Sell Angelica to me.

[pixelante]

Granted I've only used her the once since I've painted her, but I am seriously underwhelmed by what she is bringing to the table. I am this close >< to just never taking her at all when Johan or a Gunsmith are so much better for the same cost.

In the game I took her she just hung out it my opponents deployment zone staking a claim, something the performer could have done quite ably as she lent her spells to Cassie. Then I could have taken Johan or another Gunsmith that would've put the hurt on my opponent's Witchling stalkers.

So please, tell me I'm wrong and give me some reason to take Angelica or feel free to add your voice to the chorus line chanting Angelica sucks.

[Q'iq'el]

Well, she is just a minion. Perhaps you've taken her in the wrong matchup? She isn't supposed to work in every combination. Heck, even your master isn't supposed to work in every type of Encounter.

Mine suffers from horrible painting backlog, so I haven't tested her yet, but it is an ultimate support model. She makes Showgirls into reasonably good fighters that can hold the line if needed. She protects the living part of the crew from Terror and other effects causing Failing Back and she debuffs opponent's Wp, making the girls more effective.

Ergo, you need to keep her as close to other Showgirls as required, not somewhere else.

Now Gunsmith, Convict Gunslinger or Johan are completely different type of model - they are direct damage and completely independent from the core of your crew. If you need a capable loner to guard the objective, here they come. Same if you want to tie up some big and dangerous model your opponent uses.

Since they are not in the same category, they don't really compete for the slot. You just have to figure out which type of minion you need for the Strategy at hand.

I think two of Angelica's abilities are particularly powerful - debuff to Wp and immunity to falling back. The former means both Performers and Cassandra get a better shot at Performers' spells, where Siren's Call is particularly powerful, esp. when cast by Cassandra.

The later would be good against Pandora - immunity to falling back is considerably better than immunity to Morale Duels, Influence or Terror - even if you lose the duels, you still cannot fall back. And I think it cannot be bypassed, because it isn't an immunity to Wp or Terror or anything like that (Anathema, Box Opens etc.).

[pixelante]

Hmmm, well it was against the Guild, so perhaps she might find more use versus the Neverborn and maybe Resurrectionists? I can see the possiblity of using "Do you want to see more?" to strip Pandora of her triggers.

[Barnaberible]

I will be interested to see people's thoughts on this. We normally play 35ss and I have yet to put together a list with her in it, other options seem much more appealing.

[Shadai]

She has a nice... pardon the pun... figure?

Other then that, she's pretty useless. I've never had a game where I was like... man... I WISH I had Angelica...

She's a true support piece in a skirmish group that doesn't really need her. Her ability to make other girls immune to falling back is great until you realize it doesn't apply to her. Her ability is to debuff WP is awesome until you realize that most of the time the set up is not worth the effort. Bring out the next act is cool and all, but you can do the same thing with the Mannequin companion. She's fragile, and easily killed without much effort by your opponent.

She would be good if she could be used as ranged area damage, tying up a bunch of your opponents in a group with your other models and blasting away with her range weapon. The problem with that is the shooting into melee rules. Oh look, I shoot a girl, nope she says I can't, illegal target - wasted AP.

At her cost, you are almost always better off taking... well anything really. Gunsmiths, another Performer/Mannequin combo, Johan, a couple of doves, hell even Ronin might be an upgrade.

But she has a really nice model!

So there you go.

[nix]

She has the ability to trigger a second companion group 18 inches away on the board by using Bring out the Next Act on a mannequin. This gives you the ability to spread your crew apart and still alpha strike. She is also not horrible at making your opponent discard cards via her showstopper trigger. I would not cheat it, but if it comes up in the flip its not bad.

[Logic512]

The most important thing she ever did for me was defensive stance on an Evidence marker in my deployment zone. +resist flips is nice vs, say, Pandora. Otherwise I find her pretty underwhelming. So, are you sold on her yet? I'm a terrible salesman.

[Odin1981]

I'll add what everyone else has left out even though it is situational. The ability before the game starts to switch around a model with her. If your our playing a opponent that loves going after a certain model.

If you go first you can place them at one point to have the enemy mass at a certain point for theirs and then before 1st turn switch model with her and redeploy model that they spent a lot of deployments on pretty far away from them so they are out of position.

Also as noted before the ranged companion is awesome and their is only one other model in the game with that ability and it is regarded as highly valued as well (guild austringer).

[Cadfan]

The ranged companion ability would be a lot more valuable if Colette fielded more actual combat troops. The basic problem with Angelica is that she's a support model that supports Performers, who are themselves support models. It get redundant fast.

[pixelante]

The ranged companion is not gold, for one thing it only works on Showgirls. Showgirls are not really alphastrike like the Ortegas and I prefer to wait for my opponent to make a mistake I can exploit rather than potentially activate all of my entire crew in one go. I can live without the need to activate two models simultaneously on both sides of the field.

[Odin1981]

So dropping 5/3/3 templates on targets that our at a - to casting duels isn't as damaging as a 3/4/6 crit strike I tend to disagree. You lack 1 point in moderate and severe totals but if 2-3 models are grouped together (within 4-5" of each other) you do more damage spread out among models then a ortega can do in a rj+severe shot. And then have models set up to be magicians duel killed for a ss by colette.

You have options to ensure that duet is 8-12" away from any model and she cannot be charged, cassie will be 7-10" away from models most likely with southern charm up and if you go after paired models first lack of models with inbuilt + to attacks/spells it is very unlikely cassie or duet is getting hurt.

Do the above mentioned 2-3 times against a opponent and outside of crews that have mechanics around being grouped up they will not want to stay together and a spread out opponent against a showgirls crew gets wrecked in addition to you scoring 6-8 vp's easily.