Thoughts on Mei Feng for Newer Players

[StormLordXIII]

Hi all,

I just had the opportunity to play a fantastic game with my local group on Saturday in which I was able to give our new Arcanist, Mei Feng, a run for her money. Although there have been several threads posted recently about Mei Feng, I thought I would start a thread with a new perspective geared towards new Malifaux players thinking about starting the Ten Thunders or looking for an interesting Arcanist master.

The game was a standard Treasure Hunt. My schemes were Breakthrough and Sabotage, while my opponent's were Breakthrough and Reclaim Malifaux.

He played:

Avatar Zoraida, three Silurids, a Doppelganger, Bad Juju, and a Voodoo Doll

I played:

Mei Feng, two Rail Workers, a Metal Gamin, the Rail Golem, Kang, and the Emberling

The match was close - Mei Feng destroyed Avatar Zoraida, but my opponent managed to catch and keep the treasure with his leaping Silurids. All in all, it was a great game and my opponent was very nice.

Anyway, here are my thoughts for beginners about all of the following miniatures - the post is long, so I've sorted it into sections. Feel free to scroll right to the model you are most interested in.

Mei Feng

Mei is incredibly quick and versatile. Her greatest strength is her "Rail Walker" spell which effectively allows her to hop into base contact with a friendly construct or Rail Worker within 5", hop again to a second within the next 5", and then, if you have a second tome in your casting total, hop to a third or make a melee strike at the end. This ability should not be underestimated. It was particularly useful since we were playing on a terraclips board with lots of buildings. Have your rail golem or rail workers waste their movement climbing terrain. Don't let Mei Feng waste her time - send your constructs up first, and then have her hop from unit to unit or from roof top to roof top. Mei should not be moving normally that frequently. Rail walker is how she moves.

Remember that "Rail Walker" is effectively cast for free because of her +1 action, so you can still move and attack or charge with your remaining AP.

Mei Feng effectively has a 10" charge range because her Cg is 7" and her Jackhammer Kick has a unique Melee Range of 3". You can use one action to cast Rail Walker, and then your remaining two points to charge it! Brutal, and deadly quick. If you play everything correctly and you have the right trigger, she has a 20 - 25" threat range.

Other things to be cognizant of that I wish I knew:

* Mei's Trigger System is complicated, but not difficult to understand. Study her card frequently during the game to make sure you use all of the opportunities she has. On a similar note, remember that all of her combat triggers rely on certain suits. Mei does not have Melee Master like Lady Justice, so she can't make infinite attacks. She can make a lot if you play the right suits due to her triggers, but be sensitive that you may only get to make one strike, so make it count! In protracted combats, however, where Mei doesn't need to use AP to charge since she's already stuck in, she is devastating. She took out aZoraida in one round (although admittedly Zoraida is not a combat master).

* Because of her trigger system, it is likely that you can cast one of Mei's zero abilities (Iron Skin or Vent Steam) for free. Use her one zero action to cast the spell that you couldn't manage to cast with triggers for free so that you always have vent steam or Iron Skin in play. The +2 armor from Iron Skin will keep her alive decently well, while vent steam can become heated by one of Mei's spells to damage enemies. Always try to have both in play if possible.

The Emberling:

Not a fantastic totem, but you get your money's worth with 2ss. He has Arcane Reservoir, so you can increase your control hand size by one. Very useful and worth the price, especially since the Arcanist Effigy, which does the same thing (although it packs more a punch with other abilities) costs 4ss. Other than that, this guy did not do anything and was killed by Kang via Zoraida's obey spell. Keep him in the back so you can make use of his Arcane Reservoir ability, and remember to activate him after Mei Feng due to his companion ability. He should stay in the back.

Kang:

Kang... did not do anything. He became a prime target for Zoraida's obey and ended up attacking his own people. That said, there are some benefits to him, but he clocks in at an expensive 8ss.

* He is stubborn, and when he's within 6" of Mei, he becomes a whopping WP 9. It was hard for Zoraida to control him, but she's Zoraida, so she did...

* His rousing speech makes models immune to morale duels. Good stuff. Get him in the thick of your grunts for maximum effect.

* He's a combat monster - make sure you get him into combat or your 8ss are wasted. He doesn't do much else. He has +1 free action for melee and his shovel packs a punch. Put him to use.

* Kang is SLOW. (Not as in the passive ability slow, I just meant he's a snail) Make sure he keeps up with the rest of the rail crew. My Kang was too slow this match and he camped at the back of the board and didn't do much with his average move value of 4". If you take Kang, make sure you get him stuck in.

Rail Workers

Not much to say here that hasn't already been said. Set these guys up in a line as they move forward to allow Mei Feng to Rail Walk them. Their Melee Weapons are pretty good and they allow different kinds of bonuses. My favorite is giving them a Melee Range of 3" - they become a force to be reckoned with when their charge lanes are increased. I flipped a Red Joker for damage with one of these guys and inflicted a whopping 8 wds in one round of combat. Brutal.

Rail Golem

Lots to keep in mind here for new players. Immediate thoughts:

* This guy is really slow. Do whatever you can to walk him twice every turn and move 8" in total to get him into combat. If he's not fighting, he's a waste of 9ss.

* Every time you walk him twice, you get a burning token, which can then be spent to increase damage. By the time you get in combat by turn 3ish, he'll have enough tokens to make him dangerous. He's kind of like the Empire Steamtank from Warhammer in that respect - you have to develop burning tokens before you let him loose.

* Don't be afraid to let this guy get stuck in. He's got serious beat down capabilities. He's the ultimate tank and ties up the enemy nicely.

Metal Gamin

- Don't actually have much to say about him. He protected Kang and ended up taking a serious beating simply because Zoraida's obey had him attacking the gamin so frequently. Still, since you can activate him after you activate it's protected model, you have more flexibility.

- He can do a healing flip every turn - very useful, and it makes your opponent wary about attacking him since he regenerates.

Anyway, these are my thoughts. I hope they are helpful to new Mei Feng players.

[Ozz]

I liked reading that, however it seems you had problems with the two i was most unsure about:P

The Rail workers i saw as little bar extra models for jumping around to, otherwise situational as i did not find they did anything in the game i played with Mei so far:) (would probably still always take one, but just haven't got the exp yet)

And the Metal gamin, i just do not get them so far, although i had forgotten their healing flip, but i cant understand them:) I think from what i had heard, i was expecting mini guardians some how, and they are different in they attack stuff for that model instead of keeping it alive easier:)

[Bloaty]

I have found protecting the Rail Golem with a metal gamin to be real useful. I usually run those 2 and Mei up the field together. She keeps up Vent Steam to keep him safe and when they get into melee, the pain train starts. Metal gamin is fun to eat off some of the burning tokens from the rail golem to finish off targets quick. Plus he makes the rail golem much bulkier by eating up some damage then healing it off.

[decker_cky]

I actually really like the Emberling. Adds some early game mobility for any melee beatsticks (potential for 6" of pushes depending on how you use Mei and the Emberling), adds extra cards for the card hog that Mei Feng can be, and adds extra vent steam for protection. Also, mid-late game that extra vent steam becomes an offensive option combined with Mei's steam and superheat.

Not the easiest to use totem, but adds a lot of utility in a crew that will often be full of pretty straightforward combat models. It's nice that it has link so it can use it's abilities without worrying about keeping up to the action.

[DeleteAccount]

This I noticed recently, but using the emberling to strategically cast Mei Feng's Seismic punch lets you move Kang up the board at a better rythm, so he shouldn't be considered that slow. Same applies to pretty much anything in the crew. I do believe that Kang with Mei Feng is not as useful as the Rail Golem, (hell, I fell Kang works better with other Ten Thunder masters and with Kaeris than with Mei Feng), but he does get the job done.

[Adran]

I have struggled to create a useful and practical railwalking line. I don;t think this is her key ability. yes it is nice to get her to move 10" as a a casting expert action, but I found that I often ended up holding back other models to try and make use of this.

I also worry about the lack of concentration this gives your forces if you do get involved in a big melee.

My personal view of this is that it is an optional extra. Its nice to get it off, but forcing situations to get it to work is actually counter productive.

I have found using the Tiger claws is my prefered attack. Getting the 2" push and then another attack against something different is really useful, and worth holding Masks for.

Remember that extra attack can be a Jackhammer kick if you want, whioch allows her a 5" threat for the second attack. There are 2 downsides to the Jackhammer in my mind, Firstly, it is almost a dead end in her attacks (ok I like the option to get the armour spell on her which helps her survivability) and Secondly, one of the great things about a 3" weapon is your ability to hity something and thy can't hit you back, which this doesn't allow.

Granted the upside of it can be used to get you out of combat with something probably more than makes up for that downside. If you are facing a hard hitting melee model with Flurry, then kicking a different model and landing on the far side of it to get out of melee range (and possibly even line of sight) can be great.

The biggest thing I have just discovered about Vent steam is that it makes her virtually immune to ranged attacks. If mei has it up, then to be able to see her you are in her melee range (baring a few exceptions).

I have 2 uses for the emberling

Siesmic punch a model forwards. If you've got a link to this model, thats an extra 3" a turn which is pretty good.

Venting steam to protect other models from ranged attacks or charges.

It can scalding breath as well if it gets close to an enemy so havign it linked to a combat figure like Kang or the rail golem isn't bad. And it can always try and escape a bad situation by rail walkign if you want to protect its Arcane reseivoir.

Rail Golem.

The more I field this, the more I love it.

I'm still a fan of the Rail workers to give it extra burning tokens, but even with out them it can get a good move on.

Some tricks I have found to improve its speed include-

Using a burning token to do a charge for a 1 action, allowing it to move 10" a turn.

When you reach Combat, using the trigger on a mask to push a model away and charge a different model.

Link an emberling to it and have the emberling siesmic punch it

I have had no problems getting it to cross the board in a couple of turns, and have even had one chase Collodi around the board with surprising sucess.

I use the burning tokens for 3 reasons -

Discarding one to charge for a 1 action. This moves him 6" and gets an attack so is a great use of the token. If you aren't sure you are in range (which with his rail beam ends up being 8" threat) then its better to walk and then charge to make sure you get the hit.

Discarding 1 to get an extra melee attack. Its almost melee expert and who doesn't like that.

Using 5 to cast Pain train and re-activate. The only thing better than a rail golem thats moving 10" with 3 attacks is one that gets to do that twice a turn!

I almost never want to spend burning tokens on bonus flips to hit, I'm already paired.

Occasionally I might want to improve my damage flips, but only if I'm looking to cheat in something nasty against something very tough.

I've not yet investigated its healing, as I've always wanted to get it one and hurt the next target, but I'm sure there are going to be times that this will be great.

Part of the chalenge it to manage your tokens to reduce damage/slow in the end phase, but I've not had a problem with this. The only time this is likely to occur is if you have recieved lots of attacks since it activated.

He is a real tank, I have had it killed twice in 5 games, but once was to a head shot from Jackdaw, and the other was against Hoffman after I had already killed a warden and a piecekeeper.

Rail Workers

The versitility of the weapon is wonderful, the option to be paired, or ignore armour and hard to wound, or ignore slow to die or just have a 3" range menas they are a swiss army knife in combat. I found they are a great way to scare models like Von Schill and his Friekorps as removing slow to die healing can hurt them, otherwise just going straight through the armour.

The 0 spell is pretty handy, its not hard to cast, and giving an enemy model slow or a wound is not bad. Its also pretty handy with the Rail golem.

The defense trigger for Armour 2 is pretty handy and makes them a lot more durable than they look.

[geistwald]

stuff

I agree 100%, except for the Rail Workers:

If they're not already in melee, they seldom make more than 1 attacks if any, which sets a lower value on their outstanding melee weapon. Theoretically they can give Von Schill a coup de grace, but more likely they'll never get close enough to try, and often times they get neutralized before they could have their moments. I think one RW is okay to fuel the golem and stay in reserve if need be, but for the same SS cost you have the Large Arachnid and the opportunity to play more aggressive. (Something you probably want to do with Mei Feng.)

[Baron|Roboto]

As a player coming back to Maifaux and making a fresh start with Mai Feng - this is just what I needed; thanks all

[Rathnard]

As a player coming back to Maifaux and making a fresh start with Mai Feng - this is just what I needed; thanks all

I'm glad you appreciate the thread, but you should keep in mind that this is for her Version 1.5 rules. 2nd edition (complete with new rules for Mei Feng and her crew) will be out in a matter of weeks.

That said, I rate Rail workers much more highly in v1.5 than alot of other people. Because they're decent jump points for Mei Feng's Railwalk action, they often wind up being your second wave after the likes of Mei Feng and the Rail Golem get into melee. People are usually too busy focussing on the latter to focus on the "crap" Rail Workers, so they inevitably end up putting a respectable dent in the opponents crew and definitely pulling their weight. I used to take 2 in most of my games with Mei.

Also, their flip on attack option makes them pretty card efficient - something Mei's crew really values.

[decker_cky]

Not to mention how good they are with bleeding edge tech (arcanist crews only obviously).

[Rathnard]

Not to mention how good they are with bleeding edge tech (arcanist crews only obviously).

Just to be clear, this is a thread about Mei in version 1.5. Bleeding Edge Tech is from the Malifaux version 2 rules.

If you want to discuss Mei Feng in M2E, I suggest starting a new thread like what's been done with Ramos, Marcus etc.

EDIT: I'm just going to close this to avoid further confusion.

Edited August 12, 2013 by Rathnard