Hoffman ToMB Month 2 Suggestions

[AgentRock]

So I've been running Hoffman for the Tale of Malifaux Bloggers (link's in my signature)(shameless plug) and as those of you who are familiar with the project know, we're coming to the end of month 1. This means it's time to start thinking about what we're doing next month with the crew.

 

For the purposes of month 1, I took the Hoffman box set (Hoff, Guardian, Watcher, Hunter) and a Peacekeeper. I am aware this was cheating, as it went over the cash budget by 2 bucks. I don't care, I wanted a Peacekeeper. I have not regretted this decision.

 

The rules for month 2 are that we now have 25 bucks, from which I've deducted the 2 extra bucks from last month, leaving me 23. Obviously my first thought is that I don't have a lot of VP scorers here. The watcher is good at it, but he either needs a friend or something like soulstone miner to help him out. 

 

Other possibilities include his henchmen, Ryle or Joss (what, you didn't know he was a Guild henchman?), another Hunter, or throwing in a Warden. As an editorial aside, eighteen bloody dollars per Warden is kind of a drag, particularly in this format as they're going to chew up a whole month's budget all on their own. Anyway, the point of the ToMB project is not just to build the most face smash-y crew imaginable, but to explore the models that work well for the master and create a resource for new players to use when coming in. 

 

So, I have my own ideas of what to look at, but I thought I'd farm the idea out to the Malifaux community at large and see if there's some things i haven't considered. I'm definitely not a master with Hoffman at this point, so there's more I may have missed, and I'm interested to see what people will come up with.

[EnternalVoid]

More of an out of the box thought but have you considered Guild Guards or Guild Hounds?  You can generally either blister for 11-14 bucks.  This would leave you 9-12 bucks.  At this you could get a Mobile Toolkit and possible stay under the $23.00 mark.  The Addition of the Guild Guards or Hounds give you objective runner/cheap activations that can be entirely independant of Hoffman and his constructs.  In turn the mobile toolkit is a cheap 3ss option if you took the upgrade that lets you take Arcanist Constructs.  It can buff your damage dealers, hang around Hoffman so he can use its Armor +2 for his trigger, buff armor on constructs and near the end of the game can go Boom pretty hard if your opponent has not taken it out.  Even on turn 3 the TN for its detonation is 14 and it does 3 damage.  If you get to turn 5 before using it the TN is 16 for 5 damage.  With Machine Puppet you can even push it around to where you it to go boom.

 

Or you can get a blister of the Alternate Steampunk Arachnids for 9.50.  That leaves you 13.50 which you could use to get Joss and maybe have a couple bucks left.

[Godgolden]

Who doesnt love peacekeepers?

 

Ryle is good but you have the buy the official model? it aint so great.

 

Joss is great but he's in an entire box-set

 

Mobile toolkit as suggested is a damn good buy, I love this little dude.

 

Mechanical Attendant: this guy can turn off auras... he can turn them off.. just like that.. so good, good target for sap power too, and he looks amazing, whats not to like?

 

Metal Gamin: Very good target for powerloop, tough little objective guard.

 

All the robots.

[Bacms]

Good suggestions in here a warden is a good fit as it is a seconda watcher. Ryle is quite expensive so taking him and a peacekeeper might be a bit too much and they both fit the role of damage dealer, but Ryle has less resilience. I haven't yet explored the Arcanist assets so can't offer much input on them. Also feel like I am missing a model to remove conditions so a Witchling stalker might make an appearance 

[EntrepeNinja]

Howard Langston who is also in the same boat as Ryle, has seen a lot of success with me. Loop in his melee seven, and also you can give him the extra attacks through Hoffman's obey. Though, he's also in a box set, and competing with the peacekeeper.

I second the metal gamin. Loop him in, your at casting 8. Two constructs around you? Casting 10. You can cast shakedown on a black joker.

If you're looking for condition removal, and are also looking to branch into arcanist at all- consider Johan. He's got rebel yell for condition removal, a great melee, and buffs himself near M&SU members.

[osoi]

I would look at a mix of Metal Gamin, Mobile Toolkit, Warden or Watcher.

 

The Metal Gamin ar ebrilliant with Hoffman and add a lot to Hoffman's game.

 

I have run games with Hoffman where I have run both Howard and the Peacekeeper and found it very worthwhile, you wont do it all the time but if the start is something like reckoning or Turf war I found it works quite well.

[AgentRock]

I'm definitely looking at the Metal Gamin. If nothing else, they're cheap, tough guys to buff up his activations. Eventually more Watchers and Wardens will find their way in, but with the Wardens costing 18 a piece they're kind of prohibitive for this format. 

[Gorbad]

I have run games with Hoffman where I have run both Howard and the Peacekeeper and found it very worthwhile, you wont do it all the time but if the start is something like reckoning or Turf war I found it works quite well.

 

I was just going to say that. I've seen first hand how effective that can be. Having both up front is very brutal as they can easily devastate anything they might come across and while one can be "easily" managed two is a lot harder.

[AgentRock]

That does sound pretty nasty.