Just When I Thought I Was Out, They Reel Me Back In

           I was all ready to cut ties with the Neverborn. I put my monster models away on the shelf. I lamented the removal of the masters I had played for the last several years from the faction (ok, technically Dead Man’s Hand masters regained their faction allegiance at the end of the beta, but you know what I mean.) I spent most of my engagement in Alpha/Beta testing Guild or Ten Thunders. I even had a #notmyNeverborn locked and loaded, ready for release along with M3E (there would have been T-Shirts. It would have been great.)

            And then I thought of a Neverborn crew.

            Admittedly, the beginning of this Kickstarter had something to do with twisting my mind back in the direction of Malifaux’s twisted natives. I’ve always wanted to do the Dreamer as HP Lovecraft and these models make good proxies.

(He’s a little too old, as he’d be 16/17 in Malifaux today.  Also, of course, he was born in Rhode Island instead of London like the Dreamer. Maybe in his dreams he reverts a bit in age? The above is a picture of him as a nine year old. L Sprague de Camp described him as a brown-eyed tot with with long golden curls…)

            Anyways, I’m getting off topic. Dreamer’s fun, but having bought his Nightmare Edition metal box in M1E that I never painted or played I 1) Don’t have any Alps to summon 2) Lost one of Coppelius’s face tentacles a long while ago and 3) don’t have a Widow Weaver or Serena Bowman to use as henchmen. So, it’ll be a while until I can field a Dreamer crew realistically (assuming those models don’t all suck, which is possible. People who tested Neverborn in the beta can let me know.) So, basically, I was just planning on using the models as an art project and nothing else.

            Then, of course, the Easter Sale happened (it’s still happening, btw. Go buy stuff. I guess. You don’t have to.)

            This year’s new limited edition alternate model is a really cool/gross alternate sculpt of the Stitched Together. They’re pretty cool, and I started to feel the gribbly little claws of the Neverborn worming their way back into my soul. I looked them up in the beta files. They’re pretty good. Not as killy as they used to be, but nothing is in M3E. That’s one of the points. But the final straw came when I glanced at the Dead Man’s Hand files to see what ended up becoming of Lillith and Collodi. I don’t care for the former, but the latter seems like a pretty good compromise of some of the M2E stuff and not wanting him to be completely unbalanced. The Dreamer, I realized, only casts 13 stones to hire for some reason (I mean he doesn’t do much damage, but he’s a summoner. I’m just surprised, is all.) He can only summon 2 nightmares, but Collodi can hire all 3 of the Stitched Togethers if you want at base price, all of which can do Lucid Dream to help feed Dreamer and use the cards you mill for your life gambling attack.

           

            And a crew was born.

            I mean, it’s Dead Man’s Hand, so obviously you have to have your TO allow you to use it, but I kind of want to because it keeps one foot in both worlds of M2E and M3E for me. Dreamer is there to resummon any of the Stitched that die during the game. He can do it from literally anywhere on the board, since his summoning mechanics have the summoned Nightmare appear next to an enemy who fails a WP duel. I think it may be better to only come with two Stitched and have Dreamer summon the third one so it can pop out in the fray later on. He can summon Insidious Madness later on in the game to run schemes if necessary, although in M2E anyways the Marionnettes were able to do a lot of the heavy scheme runner lifting on his own.

           

            Anyways, a list.

Nightmares and Puppet Shows

Collodi-Inhuman Reflexes         2SS

4xMarionnettes                          0SS (Hurray for free totems)

Dreamer                                     13SS

Brutal Effigy                                 4SS

2xStitched Together                12SS

Vasilisa                                         8SS

Another Effigy                             4SS

Cache                                            7SS

            The second effigy slot can swap around to something different depending on matchup. If I know I’ll need condition removal, Arcane is an obvious choice. I think Lucky would be a good all-rounder choice. There may be other options, who knows. To be determined. I think it’s good. Let me know what you think.