Making the Soulstone Miner worth it's SS - Marcus

[Rathnard]

Inspired by the Levi thread.

So unlike alot of people, it seems I still rate the Soulstone Miner as a viable choice. I like him as a suicide/assasination piece and his ability to get anywhere on the board unmolested can really mess with your opponent's head.

Right now, I think he's best utilised in a Marcus crew, mainly because for Marcus he's a 5 SS beast. Here's how;

What you need:

Jackalope 1

Malifaux Raptor 2

Soulstone Miner 6

1. Malifaux Raptor activates - Attacks the Soulstone miner, cheating a :tomes and triggering Enrage, dealing one damage and turing the Miner into a Beast for the game.

2. Jackalope activates - Uses Defensive Stance and Casts Primal Flame (probably cheating the :rams) to heal the Soulstone Miner up again.

3. Soulstone Miner activates - Attacks the Jackalope, cheating a :crows to trigger Siphon Essense and gain a Soulstone. He Then Burrows for his usual ambush business.

At the end of these activations, the Soulstone Miner is a Beast, the Jackalope is dead and you have +1SS (hence the 5 SS Miner). All while using Models Marcus should be taking in his crew anyway. The dead Jackalope isn't an issue either, since the first model Marcus kills will bring the Jackalope back into play and sitting exactly where he needs to be (defending Marcus).

To get all of the above working, you generally need a 10:rams, an okay :crows and :tomes card and possibly 1-2 low cards to cheat the defense flips (although defensive stance on the Jackalope helps with this). But realistically you only need to Siphon Essense the Jackalope for a SS - the Beast trick is just a bonus if the cards are available.

[Lucidicide]

Inspired by the Levi thread.

All the best things are inspired by Leveticus!

So unlike alot of people, it seems I still rate the Soulstone Miner as a viable choice. I like him as a suicide/assasination piece and his ability to get anywhere on the board unmolested can really mess with your opponent's head.

Agreed. I think he's still worthwhile, he's just played differently.

The dead Jackalope isn't an issue either, since the first model Marcus kills will bring the Jackalope back into play and sitting exactly where he needs to be (defending Marcus).

Is this accurate? I mean, if you hit a model twice and kill it -- yes. But if you one shot a model, no, right? Because it was determined that you only become a Beast off Marcus' trigger if you survived the hit. So it requires a one-two hit with Marcus.

A minor quibble, true, but worth noting.

Edited April 19, 2012 by Lucidicide
Because I'm dumb and typed something way wrong.

[Rathnard]

The quibble is true - if Marcus kills a model in one hit then the trigger doesn't work and the Jackalope won't be summoned into play. That said, I'd hope that if you're killing a model in one hit you'd have the AP left to run back to safety, hence less need for the Jackalope.

This is also why I take a Malifaux Raptor. It can turn enemy models into beasts, albiet unreliably, but it's also a great model for blocking charges against Marcus or as a Defend Me target. And once it dies (it will), you've got a Jackalope popping up to continue doing the exact same thing the Raptor was doing.

While I'm at it, I quite like using the Mx Raptor as a way of pulling Marcus out of combat. Just Diving Charge Marcus with the Raptor, Marcus triggers Defend me and swaps with the Raptor. I can't recall whether the raptor takes it's own damage flip or if it is still on Marcus (make it a bash attack and cheat down to weak damage), but either way you'll have gotten Marcus out of melee and finished with a big-arse raptor blocking charges and acting as a defend me target.

[Lucidicide]

I like the cut of your jib.

[mythicFOX]

Without getting into my thoughts on the SS Miner (see the Bayou Broadcast) I'd like to take issue with the idea it's a 5ss Soulstone Miner.

You're spending 6ss on the Miner, 2ss on a Malifaux Raptor and gaining one SS from the :crows trigger. 6+2-1=7. That's not counting the time the Jakalope is out of the game or the fact that SS you spend on hiring are not equivalent to ones you gain in game.

This method looks to me to cost 1ss more to make the Miner a beast, and I'm not sure why that's worth the stone?

[Rathnard]

Hmm, well first of all, the beast trick isn't really that essential. As you know Marcus likes having Beasts around but he does pretty well without too. So the Beast trick is more something that I'd do only if the cards were available. The main benefit here is the extra soulstone from Marcus.

The 7SS cost you quote is only true if you assume that the Mx Raptor is good for nothing else but turning the Soulstone Miner into a Beast. This is something I absolutely disagree with! I actually take a Raptor in almost every Marcus list I use. Aside from the ability to turn models into Beasts, for 2SS you get;

- A charge blocker and a way to hold up enemy models for a turn or more (especially if you can pull off defensive stance)

- A Defend Me target for Marcus

- An extra model to activate (very handy when you have...say...a soulstone miner? )

- A way to pull Marcus out of combat and other sticky situations (as above - Charge Marcus and swap them around with Defend me)

- The odd extra 1-2 damage points (yes, sometimes the Mx Raptor can damage something...)

- Two corpse counters (If taking Spawn Mother, Trapper or Blessed of December - situational but still worth considering)

And hey - if you're still not convinced, 1. I feel sorry for you , and 2. You can still forego the Mx Raptor and just focus on just getting the 1SS discount on the Miner.

Loss of activation from the Jackalope - this will generally only happen in turn two, if that. I generally find that either Marcus will kill something or my opponent will kill a Beast by turn three. So at worst you MIGHT lose out on an activation in turn 2, and you'll lose the chance to charge with the Jackalope in the turn he comes back.

As for the discount being Cache only, it's a distinction, but not at all an issue. Any Marcus Player worth his salt won't be maxing out his crew size if it means he'll have less than 6SS in his Cache. So that +1SS is inevitably going to end up where it would have been anyway - in Marcus' Cache.

[Wrench]

As a newish arcanist player I am very intrigued by these ideas. I have a SS miner that has proven to be a very versatile model even if a little expensive. Do you all think that the SS miner is just as good with aMarcus? He seems very resource intensive. Since part of the miner's attraction to me is that it can potentially add a couple of stones to your pool by syphoning I have wanted to make it fit. The problem ends up being that I burn a stone or two on the way for overdrive or whatnot....

[ukrocky]

You're also paying to hire the raptor, which is just pointless, as raptors are useless

[Rathnard]

You're also paying to hire the raptor, which is just pointless, as raptors are useless

Raptors are fantastic. You're just a bad player Craig. :Smug_Puppet1:

As for your question Wrench, I think a Soulstone Miner will do much the same thing in a list with AMarcus - running off on it's own and either assasinating or helping to finish off single models. If you can turn it into a Beast the +1Cb from AMarcus will be very handy, but it's not essential to the Miner's gameplan.

Overdrive, to me, is the kind of action you'd use only when you feel it's absolutely necessary to do as much damage as possible that turn. If you can Siphon to get the Soulstone back after the attacks, then that'd be ideal though.

[ukrocky]

But Marcus does nothing for beasts so raptors are poo! One thing I will say is, I never thought of killing the jackalope with the ssminer, despite me using the 2 loads!