C. Hoffman Run

[Gruesome]

My son and I have decided to switch models for a month to see how "the other half" lives.

After playing a few games with Sonnia, who I thought was really cool and that I learned a lot about. (She can sure get her spell damage manifestation requirement in a hurry with one well-placed Flame burst...)

I have moved onto Hoffman. I've been reading all the armor threads and there seems to be no end of theories on how to get armor +74 etc...

My primary interest and questions revolve around a Protect chain to ensure I am understanding what I can do. I also have an idea for the Hunter that I am hoping makes him cooler than he has been for us.

So, Protect...

With PeaceKeeper, Guardian and Mechanical Attendant.

I assimilate (1) Protect, cast it on Peacekeeper, Guardian casts it on Hoffman and MA extension casts it on the Guardian.

So, wounds that are hopefully flowing through Peacekeeper go to Hoffman, then to Guardian until he is dangerously low and whenever I am concerned that he cannot self-repair enough next turn, I let overage wounds go to the MA as a safety valve?

Is that pretty much the deal?

[EnternalVoid]

That is how I would do it but some prefer to have it be; Peacekeeper-Hoffman-Toolkit-Guardian. It really depends how vunerable you think different models might become the weak link or target. Some don't like the toolkit last because it then will likely die, others don't like it being in the middle as it could become the easy target as Statward for the Guardian is now an Aura, thus shut down if you are close to Hoffman.

[osoi]

Thats how I tend to do it too Peacekeeper-Hoffman-Guardian-Toolkit.

I never have worried about how to get to the ridiculous armour buffs that some are, generally +2 is fine for me plus the protect chain gives pleanty of durability.

I prefer the Toolkit to the Attendant du eto Handy so he can just keep 'snapping' back to Hoffman plus having Weld together available gives a lot of healing flips in the group.

[Sholto]

Peacekeeper-Hoffman-Guardian-Toolkit

Pros: Any Red Joker hit on the Big Three gets dumped on the Toolkit. This is possibly the most annoying thing you will ever do to your opponent. Apart from playing Hoffman in the first place

Cons: The Toolkit is easily killed if targeted directly, although you can block LoS to it with some careful positioning.

Peacekeeper-Hoffman-Toolkit-Guardian

Pros: The Toolkit is now solidly protected. Significant models that auto-follow the Hoffball are worth their weight in gold, regardless of what other abilities they have.

Cons: If the Guardian takes a solid hit he will die. Also, if you have to dump a Red Joker hit on the Toolkit the chain is broken and you need to get the Guardien to cast Protect again, this time on Hoffman.

[Gruesome]

Thank you all!

The pros and cons of the different Protect Chain orders are really useful. I am bookmarking this thread for myself.

Hmmm... Toolkit instead of Mechanical Attendant because it has the "Weld-Together" and the ability to move into base contact with master, so it can use its (2) on the healing flip every turn, I assume?

That does sound cool.

I look at Stalwart and do not really see a ton of use for it in a Construct Heavy list that is already bristling with armor. Am I missing something?

Also, Shield Wall... The spell itself sounds cool, but how does the Guardian keep up with the Hoff-Ball if he casts it?

Tonight is our first game and I am facing Seamus and his Avatar, which makes sense since this is the first time I did NOT take any watchers since I have been playing Guild... :Sad_Puppet1:

We set up as much as we could the other in anticipation of playing tonight.

I have Destroy the Evidence and he has Plant the Evidence.

He had to deploy first and has his crew pretty center of the board, mine is center also, with a Hunter on the wing that has the Evidence counters I must destroy.

This is my idea for Hunter in light of no Watchers. Objective Grabber!

Basically, I want to use his (0) ability to follow a model like I am tacking against the wind in sailing since the ability says move "toward" target model in LoS. All that means is I must end the move closer than I started each time they move. So, 95% of my movement can be in the direction I want as long as I end up closer to them than I was. On my own movements, I can move slightly farther away so that the next time the target activates, I keep moving up the board. If their model seems unlikely to move, I simply change targets since the range of picking one is limitless as long as its in LoS.

I think that done right, this can move me pretty quick. So I either get the objectives outright or he has to split off a force large enough to actually kill the hunter, which is no slouch compared to typical objective grabbers. (Maybe compared to other 6 point models, but not to objective grabbers... )

And using his (0) again, he will be able to rejoin the mob pretty quick later in the game.

[WaywardSun13]

Re: The Guardian and Shield Wall

I almost never cast this spell. I almost always hold a tome in my hand to cheat in on defense flips for the guardian so he gets his Df trigger Shielded, which (if I remember correctly), allows him to act like he has Shield Wall active.

Also, against very high Df models, I almost always swing with the shield. Even though I miss, it still gets me at least 1 pt of damage. You have no idea how hilarious it is to watch someone's Lilith die to a Guardian's Shield attack.

[Sholto]

Stalwart can be pretty dangerous. If the enemy is bristling with many sources of low damage (eg. Gremlins) it effectively doubles their damage output against your armoured models, and ensures that the Guardian will drop quickly. Use it carefully.

Mid-game my Guardian tends to Wk, Wk (0) Heal, and then Push in the Closing Phase. Machine Puppet him as needed for some amusing attacks on high Df targets as WaywardSun13 points out. And cheating in a low Tome on his Df is hilarious the first time, as your opponent tries to work out why you just cheated down...

If you are playing a fairly static game, however, or if you are taking the Guardian with an Ortega gunline crew, for example, the Shield Wall can be worth trying to cast. It is situational, but I have never yet tried to cast Shield Wall - I have always had something better for the Guardian to be doing.

[osoi]

I'll chime in as also never having cast shield wall, theres always sometyhing else to do with him. Stalwart I dont even look at.

Yes, Machine Puppet with the shield is great as well

Just be careful about not overextending yourself with using the Peacekeeper's Relentless as you can break the Protect chain when you are out of position as well

[Gruesome]

Cool...

We play in about an hour. I had wondered about the "slinky effect". Its easy to see how it extends and portions catch back up, but it seems like the tail end has to sort of shuffle up to get back into the ball, sort of slowing the mass a bit.

The pulse/blast protection makes so much sense to me now.

[Hateful Darkblack]

I just picked up a Governor's Proxy to do the same thing.

[Carse]

The small rules manual says you move by the shortest path so you can't just use it for a free move.

"Toward/away from something must move by the shortest route" p.35

[Gruesome]

The small rules manual says you move by the shortest path so you can't just use it for a free move.

"Toward/away from something must move by the shortest route" p.35

I think you are right... I thought there was errata about toward that would let me "tack" but in looking at it, I appear to only have remembered PART of the errata about not being allowed to end farther from the target than you started.

The other part is, indeed, move by the shortest route possible.

It might still be able to help a little bit as I can choose how far to move and when obstacle lend themselves to "shortest possible route" I can use that to my advantage, but certainly not nearly as much as I had hoped.

It will still make rejoining the pack easier "post-objectives" if they are far away.

[Judgeman]

I just picked up a Governor's Proxy to do the same thing.

That's how I run the protect chain, usually Peacekeeper-Hoffman-Guardian-Proxy. Anyone doing enough wounds is going to have to flip a wp-wp duel for killing of the Proxy. Makes the opponent think about how to attack the group and with what that much more.

[Gruesome]

C. Hoffman KILL!

Had a blast playing him.

The protect chain was great fun.

I enjoyed being able to Red Joker out Seamus from the OTHER side! I had managed to chain spear him in with my second to last activation of the turn. He had 8 wounds remaining and all of his manifest requirements complete, so I was definitely on a clock since he would turn into aSeamus next turn. with my last attack of the turn, I barely hit and am at a :-fate:-fate damage flip.

Red Joker drops him to one wound(13 damage total from Peacekeeper, but Seamus is Hard to Kill), but my activations are over.

Came down to initiative...

I flip a THREE... He flips a TWO!

He stones(his last) and flips... a THREE!

So, we are tied. I have no stones left, so we reflip.

I flip an EIGHT and he flips... SEVEN.

Hoffman activates, machine puppets Peacekeeper and I get my Machine Spirit scheme by killing Seamus an activation before he can manifest inside the Hoff-Ball and wreak havoc.

Big mistake I made on one turn was forgetting to push Guardian into base contact with hoffman at the end of a turn in which he was not touching anyone. This left him out of "Protect" range until he walked closer and Hoffman took some wounds as a result.

I also discovered a fun little trick with relentless on Peacekeeper when I do not need the Hoffball moving much. I had left Hoffman sort of exposed to some fire from the other crew, but had the ball where I wanted it, so I used relentless to move the Peacekeeper 1 millimeter out of base contact with Hoffman and he could therefore push into base contact where I wanted him, which was BEHIND the peacekeeper safely out of LoS with anything.

Hunter also worked ok by keeping him on the table edge going towards objectives, he could still move closer to objectives by moving "toward" his target when they moved and just choosing not to move him when it would be further away. (Its MAY move up to his walk)

I think 2 watchers is definitely better value for 6 points, but the Hunter was definitely not worthless in our game.

Edited October 31, 2012 by Gruesome

[osoi]

Glad you enjoyed him. I have taken 2 watchers and a Hunter at times and now with about half a dozen games with the Hunter he has made more of a saty for me, he just keeps skirting the edges. Ryle is being dropped for the forseeable future though, I like my Wardens too much.

[FearLord]

Glad you enjoyed him. I have taken 2 watchers and a Hunter at times and now with about half a dozen games with the Hunter he has made more of a saty for me, he just keeps skirting the edges. Ryle is being dropped for the forseeable future though, I like my Wardens too much.

I really think the Warden was the final nail in the Hunter's coffin for me - before it came out I could at least consider it, but for my money, the Warden does pretty much the same stuff, but better and cheaper than a hunter...

[osoi]

I have actually run both in the same crew and they do complement each other. They still serve different roles and I think because it came in the box I bought, is such a nice model to paint I have been looking to make it work. I have found it to be ignored by some as they see it as a useless model so it survives until the end of the game and ends up giving me some VP's. He generally isnt a damage dealer though but can be machine puppeted nicely.

[Gruesome]

In looking at swapping out Mechanical Attendant with Mobile Toolkit I want to make sure I understand one thing.

Hoffman can have the MT ignore his own easy to wound, yes?

[Letux]

Yup

[Odin1981]

In looking at swapping out Mechanical Attendant with Mobile Toolkit I want to make sure I understand one thing.

Hoffman can have the MT ignore his own easy to wound, yes?

I think that hoffman with a toolkit would be a very good combo with Mccabe (when he comes out) in a brawl game. Being able to give tomes to both so mccabe's debuff spell has both suits built in would be nice.

[FearLord]

I think that hoffman with a toolkit would be a very good combo with Mccabe (when he comes out) in a brawl game. Being able to give tomes to both so mccabe's debuff spell has both suits built in would be nice.

Well, if you're gonna do that, you might as well just partner with Sonnia who wants Rams and Tomes for all her spells and can be extremely Soulstone Hungry because of it... She's also a bit more static than McCabe (who I haven't played yet, but seems extremely mobile and someone who is looking to redeploy rapidly turn to turn)...

[durrati]

Have only just started playing Malifaux so can not back this up with a rules reference but I think your definition of 'towards' is at best highly cheesy and to be frank just plain wrong.

Moving towards something means to close the distance as much as possible, in a straight line if possible towards the target, deviating by the minimum neccesary around obstructions to continue to close the distance.

Instead of moving 'towards' the target, you seem to have changed the rule to 'take a free move as long as you end up at least marginally closer to the target at your end point than where you started from'.

If someone tried this on me I would check the rules, unless there was something in there that changed the definition of 'towards' for the purposes of the rule to 'can move as desired as long as the model ends up closer' I would insist you change the move so you were indeed moving towards the target.

Or would people think i was just being uptight and overly arguementative?

And I now have read the full thread and seen this has already been discussed - my apologies

Edited November 6, 2012 by durrati

[Gruesome]

Have only just started playing Malifaux so can not back this up with a rules reference but I think your definition of 'towards' is at best highly cheesy and to be frank just plain wrong.

Moving towards something means to close the distance as much as possible, in a straight line if possible towards the target, deviating by the minimum neccesary around obstructions to continue to close the distance.

Instead of moving 'towards' the target, you seem to have changed the rule to 'take a free move as long as you end up at least marginally closer to the target at your end point than where you started from'.

If someone tried this on me I would check the rules, unless there was something in there that changed the definition of 'towards' for the purposes of the rule to 'can move as desired as long as the model ends up closer' I would insist you change the move so you were indeed moving towards the target.

Or would people think i was just being uptight and overly arguementative?

And I now have read the full thread and seen this has already been discussed - my apologies

As you can see, in rereading the errata on "push towards", I found the part that I had forgotten. I think that pre-errata, something like what I wanted to do might have been possible, but do not remember and not really care enough to go figure it out as its a moot point.

In general though, I think you'd be doing yourself a favor if you disavowed yourself of notions that things are "cheesy" within the confines of the rules as they are often intended to be played as "stretched" as possible. You will find yourself in different situations shooting your own crew or doing all sorts of things that you might not think were strictly how you thought a given ability might be intended, but still perfectly legal and often the best use of said ability.

(And maybe tone the judgement down a bit... cool?)

Edited November 6, 2012 by Gruesome

[Jonas Albrecht]

In looking at swapping out Mechanical Attendant with Mobile Toolkit I want to make sure I understand one thing.

Hoffman can have the MT ignore his own easy to wound, yes?

Yes. Also, to bring it back to your original post, I do Peacekeeper -> Mobile Toolkit ->Hoffman and then have the Guardian go and protect Santiago.

[Gruesome]

So you keep hoffman without someone protecting him?

Can't he just get ranged down to nothing?