The New Hamelin Ins and Outs.

[Hunter-thom]

I just picked up the box set for hamelin and have put him together and read through the cards, then read through the changes to him, which from where i am standing not having ever played him or really played against him (he was seen as dirty in my area) they look like they have made some pretty big changes to his play style. So i'm after everyones thoughts on how the new hamelin should be played.... basic opening moves, Hires and must haves. trickes that did work and will still work and the best schemes to take with him. Thankyou all.....

[Kadeton]

New Hamelin plays quite a lot like old Hamelin, to be honest - as long as you weren't using old Hamelin's particularly wonky interactions with certain models. I'd recommend you play him with his thematic crew - Nix, the Wretch, plus Ratcatchers, Stolen and Rats. He's nowhere near as "dirty" as he was before, but that's mainly because all the really silly stuff got taken away. His basic concept is still the same.

Hamelin works best when you can stay in a group, so he's particularly good at strategies that encourage bunching up on a single focal point, like Claim Jump, Supply Wagon and Treasure Hunt. He's not as good at strategies that force you to spread out - you can send a Ratcatcher and some Rats off alone and they'll be okay as long as they don't encounter strong resistance, but it really weakens your forces to split them up. Avoid things like Reconnoiter and Line in the Sand if you can.

I tend to use Hamelin himself more for damage than control now - there's not as much point in making things Insignificant when you can just kill them instead, unless there's a good reason to do so for Strategy or Scheme purposes. Card management is still an issue if your opponent is careful about Cheating, so I think the Wretch is an auto-include.

A Rat swarm is still incredibly deadly, and opponents will not want to go toe-to-toe with you for long. I find keeping the Stolen within 3" is often very difficult, so Hamelin is a bit more vulnerable than before, but he's still a daunting prospect in melee, even for another Master.

In my opinion, new Hamelin is more fun to play, but it's a bit tough to explain how he works - much easier to see it play out on the tabletop. Get some games in with him - he's a proper well-balanced Master now, and his crew just naturally works in harmony.

[Lucidicide]

New Hamelin plays quite a lot like old Hamelin, to be honest - as long as you weren't using old Hamelin's particularly wonky interactions with certain models. I'd recommend you play him with his thematic crew - Nix, the Wretch, plus Ratcatchers, Stolen and Rats. He's nowhere near as "dirty" as he was before, but that's mainly because all the really silly stuff got taken away. His basic concept is still the same.

Hamelin works best when you can stay in a group, so he's particularly good at strategies that encourage bunching up on a single focal point, like Claim Jump, Supply Wagon and Treasure Hunt. He's not as good at strategies that force you to spread out - you can send a Ratcatcher and some Rats off alone and they'll be okay as long as they don't encounter strong resistance, but it really weakens your forces to split them up. Avoid things like Reconnoiter and Line in the Sand if you can.

I tend to use Hamelin himself more for damage than control now - there's not as much point in making things Insignificant when you can just kill them instead, unless there's a good reason to do so for Strategy or Scheme purposes. Card management is still an issue if your opponent is careful about Cheating, so I think the Wretch is an auto-include.

A Rat swarm is still incredibly deadly, and opponents will not want to go toe-to-toe with you for long. I find keeping the Stolen within 3" is often very difficult, so Hamelin is a bit more vulnerable than before, but he's still a daunting prospect in melee, even for another Master.

In my opinion, new Hamelin is more fun to play, but it's a bit tough to explain how he works - much easier to see it play out on the tabletop. Get some games in with him - he's a proper well-balanced Master now, and his crew just naturally works in harmony.

+1

[Hunter-thom]

is it possible to run a grow crew with new hamlin? cause i don;t think rats can be sacked for blood can they?

[Finnegan]

You're correct, rats won't generate blood if memebers of their own crew kill them. It's still possible to run a grow list if you kill the Rat-Catchers instead, but that wouldn't be a good idea in term of soulstone cost

In short, no more grow list for Hamelin. You can still grab the Tots and drain blood from your enemy though.

[Hunter-thom]

How about D mercs. They would be turned into rats after the tots drainded them too i think.... so it would be just like taking a list with rats apart from losing the first turn to trying to grow....

[CaptainAsh]

You could easily grow hamlins rats by just spaming one stoilen a turn and then sacrificing it for a spell and thus spawn a rat due to the ability of a stolen as this is the only way i seen a way to grow his crew.

[marful]

You could easily grow hamlins rats by just spaming one stoilen a turn and then sacrificing it for a spell and thus spawn a rat due to the ability of a stolen as this is the only way i seen a way to grow his crew.

"Growing" in this case refers to using the Ht 1 Neverborn models "Terror Tots" and using their (1) Action Grow, requiring a 9 of Masks or higher and 1 Blood Counter, which the Terror Tots obtain by performing the (0) Action Drain Blood after killing a living or undead model. The result is taking a 3 Soulstone model and "growing" it into a 6 Soulstone Model. (Which can grow to a 10 Stone model...)

It has nothing to with increasing the number of rats in play. (However, killing the Desperate Merc will have that effect...)

[96p]

apart from the fact that a nephilim List may be the most unstylish Hamelin List out there, I don't see it to be effective as you need a 9:masks for every grow action.

[Hunter-thom]

Unstylish Hamelin lists..... Righto, i played a 35p game with hamelin today, first time with his new rules for my opponent and first time for me with hamelin. We had shared treasure hunt. I took 4 tots, 3 D mercs, one rat catcher, Nix and a wetch. I had so much fun playing against mei fang and von shill. The list went so well. killed the mercs by start off turn 2 and had a mature neph out that turn and he had won me 2 Vp by the next turn. with everything that died around hamelin i had so many rats it was great. I really don't understand how a tot grow list would be Unstylish as due to the way hamelin works i ended up with pretty much all his normal hires anyways. Plus my mature and a young. It was great. The high mask came soon enough. then its only a 9 off anything for the second grow.

[marful]

Unstylish Hamelin lists..... Righto, i played a 35p game with hamelin today, first time with his new rules for my opponent and first time for me with hamelin. We had shared treasure hunt. I took 4 tots, 3 D mercs, one rat catcher, Nix and a wetch. I had so much fun playing against mei fang and von shill. The list went so well. killed the mercs by start off turn 2 and had a mature neph out that turn and he had won me 2 Vp by the next turn. with everything that died around hamelin i had so many rats it was great. I really don't understand how a tot grow list would be Unstylish as due to the way hamelin works i ended up with pretty much all his normal hires anyways. Plus my mature and a young. It was great. The high mask came soon enough. then its only a 9 off anything for the second grow.

Tot Grow Lists are unstylish because they are hugely Control Hand Dependent.

[Ausplosions]

Tot Grow Lists are unstylish because they are hugely Control Hand Dependent.

Do you know what un stylish means?

[marful]

Do you know what un stylish means?

Thank you for helping me double check myself!

Upon further scrutiny, I have concluded that I do in fact know what the word "unstylish" means. Further, I also did in fact use the word correctly to convey my impression of the "grow mechanic".

If you feel this is in err, perhaps you could clarify exactly where my use of the word "unstylish" failed to meet the intended use and purpose of the word?

I should add, that I personally enjoy the "grow mechanic" of Terror Tots, but this is primarily done when including them in a Lilith Crew with either Nekima or a Black Blood Shaman who I feel both help negate the shortfalls and difficulties of the mechanic.

[Mordeqai]

Thank you for helping me double check myself!

Upon further scrutiny, I have concluded that I do in fact know what the word "unstylish" means. Further, I also did in fact use the word correctly to convey my impression of the "grow mechanic".

If you feel this is in err, perhaps you could clarify exactly where my use of the word "unstylish" failed to meet the intended use and purpose of the word?

I should add, that I personally enjoy the "grow mechanic" of Terror Tots, but this is primarily done when including them in a Lilith Crew with either Nekima or a Black Blood Shaman who I feel both help negate the shortfalls and difficulties of the mechanic.

http://memecrunch.com/meme/2JJN/watch-out-everybody-we-re-dealing-with-a-badass-here/image.png

[SilverBullet]

TBH I tend to only do grow lists in a Zoraida crew with Nekima etc. I would consider Lilith and Nekima together "un-stylish" to coin a phrase. Plus Zoraida does it so much better.

Anyways, off topic, I also +1 the changes to Hamelin. I find him much more balanced and less of a NPE for both myself and my opponent. I also +1 taking the more traditional rat/rat catcher/wretched/nix etc crew as I think it works well and is an especially good way to get into hamelin as it helps you learn some of his mechanics better (personally thats what I found anyways).

Just my 2p.

[Deputy57]

I just started playing Hamelin as well. I play a grow list to a point and I use the canine remains. I only do the grow at 35 points. I like to run 1 tot and 3 dogs. One flay and the dog dies auto. Depending on strategy of course I use extra tots when I need to split my force.

[poulpox]

One nice move I found which I shared already in the rules discussion area, is to have Hamelin cast Obedience on Nix. Because this involves saccing a model, Nix gets to do his (0) and you pick the aura of negative flips to non-soulless. Then with Obedience Nix charges a model which now receives negative to its flips (maybe even double negative if you can trigger Nix's mask). Finally Hammy charges the debuffed model. I think this is pretty potent against Masters.

It would be nice to read which kind of spell/talent/model combo players use, as tbh I feel a bit that Pullmyfinger these days is often a mere repetition of the cards and not much tactical sharing.

[poulpox]

Actually I don't feel this is really fair on the effort which is put in the Wiki. Sorry guys!

Let's just say that I think more brainstorming could be done to identify common moves, combos and tactics.

[IChewSoulStone]

I wish there was a way to change "unstylish" to "unfluffy".

You can still get a tot to grow by killing a canine remains and having that become a rat. A young Neph is still better than a tot even though tots by themselves are not a bad model by any means. A 3ss Significant model matters more now that Insignificant is only ignored in a radius. I feel like the main thing to do now is to keep Hamelin and Nix extremely safe while using rat catchers for bait. The fact you can summon them back in at a cost of 2 more rats (Assuming hamelin is near) isn't as bad as losing your master or faithful companion.

One trick that I used in a game was I had a rat spawn at 6" from the rat catcher and other rats swarming the enemy master. I activated the group of rats and attacked their master doing some damage and adding blight counters. The opponent killed the Rat catcher with his master. I activated the rat that was all alone, writhing massed to a rat that was barely within range, sac'd it and two other rats to make a new rat catcher.

Pretty easy combo, but the following paralyze that hit the master wasn't fun for him.

[poulpox]

I wish there was a way to change "unstylish" to "unfluffy".

One trick that I used in a game was I had a rat spawn at 6" from the rat catcher and other rats swarming the enemy master. I activated the group of rats and attacked their master doing some damage and adding blight counters. The opponent killed the Rat catcher with his master. I activated the rat that was all alone, writhing massed to a rat that was barely within range, sac'd it and two other rats to make a new rat catcher.

Actually this to me seems the nicest way to bring rat catchers on the table rather than paying for them. The reason being that (although you lose 1ss compared to recruiting the model), it is quite difficult to move the RC quickly without him losing his rat armour. At some point each turn he'll be away from the pack and a very easy target. I think the safest way is therefore to summon him once the rats have moved up-field. I guess it depends a bit on terrain too, if there's lots of terrain features to hide then the RC can possibly move up without being too worried.

I thought I would write down the Rat Dance that I see now as their normal way of shifting quickly up-field:

Turn 1:

. Hamelin walks twice then summon one stolen

. one rat walks forward, the others writhing mass then walk forward, leaving rat A behind (they are now right next to Hammy after a 10" move)

. Nix potentially charges a rat to trigger stink of death and gain one more rat. If this happens the new rat is summoned 6" further up-field. He can also herd the lagging rat to catch up 3" towards its pack.

. other models activate

Turn 2 (at this point if you have no rat catcher you want to be careful with not moving the rats and Hammy further than 6" from each other depending on how close the opponent is, as otherwise each dead rat is just that, a dead rat! I think if you don't have one yet, summoning the rat catcher can happen either turn 2 if the opponent is really close, or turn 3):

. This turn can be just a simple walk forward. However if you either want to walk further than 5" and summon the RC, you now need to heal the rat pack (in order for you to then be allowed to do writhing mass) by killing one of them, so for instance the lagging Rat A (the only one with full Wds) can do writhing mass and then 1 strike against one of the wounded rats and kills it, thus summoning the killed rat and healing all nearby rats. The pack can then either writhing mass to the rat summoned by Nix in Turn 1, or does as in turn 1 and moves one rat forward first, writhing mass the pack to it. Now you can either walk forward (but this will take you further than 6" from Hammy so beware!), or summon the RC if needed. If you have a big rat pack, 3 are sacced to summon the RC 6" up-field, the others can then walk toward the RC, thus covering a total of 10" and providing the armour to the RC.

This whole move allows your rats to cover 10" in turn 1, then 5" (if there's no RC on the table) to 10" (with the safety of a RC) in turn 2, and so on.

If you recruited a RC, then your rat pack will alternate between Hammy and the RC to always be within 6" of one of them, and you can just repeat Turn 1 move, adding the killing move of turn 2 to restore the pack's wounds.

Hope this helps!

Edited February 17, 2013 by poulpox

[Kadeton]

However if you either want to walk further than 5" and summon the RC, you now need to heal the rat pack (in order for you to then be allowed to do writhing mass) by killing one of them, so for instance the lagging Rat A (the only one with full Wds) can do writhing mass and then 1 strike against one of the wounded rats and kills it, thus summoning the killed rat and healing all nearby rats.

"They're Just Rats" specifically prevents you killing your own rats in this way. :/

If you want to heal the rats, just sacrifice one via one of the other numerous means of saccing friendly models in the crew.

[Ausplosions]

"They're Just Rats" specifically prevents you killing your own rats in this way. :/

If you want to heal the rats, just sacrifice one via one of the other numerous means of saccing friendly models in the crew.

This.

[poulpox]

Ah ha! Nice catch guys, thanks!

I guess saccing rats just for this move defeats a bit the purpose of creating new rats, when all you have to do to heal them is wait for the opponent to kill them himself. I see where the RC's Herd Rats comes in more handy now, and how in the end you might want to take the RC to start with, to remove slow on the rats and allow them to trot 10" per turns without using Writhing Mass. Hmmm, food for thoughts...

Edited February 17, 2013 by poulpox

[IChewSoulStone]

I feel it's not a good idea to start with two RC's and instead start with one. as long as the enemy doesn't have any way to kill your stolen and then hamelin you can keep him upfield with the rats also.

The fact Hamelin no longer gets removed from the board when he "dies" is actually a nice change. Even though you can't have a stolen sit in the back corner of the board anymore to keep your master alive if he happens to "die" trying to keep rats within Voracious Rats range he won't magically poof away until closing phase.

[poulpox]

The fact Hamelin no longer gets removed from the board when he "dies" is actually a nice change. Even though you can't have a stolen sit in the back corner of the board anymore to keep your master alive if he happens to "die" trying to keep rats within Voracious Rats range he won't magically poof away until closing phase.

Yes I like it for the fluff too: Hamelin keeps on receiving blows after blows, but relentlessly continues his plague advance while everything dies around him...