McMourning vs. Kirai

[Lord of Bones]

Hi all!

I'm due to be participating in my first Malifaux tournament on Saturday, and while I don't know which miniatures most of the players will be using, I do know one guy uses Kirai extensively.

I have the McMourning set, the Nicodem set, four canine remains, three necropunks and three mindless zombies. All are now painted and ready to play, so I'm keen to see your excellent advices on how best to combat Kirai with McMourning as my master.

Cheers!

LoB

[Dorian]

Kirai is the key to Kirai in my experience. What I mean is she is the lynch pin of her army. Allowing for great mobility & bonuses. Whether through healing, insane mobility, boots to Cb (Seishin) or debuffs to your stuff Kirai is very much a support master to her army & removing her will severely limit it's effectiveness. Note I said limit not cripple, the spirits are a pain enough on their own.

When Kirai dies, if lost love is in play, she instead remains in play with 4 Wds & becomes a spirit until the end of the game. To this end I find it advantageous to kill the lost love if possible. Also if she takes non spirits (Dead rider, Von Schill) lost love can make them spirits until the end of the game.

With most of her stuff being spirits spells are your best offense especially without any magic weapons. Use these to target things she CAN'T summon. Night Terrors, Datsue-Ba, Hanged. This will put her at a disadvantage by removing any capability those models brought permanently where as if you take out an Onryo she will just summon a new one. This is not to say non magical attacks are useless, just that magic attacks are extra punishing.

Take a rogue Necromancy as well. His acid breath will work as a great deterrent against kirai coming close. Kirai can pass any hit she takes to a seishin in base contact this is where Acid breath works to your advantage. As it is a spell spirit provides no bonus against it, it also deals blasts which will take out her seishin. Alternatively kirai may choose to keep her seishin safe leaving her vulnerable to attack.

If you can kill a spirit with dissect I would do so. Remember they do not drop any corpse counters so you will need to generate your own body part counters.

Finally, Memorize this mantra: See Shikome. Kill Shikome.

EDIT: Also may I ask where this will be? My local group has a tournament on Saturday & we have a notable Kirai player as well.

Edited May 3, 2012 by Dorian

[Lord of Bones]

Kirai is the key to Kirai in my experience. What I mean is she is the lynch pin of her army. Allowing for great mobility & bonuses. Whether through healing, insane mobility, boots to Cb (Seishin) or debuffs to your stuff Kirai is very much a support master to her army & removing her will severely limit it's effectiveness. Note I said limit not cripple, the spirits are a pain enough on their own.

When Kirai dies, if lost love is in play, she instead remains in play with 4 Wds & becomes a spirit until the end of the game. To this end I find it advantageous to kill the lost love if possible. Also if she takes non spirits (Dead rider, Von Schill) lost love can make them spirits until the end of the game.

With most of her stuff being spirits spells are your best offense especially without any magic weapons. Use these to target things she CAN'T summon. Night Terrors, Datsue-Ba, Hanged. This will put her at a disadvantage by removing any capability those models brought permanently where as if you take out an Onryo she will just summon a new one. This is not to say non magical attacks are useless, just that magic attacks are extra punishing.

Take a rogue Necromancy as well. His acid breath will work as a great deterrent against kirai coming close. Kirai can pass any hit she takes to a seishin in base contact this is where Acid breath works to your advantage. As it is a spell spirit provides no bonus against it, it also deals blasts which will take out her seishin. Alternatively kirai may choose to keep her seishin safe leaving her vulnerable to attack.

If you can kill a spirit with dissect I would do so. Remember they do not drop any corpse counters so you will need to generate your own body part counters.

Finally, Memorize this mantra: See Shikome. Kill Shikome.

EDIT: Also may I ask where this will be? My local group has a tournament on Saturday & we have a notable Kirai player as well.

We're in the UK and as far as I know we've got no New Yorkers in our group! Looks like Kirai's popularity traverses oceans.

Unfortunately Rogue Necromancy won't be an option for me as I don't own the miniature. Likewise for McMourning's Chihuahua.

A shame spirits don't drop body parts / corpse counters! My major strength has been nullified...

[Dorian]

Your major strength hasn't been nullified it just means you ahve to generate them through other means. (A piece for me, Dissection, if need be your own models)

[morpsele]

Don't forget i love to use the grave spirit with mcmourning. On the First turn i defensive stance then link and on other turn i use defensive again and wrack with pain. Not to bad and it remove the 0 ability. I normally use the dead rider but you can connect it to a dog or what ever you like.

[Da Git]

you should never rely on your opponent dropping corpse counters these days...

if you want a good magical beatstick, think about Taylor, Johan or Misaki as they all have magicall weapons.

Dissection is going to be gold against them, so you may also want to think about using the totem for that a turn as well.

Otherwise try to find stuff with min damage 3 for the hurt & objective grabbers!

[Calmdown]

Run Von Schill. He minces spirits quite happily. Alternatively, run Taylor and make sure she doesnt get singled out and beaten to death. You can use McMourning to heal her etc whilst she goes to town on spirits.

Sebastian can be useful because his damage line is good vs spirits and he's a pain to kill, slow as ever though.

Does he normally run Desperate Merc/Canine Remains/any of those tricks? If so, take Bete Noire.

Avoid expensive, easy to kill models like Dead Rider; they'll get minced by Shikome.

Night Terrors are hard for him to kill and grab objectives nicely; just watch out for poison from Shikome.

You cant really play McMourning so effectively without the Chihuahua and Rogue Necromancy... you're a bit crippled there. Get them asap. Necromancy in particular is awesome as spirits hate poison.

I dont think you have much of a chance if he really knows what he's doing, even if you were experienced you'd have a tough time but inexperience plus lack of the correct models is probably going to do for you before the game even begins. Just try to use it as a learning experience for next time, is my advice.