A question of strategy with the Lucius crew

[Sarge048]

So I'm somewhat new to malifaux and I've been experimenting with the Lucius crew with mostly positive results. However, I recently played a couple of games against Ramos and I find myself at something of a loss for an effective strategy and I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas.

The last game I played featured the following set up 50ss

Guild

Lucius

Sgt Dashel

3 Guild Guards

1 Guild Capt

2 Lawyers

4 Hounds

Archanists

Ramos

Toolbox

Howard

Joss

Killjoy (buried)

Stake a claim

Line in the sand

protect territory

spring the trap

cursed object

breakthrough

Knowing that Lucius excels at laying down scheme markers and that my opponent planed to keep Ramos essentially in the deployment zone while summoning spiders I elected take cursed object and line in the sand as my schemes. I thought about protect territory but I knew that I wouldn't have many models left at the end of the game. Ramos took distracted and protect territory.

I managed to score all points for distracted and stake a claim and I had 7 scheme markers on the center line by the 5th turn. However, my opponent was able to swarm his spiders and use the swarm to devour four of my scheme markers resulting in my loosing the game with 8 points to 9 (3 for each scheme and strategy). But the victory points don't tell the whole story.

By the end of the game I had only four models left while my opponent had around 10 (Ramos, 8 spiders and killjoy). I found that the lawyers were great for attaching fees and poison to the high value models (Joss, Howard, Killjoy) and they were also great for paralyzing and slowing them, but even with those tricks my forces quickly dwindled. Combine that with my opponent being able to use soul stones and effective use of the control hand he was able to summon 2 - 3 spiders every single turn. And the result was that he was quickly out damaging and out activating my forces. I'm just not sure what the effective counter to that is. How exactly does one deal with a master that can summon in 8 - 12 souls stones worth of minions every single turn? I'm open to any suggestions.

[SpiralngCadavr]

First,this should probably be in beta, not her.

Second, looking at your crew, you've got nothing I'd call scary. Everything does pretty middling damage, but nothing is very good at concentrating damage.

However, I'm curious how you weren't able to take out those spiders. They're slow and damaged when they enter play, and you've got at least a few models with free focusing (0 action from dashel and no 0 action) and then use your lawyers to slow down the heavy hitters like you were saying.

I'm also curious what your austringer was doing. Back in the last edition, I played a similar game with McMourning (summoning more than my opponent could deal with), and the way to shut that down is to go for the master (either kill or threaten enough to impede), to shut down the summoning factory. Ramos has pretty weak defense, so it seems like you should have been able to harass or kill him.

Also, I'm curious why you chose a scheme that required scheme markers near your opponent, when your opponent can eat them.

Sorry the advice is a little vague, I'm having trouble picturing what you were doing in the game.

[SpiralngCadavr]

First,this should probably be in beta, not her.

Second, looking at your crew, you've got nothing I'd call scary. Everything does pretty middling damage, but nothing is very good at concentrating damage.

However, I'm curious how you weren't able to take out those spiders. They're slow and damaged when they enter play, and you've got at least a few models with free focusing (0 action from dashel and no 0 action) and then use your lawyers to slow down the heavy hitters like you were saying.

I'm also curious what your austringer was doing. Back in the last edition, I played a similar game with McMourning (summoning more than my opponent could deal with), and the way to shut that down is to go for the master (either kill or threaten enough to impede), to shut down the summoning factory. Ramos has pretty weak defense, so it seems like you should have been able to harass or kill him.

Also, I'm curious why you chose a scheme that required scheme markers near your opponent, when your opponent can eat them.

Sorry the advice is a little vague, I'm having trouble picturing what you were doing in the game.

[Sarge048]

I appreciate the insight and I do agree that my crew severely lacks in the dmg department. As for the schemes I choose line in the sand because I knew I could lay down the markers early before my crew was dwindled down to almost nothing and I didn't realize his spider swarms had a zero action that would eat them all, and that was indeed a blunder. Also I knew from playing against him previously that he planned to keep Ramos in his deployment zone while summoning spiders for most of the game so that made spring the trap and breakthrough significantly less viable as well.

As for why this in this forum and not the beta forum. I've found the beta forum to be more about tweaking the beta cards vs generalize strategy, and my question more has to due with the generalized strategy of how to counter a master that can summon in ridiculous amounts of minions fairly consistently.

I can't seem to figure out how to counter a summoning master with a master that focuses more on support vs damage. In a previous game with the same opponent I attempted to kill Ramos and found my attacking forces quickly trapped behind a wall of spiders which kept them engaged and unable to get to Ramos, combine that with those same spiders latching on to all of my attacking forces and essentially reducing their Df to zero, while being summoned in almost as fast as I could kill them, and the result was a most painful experience. The three models I moved in with were quite powerful (the judge, the pale rider, and a death marshal) but they just couldn't get past the spiders.

So the last game I played I tried just avoiding the spiders while scattering around the map and trying to accomplish objectives. The plan worked until around turn four when he had almost twice as many models as I did due to a combination of my losses and his gains (2 - 3 spiders per turn). I'm just at a loss for how I am supposed to effectively counter that with a support master. Maybe the answer is to not run a support master, but that's part of why I'm looking for suggestions. Thanks.

Edited January 17, 2014 by Sarge048

[Sarge048]

I appreciate the insight and I do agree that my crew severely lacks in the dmg department. As for the schemes I choose line in the sand because I knew I could lay down the markers early before my crew was dwindled down to almost nothing and I didn't realize his spider swarms had a zero action that would eat them all, and that was indeed a blunder. Also I knew from playing against him previously that he planned to keep Ramos in his deployment zone while summoning spiders for most of the game so that made spring the trap and breakthrough significantly less viable as well.

As for why this in this forum and not the beta forum. I've found the beta forum to be more about tweaking the beta cards vs generalize strategy, and my question more has to due with the generalized strategy of how to counter a master that can summon in ridiculous amounts of minions fairly consistently.

I can't seem to figure out how to counter a summoning master with a master that focuses more on support vs damage. In a previous game with the same opponent I attempted to kill Ramos and found my attacking forces quickly trapped behind a wall of spiders which kept them engaged and unable to get to Ramos, combine that with those same spiders latching on to all of my attacking forces and essentially reducing their Df to zero, while being summoned in almost as fast as I could kill them, and the result was a most painful experience. The three models I moved in with were quite powerful (the judge, the pale rider, and a death marshal) but they just couldn't get past the spiders.

So the last game I played I tried just avoiding the spiders while scattering around the map and trying to accomplish objectives. The plan worked until around turn four when he had almost twice as many models as I did due to a combination of my losses and his gains (2 - 3 spiders per turn). I'm just at a loss for how I am supposed to effectively counter that with a support master. Maybe the answer is to not run a support master, but that's part of why I'm looking for suggestions. Thanks.

Edited January 17, 2014 by Sarge048

[Thaarup]

One of the effective changes you could do was gaining access to some sort of blast marker weapon. Against horde summoning masters that is usually a very effective counter. If you want to keep up the theme with a lot of guardsmen, then maybe a couple of pathfinders could be worth it.

Ryle as an henchman with quite an output against horde opponents as well. You could of course also get the Freikorps Specialist as he brings both blast weapon and a way to remove scrap markers.

Other than changing a few crew members there are of course always a lot of different strategies. One would probably be to put a bit of pressure on the summoner. Either by killing/heavily damage anything he summons and preferable from afar (which should be one of guilds strong sides).

[Thaarup]

One of the effective changes you could do was gaining access to some sort of blast marker weapon. Against horde summoning masters that is usually a very effective counter. If you want to keep up the theme with a lot of guardsmen, then maybe a couple of pathfinders could be worth it.

Ryle as an henchman with quite an output against horde opponents as well. You could of course also get the Freikorps Specialist as he brings both blast weapon and a way to remove scrap markers.

Other than changing a few crew members there are of course always a lot of different strategies. One would probably be to put a bit of pressure on the summoner. Either by killing/heavily damage anything he summons and preferable from afar (which should be one of guilds strong sides).

[SpiralngCadavr]

Unfortunately, I don't find ignoring small things works very well in Malifaux, since that means you'll get more and more seriously out-activated.

I see what you mean about a support master having trouble, but that's why every one of my lists will have at least 3 elements in it (well, 4 if you count a master): something decent at range (to deal with not getting completely outgunned by Guild and to avoid being reamed by things like Bishop and Justice's triggers), something that hits hard (problem you saw), and objective runners (which can also pad activations).

I agree with Thaarup that blasts could help, though I still don't feel like I've gotten great use out of them in Malifaux so can't offer strategies past that...

Regarding your set of guys, I don't find Death Marshals very strong. They're durable, but only have the output of around a Guardsman: what they're good at is delivering models (and taking high value ones out for a little while, with the right cards). Judge I find somewhat unreliable- he seems to get bogged down like you're talking about. I haven't seen the Pale Rider in action, so can't comment.

Guild has some of the best answers, though, mostly in the form of having some spectacular range.

[SpiralngCadavr]

Unfortunately, I don't find ignoring small things works very well in Malifaux, since that means you'll get more and more seriously out-activated.

I see what you mean about a support master having trouble, but that's why every one of my lists will have at least 3 elements in it (well, 4 if you count a master): something decent at range (to deal with not getting completely outgunned by Guild and to avoid being reamed by things like Bishop and Justice's triggers), something that hits hard (problem you saw), and objective runners (which can also pad activations).

I agree with Thaarup that blasts could help, though I still don't feel like I've gotten great use out of them in Malifaux so can't offer strategies past that...

Regarding your set of guys, I don't find Death Marshals very strong. They're durable, but only have the output of around a Guardsman: what they're good at is delivering models (and taking high value ones out for a little while, with the right cards). Judge I find somewhat unreliable- he seems to get bogged down like you're talking about. I haven't seen the Pale Rider in action, so can't comment.

Guild has some of the best answers, though, mostly in the form of having some spectacular range.