M2E Marcus

[Mxbedlam]

Played two games with my Bishop Marcus list last night. Won both, but I'm not sure how I feel about Bishop in general. He can deliver a lot of damage but he's slow without the charge. Might swap him for a Rogue and try it out for a couple games

[Sybarite]

Yeah Id rather have necro or langston. I cant stand bishops ml rg 1

[Mxbedlam]

If I had more pushes in the list, I'd like him more. 

[Franchute]

11 hours ago, Sybarite said:

Yeah Id rather have necro or langston. I cant stand bishops ml rg 1

Necro?

Edit: ok. Rogue necromancy, Igot it.

[Mxbedlam]

I have considered dropping Cassandra for Angelica to get more bodies up the field, but I feel like I"m skewing the list towards Bishop way too hard then. 

[bertmac]

Played a game yesterday with an experimental list. I had wanted to try a list of a master and purely 7ss models.

Took marcus with trail of the gods.

2x Coryphee, gunsmith, december acolyte, the firestarter, razorspine rattler, silurid. 

So much movement in the list between the coryphees wk7, marcus wk8, firestarter 3ap+flight and the silurids leap. Would be great for lots of schemes. A bit squishy for fighty strats but was quite fun.

 

Won 8-7 vs perdita in the righteous man mission.

[Mxbedlam]

I did something similar in the Trios at NOVA. Took the same set up on Marcus, Myranda, 2 Silurid, Cerberus, 2 Mole Men and a jackalope.  Made a Karai player so confused when I never attacked anything and just kept scheming with all my guys.  The strat was Stake a claim and I would have been just fine if I hadn't accidentally forgotten I wrote down inspection instead of exhaust forces. exhausted 2 turns before I realized this

[Mxbedlam]

I am 6/25 games in with my Marcus elite list and its running really well so far. Six wins though a few have been skin of my teeth. After 6 games my thoughts are thus:

First turn is incredibly important. If your opponent over commits you can make them pay for it very early. If they play it safe, you need to make sure that you are in a good position so that on turn 2 you can a) win initiative and ruin a model or b ) not be caught out when your opponent wins turn 2.

having lots of outlets for smell fear triggers is fantastic because it allows you to control when those attacks can go off. You can either lump them into an early turn smorgasbord of alpha strike or you can spread them out over the turn for when your opponent has already dumped cards. 

Practiced Production and a Raptor still seems like cheating to get schemes done. It probably is. 

Never underestimate the jackalope as a reccuring ballistic missle. He's either tied up models for a full turn or outright killed wounded models way over his SS cost. 

[angyi]

58 minutes ago, Mrbedlam said:

Never underestimate the jackalope as a reccuring ballistic missle. He's either tied up models for a full turn or outright killed wounded models way over his SS cost. 

If the jackalope kills any model, it's way over his SS cost on principle

[Franchute]

18 minutes ago, Mrbedlam said:

I am 6/25 games in with my Marcus elite list and its running really well so far. Six wins though a few have been skin of my teeth. 

Which models do you typically include in your elite list?

[Mxbedlam]

My list is thus:

Marcus (Trail, Hunger Cry, Feral)

Myranda (Imbued Energies)

Cerberus (Pack Leader)

Cassandra (Practiced Production)

Bishop

Jackalope

Malifaux Raptor

 

Had my first loss last night and it was devestating. A Jack Daw fueled Lazarus got into position turn 1 to drop a tactical nuke on Marcus and flipped moderate damage on 2 flips in a row. He ended up dropping about 22 damage on 4 models all together and the game just went downhill from there. By the time turn 2 came around, Bishop did all of 4 damage to Laz on a flurry and was then paralyzed, Cerberus could only interact, Marcus was dead and my Myranda Kitty couldn't charge because of Rusty Alyce and Jakunna.  

I'll say it again, this list is made or unmade on turn 1 and deployment. A single mistake can cost you the game. 
Oh well I'll take 6-1 to start. 

[JoeJones]

16 hours ago, angyi said:

If the jackalope kills any model, it's way over his SS cost on principle

One game not too long ago, my Jackalope killed Nekima, died to Black Blood, respawned when my Canine Remains was killed, and killed Mr. Graves (dying to Black Blood again) the following turn. Kinda made up for Marcus being rooted for 3 turns....

[Ammanas]

I've been looking at Marcus not only as a master, but as an excuse to go out of faction.

A few beasts that have caught my attention are The Dawn Serpent, Night Terrors, Rogue Necromancy and Shikome.

Any one had experience running these with Marcus, and on the flipside are there any beasts that just don't work for him?

What's the most out there out of faction beast crew have you seen? A Marcus riff on Ulix springs to mind

[Emeryt]

Rogue Necromancy - in each and every of my Marcus lists. Three-headed, Blasts, Ca, Ml7, Imbued Energies. Must-have.

Dawn Serpent - it's only drawback is being a Minion. Other than that, it's usually unkillable, making Hunting Party a real pain in the ass for the opponent.

Night Terrors and Shikome - haven't used them and TBH I don't see a place for them in my lists (usually run Myranda, Angelica, Emmisary, Raptor, Jackalope, Cerberus, Killjoy, Hoarcat Pride).

[Ammanas]

The Night Terrors would only realistically be there to fufill a role similar to the Malifaux Raptor; as a harrassment model for shooting crews. 

Shikome look like they'd do well in a Marcus crew that brings poison to the table, but without 2 of them to benefit from Adversary condition they'd be playing to half strength.

With a long list of beasts it'd be very easy to get carried away with Marcus' hire pool, but by the looks of it most people keep it in faction with an exception for the Rogue Necromancy

[EnternalVoid]

I have seen plenty of people take out of faction beasts but generally they are stuff like; Silurid, Waldgeist, Guild Hounds, Rogue Necro, and Canine Remains.  Shikome and Night Terror so much though.  I imagine Night Terrors as said people might favor Raptors.  Though to be fair night terrors are pretty tough in their own way and are minions rather than peons.  So strat or schemes that would require minions and body count might have you favoring them.  Shikome run into the problem that Marcus does not have a lot of range poison options.  Shikome love it when a model has poison for that (1) AP charge.

Guild Hounds and Canine remains can fulfill a job of being fast cheaper Scheme runners not to mention supply numbers for activations.  I have been liking taking a canine remain and two guild hounds for the task.  10ss, 3 activations, and all Walk 6.  Silurids can also do the scheme running but is the same cost of a canine remain and a guild hound together so they while very good at it, are a tad of a pricier specialist.  Great for Stake a Claim and a few other key VP methods though.

[Ammanas]

I figure Corrupted Hounds might fit that role too.

By the sounds of it, whilst the options for Marcus are plentiful, there are many beasts that don't fit in his crew, but we'd be more than happy to see across the table from us

[Mxbedlam]

Always always Stake a Claim with Silurids.  I've wanted to run Marcus, hound master for quiet a while but haven't found the opportunity for it. The main concern is just how squishy they are. I'd love to see him one day get a new henchman that is a Hound Keeper who can summon them. Would be amazing. 

[Mxbedlam]

Also, update on my Marcus list. I'm now 9/4 with the Bishop list and it has some strengths and flaws. First of all is learning what you can do and what you can't do. Threat assessment is huge. This list seems to literally win or lose by the middle of turn 2. 

Bishop is very hot and cold. If he gets improperly deployed or lured/pushed out of the mix, he becomes an 11 point lump of plastic that does nothing. if he can get into the thick of things, he's a monster that swings the whole game. 

This is my first alpha strike list, so I'm still learning how to properly bring the pain.

List is:

Marcus (Hunger Cry, Trail, Feral)

Myranda (Energies)

Bishop

Cerberus (pack leader)

Cassandra (Practiced Production)

Jackalope

Raptor

 

[iamsssk]

Hi folks,

It's a long time since I've lingered in this thread, but having played Marcus 6/7 games at UK Nationals over the weekend (and arguably should've used him instead of Kaeris in the other one...), I thought I'd just throw some thoughts into the blender and see if anyone wants to try a delicious smoothie.

Whilst I adapted my crew to strats/schemes, I did seem to stick with a base crew of:

Marcus - Trail, Feral Instincts, Hunger Cry

Jackalope

Myranda - Imbued energies

2 Razorspine Rattlers (I only used one in the final game)

 

Then added for particular schemes/strategies were:

Cerberus (with or without imbued energies, depending on stones)

2 Molemen (sometimes only 1)

Night terror

Willie

Cassandra

Johan (once)

 

In general I really enjoyed getting back into Marcus, and was pleasantly reminded of how manouverable, hitty, and (to my surprise) defensive he is/can be. I maintain that while he can do some serious work himself, Alpha is a phenomenal ability. Most of the time he was hanging out pretty much in the middle of the board, putting in attacks, and holding up enemies as needed. His highlight was turning Lilith and Nekima into Beasts, and holding up my opponents whole crew for a turn (he survived another turn too), giving the rest all the time they needed to bag Victory Points.

Cerberuses are cerberuses, enough said. Myranda was excellent, and always turned into a Cerberus. Minor note which you may not have tried, I turn her into a Cerberus very aggressively purely for the card draw if I need it at the time. Obviously she has a lot of power as Myranda, but if I need those cards, then I'm afraid she's getting sacrificed.

The Jackalope was its usual annoying self. I don't think it hit anything with melee attacks, but it was surprisingly good at disengaging strikes, and in one game survived 2 belles attacks for 3 turns running (keeping them in melee so they didn't count for Interference).

Razorspines were great for holding objectives and surprisingly good at objective running too. Their defense and wounds is hilarious when most people haven't played against them. I like them for exhausting models and holding things up in melee, plus their slither action lets them get models into melee easily, which stops a lot of scoring in Gaining Grounds 2016. Attacking with them was a last resort if they had nothing else to do, and didn't achieve a great deal.

Molemen are excellent scheme runners, and I particularly liked taking them a few times when Leave Your Mark was available, faking it, and then pulling them back for various strategy reasons. They're great little tanks too, and obviously good for re-summoning the Jackalope, and defending Marcus (Defend Me).

I hadn't used Night terrors much before, but my word they're fantastic. Most stuff needs to be able to deal 5 damage to kill them in 2 hits, and they're manouverable enough to get wherever you need them. Also in Gaining Grounds 2016 many of the schemes/Strategies purely require Minions to do things, not "significant" models, so they're great cheap minions for interference, Guard the stash, etc.

I doubt if Cassandra, Willie, and Johan need much comment as they're excellent models, though I found Johan to be very disappointing this time. This may be because I usually use him with a heavy M&SU Kaeris crew, so he usually gets positives to hit, and he just seemed thoroughly underwhelming with Marcus.

Anyway, I ended up going 4 wins, 1 draw, 2 losses (one to the tournament winner, and UK number one), and came 32nd/123, so it was a pretty good result.

Hope this inspires folks to return to book 1 a bit. There's some flippin' good stuff in there.

Dave/sssk

[Mxbedlam]

I love seeing the levels of diversity in Marcus lists. What made you go for snakes over the usual "how many Cerberus can I cram into this list" strategy?

[iamsssk]

5 hours ago, Mrbedlam said:

I love seeing the levels of diversity in Marcus lists. What made you go for snakes over the usual "how many Cerberus can I cram into this list" strategy?

A fascinating question. The obvious answer is that I have a bit of a reputation in the UK as "the guy who uses rattlers", it's kind of an ongoing joke, and to some extent I put them in for fun a few times where other "better" (don't get me started on the massive flaws in X is better than Y logic in Malifaux) stuff would fit equally well. For instance for 1 stone more I get Cassandra, 1 stone less I get Willie, or for the same I get a December Acolyte, all of which the Internet will tell me are better than Rattlers.

I like them though. For a 3 year old overview of my thoughts on them, check out https://playitlikebeatdown.wordpress.com/2013/11/17/something-special/ from back in the days when I wrote ludicrous essays for blog posts with no pictures (Scroll down to "THE RSR POST" in order to not get totally bored out of your skull with a massive rambling pile of pointless intro). 

Fundamentally, they're excellent defensive models. If I want to have a model in an area, and have it stay there, I will probably use a Rattler. wk 5 is alright, df6 is ace, 9 wounds is ace, terrifying 11 is hilarious (Lilith failed it with only a 13 and red joker in her hand to get her out of it). On the off chance my opponent wants to disengage, they probably won't manage it. Slither lets them get to precisely where they want to be to hold up as many models as possible. They're good for Exhaust/Catch and release/Mark for death etc, as the opponent often can't kill them, and can't disengage from them, so my Rattler can just keep on Exhausting, which isn't a bad thing, as the attack is fairly mediocre.

Cerberuses have diminishing returns when taken in numbers. Myranda turning into one is great. In some strats/schemes, hiring one is good (to go alongside the one which Myranda will inevitably turn into), but you only have so many masks and tomes in your deck (and even less in your hand), and if a Cerberus isn't leaping and getting a few extra attacks, I tend to find it a bit mediocre. Long story short, I would never go anywhere near 3 or more cerberuses because they're too specific. Rattlers are more "jack of all trades".

[Mxbedlam]

I feel ya. I'm one of the few people I know that loves molemen, for almost hte same reason. I can exhaust something, then scurry away with my (0) to avoid retaliation. Its kinda funny to watch someone try desperately to keep up with molemen as they do their thing across the board. For 8 points I get 2 activations and more scheme markers than I probably need

[iamsssk]

2 minutes ago, Mrbedlam said:

I feel ya. I'm one of the few people I know that loves molemen, for almost hte same reason. I can exhaust something, then scurry away with my (0) to avoid retaliation. Its kinda funny to watch someone try desperately to keep up with molemen as they do their thing across the board. For 8 points I get 2 activations and more scheme markers than I probably need

Molemen are my standard scheme runners even outside Marcus crews (well, sometimes Cassandra, depending on schemes etc). They're fantastic

[Franchute]

Has anyone found some utility of Ama No Zako in a Marcus crew? She is terrifying (complementary to pack leader) and can eat up paralyzed models. With her obey, she can force ennemies to fail their horror duel. She might need imbued protection though.

Edit: A trick occurred to me. One sometimes brings a bunch of Ht 1 models in a Marcus crew to outactivate the opponent (hounds, Jackalope, raptors...). These are also useful later on to heal Ama No Zako with Swallow you Whole. "Hey Malifaux Raptor. You remember when you bit me to make me a beast? Now you're going to be my meal."