Jacob Lynch must die

[Uktena]

Well Hello,

I have my first match against Jacob Lynch coming up. The Darkened seem like a great crew. I wondered if he had any....y'know. GLARING WEAKNESSES that one of you Ten Thunders players might be willing to discuss.

[Boshea]

Winners don't use drugs.

Having Brilliance on a model general means its going to die. Illuminated will be doing min 4 to them along other models getting various positive flips against them.

[Cunning]

I find that Lynch's main weakness is himself and the Beckoners. If you can take them out the rest of the crew starts to fall apart.

[Kogan Style]

Also, the HD only has a def of 3, so even if you have to just hit him at half dg, you'll soon whittle down its wounds. Spells that resist against def are also awesome.

[Skywalker]

If they opponent takes never ending huggy, then nail lynch asap... If he takes casting expert huggy then nail huggy first... Lynch is really fragile if you can get at him. What crew are you playing?

[Uktena]

WOW. Thanks everyone, that's all incredibly helpful. I'm a little ponderous parsing out what all the crews do, so this gives me some considerations when selecting schemes and hiring. To answer Skywalker, I will be playing my first game doing some beta testing for Jack Daw, but our "for reals" game will be Jake vs. Lilith and her Nephilim.

[Mister Shine]

Beckoners fold quickly, but most Lynch players will try to charge you first with the Illuminated, and then let the beckoners safely throw brilliance at you without scattering into combat. So try and stay out of LoS of the beckoners until you can nail them in combat.

The Illuminated themselves are going to heal 2 or more every turn, so if you want to take one down, focus focus focus on it

Lynch players will also often be taking Expert Cheater and cheating face down. Try and watch where your opponent is stuffing their Aces in their hand so you can get an edge on when theyre bluffing you

[Drix]

If you are using Lilith, then the forest templates created by the "Beckon Malifaux" upgrade can be used to block the LoS of Beckoners which is huge. Wicked Vines may also be useful for locking down troublesome assault models like Huggy (who's low defense makes him a great target) or Illuminated who's Def is higher, but are also worth keeping out of combat.

Hope that helps.

[Tiaden]

Also if you take Lilith think of the "For the Brood" Trigger that is auto fullfilled on Barbaros and the Youngs. Very often if the scheme Frame for murder is up my Lynch opponent takes Casting-Expert Huggy and throws her at me. With the "For the Brood" Trigger you can keep her alive but relatively reliably also keep her paralyzed. That Huggy is incorporeal really helps pushing her to you backlines. Also a good way to fullfill "Take Prisoner" if you got that.

But also withouth denying "Frame for murder" VPs this trigger is golden to deny that Huggy gets buried. As long as you keep Huggy paralyzed Lynch can't make a new one and I would consider keeping a Young busy for that a good trade.

For Lynch Assasination I would recommend Teddy. His offensive trigger is resolved after Lynchs defensive trigger, so lynch can't push away.

Having a Teddy in the Crew forces him to let Lynch walk quite alone or else you could Transposition Teddy into position. So depending on Terrain its worth to block Lynch with the forest and clean out the rest of the crew or directly approach Lynch and not be much bothered by his crew. If you apporach Lynch also don't forget to put the Rooted condition on him. Thats another 3 damage when Teddy hits and therefore pushes Lynch. Also (1) Transfixing Gaze is nice to get slow on Lynch. I would recommend stressing Lynch indirect with Lilith that way and try to get a Teddy Flurry loose on him. Because if you cluster up on a Ten-Thunder-Lynch that knows you field Lilith and your opponent is worth his salt, then he will have the Misdirection Upgrade. And that trigger ruins your whole push and free attacks chain.

[Sklertic]

Dont stand close together when playing Lilith against Lynch. The Hungering darkness can triple obey your crew, which can be very damaging.

Use cover and fast models to get to Lynch and the beckoners. Mature Nephilim might be a good idea, provided your board has ample LoS denying cover.

[MasterDisaster]

Hitting The Hungering Darkness with Whispers from Beyond from a Hanged means their beloved Totem can't heal up once it's buried. This hurts them a fair bit as he is one of the better if not the heaviest hitter they have.

Taking Condition removal can seriously hamper their plans because Hungering Darkness and many other models in the crew utilize Brilliance once it's on your models. Remove it as and when you can to put a dent in their plans.

Beware of Beckoners, they can really be a pain in the backside as they are fairly competent Lure users so if you can get rid of them you wont be pulled around like a rag doll.

Be careful when cheating in high cards, Lynch can cheat face down with one of his upgrades meaning Lynch players often try to bluff when they cheat, not a major issue but annoying when it happens.

Recycling Ace of :masks with Terror Tots means they have some mean objective runners, they probably need to die if this starts to happen, they can effectively sprint 20" which is gonna ruin your day.

Models that can ignore armour (for Illuminated) and Incorporeal (Hungering Darkness) can be very effective against this crew. Illuminated have Armour +1, Regen +1 and Brillshaper which is a (0) 1/2/3 healing flip so Hanged can help here. Some nice Ca damage or models that ignore Incorporeal can be very effective against Hungering Darkness, Hans is always a nice choice because you can deal with both of these issues with his Sniper Rifle Triggers. The Fk Librarian is great at nuking Hungering Darkness as she can discard for 3 casts of Ancient Words which is resisted on Df, Hungering Darkness has low Df so it's a great model as she can heal you as well.

These are some of the basic thing's I watch out for when playing my regular Lynch opponent. Hope it helps!

[Morgan Vening]

Hitting The Hungering Darkness with Whispers from Beyond from a Hanged means their beloved Totem can't heal up once it's buried. This hurts them a fair bit as he is one of the better if not the heaviest hitter they have.

Does that work? Whispers from Beyond puts a Condition on Huggy for the rest of the game. The Rising Sun says "Remove all Conditions and heal all damage on the Hungering Darkness model.".

The General Timing Rules callout on Pg46 seems to indicate that Huggy's controller gets to choose the order.

Recycling Ace of :masks with Terror Tots means they have some mean objective runners, they probably need to die if this starts to happen, they can effectively sprint 20" which is gonna ruin your day.

How are they moving 20"? Ace in the Hole only applies if the Ace comes from the Crew's deck, not his hand. So you only get one extra use out of it.

Or have I completely misunderstood something?

Edited December 11, 2013 by Morgan Vening

[Mike3838]

A common misconception. From the FAQ:

Q: With Jakob Lynch’s Ace in the Hole Ability, can he only place aces which were flipped directly off the top of the deck into his hand? Or can he place aces into his hand which had been cheated/discarded as well?

A: He can place any aces into his hand which ended up in the discard pile, regardless of whether they were cheated, discarded, flipped, etc. The language “When an ace from this Crew’s deck…” is simply meant to clarify that Jakob cannot place aces from his opponent’s deck into his hand.

[MasterDisaster]

Does that work? Whispers from Beyond puts a Condition on Huggy for the rest of the game. The Rising Sun says "Remove all Conditions and heal all damage on the Hungering Darkness model.".

The General Timing Rules callout on Pg46 seems to indicate that Huggy's controller gets to choose the order.

Oh rly?!

Well in that case my local Henchman has been cheating and will be getting a Seamus style Backhand from ma'bad self, quite possibly followed up by a Palm Side as well.

[Mastershake]

Jacob Lynch is an interesting guy with an interesting crew.

Jacob Himself- There's really two types of Lynch you'll come across, the bomb Lynch or the buff Lynch. An opponent may mix and match the upgrades, but one set wants him to go early in the turn sequence and the other late. Buff Lynch is an interesting character since he's likely carrying cards like Expert Cheater and likely has Addict on himself. This Lynch wants to go first to tag targets with Brilliance for the crew to remove and use the Squeel trigger to get out of danger. The biggest trick here is that your opponent repeatedly takes aces he discards during his models activations into his hand and cheats face down, so a savvy opponent will cheat duels he has no intention of winning with the ace and get it back later to try and draw out good cards and make it more difficult to determine when he's actually cheating seriously. He can also reliably tag targets with Brilliance better than the rest of the crew with Play for Blood that goes off at an 8 and doesn't require damage to add the condition. This variant is annoying, but not truly dangerous on his own. Don't get me wrong his pistol can hit fairly hard if he needs to, but his primary role is setting up the crew for success. The Bomb Lynch is on the opposite side of this spectrum usually taking Woke up With a Hand and Wanna See a Trick? instead giving him a personal damage output that rivals the best beatsticks in the game. The important thing to note about the damage a Bomb Lynch can throw out is that there is no variable. You're opponents knows how many cards he has in hand and how many aces and since there is no damage flip there's only one chance for the Black Joker to show up making it much less likely. He's also goes after the crew is done and with this build he easily mops up any Brilliant targets left. That being said, don't be under the illusion that condition removal saves you here. Again Play For Blood has a stupid Ca number and even dropping an AP to cast it still leaves his average damage in an activation vs. an unarmored target around the 16-18 realm. If you see Lynch with these two upgrades, look for opportunities to get rid of him and try not to get bogged down by the rest of the crew, or he will easily detonate one or more 10ss+ cost models every turn with little chance of failure. This variant of Lynch also generally takes the Rising Sun upgrade and puts Addict on Huggy since it combos with Wanna See a Trick? as both require a Brilliant target within 6" allowing Lynch to bring Huggy back every turn often without any resist involved. For this Lynch, Huggy is a throw away model and killing it really doesn't get you anywhere relevant.

Huggy- The big thing about this model is the 50mm base, Terrifying and Incorporeal with a 3" melee range. He can mess up a crew really fast just by being there and with the Bomb Lynch his presence doesn't mean anything to your opponent. If he's running that build and you can get rid of Huggy without burning too many AP then go nuts, otherwise just try to keep the thing occupied and get to Lynch. The Casting Expert variant of Huggy is generally harder to kill since Incorporeal and ss can make him pretty durable and if your opponent only gets him once he'll probably have a few stones set aside for him, but once you knock him out he's gone so focusing fire early is wise. Just be aware that the casting expert Huggy easily goes back to full health every time it activates, so its better to focus fire after it's done the healing for the turn.

Illuminated- It's a rare model with no really notable weakness and it gets stronger against brilliant targets. If you see a chance to remove one before it can activate, do it. Their wound recovery is stupidly high for a 7ss model that also has Armor 1 because on average they get back 3 wounds every turn so if you keep leaving them at low numbers and letting them activate you'll easily end up having to do double their Wd in damage just to remove one which leaves you on the wrong side of attrition very fast. If they charge a target with Brilliance while also under the effect of Addict, its probably best to let the model go rather than try to fight it because their damage in such cases is pretty mind bogglingly stupid.

Beckoners- this is really the weak link in the list. While I use them frequently with Lynch it has more to do with them doing something nothing else does than genuine value of the model on it's own. They're the tax you pay for 7ss Illuminated and free Huggy. With really weak Df, only minor healing and a mediocre wound count, they're the easiest models in the Lynch crew to remove unless you're already Brilliant. Removing them also severely reduces the options for making models Brilliant and cuts down the crew's out of activation movement. Getting rid of them early leaves the Lynch crew really unhappy.

Graves and Tannen- Graves is a melee beater with some minor movement from Show You the Door. He can hit hard, but a careful glance of most of these cards will tell you that isn't something the crew struggles with. 9 Wd and Hard to Kill can make him a problem to remove, but he requires the least special considerations of the lot when you see him on the table. Tannen is a different story, kill him first. If you get lucky, the worst he'll do is nuke your hand for a turn (or if you're really lucky you can drop him from more than 6" away with something like an Austringer), but if you don't pay attention to him, Cooler can cost you the game. If you see a chance to drop him turn 1 or 2 before everything really kicks off, take it even if it means sacrificing a good bit of your hand. Better to rip this band aid off now rather than later.

Depleted- Keep them away from your key models. Really all they do is stand there begging for more drugs, but the effort to kill them really isn't worth for how little they do between Hard to Wound and Hard to Kill and for your troubles all they do is detonate and give you Brilliance anyways. Use cheaper models as a screen to keep these guys off of Masters and Henchmen especially if the Strat/Schemes require you to be somewhere.