Doppleganger tips and tricks

[bldyhll666]

anyone try zoraida + doppleganger + papa loco?

z poops out voodoo doll, DG can mimik dolls defense while walking up the field, while mimiking thrown dynamite from papa, shooting at anything close enuff, when she gets close enuff, mimiks papas "take ya with me", explodes for 6dg, then heals.

anyone try this yet? im gonna play it this weekend to see if it works.

[Fetid Strumpet]

Have to disagree with you there. I can count one one hand the amount of times, outside of maybe the first turn, where I want my opponent to go first. Also, and I know it's a wacky idea, I can use both an Insidious Madness and a Doppleganger.

[Gentleman J]

New player to Malifaux here. I'm out in the wilds of Vegas where there aren't any other players that I know of, so I'll be picking up a few box sets for demos to start. I've had a lot of fun pondering uses of the Doppleganger.

Not sure if LCB's Dreamer's Revenge would really be THAT useful but it is a "this model" (according to the book and I see nothing in the Dreamer/LCB Errata) talent and the look of surprise on your opponent's face alone should be good for some humor.

Mimic Nightstalker and follow Coppelius around. For added fun, Link her to Coppy.

Lelu or Lilitu's Bond adds it to an alpha strike chain.

Obey - 'nuff said.

Copy Neverborn Greatsword and Unseen Assailant to automatically reactivate Harmless after any successful attack or Misery Loves Company for discard abilities.

And that's just the Neverborn from the first two books and things that mostly don't involve Dora's WP duels.

Edit: OK, there MUST be some specific ruling against this but. . .

Mimic you're opponent's Another One with the Viks. Cast it on an opponent's Ronin (or bring your own). Cheat and/or SS as needed. Combine with Unhealthy Relationship and a Sorrow only at great peril to your immortal soul.

Coryphee Duet's Dance Apart to turn a Doppleganger into a pair of Corypheee who can later dance back together.

Ditto with Desolation Core, although someone has to kill it.

Lost Focus is somewhat less interesting in terms of turning a DG into something else permanently.

And the Steampunk Arachnid Swarm

If you've got a Jack Daw, swipe his Kill Scheme in late turns after everyone has activated already for VP.

Unrelated note: it seems like any Another One Vic will always have a sword and pistol, even if its replacing the paired sword model.

Edited April 11, 2012 by Gentleman J

[Finnegan]

You can't mimic effects that reference a model by name, so Bond as well as any talents that would turn the Doppleganger into another model wouldn't be allowed. As for the Kill Scheme, the effects of Mimic disappear at the end of turn, before the end of game, so mimicing it wouldn't give you any VP.

Effects that have the same name don't stack, so following Coppelius around wouldn't deal more wounds. You could, however, mimic his Night Stalker and follow another Terrifying model.

I like your Dreamer's Revenge idea. The name of the talent names the Dreamer, but the efect itself doesn't, so I'm not sure whether or not it would be allowed. I hope it would

Finally, well spotted regarding Another One. I'm planning to start the Viks quite soon, and I hadn't noticed that, but Weapon Selection pretty clearly states it only happens at the start of the game.

[Gentleman J]

OK, found the errata. I was thinking the limitation was on mimicking effects that mention the model it was mimicked from by name. That's going to kill your Dreamer's Revenge, too, unless there's a difference between "The Dreamer" and "a buried friendly The Dreamer".

If it does work then so would Nightmare Friend.

As for Nightstalker, it should stack the same way mimicking Pandora's Emotional Trauma stacks. Effects don't stack but damage is not an effect. Both are simple "if x then take damage". I can see where it being an aura implies that the whole if-then chain is an effect but because it is specifically damage dealing as opposed to Slow, Poison or whatever, I still see them as stacking. Is that not correct?

[Sarsnick]

OK, found the errata. I was thinking the limitation was on mimicking effects that mention the model it was mimicked from by name. That's going to kill your Dreamer's Revenge, too, unless there's a difference between "The Dreamer" and "a buried friendly The Dreamer".

If it does work then so would Nightmare Friend.

As for Nightstalker, it should stack the same way mimicking Pandora's Emotional Trauma stacks. Effects don't stack but damage is not an effect. Both are simple "if x then take damage". I can see where it being an aura implies that the whole if-then chain is an effect but because it is specifically damage dealing as opposed to Slow, Poison or whatever, I still see them as stacking. Is that not correct?

We've been ruling that any mention of any model anywhere in the model, even when not self-referencing itself, is not copyable.

So, if for some reason, you want to copy "Mother's Rage" off of the Spawn Mother you are unable to. It does not refer to Spawn Mother but it does refer to the Gupps model.

[Finnegan]

OK, found the errata. I was thinking the limitation was on mimicking effects that mention the model it was mimicked from by name. That's going to kill your Dreamer's Revenge, too, unless there's a difference between "The Dreamer" and "a buried friendly The Dreamer".

If it does work then so would Nightmare Friend.

As for Nightstalker, it should stack the same way mimicking Pandora's Emotional Trauma stacks. Effects don't stack but damage is not an effect. Both are simple "if x then take damage". I can see where it being an aura implies that the whole if-then chain is an effect but because it is specifically damage dealing as opposed to Slow, Poison or whatever, I still see them as stacking. Is that not correct?

Derp, I got Dreamer's Revenge confused with Release Nightmare. It's a bit of a waste of SS to take the DG just for Release Nightmares, but it can situationally be very powerful, methinks. I can see, in a Brawl, the DG mimicking an Insidious Madness' Wk along with Lilith's Fast (or a Terror Tot's Sprint) and recreating something very similar to the Dreamer Hop.

As for damage stacking, I am now slightly confused. I always assumed damage from the same ability wouldn't stack. Can anyone give us a bit of insight here please?

[Gentleman J]

Well, we know that if two Sorrows are both within 3" of someone who loses a WP duel, they take 2 from the combined Emotional Stress, not 1. Both this and Nightstalker are in the format of "if x then take y damage lose y wounds". The main difference is that Emotional Stress says "within 3 inches" while Nightstalker is an aura, which is a different way of saying the same thing and may or may not make a mechanical difference.

Other ideas:

Copy Zoraida or Dora's WP and a Sorrow's Doldrums to get one paralyze on just about anything.

Conduit Reconnect and Zoraida's CA: Since this doesn't have to be reactivated every turn, copy it to give Zoraida a second Voodoo Doll equivalent. With a CA of 7, only a Black Joker can make it fail. After that you can copy something else but the doll link persists (or at least seems to me it should). Companion/Link and keeping Harmless active would probably be good. Its a harmless, significant faux-Voodoo Doll with a lot of options. This alone may be worth it weight in soulstones.

Blood In The Air: Allows you to pull in lots of Nephilim so that Black Blood Shaman can still use Blood Frenzy the same turn to effect them all.

Edited April 12, 2012 by Gentleman J

[Jeebus]

Necro-posting!!!

I've used DG and Sue for extreme card advantage. copy Hurt, use Hurt for 3 cards, then (0) Mimic Healing.

after playing Magic: The Gathering for ever (recovering "addict" lol) i've always said card advantage is what wins games.

6 extra cards a turn is nothing to sneeze at.

also some fun stuff is with Zoriada and Ophelia. copy Ophelia's Pistol and Calculated Luck trigger for some extra damage potential.

you can copy Zoriada's WP and Honeyed Words from Beckoners for some all but guarenteed brilliance distribution. Really DG with Beckoners in general is pretty gross. An extra sales pitch out a turn. Yuk!

[Finnegan]

Necro-posting is illegal in the Guild subforum and heavily encouraged in the Resurectionist subforum; the rest of us accept it when it fits our schemes.

I haven't played with Sue yet, though I hear he's good. To be honest, haviong Johnny Cash on the field is reason enough to use him. Your idea sounds good, but I'd only ever use it in higher SS games, since it seems rather expensive.

Also, thanks for bringing the new crews to my attention. Now I'll be able to think up new ways to use and abuse Brilliance

[sharpobjects]

I've used DG and Sue for extreme card advantage. copy Hurt, use Hurt for 3 cards, then (0) Mimic Healing.

You cannot Mimic (1) Hurt from Sue because it mentions Sue by name in it's description. "Inflict up to 3 Wd on Sue"

[Therril_83]

Never given it much thought, but I reckon you could do something mean with copying Use Soulstone...

Perhaps copy Doldrums from a Sorrow, to reliably paralyze things..

I'm sure someone can come up with something clever.

[marful]

Whenever I bring the Doppleganger, she is the #1 model my opponent is going to kill first. So I hold her back and never get her in line of sight until I am ready to alpha strike the opponent.

Also, with how aggressive I play Pandora, linking the Doppleganger to her is just a bad bad idea. It just makes an easy target to splash blasts onto Pandora with and just means the DG is going to die. (Also why I don't ever link Sorrows to Pandora...)

Some tricks I use with the Doppleganger include either Coppellius or the Insidious Madness.

Copying the Insidious Madness's movement of 8 is great for objective grabbing (provided the movement keeps the DG out of line of sight...) Another one is copying Psychopathic Episodes for other willpower shenanigans when I do pacify or incite chains. But really, it's better to do this with the 4 point model, but you can if you need to.

Another offensive use I'll do is link to Coppelius (copying from a Sorrow) and keep Coppelius out of LoS as he advances into an alpha strike position where he can use his 6" move to move in and pluck an eyeball. Here, I'll copy Night Stalker while Coppelius plucks an eyeball, or to line up a combo attack from Pandora casting Project Emotions on a group of minions with her trigger Mental Anguish, usually resulting in 7 straight wounds to whoever is hit and not needing to worry about them for a turn. Or, just copying Coppelius's Paralyze action and paralyzing stuff is good.

If I'm not using the DG for another shenanigan, I'm usually copying Pandora's Emotional Trauma and The Box Opens, or going super defensive with Creepy Fog or Does not Die.

[Jeebus]

You cannot Mimic (1) Hurt from Sue because it mentions Sue by name in it's description. "Inflict up to 3 Wd on Sue"

Thanks for the educating.

Jack Daw is another one with lots of fun stuff to mimic. Suppressed Memories and Heart Stopper for some instant death options.

The Oldest of Magics will make your DG fairly defensive for a turn. It feels wrong, but with the Errata on The Oldest of Magics saying "This Ability cannot be negated or removed by any means" wouldn't it not fall off at the End Closing Phase? Someone please explain why it can't work, because right now i'm looking at it as Mimic grants the ability and at the end closing Mimic takes it away, but the ability granted says it cant be taken away.

[Sarsnick]

Best pairing is Doppleganger copying Zorida's 10 Wp with the Stitched Gamble Your Life which is a straight up Wp -> Wp duel.

Low hand or low/no soulstones means you can probably straight up kill some Masters with an okay hand.

[marful]

The Oldest of Magics will make your DG fairly defensive for a turn. It feels wrong, but with the Errata on The Oldest of Magics saying "This Ability cannot be negated or removed by any means" wouldn't it not fall off at the End Closing Phase? Someone please explain why it can't work, because right now i'm looking at it as Mimic grants the ability and at the end closing Mimic takes it away, but the ability granted says it cant be taken away.

That is, sooooo wrong!!!!!!

Hehhehehe...

[Jeebus]

like i said, it feels like it should be wrong, but i cannot prove why it would be . . .

[theargent]

DG copies Jacob Lynch's Dead Man's Hand spell, cast it 4X during the turn. Potential of having 12 extra cards in your hand + your control deck for a whopping 18 cards. Either you wind up with a ton of high cheat cards, or a hand full of crap cards, which tips the scales so you'll get some awesome draws, or more likely a mixture. Either way, a very decent way to hit the Read 'em and Weep strategy. And it'll increase your chance to pop Huggy on the board with a discarded pair.

[Kalkris]

Nope! Sorry, DMH references Lynch by name so it can't be mimicked. I wish it could though

~Lil Kalki

[theargent]

Dang, Knew I should have broken out Jacob's card instead of going by memory. Although it does only say "Jacob's handler" makes the flip.

[amor sanguinis]

One of the tricks pointed around on these forums was to use with Zoraida, and have a Stitched together hanging around.

Mimic: Wp 10 from zoraida

Mimic: Gamble your life from the Stitched

I thought you could not use the same 0 action twice?

[Boshea]

Doppleganger has Shapeless, which is basically a special version of instinctual. It can use 2 (0) actions per turn, instead of 2 different (0) actions.

[Space Donkey]

(+1) Instinctual: This model may perform 2 different (0) Actions during its activation.

Shapeless: This model may take 2 (0) Actions during its activation.

With Instinctual, yes you can only use a zero action once and then use a second zero action. However, the Doppelganger has Shapeless does not have that limitation.

[amor sanguinis]

Freaking sweet thanx

[EnternalVoid]

I have done all sorts of amusing things with Dopplegangers in my games and have noted others for future use as well.

I have used Mimic on Zoraida for her Raven form, used said Raven form, and then flew off 20" to get a piece of terrain my opponent had thought I would not reach *Zoraida was needed for other things*. Was also useful when they were closing in on the Doppleganger after hating that Ill Omens all game. I have also mimiced an Insidious Madness for its Walk.

I like for defense mimicing the Voodoo Doll's Defense 8, and Zoraida's proper manners.

There was also the time I was threatening to copy both Boom! from Papa Loco and Immolating demise from a Stalker. The look on the player's face as he questioned whether you could even have two effects that triggered on death like that was priceless. Of course he BLEW away the Doppleganger before I could do it with a Companion Chain, but it costed him a fair bit of AP.

Another one I am thinking about trying in a Zoraida/Collodi crew is to first turn Mimic Collodi's ability that gives Puppet's fast. That way it can give it to Collodi and his crew and leave Collodi's AP for casting Filled With Stones should he want to.