We’re rolling up on March 17th, which means now is the
time for recapping month 1 of ToMB and creating the post that serves as the real
summary for new players to utilize when starting their own Malifaux Tales. As
previously stated, I am utilizing the Guild’s construct master, C. Hoffman. I
purchased the starter box and the Peacekeeper to make my month 1 crew, and have
played three games over Vassal with them to start learning how the crew works.
Let’s discuss what we’ve learned to start with, and then we’ll talk about the
game reports.
Hoffman
Hoffman’s abilities, unsurprisingly, revolve around his
interactions with Guild constructs. Rather than build them from the ground up
like Ramos, however, Hoffman’s specialty is in modifying existing constructs
and assimilating qualities from them to augment himself. In a way, he kind of
reminds me of playing Collodi, as the bread and butter activation with him on
an average turn tends to consist of A) setting up the appropriate
modifications/buffs onto your constructs or B) machine puppeting your
constructs to attack/move/interact. He has a respectable melee attack, though
with no charge you’re probably not going to be using it unless something has
gone wrong and you’re fighting on your own. One of his assets I got a lot of
unexpected mileage from is Hoff’s WP of 6, as the Power Loop trait shared with
whichever model Hoffman is using as his ride that in turn can utilize this
above average stat, which is very helpful when squaring off with things that
require terror checks. Perhaps more importantly, this crew passes out a lot of
buffs to boost Df flips, but not as many for WP resists, so at times I found Hoff’s
shared WP to be an invaluable asset.
Hoffman’s upgrades are where you can do a bit of fiddling
with the crew you’re trying to build. The two I’ve tried out are “Field
Mechanic” and “Arcanist Assets.” The main use for Field Mechanic, obviously, is
the ability to pass modification upgrades to the other constructs in the crew.
These can hand out a variety of traits to the crew, including Armor+1,
Nimble+1, the ability to make interact actions as a (0), and the ability to
pitch the modification for a +Rams to Ml and Sh actions for that turn. A
typical open with Hoffman typically involved trying to flip these modifications
onto as many models as possible to set up for the strategy, usually with the
(0) Shakedown to spit out the scrap counter required for either Hydraulics or
Improvised Plating. In the box set crew, “Targeting Systems” is possibly the
least useful, as the only real use is to spike value of the
Peacekeeper and the Hunter’s Critical Hit triggers. Usually you’ll want to put
other Mods on these models, but there are other constructs that will get more
mileage from this in the future. However, these are also where a lot of healing
comes into the crew, as the zero action “Frantic Repairs” from Arcanist Assets
allows you to strip a modification from a construct, drop a scrap counter, and
heal the model. This scrap can then be used for another action from Field
Mechanic, Improvised Repairs, that gives all models within 3” of the scrap
counter another healing flip. This preponderance of healing ended up being a
sort of unexpected theme in the crew, as several of the other constructs also
have heal actions of some variety (and I discovered, to my detriment, how much trouble you're in when the enemy prevents this healing.) I haven’t tried out the other upgrades (OSA
and Remote Mines,) as I haven’t typically seen great results from AoE spells
with flat TN’s to resist in the past and rarely feel that I would rather have
Hoffman take an action personally rather than let him use Machine Puppet. The Tap
Power trait will maybe be more useful when I get to including a totem for him,
but I also don’t like stealing an AP from my minions, as they have all proven
to be pretty useful thus far. Maybe this will change in the future (Hoff’s
avatar, for one thing, is a much more melee oriented model.)
Hoff needs to stay with his crew. He doesn’t have the
ability to accomplish much on his own and is very, very vulnerable when he can’t
use the Defense trigger to borrow the armor value from nearby constructs,
making him vulnerable to WP attacks and Blasts or other forms of indirect
damage. I’ve typically used the Soulstones in the crew for hand crafting, but
this may be due to only having him in real danger of physical harm in one of
the three test games I’ve played.
Peacekeeper
He is the heavy hitter of the crew, and effectively fills
the role of Henchman in this build. For the points you pay, you get an Armor+2
(+3 with Patchwork) Hard to Wound, Terrifying 12 (Living) model that can move
relatively quickly with Hoffman’s machine puppet to aid it and can do a pile of
damage to enemy models. He comes with a chain spear with the 8” drag trigger,
which can be either a nasty surprise for your opponent or can be applied to
reposition friendly models in a hurry as well. All of this makes for a very,
very nasty model that is somewhere between difficult and impossible to remove
and which can really make you pay for coming within 10” of him. The Override
Edict (0) power also lets you destroy enemy scheme markers, giving him
disruption of enemy scoring. I like him a lot, but he does cost a pile of
points. It’s occurred to me that I could fit two of Hoff’s mid-range constructs
in for the points I spend on this guy. As more models become available, I’ll
need to try going without him to increase my AP in future games.
Guardian
After the third test game, my frequent sparring partner Jon
was heard to state “That damn Guardian seems like he’s the MVP of every game.”
When you first look at his stat card, the reasons for this may or may not
become immediately apparent (I’ll confess I didn’t quite spot them straight
away.) Fittingly for a model hauling around that big shield, his defensive
stats are quite stout (6 each Df and Wp, and Armor 1 with the Grinding Halt
trigger.) He’s immune to horror duels (constructs take more of them than you
think.) He has a 3” melee range on his flat balde, making him pretty good at
taking a position in melee and saying “Nope, you’re not going anywhere.” His
Shield Bash has a trigger to throw enemy models 4” and prevent them from
charging you back, granting some decent positioning. And then there’s the (0)
action.
Oh, that beautiful, beautiful (0) action.
Protect gives a friendly model Defensive +2 until the
Guardian’s next activation. This. Is. HUGE. One of the pleasant changes with
M2E was the increase in power of the Defensive action (as it is now no longer possible to stack a massive duel result, making your flip meaningless.) Getting to flip
three cards for defense resists is very strong. Plus it has a trigger on a ram
to throw in a healing flip for the protected model, or a mask trigger to let
him pop up next to the model he’s protecting. The real revelation here came
when I realized that it says Target Friendly Model on the action, not target Other friendly model, meaning he can
cast it on himself. Paired with his high defensive stats, this makes him a secondary
brick wall in the crew that can play area denial by getting to important places
on the board and simply refusing to move. He’s proven to be good enough that I’m
looking seriously at including him in non-Hoffman Guild crews.
Hunter
I’ve confessed a couple of times to the fact that I may be
using this minion wrong. At 7 stones you expect a lot out of these guys, and on
paper they have some interesting tools to get things done. They have the same
chain spear-drag for repositioning as the Peacekeeper. They get a positive flip
for attacks on models that haven’t activated yet, so you’ll either want to
activate him early to take advantage of this or send him after lower priority
targets that your opponent is likely to wait on. He’s decently mobile, with a
free 3” push at the end of every turn (that, if you’re like me, you will forget
2 out of every 5 turns per game, on average) and can jump into melee with “Pounce
on Chest” to close the gap and potentially get a free attack with a high crow,
which doesn’t tend to be an important suit for this crew. There’s an
interesting potential for a 1-2 punch with Wardens that I’ll be looking to
exploit down the line, as one wants to attack things which haven’t activated
yet and the other gets bonuses against things that have, but I’ve still yet to
have a game where I’ve said “There you go, now I get it, that’s what Hunters
are for.” Their survivability is not great, so it’s likely you’ll need them to
be prowling flanks and attacking soft targets to be successful. His main role
seems to be that of mobile chain spear platform, with pretty good melee to
finish off whatever you’ve drug out of position. Still, Joel Henry keeps going
on and on about how awesome they are, so maybe I just haven’t glommed onto them
yet.
Watcher
These guys get modified on the first turn pretty much every
game. They’re your objective grabbers, and they’re good at what they do with a
little tweaking. I know a popular start to most Scheme Marker heavy scenarios
is to use Hoff to give one of them Nimble and a second one Programmed
Directive, effectively giving them both a pair of Wk 6 Flight movements followed
by an interact on every turn. Unfortunately, their tactical actions and attacks haven’t
proven to be particularly synergistic with the rest of the crew thus far, as
they mostly interact with Ranged attacks by negating cover and/or granting line
of sight to the crew’s master, neither of which have proven particularly useful
thus far. I can see a scenario where they could light up a hiding model to let
them get hit with a chain spear or Warden’s Restraint Claw, but it’s too bad
they don’t have a way of doing some damage on their own. Also, they're a bit fragile, though no more than what you expect from 4 stone models, so you'll need to take care of them on the board to keep the enemy from blowing them up.
General Conclusions
At the end of month 1, some things about the crew turned out
to be as expected and others have fooled me. The main thrust of the offensive
potential comes from the old school Hoff-ball of the master, Peacekeeper, and
Guardian. The Guardian can make the Peacekeeper nigh-unkillable, and with a
potential 6 attacks due to Machine Puppet and the Fast trigger there isn’t much
that will survive against them in close combat. The Watcher is a good objective
runner and not much else. What I didn’t expect was how much healing they have, and thus how
sturdy and resistant this crew is. The only thing missing, frankly, is
condition removal (something that ended up biting me hard in the battle report
below) to make them nearly unstoppable in traditional combat.
So, at the end of month 1, I’ve gotten three games in and
the crew is painted. I was pleasantly surprised with how well the paint job
came out on all of these models. It’s a relatively quick and simple paint
scheme. The red is a dark red paint with a lighter done over top and the
Carroburg Crimson Citadel wash applied, followed by the brighter red
highlights. The metal is a thicker drybrush of the Boltgun Metal from Citadel,
followed by a heavy wash of Nuln oil, and then application of the Typhus
Corruption and Riza Rust technical effects paints to make them look dingier and
rustier. This group was actually also my first attempts at sculpting with
greenstuff, as I got tired of paying for base inserts and decided to try my
hand at making my own. They’re nothing fancy (I just followed this tutorial,)
but they get the job done and I think they look pretty good.
I’ve also started tracking my progress through the project
using Bill Anderson’s Google Drive spreadsheet. You can follow along with me
here.
Battle Reports
The first two games I played are posted here and here. For
the end of the month, I opted to try and get a sneak preview of what is coming
next month. Jon and I had both downloaded the updated M2E module for Vassal,
and opted to try out one of the new interior maps.
45SS Turf War
Scheme Pool: Line in the Sand, Protect Territory, Take
Prisoner, Some other things
Hoffman-Arcanist Assets, Field Mechanic
Ryle-Forgotten Memories
Guardian
Peacekeeper
Watcher
Hunter
Nicodem- Muwahaha, some other stuff
Mortimer-Corpse Bloat
Sebastian
Crooligan
Bellesx2
Vulture
Knowing that I was up against Ressers and, likely, Nicodem,
I knew I was in for a scrum. The Watcher wasn’t going to be any help for this,
so I thought Protect Territory would be something it could accomplish on its
own. Manueverability was going to be limited due to the walls. My plan was to
use the Hunter around the outside of the Turf War bubble to grab enemy models
and pull them out while the Hoff, Peacekeeper, and Guardian hold the center
with Ryle providing support.
As a bonus perk, we had Ratty jump in to watch the game
while he was working on grave markers.
Turn 1 saw me throwing out armor to the Peacekeeper and Precision
Targeting to the Guardian because…I’m an idiot? I don’t know. It doesn’t do
anything for him. Anyway, our group took position around the center of the
board and prepared for the coming tide of the dead.
I liked Jon’s opening quite a bit, with him deploying a
Crooligan up field to serve as bait for the “Fresh Meat” action. This helps to
offset the amount of AP he has to use on generating corpse counters for
Nicodem, allowing him to get the summoning engine running without slowing down
progress. The Belles help out a lot with this as well. By the start of Turn 2,
I was facing a pair of Hanged and some various other Undead where before there
was a much smaller group. Ratty astutely pointed out "this game is just going to turn into a bloodbath in the middle." Seeing that there was no way to make him take the
first move, I elected to press into the center with the Peacekeeper and try to
hold them out of the scoring zone. I’m fairly sure this was the right move, but
it also ended up essentially costing me the game. As soon as we were out of
cover, the Hanged attacked the Peacekeeper and Ryle, knocking them to half
wounds and, more significantly, blocking any healing. I could see the writing
on the wall at this point, but gave it a go to try and hold out.
From here it became a battle of attrition not unlike the
climax of a zombie movie, with the desperate survivors trying to hold back a
horde of undead. Punk zombies flurrying with plus flips from Nicodem’s aura went
against double positive defense flips on the Peacekeeper with the Guardian’s
help. I also learned that Nicodem can now summon the student models from
University of Transmortis, including the Student of Steel, meaning my
constructs were in a lot of trouble.
I managed to hold until turn four and then switch Ryle into
his place, but his base wasn’t sizeable enough to block the entrance and he
didn’t have the toughness of the Peacekeeper, so the Undead mauled him. Turn
Five the Guardian tried to hold the entrance, but it was too late. Hoffman didn’t
survive long exposed in this way, so the game was essentially lost. Having it
go to extra turns only gave Nicodem the opportunity to throw another Student of
Steel to go kill my Watcher and prevent my Protect Territory from scoring.
Amusingly, on Turn 7 Nicodem walked forward towards my Hunter, letting him
pounce on him and “Capture” him at the end of the game. This was too little too late, however, as the game ended in a 5-9 loss for me.
This may have exposed one of the biggest flaws in the armor
of this crew: preventing healing. The crew uses a ton of it, and when it's blocked out you're going to need to be a lot more careful with your constructs to keep them up and fighting. This makes the Ressers potentially a very poor
matchup for Hoffman. Molly and Nicodem can both potentially summon either the
Hanged and/or the Students of Steel. This was all done without him having the
Decaying Aura, meaning that this could potentially have been an even worse
match-up. Factor that in with it being Turf War, which is probably Nicodem’s
strongest strategy, and I was likely going to be in trouble regardless of what happened. This is
enough to make me consider throwing in a Witchling Stalker when facing Ressers
or Outcasts (Jack Daw can hired Hanged, and there are other Outcasts with nasty conditions that would be worth removing) just to prevent my healing from being
completely shut down, as it was during this game.
I wasn’t impressed with Ryle’s upgrade. He has
two pretty good zero actions already, and it doesn’t seem worthwhile to use it every
turn for a single reactivation on turn 3. He didn’t get much of a chance to shine
here, but I can see the potential. Still, I think I’ll be better off going a different
direction next month, as this crew desperately needs more activations and less points.
The addition of the Students makes for a nice bit of tech for Nicodem, as a side note. They don't have Hard to Kill as the two standard Nicodem summons do (Necropunks and Punk Zombies) so you can't guarantee an activation for them, but with armor, hard to wound, and terrifying (whatever you're attacking them with,) they're pretty tough. The only failing of the Students is that you can't know beforehand whether they'll be any use to you during the hiring phase, which Nicodem sidesteps nicely by summoning them during the game.
Anyway, that's the month one wrap-up. As usual, comments are appreciated and encouraged. See you in a couple of days for Month 2!
The addition of the Students makes for a nice bit of tech for Nicodem, as a side note. They don't have Hard to Kill as the two standard Nicodem summons do (Necropunks and Punk Zombies) so you can't guarantee an activation for them, but with armor, hard to wound, and terrifying (whatever you're attacking them with,) they're pretty tough. The only failing of the Students is that you can't know beforehand whether they'll be any use to you during the hiring phase, which Nicodem sidesteps nicely by summoning them during the game.
Anyway, that's the month one wrap-up. As usual, comments are appreciated and encouraged. See you in a couple of days for Month 2!
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