Basic tactics for Colette

[Huang Da Wei]

I had a look at the pullmyfinger stuff for Colette,Cassandra and crew but wonder if anyone could give basic advice to a newbie.

I have only played 1 game so far and that was with Mcmourning, now the ladies are ready to hit the gaming board.

It will be just a small game 25ss and I dont know who I am playing against.

Painted and raring to fight will be

Colette

Cassandra

2 x performers with mannequins

2 doves

and in keeping with the ladies, miss demeanor

coryphee are still to see paint and a bit much for only 25 me thinks

[zero]

a great tactic is using cassandra to blast the mechanical dove which has flown near a model. cheat down and blast over the opposing model.. pandora included.

i would go with another showgirl opposed to demeanor. collette and the girls love models with Showgirl and being able to switch positions keeps her potent.

coryphee are brutal and once upon a time i left them split. now there never apart and for a beginner i would suggest the same.

maybe go for 2 desperate mercs and have collette create stones to keep them alive or significant if needed.

another figure which could work for colette (but again goes against my showgirl comment) is the soulstone miner.

i find try to go for masters without soulstone with the magicians duel (i think) gives them a -2 which is always handy.

hope this helps.

[Huang Da Wei]

What about disappearing act, burying models, is that good ? do they stay buried for the game or just short time?

[ThirteenFox]

Disappearing Act can be useful, but you need to pick your targets. It will last until the end of that turn, so it's most useful on models that haven't activated yet since you essentially deny your opponent a model for a turn. It's best against the more elite or high wound models, obviously.

It can also be used for model placement. Plopping someone in hazardous terrain or off the side of terrain that they then need to walk around again never gets old.

Fun little thing to never forget:

The Mannequin trigger. Flip for the spell, cheat in a tome if needed, and use a Soulstone to flip again. Colette gets two flips on because of her ability, so you have a 50/50 chance of completely obliterating a model AND getting a Mannequin out of the deal as well.

[Huang Da Wei]

so I had better paint up another mannequin just in case I get lucky

[Wormstrum]

It gets even better in a brawl if you pair her with ramos for the mobile toolkit.

On topic though. Even at 25 I find the three big c's are really all you need. Performers and mannequins can be ok, but for being required to drop 6 points on them they don't do as much as I'd like.

A typical strategy as colette should revolve around hit and run tactics with the coryphees using cassandra's dance partner and colette's illusionist for movement shenanigans.

Making doves/soulstones when you can and denying people board position is basically what it boils down to. The biggest thing to keep in mind though is that colette's crew needs each other to succeed. Once one part falls down the rest usually isn't far behind.

[Sholto]

Essential Colette trick #1

1. Deploy with a Mannequin in base contact with Colette and have it Link to her Turn 1.

2. Any time during the game that another model is in danger of melee or is exposed to enemy fire have Colette use Illusionist on the Showgirl you need to save.

3. Then do whatever (0) Action you need Colette to do (either gain Reactivate or make a Dove, basically).

4. Then have Colette use Illusionist on her own Linked Mannequin.

5. At the end of Colette's Activation, her Linked Mannequin will Push back into base contact with her, ending up with all models in your crew safely out of danger.

[Huang Da Wei]

I think I understand that, but 5, how does the mannequin push back? and would that mean that all 3 are cuddled together at that stage

[Ebonstar]

During Collette's activation- you move Collette, but leave the Mannequin where it is. Here's a quick diagram:

X = Collette Y = Mannequin Q = Other Showgirl.

Mannequin activates first, using (0) to link to Colette and any 1 action.

YX ------------------------------- Q (trouble)

Then Collette activates, uses illustionist to swap with Showgirl:

YQ --------------------------------X(trouble)

She then uses illusionist again to swap with the mannequin:

XQ ---------------------------------Y(trouble)

At the end of Collette's activation, the linked mannequin snaps back to her automatically:

XYQ <---------------------- (trouble)

You can do this in a single activation, or split it up.

For more on this, check out my youtube miniseries on Colette:

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheEbonstar?feature=mhee

[Scurry]

you can also have the manequin bash colette and cheat if needed to get her blinding flash trigger off so she has a free action to use

[Ebonstar]

Yep. And if you bash with the mannequin you can potentially save more than 2 showgirls, using illusionist and even disappearing act to get them out of harm's way.

[WUWU]

Take Bodyguard and Sabotage. Get at least 4vp every game.

[Odin1981]

Understand that sublime performance on the duet is by far their strongest zero you can give them. Also don't make the mistake of running them into melee and keeping them their if you lose initiative the following turn and their is anything other than a 4-5 point model (excluding stitched together) their is a good chance you could lose them.

Also don't try to count every card in your deck but due try to keep notice how many books you go threw cause it will help you alot for figuring out when you need to replace their most expensive model into a mannequin on a vital turn with colette.

[Sholto]

Here's a good way to use the Coryphee Duet if you have a couple of high cards and something you need to take out:

1. Cast (0) Sublime Performance to get a :masks on your Ca and Cb.

2. Use (0) Use Soulstone and (0) Sword Dance

3. Move 9" towards an enemy model.

4. Make a melee Strike as part of your move once you are within 1" of the enemy model. Cheat high and SS if necessary to get an irresistable Duel Total. You don't care about Weak, Moderate or Severe Dg, you just want to do Dg. When you win, declare the Hypnotic Movements trigger, which you get automatically because of Sublime Performance. After flipping for Dg your target is now at a on Resist Flips

5. Cast Blinding. Your target cannot cheat. Ensure you get a straight flip or better for the damage flip, and then you can cheat in a high card and Paralyse the model (and do a load of damage).

6. Move away up to 9". The Paralysed model cannot make a Disengaging Strike. You can always hit the model again as part of your move away, thanks to Sword Dance If you cause Dg you can declare the One Fluid Motion trigger, which gets you an extra 4" of movement.

Now the enemy model is Wounded and Paralysed, and the rest of your crew can finish it off at their leisure. Poison 4?

Edited November 8, 2011 by Sholto

[Huang Da Wei]

For more on this, check out my youtube miniseries on Colette:

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheEbonstar?feature=mhee

[Ebonstar]

Thanks for the compliments. When I started Collette, I read the pullmyfinger wiki like 20x , but it took even longer to get the main ideas down because I was trying to memorize things. I put the series together to help my neice understand the key concepts behind the crew, which don't really look powerful until you see the pieces come together.

[sinistercats]

Seconded- very well done. The website is also very good. Any chance it's going to be updated soon...?

[Ebonstar]

Actually yes. The next section will start putting these key ideas together- call it a big picture for how it all looks when you are playing. Should be available within a week or so.

[eudaimon]

+1 to the praise. Your site tought me a lot. Thank you.

[Vermin Lord]

The Collette shell game is waaay to much fun, helped me pull off a slaughter against a Kirai crew. Of course, Cassandra pulling off severe damage with her (1) spell as part of her regular attack helped. 6 damage to a spirit tends to help killing the buggers.