 2 Crooked Men and testing 1 out last night with McMourning alongside 2 Belles I have to say i'm hooked... didn't get a chance to use the melee attack and didn't use Cave-in but putting down 1-2 Shafted markers a turn really left my opponent struggling for position

3 wounds isn't much, but the threat of paralyse/death was massive when to go round the marker meant losing speed to terrain and not moving them away/past the marker meant the threat of a belle luring them into it

Next game i definitely want to test 2

Quick question, can an opponent cheat the flip for shafted? we ruled no as it's not one of the specified things you can cheat and it doesn't state you can, but figured i'd ask

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I think they're overrated honestly. Every time I see someone suggest Crooked Men to someone it makes me cringe.

Malifaux is a game about maneuverability and reliability (capitalising on your small amount of AP). "Basic models" like Crooked Man contribute neither to your force. Yes, they are "solid", but solid doesn't win games; the above two factors do. I feel that they're fairly priced at 4 points, but much like a lot of 'solid' models from book 1 (Death Marshal, Witchling Stalker, Ice Gamin, etc), fairly priced just doesn't compete with the better models that fulfil specific roles and fulfil them very well.

You'd be better off taking a Belle or a Night Terror+1ss in almost all cases.

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The Kirai crew I play against would disagree with you. 2/2:blast:blast/4:blast:blast:blast = goodnight to Kirai's crew.

Honestly, :melee2 Cb5 (or 7 with Bolster) and a Paralyze trigger, Cave In with 2-3 blasts, and Shafted for some amazing board control, what's not to like?

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The Kirai crew I play against would disagree with you. 2/2:blast:blast/4:blast:blast:blast = goodnight to Kirai's crew.

Why? I'm not following why this would be a problem for Kirai. And I've played more Kirai than most.

Honestly, :melee2 Cb5 (or 7 with Bolster) and a Paralyze trigger, Cave In with 2-3 blasts, and Shafted for some amazing board control, what's not to like?

Wk 4. Ca 4. Df 4.

As I said earlier, a "solid" model gives you nothing but multiple, low chances of success. Malifaux is a game where your models benefit from less, better chances of success. Else you're just throwing your game down to luck. Any model can be good when you flip the right cards, but I bet if you measure your Crooked Men's performance accurately over many games, you'll find that they do nothing more often than they do something useful.

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I'm guessing Mach 5's point was because it's blasts and a spell, getting 2Dg blasts through without the damage being halved is pretty nice for a 4SS model

And although i said i'm hooked on them and likely will be for a while, i can see Calmdown's point, the board control element i got was massive, but as people learn to cope with shafted markers (using more disposable models, taking the hit on the chin) rather than assuming the worst is about to happen (killed/paralyzed) then that same board control is going to be lessened massively, and sure the bury trigger is nice, but it's on a crow that alot of other models in a rezzer crew will want

All that said i'll definitely be recommending one to our new Levi player, the ability to hand out a crow would suit a crooked man in combat down to the ground

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@Calmdown, i just don't agree. Crooked men provide great board control. yes people find ways around them, that just means you'll find out how good combat they are. The other thing is if people just use the same models because they are more efficient, people will just work around them instead. "Great" models don't always work together but most solid models synagise well with other masters.

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(Primarily a Nicodem player)

They're good but you never know for sure what you're going to get.

Now, I love them and they go into almost every crew but I do see them fall flat a lot. Cheap soul stone models will often be used to try and trigger more then one marker. If it goes off it's even money if they do damage or force the model to end its activation with a paralyze.

Now if they're running an elite army, they'll be more hesitant to just blow through them, so they do have they're use. A good example would be to but the markers around the treasure objective, or even around your master after it has activated if the strategy is Deliver Message.

As the game goes on I'll rarely summon more or worry about keeping them alive, since I'm summoning to bring in more purpose built models like Punk Zombies, Flesh Golems or Necropunks. The crooked men just don't seem purpose built to complete strategies and schemes which I feel causes some people to pass them over in place of other models.

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As a 4ss model that is more resistant to being shot at I do look at them a fair bit, including both 1 Belle and 1 Crooked Man in a list is a great combo and it increases the Crooked Man's threat exponentially.

Like all models we dont have a catch all that works well against every crew hired by every master but they are a good model to consider against most. yes their shafted Markers can be neutered by crews that have a high activation count, I woudl probably not include them in a Seamus or McMcMourning crew if I knew I was facing Outcasts but beyond that I think they contribute a lot to a fair few strategies.

They are pretty cheap and have utility. They are more of a support and denial piece like the Rotten Belle so obviously you dont generally want to overload your crew with that type of model.

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