Lady Justice box vs. Seamus box?

[SpiralngCadavr]

So, just played my first game of Malifaux in the new edition, I played seamus, my wife played Justice, neither of us are very experienced with the game (I had more experience but none with seamus; she has less but played justice a bit in last edition), and it had been quite a while for both of us since last playing.

We played 30SS, all models, no upgrades (in order to try to keep it simpler)

We both felt that the Justice crew was a bit outclassed:

-The copycat killer provided much more for a cheap cost than a minor bonus

-the Guild's advantage of range was pretty thoroughly mitigated by Seamus, Copycat Killer both having strong attacks, a lot of repositioning, Sybelle having a decent ranged attack, and the Belles having ranged repositioning

-neither of us really knew why the death marshals cost that much, or, rather, what the utility of that many burying models is

-justice did a ton of damage, but she seemed like the only one to do that much: the others all seemed a bit on the weak side

-justice eventually killed seamus but there was enough left (while she was nearly alone) that the ressers won by objective still (an embarrassing 1-0 total)- there wasn't anything left with enough hitting power to stop her in all likelihood

In case circumstances were weird, we were both playing objectives based on getting past the midpoint of the table, and I holed up in a small forest pretty early in the game. There wasn't a ton of blocking stuff.

Neither of us felt that luck was very uneven- I got some better hands, but also was pretty conservative with using the high cards.

So... were we doing something wrong? Are upgrades necessary for a balanced game? Is it simply a bad match? Is there a trick to Justice's crew that we didn't pick up on?

[zFiend]

We played a 35ss game with Justice and Seamus with a friend of mine. I play Seamus, almost exclusively. I love the guy. My friend played justice and got Seamus down to 1wd in one charge + 1ml, he healed back to 7 on my turn and I killed justice that turn. Took me cck, Seamus and Sybelle to take her down. I feel that justice is an empty master. Judge on the other hand against Seamus and his undead minions is a great piece and should be used aggressively. I don't understand the cost of death marshals either. They aren't that good.. Look into executioner or austringer, they are good. Upgrades make justice a bit better but not much. Upgrades make Seamus a lot better.

[Sonova]

Death Marshals are currently the best basic guild minion IMO. Their ability to bury your own models essentially gives your big hitters +6 wounds before they can even be interacted with. Justice in the Box essentially means that she is immortal until they break the box or you let her out on favorable terms. And unless they are playing Tara theres simply nothing they can do about it.

Add to that the ability of the marshals to drop objective markers when they die means that theres simply no 'good' outcome for your opponents actions against the DMs.

They are tricky to learn but once you get the hang of it they are amazing.

[Dracomax]

Eh. I find that DMs are overrated. If you use a ranged attack, or if you got unlucky on scheme pool, the marker dropping can be rendered entirely moot. they have some decent survivability, but the bury your own model tactic is at best risky, and at worst a trap that can lose you the game. they don't have high enough defenses to avoid being tarpitted, and whenever I play them, they have a hard time hitting things with their guns.

I guess YMMV.

[Sonova]

How is it risky? You only need a 5 of any suit and you get your model back regardless of whatever happens to the marshal because of the way Pine Box is worded. You just need to be smart about your activation order.

Also what in the world are you shooting at that you cant hit with Sh5? For that matter its Df is 5 so it doesnt get tarpitted any more often than most of the minions in the game. If your opponent is silly enough to park something powerful enough to tarpit your marshal next to it, you just let Justice (or whatever beatstick you put in there) out of the box and voila, problem solved.

Wk5 with Unimpeded means its one of the more mobile minions as well and you can use it to transport things like the Executioner over nonsense like Lilith's forest and other shenanigans in comfort. I challenge you to find me some other minion that does all that for only 6ss.

[Adran]

I would assume the risk is in wasting APs and the loss of activation control that burying your own models that will unbury in the death Marshals activation can cause.

It is certainly one way to protect models from the enemy and move them forwards, and works better than it ever did in the last edition, but AP seem much more valuable in this edition.

[Sonova]

You dont actually waste your AP unless you have no way to unbury your model, which is possible but that is something that you should take into account before you even deploy. In any case its something you easily can do just by having a second marshal on hand.

Once your beatstick has activated you can quite comfortably 'park' it inside the box until its time for it to go to work again. This is easily 90% of what you will do with your box actions anyway.

The thing is that every Guild master can make use of the DM. Justice does it best because of her upgrade that allows marshals to push, making it more likely for them to be where they need to be. Perdita can get utility out of them because she can use Obey to move them closer or just to pop the box. McMourning loves teleport points that he can hide in and who also drop delicious schemes when they die. Sonnia is probably the one who gets the least utility and even then they serve as good ablative armor for something like the Executioner or Peacekeeper. Also theres nothing more hilarious than blowing up your own wounded DM and having it drop their cargo on something thats already been mauled by blasts.

[Hagisman]

I do not understand the point of Death Marshals.

I played against a Gremlin crew with Ophelia and Lenny as my intro into the game. 35 soul stones without upgrades. Think that's the entire Lady J box.

While playing the Death Marshals were mainly just objective grabbers. Most of the time when I did hit with attacks the negatives to damage flips only caused 2 DMG. With his armor soaking most of it I was only to get that guy down to 2 out of 8(?). By the end of turn 3.

Lady j killed one guy one guy who blew up in her face.

Doesn't seem that they are good damage dealers and aside from ignoring severe terrain they don't move fast at all. And even with Hard to Wound with the low amount of wounds an opponent just need to hit with weak damage at least 3 times to take them down.

Please let me know if I'm missing anything. I'm new to the game and these are just my thoughts from my last game.

[TarlSS]

I think that crew vs crew there are lots of different dynamics at play. All games have rock paper scissors dynamics and I think Malifaux is no different. Shooting crews are better against crews with lots of melee defense (EG no charging) and crews with strong charges and a lot of damage beat shooting crews, which are beaten by the ones with lots of melee defense. And so on and so forth. There are probably lots of other 'circles' at work as well.

[Helm]

I do not understand the point of Death Marshals.

I played against a Gremlin crew with Ophelia and Lenny as my intro into the game. 35 soul stones without upgrades. Think that's the entire Lady J box.

While playing the Death Marshals were mainly just objective grabbers. Most of the time when I did hit with attacks the negatives to damage flips only caused 2 DMG. With his armor soaking most of it I was only to get that guy down to 2 out of 8(?). By the end of turn 3.

Lady j killed one guy one guy who blew up in her face.

Doesn't seem that they are good damage dealers and aside from ignoring severe terrain they don't move fast at all. And even with Hard to Wound with the low amount of wounds an opponent just need to hit with weak damage at least 3 times to take them down.

Please let me know if I'm missing anything. I'm new to the game and these are just my thoughts from my last game.

I think the "just objective grabbers" phrase sums up the problem. The word "just" shouldn't be in there; grabbing objectives is what gets you VPs, and VPs are what win you the game. Were you playing with standard Strategy and Schemes?

Death Marshals can do a couple of things that most other models can't; they can drop Scheme Markers upon dying (saving you an AP and letting you drop Markers even in combat with enemies) and Bury enemy models. The burying happens thanks to the Pine Box attack. If you use a Charge Action, you can move 6 inches and potentially just take an enemy off the board until they manage to unbury themself.

The guns are really just gravy. You can up their damage with Critical Strike if you have the Rams in your hand.

Death Marshals won't kill everything around them, but Malifaux isn't about killing everything around you. Not to mention that you have the Judge and Lady J to do that job. If you don't like how slow DMs are, use the Judge's 0 Action to pull them up with him.

All in all, keep practicing with them and don't get disenheartened.

[Cats Laughing]

Side Note: Finish the Job dropped scheme markers ignore the 4" restriction inherent in the (1) Interact action, as well as the 'in melee with enemy' restriction noted above.

There will be times where you actually want your death marshal to get killed

[Hagisman]

Side Note: Finish the Job dropped scheme markers ignore the 4" restriction inherent in the (1) Interact action, as well as the 'in melee with enemy' restriction noted above.

There will be times where you actually want your death marshal to get killed

Are you positive?

I ask because when I was asking around during my game I was told you have the option to place a scheme marker, but that it still follows the proximity rule.

[Adran]

If you are taking the inteact action it requires the scheme marker to be at least 4" from another scheme marker. This is specifically related to taking the interact action. Placing a marker another way does not need to check distance. The 4" is refered to in the book when takign the interact action, and never when placing a scheme marker.

[Ausplosions]

Are you positive?

I ask because when I was asking around during my game I was told you have the option to place a scheme marker, but that it still follows the proximity rule.

he is 100% correct.

[phreaker187]

Seamus IMO is one of the best masters in M2E. His crew is hard to take down, it has massive board control and can dish out a ton of damage. Seamus and Sybelle having Terrifying (living) is just icing on the cake.

Lady J, right out of the box is outclassed in every instance. I've seen people win with her in 2E, but it was a far cry from the box set.

[Brence]

I admittedly havent played Lady J. or any M2E yet (waiting for my stuff to arrive) and get things started. Yet I did peek at some stats and I have a descend grasp of the rules due to the 1.5 book and various articles. I don't really see whats so bad at Lady J. She seems tough and killy, the Marshalls seem nice control units with their Pine Box weapon and The Judge is a nice combi of both killing power and board control. So what do I miss in my theory mashing? Death Marshalls actually putting down markers when they die only seem to balance the fact that Lady J. herself isnt the scheme manipulating master.

Edited October 8, 2013 by Brence

[Mason]

All of the games I've played against her with McMourning have been very good. I haven't tried using Seamus against her yet.