Perdita vs McMourning

My Perdita List:

Perdita
Enslaved Nephilim
Fransisco, Lead Lined Coat - 12
Santiago - 8
Papa Loco - 7
Nino - 7
Monster Hunter - 6
Monster Hunter - 6
Cache - 4

McMourning List:

McMourning, The Whisper
Zombie Chihuahua
Sebastian
Rogue Necromancy
Carrion Emissary
Canine Remains
Nurse
Nurse
Cache - 5

Strategy: Plant Explosives
Schemes: Hold Up Their Forces (Guild), Deliver a Message (Ressers). Both had Harness The Ley Line

Deployment looked like this. I planned to start scoring Plant Explosives early by placing with Nino in turn 2 and try to move the Monster Hunters up to Harness the Ley Line turn 2, and score Plant Explosives on turn 3 and 4. Nino starts by doing 2dmg to the Rogue Necro. One of the Monster Hunters move up, stun the Rogue Necro and land 4 dmg on him, he later attacks back, dealing 2dmg to the MH after I spent a pass token to reduce the dmg by 2, the only time this game I got to use Tough as Nails. Frank finishes him off and I am in a good spot, seemingly. Carrion Emissary moves up a little, builds a wall to Mexico, cutting off my rightmost Monster Hunter and Papa somewhat. Perdita moves into the forest and shoots a few points of dmg off of him. Papa hits a blast of dynamite into the church, but both the Nurse and the Canine dodges gracefully. Santiago removes the poison from the MH damaged by the Necro and gives focuses her. McMourning was much quicker than I thought and moved into the forest, hit Perdita twice for massive dmg and was suddenly in the middle of my crew.

Frank heroicly intervens to push Perdita away from McMourning, flurries and hits McMourning several times, but due to hard to wound, never for more than two dmg. McMourning stones some of the dmg and heals most of it back after he Rancid Transplants Perdita and is back in the middle of my crew again. Rogue Necro does 5dmg to my Monster Hunter and poisons him. Nino picks off the totem. Santiago removes injured and poison from Perdita and gives her some focus.

This is where things start to go bad fast. My crew doesn't do enough dmg to take out McMourning, which is kind of annoying, as he has been in the middle of all my beaters for a while now. McMourning kills Perdita and Santiago, but is in return put down by Frank. Both my Monster Hunters die, and so does really my chances of scoring anything meaningful as well. I cannot even score Hold Up Their Forces due to the Nephilim being insignificant.

Frank picks off the Carrion Emissary, but I cannot manage to place enough Scheme Markers on the centreline, nor any additional bombs on my opponent's side of the table. In the end, he wins 5-1

This may sound bitter after having lost 1-5, but I am not sure how Family is supposed to work right now. This isn't something I suddenly realised after losing yesterday, but something that has been on the mind of both the players for quite a while, seeing as both of us play Guild. Perdita and her Family have been our most played crew by far, and they haven't really impressed us at all. Whoever plays them tend to lose big. There are several grit abilities in the crew, but no way to control them by turning them on now that Shotgun Wedding and Amina is gone, there is no card draw at all outside of Pass Tokens and Hero's Gamble, an ability that triggers off number of models in the crew, and doesn't really have anything to do with the Family keyword per se.

There is also no ruthless in the entire Family, which means that Monster Hunters are horribly afraid of monsters, and that the entire crew has yet another thing they need to spend cards on, on top of no card draw and seemingly everyone having a 5+/6+ free action they need to get off.

In my group, I have been advocating some changes to how Family work to make them synergise more with each other. I felt I had this combo piece when Shotgun Wedding allowed Abuela to hire Amina into the crew due to her anti-charge bubble, obey and her turning on grit. Admittedly, it felt weird that an Arcanist piece provided more synergy than a Family piece, but it was a workaround. I would love to see Abuela get an ability like Matriarch, where she turned on grit abilities for friendly Family members in an aura. Perdita should also have some of her abilities synergise more with Family members I think. As it is now, she is probably best in a multi-master crew with few models due to how Hero's Gamble and Tough as Nails work.

Lucius vs Molly

My Lucius list:

Lucius
The Scribe
Agent 46, Lead Lined Coat - 11
Doppleganger - 8
Investigator - 7
Lawyer - 6
Rifleman - 7
Rifleman - 7
Cache - 4

Molly list:
Molly
Necrotic Machine
Archie, Grave Spirit's Touch - 11
Phillip and the Nanny - 8
Grave Golem, Killer Instinct - 12
The Forgotten Marshal - 7
Rabble Riser - 6
Cache - 2 (Should have been 6, but my opponent thought you had to pay for your totem. I think he also paid an extra SS for the Grave Golem)

Strategy: Corrupted Idols
Schemes: I had Claim Jump on the Investigator and Breakthrough. My opponent had Claim Jump and Power Ritual.

After deployment, the board looked like this. The large terrain piece on the left side of my deployment zone is severe, so I decided to stay away from it. This may have been a mistake, seeing as the Idols might suddenly appear on the other side of the board, but I felt somewhat confident in my considerable firepower being enough to pick off any scheme runners moving toward that side of the board.

My opponent makes a mistake here and moves his Grave Golem cautiously forward. I respond by pushing and shuffling with scheme markers and Lucius and suddenly have all my four rifles (Riflemen, Dopple and Agent) in range, two of them even not having LoS to Molly. The Grave Golem goes down without managing to get out any Corpse Markers and I have a huge advantage early. Archie moves into position to jump onto Lucius.

I realise that I cannot actually prevent Archie from getting into Lucius without moving out so that Molly can see me, so I decide to keep him there and hope that Serene Countenance and soulstones will be enough for him to survive for a while. Worst case scenario, I can shoot into combat with Riflemen and take off a few wounds of Archie. Agent 46 steals Archie's fist and charges Phillip, but back to back 13s saves him and his Nanny from taking any dmg. His Rabble Riser pushes the Idol to my side of the board and charges a Rifleman. I pick off the Rabble Riser and manage to push the Idol back to his side of the board. The Investigator does some shenanigans with a corpse maker and pushes out of combat and walks to the middle to Claim Jump.

Turn 3, I gun down Molly and my opponent concedes. I have almost full board control and can more or less score the points I want while preventing him from scoring.

Thoughts on the crews:

GUILD:

Lucius: Lucius seems like a solid master. He has a great toolbox for controlling the pace of the game and to apply pressure where needed. I am still not convinced how useful he is commanding non-elites, as he has to pass an additional test without any card draw, but at least it is an option. Molly dictated his placement in this game a lot, but it worked out OK-ish.

Agent 46: Still the be-all and end-all of actual combat capability in the Elite crew. His Inhuman Physiology makes him Inhumanly strong (sorry), but I also feel like he is desperately needed at all times for this crew to actually accomplish what they are trying to do.

The Scribe: I misplayed the Scribe a bit this game. I should have been playing him closer to Lucius to pull him out of combat. I like him as a toolbox totem and think he is elegantly designed for what he is.

Doppleganger: My first time playing with him. Copying guns and shooting at people with stat 7 or charging with Agent 46s Twirling Blades was fun. As many other things in the Elite list, the doppleganger is a toolbox and often have the right tool for the job.

Investigator: Investigator is also really good at what she does. I seldom manage to get her to attack in any meaningful way, but often use her for card draw, pushes, discarding opponent's cards and running schemes. She is great at all those things.

Lawyer: I really like how the Lawyers play. Tools for the job just makes them so much fun to use. You often have to make a choice of whether to activate them when you have the right card on top of your dicard pile. As all the other elite models they are heavily reliant on actually having their beater in play to obey.

Riflemen: I mainly brought these guys to shoot, and for the two mimics to copy their weapons. That worked out really well, but they also provided my crew with some additional soulstones due to their ability to pick up corpse markers, as well as some additional dmg against charging enemies. I am still not sure if they actually fit in this crew, but they provide a deadly firebase and a lot of ranged threats, especially for an opponent who only wants to fight in melee. The fact that they ignore friendly fire is also extremely solid.

RESSERS:

Molly: So, Lethe's Caress sure is something. I think changing it to LoS really helped and it is in a much better place now. I managed to hide my combatants behind my opponent's bigger models, which allowed them to actually hit twice. I also had Agent 46 and Dopple as my primary beaters, which could copy other attacks to prevent me from taking dmg. I am not sure how this would work if I instead played something like Perdita and her gunfighter buddies though. With only one attack to choose from, the game would have been almost unwinnable, I think.

Grave Golem: I don't know why he lost his ability to generate corpse markers, but he seems weak now. I was easily able to pick him off turn one, even though he used the totem to try and heal it.

The rest of the crew seemed to work as intended, I especially liked Archie with his leap.

The Malifaux Tattler

In this blog, I want to document my journey as a new and mediocre Malifaux player into a decent one. I find that having a blog to write my thoughts in and to reflect upon the games I have played, is a great help in improving as a player. The name of the blog is, as most of you may have noticed, the name of the Malifaux newspaper, where Nellie Cochrane is the editor.

I am not the greatest hobbyist so the focus will be mostly on the games I play, but I will try to include some painting and modeling, if nothing else to make other people feel better about their own hobby skills.