Mason Posted October 9, 2013 Report Share Posted October 9, 2013 (edited) We just finished play a game over Vassal, and I kept track of what happened during the game for the purposes of beta testing and the like. When I saw our Strategy and Schemes, I decided to test a few specific aspects of New Hamelin to see how they worked out. 1) Does Hamelin's basic crew have enough Significant models to Interact in a game with an Interact-heavy mission and two Interact-heavy schemes? 2) Is Nix actually worth 9ss? My hypothesis was that he was not. 3) Does the crew work well, and is it fun to play? 4) Are the upgrades that I didn't care for - Tools of the Tyrant and Infectious Melodies - worth taking? I never played as or against old Hamelin, so this is my first game with him in any context. Hamelin (Cache: 4) - Tools of the Tyrant - 2 - Infectious Melodies - 1 Nix - 9 Obedient Wretch - 3 Rat Catcher - 5 Rat Catcher - 5 Rat King - 8 Rat King - 8 The Stolen - 2 Malifaux Rat - 2 Malifaux Rat - 2 Schemes: Line in the Sand (announced), Plant Explosives Lucius (Cache: 5) - Secret Assests - 2 - Legalese - 1 - Useless Duplications - 1 Drill Sergeant Dashel 9SS - Watch My Back - 2 Scribe of the Proxy - 2 Guild Captain - 7 Guild Lawyer - 6 Guild Rifleman - 5 Guild Austringer - 6 Guild Guard - 4 Guild Guard - 4 Schemes: Plant explosives, Assassinate The battle report is pretty raw, but I just took note of what happened as it happened. A few mistakes were made - I forgot some on damage flips from Malifaux Rats, and I think my opponent used Lucius to hell at non-Minion models once or twice. None of these mistakes really had much impact upon the game, though. Set up: I set up spread out, with Hamelin in the center, and the Rat Kings on the far sides. Opponent deploys in an off-left clump, near and atop some scaffolding that runs vertically down the center of the board. T1: The Stolen uses Infectious Melodies to become Fast, walks forward, and uses Inevitable Fate. Two rats appear and eat his face. Lucius walks forward, uses Commanding Presence on a Guardsman Frank, who gets ++ on his flip from a nearby captain and lawyer and reluctantly walks forward. He then Issues Commands to Guardsman Bill to walk him up next to Frank, and on the Rifleman to shoot at a summoned rat, which misses. Rat Catcher Vinnie to Hamelin's left moves up and hides behind a rock, using Rotting Ordor to drag a rat up behind him a bit. Rifleman walks forward along some scaffolding , focuses as a free action, and takes a shot at Hamelin, which misses. Dashel activates via Accomplice, walks under the scaffolding to a more central location in some bushes. A summoned rat shuffles forward towards the center of the board, its belly full of meat. Guardsman Bill walks up and shoots at it, killing the rat dead. Guardsman Frank activates via Accomplice, walking up next to Bill. Hamelin moves up and uses his Pipes against Guardsman Bill, dealing damage twice and luring the wounded guard closer. He then summons a Stolen safely behind him. The Lawyer walks up to the front lines and uses Impassioned Defense on the confused Guardsman Bill. In counter-argument, a rat walks forward and tries to bite his foot, but fails. The austringer walks forward a bit, focuses as a free action, and sends a bird after Rat Catcher Vinnie, which tears at him for five wounds. The Governor's Scribe activates via Companion and runs down some stairs, behind the lawyer and guardsmen. Another rat walks up to Bill, the Captain moves forward, and the rest of Hamelin's models shuffle forward unopposed. T2: The Austringer uses Deliver Orders to push Bill out of melee and make him drop a scheme marker. Lucius activates via Accomplice, walks through some bushes to get a clear line of sight to Bill, allowing him to use Commanding Presence on the poor guardsman. Bill shoots at Hamelin, knicking him for a point. Lucius commands him to fire again, and Bill hits, dealing moderate damage. The guard yells "Halt!" but Hamelin doesn't care. Nix floats through a rock around behind Bill and attempts to Drink Spirit and fails, but he still devours Bill's anima, killing him and summoning a rat to his corpse via the nearby Rat Catcher Vinnie. The Rifleman focuses twice, once as a free action, and takes a shot at Hamelin, hitting him for six wounds. Ouuuch. Hamelin attempts to lure the lawyer closer and fails, but succeeds in luring Frank closer and dealing a couple damage. He fails to lure any Stolen closer, and just ducks behind a rock for soem cover. Guardsman Frank swings at Nix, hitting once for severe damage (reduced to moderate), and missing the second time, which heals Nix a little bit. The Lawyer activates via Accomplice - finding himself unable to press charges against a nihilist dog - instead serves papers to a nearby rat and makes a strong case in defense of Guardsman Frank. The Rat King on the left moves up to claim the left Claim marker. The Captain then moves up next to Guardsman Frank. Rat Catcher Vinnie waves some cheese at a rat, giving it Reactive before walking forward and luring the cheese'd rat and the litigated rat over to him. Meanwhile, Lucius's Scribe mvoes up into the Nix combat. Reactived rat moves into combat with the Butler but fails to bite him, and the Stolen is devoured by rats. Rat King B claims the rightmost marker, and everything else just moves up and swarms towards the center. My opponent detonates some dynamite for 3 VP, but I get a VP from claim markers. 3-1 in Lucius's favor. T3: The Wretch runs up onto the scaffolding and throws a rat at the Rifleman, which unfortunately misses. The Austringer sends a bird after Rat Catcher Vinnie, dealing weak damage that is mitigated somewhat by the rat clinging to Vinnie's leg, and missing the second time. The Rifleman activates via Accomplice and shoots the Wretch twice, killing her. She's Sickly, however, and a rat quickly shows up to gnaw on her cooling body. Rat Catcher Vinnie drops a scheme marker down on the centerline, shuffles over a bit, and pulls a rat away from the rat cluster to keep them from joining together into a swarm. Lucius activates next, using a Hidden Sniper to take out Rat Catcher Vinnie. He orders the Rifleman to shoot at the rat eating the Wretch's corpse, but he misses. Lucius shouts an order at the Captain, but the Captain isn't paying attention to him. Frustrated, he instead shouts an order at the Lawyer, but the Lawyer is distracted by all the rats. The Scribe activates and goes slap-happy on the rat in melee with it, killing it dead. Nix goes next, floating through everyone he's engaged with and using Drink Spirit, making two rats Empty. Then it bites the Captain for severe damage, making him blighted. The Captain swings twice at Nix, missing both times, and uses Accomplice on Guardsman Frank, who attacks Nix twice, hitting him once and healing him from a missed attack. Hamelin spends his entire turn running around to the left, behind a large rock there, pausing only to summon a Stolen along the way. The Lawyer sues the rat up by the Wretch's corpse, then tosses a subpoena on the left-most Rat King before making a hasty defense for Guardsman Frank. The subpoenaed Rat King starts dancing to Hamelin's piping, becoming fast. It drops a scheme marker, shuffles forward, and uses Rat Problem, killing itself to summon Rat Catcher Crunch and a Rat into knot of guardsmen. Dashel activates and shoots the new Rat Catcher twice, hitting him once for quiite a bit of damage. The Stolen then activates, becoming fast from Infectious Melodies, which lets him walk a few steps before rats leap out to eat him. Some rats move up, biting uselessly at people before they eventually swarm together into a new Rat King, which bites Guardsman Frank, infecting him as well. On the Right side fo the board, the unopposed Rat King and Rat Catcher drop a scheme marker and move into position to drop one next turn, respectively. All the other rats just rush forward to tie things up in melee. I get 1 VP at the end of the turn from claim markers, bringing us to 3-2 in Lucius's favor. T4: The Austringer focuses as a free action and throws a bird at Hamelin, hitting him for severe damage and nearly killing him. Lucius activates via Accomplice, walks around a Rat Catcher while still in melee, and calls in a hidden sniper to not only shoot a rat, but to destroy a nearby scheme marker! Lucius then yells at the Rifleman, ordering him to stab the rat that's biting at his rifle. The Rifleman obliges, killing the vermin dead. Finally, he casts What Lackeys are For, dropping a scheme marker down and swapping places with the Rifleman. Nix goes next, firing off a Drink Souls against most of the models on the board (and failing to hit anything other than a single Rat). He bites at the Captain twice, hitting once for decent damage and healing back up to full wounds. Dashel walks up to Rat Catches Crunch and swings at him, but misses. The Rifleman activates via Accomplice, walking west, focusing as a free action, and taking a shot at Hamelin (which misses). The Rat King in melee bites at Guardsman Frank, knicking him but not doing any significant damage. The Captain hits Nix twice, then Accomplices onto Guardsman Frank, who swings twice at Nix, missing him both times and healing him for two wounds. A rat bites the Scribe, infecting him but dealing no damage. The Lawyer counters by pressing litigation against Rat Catcher Crunch, who just drops a scheme marker into the mass of guild models and throws an iron trap at Dashel, who takes one damage and becomes infected. The Scribe then goes slap-happy on another rat, only wounding it. Hamelin charges the Riflemen, wounding him for two point before throwing a bleeding disease onto the Captain, nearly killing him. At the end of the turn, I announce Plant Explosives, earning +3 VP, +1 from Claim markers, putting us at 6-3 in Hamelin's favor. We had to end it there, but with just one turn left and most people locked in melee, it's not too had to figure out how things would likely go. I'm getting at least one point from my announced Line in the Sand, and one point from Claim markers, putting me at at least 8 points, and maybe 10 if I get off the full Line in the Sand (I ended turn 4 with three of the four markers I needed). My opponent would probably kill Hamelin, as he only had two wounds and a single soulstone left), earning 2 points from his Assassinate scheme, but even if he cleared all the rats and claimed two markers for a claim VP, that only brings him up to 6 points. Conclusions: Well, first and foremost, both of our crews seemed pretty evenly matched, and be both had quite a good time over the course of the game. The Rifleman was really good, and while one of them wasn't a problem, I do sort of wonder how much damage they might do in massed numbers. Regarding Hamelin's Crew: 1) Does Hamelin's basic crew have enough Significant models to Interact in a game with an Interact-heavy mission and two Interact-heavy schemes? A) Yup. I didn't have any real problems dropping scheme markers, as I just used my Insignificant stuff to tie things up while the Significant models ran about and dropped markers. 2) Is Nix actually worth 9ss? My hypothesis was that he was not. A) I was actually really surprised with Nix! His ability to heal wounds when models fail duels really helped him stay alive, and his basic attack was decent. He felt more like a tank than a melee monster, though, and despite spamming Drain Spirit every turn into the heart of both my opponent's crew and my own crew (and granted, the opponent had a to his Wp flips), I really only succeeded in hitting my own rats with it. I think that he might be a single soulstone too expensive at 9ss, and that he'd be just right at 8ss. Drain Spirit's TN could maybe stand a slight boost to its TN, or maybe just a disclaimer that prevents it from affecting Vermin as well as Nihilist models. All in all, though, I was really surprised by how well he worked out. 3) Does the crew work well, and is it fun to play? A) Yes to both counts. It felt like a Hamelin crew should feel (or at least, it did to me), and my opponent and I both had fun playing against it. 4) Are the upgrades that I didn't care for - Tools of the Tyrant and Infectious Melodies - worth taking? A) Infectious Madness was great, and I'll probably take it quite often the future. Allowing Stolen and Rat Kings to move a little bit before they sacrifice themselves is a nice little bonus, and it feels right for a 1 point upgrade. Tools of the Tyrant should have been good, what with making Interact actions more expensive, but I ended up having to keep Hamelin back far enough that it really never came into play. Most of his crew is Height 1, so once stuff starts shooting at you, there's not much to block line of sight between the shooter and him. I ended up wishing I had just taken The Pipes so that I could play him a bit more aggressively. Final Thoughts: Hamelin looks pretty good. He's a bit squishy, as he doesn't have any defensive triggers and runs around with models that don't block line of sight to him, but I suspect that with The Pipes he'd have a bit more staying power. I sort of wish he had an upgrade that would give him a defensive trigger or ability or something to help him stay alive a bit longer. That being said, would I play with or against him if he didn't change from now to the end of the beta? I've already ordered the box. ---------- Post added 10-09-2013 at 12:11 AM ---------- Previous post was 10-08-2013 at 11:55 PM ---------- Oh, and Dashel was a boss. His passive bonuses are damned good. Here are my opponent's thoughts on his crew: Guardsman synergy is amazing. The regulars and a captain can hold the line reasonably well. The rifleman is nasty, probably more so if I could have more then one. Dashel is great. Captain is both a great tank and helps with shooting on the lead up. I don't think Unnecessary Duplication is bad, but it turned out to be pointless in this encounter due to the lack of shooting. Hidden Sniper remains phenomenal. Lawyer seems about right. I am honestly not sure what the totem does though, beyond protect Lucius from Conditions. And I guess running up to lay a finisher OR hit early to hopefully screw any chance of hurting Lucius or the Lawyer. Still not sure what the double action on the Rifleman is for. Its really hard to not just have them shoot and shoot. But - *shrugs* - he can support the Austringer if all else fails. Edited October 9, 2013 by Mindshred Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IntereoVivo Posted October 9, 2013 Report Share Posted October 9, 2013 Awesome Bat Rep! Thanks for your thoughts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kadeton Posted October 10, 2013 Report Share Posted October 10, 2013 That was a very entertaining read. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.