Through the Breach Bits: Introducing Soulstory and Presenting Three TTB FM Characters For Your Campaign

In honor of the launch of, to my knowledge, one of if not the first Through the Breach actual play podcast, I decided to go through some random bits and bobs I’ve been tinkering with for the roleplaying game. But before that, let’s mention the thing that inspired this, the Soulstory podcast.

Soulstory is, at first blush a standard Through the Breach game (I haven’t listened to all of them yet. They’ve put out a lot of content in the first couple weeks of life to try and push themselves up on itunes new podcasts ratings.) There are four Fated, whose stats are not currently revealed to the listeners, including a bounty hunter who fancies himself a ladies man, a guild fighter with a dark past, a doctor with PTSD and an ability with fire magic, and a murderer on the run. They are thrown together in the initial game session by being tied to the same mission to cleanse Malifaux rats from the city. If you’ve never heard of an actual-play cast, the crew runs an RPG session and records it before publishing it to the wide world. Some of them can be just raw audio, but SoulStory is edited and produced to make for a smoother listening experience. Also, they’re putting the rules behind the story for the time being, particularly the intricacies of the + and – flip mechanics which can be a bit intimidating for newer players.

I’ve been listening to actual-play pods for a very long time. They’re a good way to hear new adventures and pick up some game mastering tips. Since then, the introduction of the wildly successful Critical Role Dungeons and Dragons show and the advent of twitch streaming has caused them to explode in both quantity and quality, which thrills me to no end. I have been thinking for some time that Wyrd needs a Through the Breach version of these, and had considered throwing my hat in the ring, but ultimately decided that I didn’t have the time or technical knowledge to make it happen. I’m excited, then, to see Soulstory making the first moves into this venue. If you’re interested, go to soulstorypod.com and give them a listen and, if you like what you hear, give them a rating on itunes or whatever pod rating things are out there.

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So, some Through the Breach quick hits. A while ago I started tinkering with ideas to put into a Through the Breach game at some point in the future. As of this writing, most of my time playing the game is spent playtesting upcoming Through the Breach stuff (wait till you see what’s coming in part 4 of the worldwide event, folks. It’s pretty cool.) This, of course, is not something I can write about. Also, Phiasco’s using the rules engine to run a game of Firefly, but that doesn’t always make for great fodder here either. As such, the detritus has collected in a notebook. Time to share some of it with the world.

I’m more of a fan of the Badlands area than Malifaux proper, if I’m being honest. It’s not that I hate the city or anything. More that the frontier is more of a blank slate in which I can paint. That’s the reason for the original creation of my campaign hook, the Phantom Line, being set out there. I’ve since come up with some other stuff from the wilderness I’m workshopping. Here’s what I’ve got so far.

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Now imagine they could shapeshift into hawks or...*shudder*...bears 

                  The New Chiricahua is a tribe of Native Americans that relocated to Malifaux to live in the wilderness rather than accept relocation to a reservation. The idea came from one of Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History casts called Tears of the Apche, detailing the numerous conflicts the US army came into with that tribe, leading up to the last break-out Geronimo led in the 1880s. I was a little stunned that the Apache were still such a threat even that late in our history, and I was more than a little sad that these knowledgeable frontiersmen and warriors eventually lost simply due to lack of numbers and resources. I wanted to give their story a different ending.

In the history of Malifaux, Neverborn refugees transferred to Earth long in our world’s past through one of the lesser known breaches, intermixing with the native American tribes and crossbreeding with them. Over time, this Neverborn blood has become diluted, with only a few of them showing any inclination towards magic. Some of this was awakened with the opening of the first Great Breach in the 1790s, leading to many of the local tribes regaining some of these latent powers. Still, the Black Powder Wars and the strength of the US army (backed with Guild resources, of course) were more than these Apache rebels could handle. Eventually, led by the famous medicine man Geronimo, the Chiricahua broke out from their reservation and ran into the hills, guided by a vision to a small breach in Arizona near Skeleton Canyon. With the Guild’s troops hot on their heels, they knew their only hope lay in escape. The small breach, however, wasn’t large or stable enough for them to pass through. Seeing this, the ancient leader channeled his life force into a ritual to temporarily force it open, letting his people pass through before he collapsed. The Chiricahua found themselves in an ancient, unknown land, and Geronimo died a free man, saving his people in the process.

Meanwhile, the Chiricahua had to learn to survive in Malifaux. The ancient Badlands are honestly not that different than their homeland, and the awakened magics in their blood helped them to adapt and thrive by channeling the elements or shifting their bodies to take on aspects of the creatures they’d long worshipped. They’ve come into conflict with the Neverborn over time, but have since made an uneasy peace with the locals. Both sides raid each other periodically, but both understand that this is done culturally as part of avoiding escalation to a larger conflict, rather than as inevitable steps towards a battle that would only end in grief for both. They have spent the intervening years making a new home for themselves, and have watched with some trepidation as humans have returned through the “second” breach. Hostilities seem inevitable, and the Chiricahua find themselves trapped between their own species and their erstwhile Neverborn “allies,” trying to find the best ways to survive and protect their new way of life.

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Herman Wipple came to Malifaux, a penniless nobody floating from one scheme to the next with no prospects. He soon found himself on the wrong side of some ill-advised investments with the Katanaka Organization, on the run from debt collectors. One evening he found himself in a place that is always welcome to those who are down on their luck but with a glimmer of untapped talent: The Honeypot Casino. After one evening with the good stuff, Wipple could be found standing on a tabletop in the saloon, expounding on the many merits of his particular brands of tonics and snake-oils to a delighted audience until the earliest hours of dawn, and the establishment’s proprietor found himself a new sales opportunity.

The Honeypot is a fantastic way to channel Brilliance into the community of Malifaux, but the outlying towns and districts are another matter. To spread the Hungering Darkness’s influence there, Lynch has taken the man into his employ and given him a store of the drug to peddle in the contract towns of the Northern Hills or the Badlands. “Professor Wipple’s Cure-All” is thus sold out of the back of the man’s wagon to unsuspecting rubes as a means of easing their various maladies, facilitating work crews to put in extra overtime and work more efficiently, and inspire the intellectual to greater feats of creativity or magical alacrity. When, weeks later, the cure-all runs out and Professor Wipple’s cart has proceeded down the road to the next stop, a voice in their ear directs them to the Honeypot to get some more of the good stuff, with none the wiser as to the source of this debilitating addiction.

Wipple’s success has so-far managed to keep his debtors at bay and keep the Hungering Darkness from coming to claim him. The more he sells, the longer he gets to live. But, he knows in the back of his mind that he’s living on borrowed time, and a bad week of sales could end him forever.

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It takes a lot to make a tribe of Nephilim particularly notorious. The average human probably couldn’t tell one of the purple-skinned creatures from another if their life depended on it, so the fact that the Pale-Mark tribe is whispered of in taprooms and stagecoaches near the Far Peaks should give an indication of the level of savagery to which they have descended.

Nephilim attacking humans is not a new thing. Nephilim drinking blood or consuming flesh also is nothing new. But Nephilim descending on livestock, horses, wild animals, or even other Nephilim and consuming them entirely is something else. Rumor has it that they wandered off from their people’s forests to live in the mountains at some point in the distant past, either being driven off as exiles or choosing to make a break with the other tribes. Eventually, they found themselves trapped by a severe winter that drove them to the brink of death and forced them to turn to cannibalism to survive. And, in doing so, they accepted a deal with an ancient entity of hunger and cold, which has since driven them nearly to the point of madness and cannibalism. There are other whispers that members of the Pale-Mark have been seen working with some of the wild-men from the northern mountains, though these are almost too ridiculous to be believed. What is known is that something has started to drive them down from their mountains, and they’ve been preying on stagecoaches and settlements ever since. What’s caused this is unknown, but it seems like someone is going to have to go deal with them before more innocents are sacrificed to slake their endless hunger.

State of the Blog, and How I Would Win The Iron Scorpius

It’s been too long since the last time I put something out. This makes the 2^nd time in a row I’ve skipped a week between posts, and that’s not the commitment I made to my patreon backers, and that’s not acceptable. The underlying reason is the same one that most people have: life happens and you get busy. I’m in the process of interviewing for a new job at the moment and my wife is in the final stretch of finishing her nursing degree. Things are a little busy around Malifaux Musings HQ. But still, people are giving me some cash to put these things together, and I have a commitment to making it happen. That said, part of not having a lot of time is also not having a lot of bandwidth in my life for playing multiple games of Malifaux, which also means not having nearly as many good ideas for content. So, bear with me if you see more Through the Breach material or hobby posts in the coming weeks. I promise things will settle down at some point in the very near future and the blog will go back to “normal.” It's also likely that you'll see the day of publication pushed to Sundays, as I have more time to work on the posts over the weekend. 

Those of you who are Facebook friends with me may have noticed that I deactivated my account last week (though I posted to it so infrequently that it may not have made much of a difference, to be fair.) I have several reasons for this. First of all, as a researcher I know what is required to conduct psychological experiments on human subjects ethically, and I don’t consider a waiver buried on page 10 of a 12 page EULA to be “informed consent.” Facebook tinkers with their algorithm to try and find the right content to ensure you stay on it for as long as possible, collecting data on their users’ viewing habits and optimizing from there. This is unethical research, and I’m done supporting it. It doesn’t help that more and more they’ve tweaked it to show things that make the user upset, either. That “trending” column in the upper right links entirely to stories that make me angry, and I’m willing to bet the same is true for most of you. If you’re a gun control advocate, you can bet that all of your friends’ posts in favor of the second amendment will be shuffled to the top of your feed and vice versa.

None of that was news to me, however, and I’d put up with it for a long time. A couple of weeks ago, however, the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke, revealing that 1) they were collecting browsing data not just on you, but also on the people on your contact lists regardless of whether they had signed the EULA or not and 2) that they had started selling that information to political and advertising agencies. Even that may have just been another piece of aggravation, but shortly thereafter my grandmother was contacted by some scumbag in Ohio who told her that I had been thrown in prison in Cancun, and that she needed to send them $2000 and not tell anyone about it, or I’d never be seen again. So, yeah, informational security is kind of forefront on my mind at the moment. Deactivating facebook doesn’t immediately fix that problem, but at least it removes an entity that has repeatedly shown itself to be unworthy of trust.

There’s a problem, of course. I promote this blog through Facebook. Most of my post traffic comes from people clicking in from A Wyrd Place. If I want to keep this thing growing, I need to maintain some level of access to this tool. To address this, I created a dummy account for Malifaux Musings and gave it administrative control of the blog’s facebook page. So, any content I produce from here will still be available on FB as usual (though I would still encourage as many of you as are willing to shut their FB down as well. Nothing would make me happier than to decide it isn’t worth my time to cross-post my links to three different FB groups every week.) Nothing should change, but I don’t check FB with any kind of regularity. If you want to talk to me, use @MalifauxMusings on twitter. Slide into my DMs, and I’ll be happy to chat. Or look for Agentrock on Wyrd’s forums.

Anyway, enough about that shit, let’s talk about silly plastic toys.

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Mini-Musings

1)     Congratulations to friend of the blog Jamie “The F’n Red Dragon” Varney for his victory at the Welsh GT a few weeks ago. The organizers of the UK GT events had the cool idea to theme the prizes and trophies around the various nations’ national symbols/animals. The Welsh flag has a Red Dragon on it. Given Jamie’s proclivities for faction selection, I can only imagine that the results looked something like this.

2)     The Obsidian Gate Through the Breach event is still chugging along. Fated around the world are pooling their efforts to keep the Oni sealed away for the good of mankind. Are you doing your part? If not, sign up here (or get your Fatemaster to do it), grab a Fated and join in. No experience with the rules are required, as quick-play rules have been included for people new to Through the Breach.

3)      Finally, a fond farewell to Aaron Daarland, the mecha-tyrant of Virginia and lead designer of Malifaux for the past couple of years. He's moving on to greener pastures (or at least one with less Gremlins in it.) I'm sure we all wish him the best. 

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Next weekend, friend of the blog Travis Weyforth of Max Value fame will be running his Capital City Meltdown tournament in the DC area. They’re sold out, but they have a waiting list and people always drop from these things, so if you’re still interested I would consider contacting him.

One unique thing Travis has introduced for this tournament is the Iron Scorpius prize. This is a prize for the player in the tournament with the best record who plays a different master all five rounds, and it’s one of the smartest prop-bet style prizes I’ve seen in a Malifaux tournament. I doubt even he expected the number of participants going for it to be as high as it seems will happen, but just about everyone I’ve heard from whose attending is at least mulling over going for the prize. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the trophy for winning is this fabulous model painted by Craig Shipman.

So in lieu of having real games to tell you about, I thought I’d have a go at theory crafting how I’d approach each round if I was playing for the IS. I won’t be able to attend for reasons mentioned above, and even if I did I would be in no danger of actually winning the thing, so I’m not spoiling anything for myself. So let’s get to it.



Round 1) Standard, Ply for Information, Surround Them, Show Of Force, Set Up, Vendetta, Inescapable Trap



               My thought for this round is summoning Pandora. That crew typically brings a wide swath of enforcers who can carry cheap upgrades to score Show of Force, and Baby Kade is a dream model for Vendetta with his Lure to score the first point, high combat ability, and low soulstone cost. Models that want to Ply my models will have to walk into the bubble of badness that is overlapping Tannen/Widow Weaver/Tuco/Pandora/Poltergeist/Sorrow auras, which helps the crew out. I think this gives us a good groundwork to build from. Plus, Pandora can bring her Fugue State upgrade to penalize the models that do come in and take interacts.





2) Corner, Squatter’s Rights, Eliminate The Leadership, Take Prisoner, Set Up, Covert   Breakthrough, Dig Their Graves



               It’s been well over a year since I played Squatter’s Rights, and I’m struggling to remember the last time I did it with Neverborn. It may be reflective of this, then, that my first thought is “Ok, well, that means time for Sillurids.” I know they’re expensive and fragile, but they have Leap and they can handle their business for this strategy. Gupps supposedly can do the same job for cheaper, but 1) They also are even easier to kill and 2) I don’t own any of them. I’m tempted to try and lean into this even further, bringing a swamp fiend list with their From the Shadows upgrade. Maybe I could get a McTavish to carry the upgrade? Idk, that may be overkill since this is Flank Deployment. This is the one where I’ve got the least initial ideas. In any case, the Master and the other crew members will probably be busy fending off the enemy crew. I’m thinking the Titania and Barbaros crew, with Hoody as back-up. She’s free points for Dig Graves. Since Eliminate is in the pool, I’m thinking Pact with the Grave Spirit to help bring down the enemy Master.



Round 3) Flank, Headhunter, Eliminate The Leadership, Recover Evidence, Vendetta, Take One For The Team, Hold Up Their Forces



This one’s a pretty easy call, as Lynch with Cheating Bastard is made for Headhunter. Bringing in Beckoners who are able to cheat second on their Lures means, chances are, you’re not going to have to come far out of your comfort zone to drop some heads from the enemy. The rest of the crew would be hitters like the popular Hooded Rider/Nekima combination, or perhaps Stitched Together if my opponent makes me worried about shooting. Vendetta is in the pool again, so a Beckoner-Lure to get an easy 2 points at least is in play. I’m leaning towards Eliminate for the second scheme since I’m planning on doing a lot of killing anyways, though that would be dependent on who I’m facing. Dig Their Graves is also a strong option, since Cheating Bastard potentially lets you get some easy scheme markers down.





Round 5) Corner, Symbols of Authority, Punish The Weak, Dig Their Graves, Show Of Force, Search The Ruins, Take Prisoner



This one is going to require mobility and defense, so I’m thinking Lillith here. She and the Hooded Rider are there to play defense, using Root and oversized swords to discourage runners from getting to my Symbols markers. I haven’t had a chance to get Tuco back out since he became cheap enough to consider using, so he may be just as useless but for one stone less. However, placing him with From the Shadows behind a symbol that’s distant from the enemy crew seems like it could be useful to get one symbol down. The others will have to be acquired with a combination of crew mobility and/or Tangled Shadows. The crew typically brings a lot of enforcers and henchman, so again Show of Force is likely to be a good scheme choice. Lillith and Nekima are more than capable of scoring Punish the Weak if the enemy crew is vulnerable to it. I’m not a huge fan of Take Prisoner, as there just seems to be too many ways for it to go wrong during the game, but it’s probably my back-up plan if I don’t think Punish is going to work.



Round 4) Will be announced prior to Round 4 on Sunday.



You’ll notice that I skipped round 4, and that’s because we don’t know anything about it yet. part of Travis's personal plan to make Alex Schmid crazy (and I suppose test people's crew building abilities) is to make folks wait until Sunday morning to learn what the fourth round game will be. I left Collodi for this round, because he can be built to do most scheme pools and strategies and because he’s the master I know best out of the faction (outside of Lynch, I suppose, but I’ve had more recent experience with the Puppetmaster.) For the time being, I’ll leave the post like this with a blank here. Next Sunday, I’ll add an addendum here and in a new blog post updating it with how I would build a crew to respond to the actual scheme pool.


              

The Two Crews You Need for Tournament Play

I owe you a blog post for this and last weekend, but I'm a little light on content and time at the moment. Here's some random thoughts, and a look at the Through the Breach worldwide event.

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I’ve had the idea kicking around in my head that there has to be a compromise between “Build a new crew every game for the strats and schemes” and “Play fixed list every game, regardless of the set-up.” Both have their merits. Going with the former philosophy puts you in a position to minutely tune your crew to the game you’re going to play, while the latter lets you master the operation and synergies of each model in your crew. They both have drawbacks as well, though. If you change your crew completely every game, you run the risk of becoming a jack-of-all-trades master-of-none type player, while if you stick with one crew to exclusion you become predictable to opponents and leave yourself inflexible when the strategy and scheme pool strongly favor a different crew than what you brought. As an example: I’ve been playing a lot of Cheating Bastard Lynch recently. I don’t like it when the cards turn on me, so I like his manipulation of your draw and ability to stretch the value of the cards in your hand by forcing the opponent to cheat duels they don’t have to. This crew works well in a lot of scenarios, but its reliance on a bubble (well, two bubbles) means that Symbols of Authority, for instance, is a tough strat for that crew.

So, to find a compromise between the two, I’ve been refining a theory that the best way to approach tournaments is to have two crews pre-built: the one you like and the one that fixes the bad matchups of the crew you like. Since most of the time this split falls along one specific access for me, it tends to come out as “One crew that focuses its strength in one place, punching into the enemy in one specific location and then holding it” versus “A crew that can spread wide around the field and operate relatively independent from support.” There are obviously elements of both in most games (the strategy is something like Turf War, for instance, but the scheme pool is full of stuff like Undercover Entourage), but usually you can focus on one plan of attack and then make up what’s necessary from the other points after executing it.

As mentioned above, one of the options for my close-together crew is Jacob Lynch. You don’t have to be completely bunched together with them, of course, since the cheating aura comes out of both Hungering Darkness and Mr. Lynch, but this crew still works better when operating in tandem. If half the crew is outside the cheating aura on a given turn, you aren’t getting all of the value from the upgrade that you should be. Some other options with which I’m toying are Summoning Pandora and Fated Collodi. Collodi is more mobile than some of the other options on here, which means he’s actually one of the few examples of a master that can run both types of crews, but the Collodi playstyle with which I’m most familiar keeps him close to the rest of his crew to provide mutual support for most turns of the game. I’ll fiddle with them to decide which I want to use for if/when I go to a tournament next, but at the moment Lynch is in the lead, if only for sentimental reasons.

My spread out crew is in a bit more flux. As an unintended glitch, most of my games lately have been involving the bubble crew, so I haven’t had as many opportunities to try new ideas here. Lilith has classically been my go-to here, and that hasn’t changed much. Bringing her along with a crew of heavies (Nekima, Hooded Rider, etc.) that can spread the offense and interference around the board while the rest of the crew either lends them a hand or runs objectives is a pretty simple strategy for this one. Mama Monster’s biggest competitor in my head at the moment is Zoraida. Lilith is good at interfering with the enemy team between her root and tree-summoning abilities, but she’s surprisingly fragile in close combat and her primary trick, Tangled Shadows, has a CA value just low enough to be unreliable as a means of disrupting the enemy. Zoraida’s Obey actions, on the other hand, can provide both disruption of the enemy plans as well as offensive attacking power by triggering a charge by the aforementioned heavy hitters in exchange for 1 master AP, a pretty good deal. While Zoraida’s never going to kill anything on her own, the Will o’ Wisp summoning and condition shenanigans plus stealing the opponent’s heavy hitters to use against them can substitute for some of this. For some more direct interactions, I’ve considered Titania, as a recent test game underscored just how much more survivable she’s become. And then, of course, there’s Collodi, possibly with Bag of Tricks or possibly still with Fated but letting the crew spread out a bit more. He has no shortage of mobility due to friendly crewmembers being able to push him with his defense trigger, and his attack is the definition of disruptive.

The point is, I think there is a sweet spot between the two extremes of tournament crew building. You don’t have to lock yourself in and master one crew to the exclusion of everything else, but you don’t have to learn the whole faction to do well either. Find some middle ground, master two crews that complement each other, specifically one crew that excels on doing their work up close and one that does better operating as individual models rather than a unit. Then you just have to tweak things here and there to reach a high level of mastery and tactical flexibility.

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The Obsidian Gate worldwide Through the Breach event is in full swing. Fatemasters are leading crews of Fated Earthside to try and stop a plot to weaken the barrier between the material world and the realm of the Oni. A crew of misfits (what else could pregens be, really) including a shapeshifted Siren, a former compatriot of Sherlock Holmes, an Abyssinian engineer and his companion Redati-5, and a Japanese version of Michael Scott from The Office, along with a slew of other possible characters for fated to play, enter a Buddhist monastery just as disaster is about to strike, and are wrapped up in a plot to stop a cult's evil plans, facing enemies that defy comprehension. Sign-ups are still going on for new Fatemasters, and the Fated character that receives the most play will become a character in The Other Side! Plus, quick-play rules are included to help those unfamiliar with the RPG to learn and get playing as soon as possible. What do you have to lose? Sign ups continue for another week or so, I think. So sign up! 

Wanted: Bear Force One

              

             Citizens of Malifaux, we at Malifaux Musings come before you today to inform you of the greatest threat our fair city has ever faced. This enemy has come down from the northern hills, leaving panic and chaos in its wake. This furred foe represents an unprecedented level of danger, violently smashing through all who oppose it while simultaneously distracting them with obscene, strangely alluring dancing. No pic-a-nic basket is safe until this crisis passes. We urge, we IMPLORE, all who read this to stay in your homes. Lock your doors. And, for the love of god, don’t let them give you a hug!

               We are speaking, of course, of Bear Force One.

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He tried to warn us, but did we listen?

               First presented in A Wyrd Place over a month ago by Max Value host Travis Weyforth, Bear Force One is a crew list featuring the Slate Ridge Mauler with their 0 stone upgrade, Circus Bear. It’s half a real, powerful crew list, and half meme. It was further discussed by Alex Schmid on his youtube channel, who went on to run it through an acid test in a tournament which he won, demonstrating the viability of the list as a concept. I actually assumed this was just a joke when it first came out, but I assure you the threat is real. Let’s take a look at it, because it very well could be something you could run into during a tournament game and, if you don’t know what you’re seeing or how to approach it, you could very well get wrecked.

               When I say that this list features the Slate Ridge Mauler, I mean that you’re going to spend something like 80% of the points in your crew on them. This is a spam list. The recent soulstone reduction the bears received in the January errata made this possible, as you can now cram 6 of these brutes into your crew. They must be world-beaters, right? Well, don’t get too excited. Their crushing claws are a Melee 5 (6 with the upgrade) attack that deal 2/3/5 damage. They have a (0) action to give them a little extra speed, but their walk is nothing to write home about so they aren’t going to set any speed records. The reason you’re using them is for their (0) action, Bear Hug. It’s a Rg 4 attack action that gives out the Slow condition and, with a trigger, pushes the bear’s target into base-to-base contact with them. 

Avoid at all costs.

                 It’s easy to see the appeal of spamming slow, especially if you’re familiar with a similar Weyforth creation, the Voidspam list which featured a half-dozen void Wretches for a similar purpose. The advantage these bears have over the weird void parrots is that they’ve got serious staying power. They have 10 wounds, Impossible to Wound, and Hard to Kill. You can’t use blasts or pulses on them, either, because they have Bearskin Armor (literally) that makes them immune to those effects. And, if you knock them below half wounds (so down to 5 or fewer) their Melee attacks deal +2 damage. 4/5/7 is a pretty scary damage line. You don’t want to be on the receiving end of that.

            

               Five or six of these coming across the board at you makes for a nasty wall of wounds. They’re only Defense 4, so you’ll have no trouble hitting them. But the question is, can you kill them? Because the worst thing you can do is knock their wounds down to the point that they get the bonus to damage and then let them hit back. Worse, when playing against the bear spam AP efficiency is critical, and wounding them would make their AP more efficient and give them the ability to slow something in your crew, making you less efficient. The rest of the crew is built around either improving the efficiency of the bears or taking care of the jobs they can’t do. The bears aren’t fast, and they’re no more effective at completing schemes than any other model. The obvious master to pair with them is Marcus, and one of his more important jobs is to move quickly around the board and grab Symbols of Authority or complete a Breakthrough or Entourage style scheme. In the most committed bear crews, one that brings the full complement, the only models you bring with Marcus is something like a Malifaux Raptor and the Jackalope. Some of the other crews will drop one bear to give them a bit more flexibility in crew construction, letting them bring in some utility players with Well Rehearsed to help balance it out.

               While Marcus is the obvious pairing, due to his beast synergy, they don’t interplay as much as you would think. It is nice, however, to keep him with a bear so he can pass attacks off to them and let them soak the damage, improving his survivability. Ultimately, the master at the top isn’t as important as long as they can do their job without relying on crew synergy. Sandeep is one obvious choice, as he is just good on his own and can summon Wind Gamin to round out the crew’s capabilities. Ramos is an interesting choice, as his summons can help to offset one of the crew’s weaknesses (spamming 7 stone minions means activation control is going to be an issue in a lot of games.) Additionally, his new upgrade Vox Populi allows him to place Hazardous Terrain that does 3/4/4 damage on the board. The bears can then use their Bear Hug to drag targets through the Strike Markers, which will usually end up dealing 7 damage. Other Arcanist masters may work, though I think those three have the most obvious synergy. Ironsides could get in and mix it up along with the bears, though that seems more like a win-more situation rather than adding in someone who could complement the bears. Colette could actually be pretty interesting with them, using Prompt to push the bears into position and give a free swing, shuffle them around with Disappearing Act, and let them perform some interactions with Rehearsed (though the latter means not using Bear Hug, which is obviously not optimal.) Rasputina, Kaeris, and Mei Feng don’t have incredible synergy with the bears, so you’ll probably want to avoid them, though a splash of, like, 3 bears into their normal crews could make for a decent sledge hammer.

               So, when this unstoppable wall of bear flesh is…bearing down on you, what do you do? Well, you have one pretty clear advantage when you run into Bear Force One: you aren’t going to be surprised by what they’re going to do on the table. They’re going to come at you relentlessly with the bears leading the way, absorbing your attacks and draining your AP with their (0) action. While you’re tied up/getting mauled, the other parts of the crew will likely be scoring VP in the background and/or supporting them. So what do you do to counter it? First, you have to focus your fire. Put your whole crew’s attacks into key bear models, kill them, then move on to the next. The more hard-hitting min 3 damage you can bring along, the better. Additionally, if you can use terrain to make them come at you piecemeal rather than all at once, that is much better and will let you deal with the bears individually. Keep your crew together (though, obviously, not if the leader of the Bear crew is Raspy) so they can support each other and employ combined arms. And, obviously, figure out what the enemy crew is going to do and how to counter it. The bears aren’t experts at scheme running, so the models the opponent brings in the rest of the crew should telegraph how they intend to approach completing their objectives. If you can figure out what they’re doing, you can figure out how to counter it.

               Ultimately, the bear list is real. It seems ridiculous, especially given that the Slate Ridge Mauler was considered an almost laughably bad model prior to the January Errata (what a difference one stone makes, eh?) but this is a legitimate threat on the board, and if you don’t approach it the right way you will get rolled up and crushed by models one can only assume are wearing silly red fezzes. You don’t want that, do you?

Look into the face of fear.

               That said, this crew isn’t a set-list, take-on-all-comers army. In the right scenarios (Public Execution, Ours (though not with Guarded Treasure), Supply Wagon, etc.) they’ll be a force to reckon with (a Bear Force, that is...I'll stop, I promise). However, they’ll struggle in other games that require more finesse. The analogy I used to describe it is that they’re a great sledge hammer: awesome for knocking down walls, not so great for putting together an Ikea wardrobe. I think the real danger of this crew is that it can be sprung on you when you’re not expecting it. It’s one thing when someone announces they’re playing all bears every round of a tournament. When you know it’s coming, you can build to counter it. When you aren’t ready, though, you may not have the hitting power to take down the bears efficiently and may end up having to work around them instead. Additionally, they can function as a modular unit, especially if you go down to three or four bears rather than the whole crew, so there likely won’t be many clues that the bears are coming until you reveal crews. If you have a Guild crew of heavy hitters, you’ll be ok. If you’ve brought something like Shen Long that focuses its attack potential into a couple of elite models, you may end up swamped. As always, you have to read the game state and make a plan for how best to approach it.

Back to hell, abomination.

The Power of KISS

Mini-Musings

The March Newsletter has come out, and it has a lot of interesting announcements. 

-First of all, it mentions the Obsidian Gate Through the Breach event, which is now in progress. 

-Additionally, it's time for the spring sale and the onslaught of alternate sculpts that come with it. This year, there's a Viktorias alternate with an Easter theme that are...interesting. Additionally, there's a slop hauler Bob Ross. So that's a thing. If you spend $100, you get an alt Lazarus. 

-During April, Wyrd is running a painting contest called Creature Feature, where you put together a clearly non-humanoid model and paint it. 

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Pictured: Not the subject of this article.

              I don’t know about you, but my free time comes at a premium. I have a job. I’m looking for another one once this one finishes up. I have three kids, two of which are in middle school. The eldest is in track and plays the violin. My wife works and is going to school. And I also occasionally sit down and write this blog, as well as articles for Wyrd Chronicles. I’m lucky if I get one whole game of Malifaux in a week, and that usually requires playing over Vassal with Phiasco or my friend Rich, both of whom routinely pound me. If you wonder how somebody who writes a Malifaux blog could make all the mistakes I do when writing about the game, it’s because I just flat-out don’t get to play that often. Case in point: Show of Force has been a scheme since 2017 and is still in 2018. I somehow missed the fact that it only scores if you’re within 6” of the center of the board, not within 6” of the centerline. How has that not come up before now? I have no idea. But it’s kinda ridiculous that I’d never put it together (and I’m now mortified that I have likely cheated some opponents prior to this revelation.)

               Why do I bring this up? It’s not out of some weird need to debase myself. It’s to illustrate a point. When a new crew idea comes along, not everyone has the opportunity to play three or four test games a week to try and learn its intricacies. Malifaux is complex, and there are a lot of models with a lot of complicated interactions you have to learn to master it. Recently, I posted about summoning Pandora, a crew built around interactions between models. All of the models in it are WP based and somewhat suboptimal  on their own, but gain strength through the synergy of the crew. And, when I played it the first time, I played it very poorly. I haven’t gotten a chance to go back and try it again, and I certainly wouldn’t break it out for a tournament, despite the fact that I like Pandora and I think it’d be a cool crew to play. It’s just…honestly a little intimidating. When I only get one game a week, I don’t like spending it in a losing effort, though I should probably get over that. But still, the bottom line is that it’s very rare when I go up against an opponent and am as experienced with my crew as they are with theirs. More often than not, I’m having to learn on the fly, as there’s only so much theorycrafting you can do in your head before the game. And if it’s a really complicated crew with a lot of moving parts, that just makes it harder.

               I’m starting to feel that I should gravitate more towards simple crews. The fewer complex interactions I have to keep track of, the less chance there is that I’ll screw them up. And, to be honest, I think there is something to be said for just playing a crew full of good models that do what they do without a lot of support. The prototypical Lillith crew is one example of this, since it basically consists of the master, some hard hitting enforcers/henchmen, the Primordial Magic, and some other stuff like Iggy or the Mysterious Effigy that provide direct, simple benefits to help the rest of the crew. You can do something similar with Collodi, especially if you have a Bag of Props build that doesn’t revolve around handing out a bunch of buffs to the crew.

And, to risk propagating a stereotype, my other faction is the Guild, who tend to be a bit simpler in and of themselves. There are more complicated Guild crews (Nellie, some McCabe crews), but in general they tend to be a bit simpler to play. I like Perdita, but there isn’t a ton of subtlety in that crew if we’re being honest. One of her best upgrades is Fastest Draw in Malifaux, and all that does is give you a +2 to initiative and a card draw if you lose. The closest thing you have to “synergistic activations” is deciding when to have the Brutal Effigy activate and give her the (0) action buff, and when to have her totem shove somebody upfield. Otherwise, it’s just a matter of activating models, pointing them at the enemy, and pulling the trigger. Simple as that.

Don’t get me wrong, there are things to master with these crews that will separate a good player from a great one, but it isn’t like learning the interplays of a top-end Nicodem crew. And, if I’m being honest with myself, I probably need to stick to something more like that if I want to improve my win rate.

Also, I need to stop playing against Rich. Because he cheats. I don’t know how, but he does.

How to Cheat at Malifaux

Mini-Musings

-A worldwide Through the Breach campaign starts on Monday. It’s titled The Obsidian Gate, and seems to be either set earthside or at least related to The Other Side, as the pregenerated characters are representatives of each ToS faction (including Kimon and the Three Kingdoms. Did we know those were factions? Is this news?). Participants play through a free four act adventure, reporting the results on Wyrd’s website. Additionally, the character that is played the most will become an adjunct for their faction in ToS. Sign up at this address and play in some Asian themed Through the Breach action.

- An FAQ was released for March with clarified some of the issues that have come up since Gaining Grounds 2018 released. Follow the link to read through them, including clarifications of the Supply Wagon, Inescapable Trap, and Surround Them questions.

Under Quarantine

The Lion King was really different in Malifaux...

I recently bought and read through the PDF version of Under Quarantine, the Through the Breach supplement detailing the Resurrectionists and other hazards of the quarantine zone in Malifaux. The background/fluff section goes through each section of the Zone and discusses their unique qualities, including the plague warrens, a section overgrown by Knotwood trees (and the Neverborn that come with them), and a mostly flooded/bayou like zone that would be a good homebase for down-on-their-luck Fated, as it serves as a literal and cultural estuary where humans, gremlins, stitched (undead characters), and even Neverborn can intermingle. Did you know Parker Barros’ brother is the de facto mayor of one section of the QZ, and ripping off his family to take over part this part of Malifaux city is what drove Parker to banditry in the first place? You can read about it here. Additionally, it provides information about the Necropolis beneath the city and tunnel environments in other parts of Malifaux. The Lampads, a current flavor du jour of many Resurrectionist crews, were first introduced in this book as creatures from a city in the Northern Hills that is perpetually on fire!

For rules content, the book introduces a new character generation tarot, the Lifeline Tarot, that includes a character having a brush with death (from which they may not have escaped), allowing you to play a character with a close tie to the energies of life and who may, in fact, be an undead creature. It also contains a number of new pursuits. The Alchemist is a pursuit that gives you some of Rafkin and/or Sebastian’s abilities to manipulate the Poison condition. The Ghost Eater lets you manipulate Chi ala Yan Lo or the forthcoming Manos. And, of course, you couldn’t do this book without a Necromancer pursuit, in this case one inspired by Nicodem that includes elements of magic using and commander style pursuits to let you summon and order around a horde of the Undead. For those who don’t necessarily want to go that dark with their character, the Bully lets you use intimidation magic to strike fear in opponents during combat and the Sawbones is a doctor that you’ll be seeing in action if you play in the Obsidian Gate campaign, being used by a character with a very familiar name.

Later, the book introduces some additional rules for Through the Breach. There are a handful of new Magia and Immuto for spellcasters, per usual for these books, as well as some new unique Grimoires (one of which is a zombie who follows your character around and tells you the spells, which amuses me greatly.) A section details alchemical compounds that can be made with the Alchemy skill. There are a lot of General Talents to try out, including one that lets you remove a card you don’t want from your Twist Deck (take that, Ace.) Fittingly for a book titled Under Quarantine, there are a number of new diseases introduced in this book. Some of them are relatively mundane (want to know what it’s like to catch tuberculosis or polio in Malifaux? There’re rules for it here!) Others are more exotic and iconic for the world. Specifically, rules for corruption and slow transformation into a Nephilim by Black Blood are introduced here, rules for Fated who are addicted to Brilliance (ending in the Hungering Darkness coming to find you and turn you into a Depleted, fun times!), and finally a condition called Haunted for characters that spend too much time around ghosts or other angry spirits. Finally, the book finishes off with a great big pile of Fatemaster characters from all the different thematic elements in the book, from the expected (undead, undead, and undead) to some of the less obvious (various rat-related things from Hamelin’s oeuvre, employees and clientele of the Honeypot casino, and some miscellaneous tunnel dwellers from the Northern Hills.)

This book is solid. The maps of the city from the core book or other Malifaux products show that here are multiple Quarantine Zones, but this is the first product I’m aware of that goes into each of them in detail. There are a lot of cool new character options for players and new threats for the Fatemasters to throw at them. If you’re into Through the Breach, I’d definitely recommend giving this one a look.

Cheating Bastard

Oh yeah. You knew the banner was coming out...

               I’ve always liked Lynch. That’s not a secret. Partially this is because I’m a fanboy of his, and partially because I like having better cards than the person I’m playing against. I’m a little more reckless than most with my hand, so it’s nice being able to do that with the knowledge that I have Woke Up With a Hand and Mulligan waiting at the end of the turn. Picking up the Aces. Getting the free henchman. They were all good stuff. I come from a CCG gaming background, so card manipulation appeals to me. But still, he’s not super fast. He deals a lot of damage, but that’s about all he does well. Huggy is good, but his defense of 3 is a real liability even with Incorporeal. You could get around it by using him as a disposable missile and bringing him back via Rising Sun, but the bottom line was there were probably better options in Neverborn that could do similar things.

               Enter Book 5, and along with it the upgrade Cheating Bastard. It gives Lynch two abilities. One is kinda cute, where you reveal one to three masks from your hand at the beginning of his activation. One mask lets you hand out Brilliance automatically to a model within 8” of Lynch. That is not insignificant, as much of his activations revolved around forcing a model to be hit by Play for Blood to set up the finishing blow Final Debt prior to this, which of course always leaves the possibilities of getting screwed by the deck. Two masks lets you drop a pair of scheme markers, one in base to base with Lynch and one with Huggy. The third lets you heal everybody in your crew. It’s not likely to that you’ll have the three (hell, two has been tough in some of the games I’ve played) but it’s useful for the auto-Brilliance if nothing else.

               The reason you would bring it (it is a limited upgrade, so it means no Rising Sun or Endless Hunger), is the other ability. This allows every friendly model within 6” of Lynch of HD to cheat second regardless of the initial flip. This is major. You haven’t lived until you flip a deuce on the initial flip of a Lure from one of your Beckoners, your opponent asks if you want to cheat, and you reply “I don’t know. Do you want to?” If you make a little smug smile while you do it, I think you get extra points. It throws opponents off base, breaking one of the fundamental rules of Malifaux. It is VERY strong. And, it’s a 6” radius aura. From BOTH OF THEM. That’s 24” of aura, plus an inch for Lynch’s base and 2” for Hungering Darkness. That’s a pretty good chunk of the board covered. I’ve always bumped up against bubble crews, because they tie your movement up too much and make it difficult to function. If, however, you have a pair of them, your crew is a lot more free to spread out and do what it needs to do. I like this upgrade quite a bit, and it’s made me want to get my Lynch models out.

               I’m still not sure that he’s better in the Neverborn than in Ten Thunders. Recalled Training is just so good, and the support models in 10T are better overall. The Neverborn tend to function more independently, and like I said, Lynch isn’t going to break any speed records anytime soon. However, Lure is an effective way to get around this problem, and it just so happens that Mr. Lynch has some pretty solid Luring options with his Beckoners. I’m not sure if Lilitu isn’t still a better option even after the reduction in cost to the Beckoners, but they can hand out Brilliance to support the Lynch/HD attacks while they’re at it. I’ve got some experimenting to do to find out which way I prefer it, but a crew that is designed to drag an enemy out of position across the board and kill them. It’ll work well for some games, but maybe won’t be great for games where you have to move rapidly across the board. Symbols of Authority is going to be a struggle for them, for sure. But still, I’m interested in it, and I thought I’d share with you guys. And also, it let me dust the banner off again.

Until next time!

Wanted: Sandeep

Wanted: Sandeep Desai

Crimes: Conspiracy with known Arcanist terrorists, unsanctioned magic use, being too good at everything

Known Associates: Oxfordian Mages, Wind Gamin, Kandara, Pretty Much Anything Else

Considering how popular the Nicodem article was, I wanted to keep this idea going. For those who are maybe new to the blog or didn’t see the previous Wanted Poster, the goal of these articles is to take a look at the archetypal “top tier” lists in the meta at any given moment. Malifaux’s a complex game with a lot of different models, and it’s impossible to know all of them in depth. So, the objective was to present the crews players should be looking out for if they’re attending tournaments at the top level. The articles will familiarize you with the crews and masters of the top lists, give you an idea of how they run, let you know what to watch out for, and give you an idea of how to beat them. And, since I’m just some shlub living in the Malifaux desert of Southwest Virginia, I would hunt up some top-level Malifaux players to contribute their knowledge with the community.

               When released in Wave 4, Sandeep Desai’s design/theme was pretty clear. He was intended to be an all-rounder: not the best at any particular thing, but pretty good at everything. I don’t know if this analogy still works, having not played any of the newer versions of the game, but he was supposed to be like Mario from Mario Kart. Not the fastest driver, not the heaviest hitter, but right in the middle. That’s what Sandeep was supposed to be. He could summon a little bit, but not to the extent that Nicodem or (at the time) Dreamer could do it. He had attacks that were ok, but nothing that set the world on fire. He had a little bit of mobility, and a bit of toughness. He would be a great starter master or a very solid choice for a single-master style tournament, but you would probably see others for the top-end games, simply because their ability to specialize would make it so a better choice would probably be available for most games.

               Then the first tournament he was legal (Gencon Masters), he won. That probably should have told us something.

Fast-forward to 2018, and a very different state of affairs is in place. If you play against an Arcanist crew in most competitive settings, you need to expect to play against Sandeep regardless of the scenario. The All-Rounder has turned out to simply be the best choice in most games. They’ve almost become a one-master faction, as he can do almost any job in the game as well or better than any of the other masters. It’s not that the other Arcanist masters are bad, it’s just that he’s at least as good if not better for…just about everything. Ramos is a great summoner and Rasputina’s a great damage dealer, but their crews are usually on the slow side and can’t reposition efficiently. Marcus is fast and can use resources to hit hard, but the damage isn’t as reliable, and he and his beasts can be a bit fragile. Ironsides doesn’t have the speed or ranged projection. And Kaeris…well, she’s Kaeris. And, even if you get a game with a pure enough scheme pool that you can specialize with one master so completely that it makes them a better choice than Sandeep, he’s still likely to be a close second, and there’s something to be said for focusing on one crew to the point of mastering it rather than switching between very different pools of models to use for different games.

So what makes Sandeep such a solid choice in most games? What is it about him that makes him such a solid choice in most games? Well, I don’t know. I’m an idiot. That’s why I contacted Ben Sime, host of Arcane Reservoir and long-time Sandeep player, and Erik Lodal, better known as Grrn, an American Sandeep expert and occasional guest on the Max Value podcast. We’ll start by taking a look at some characteristic elements of Sandeep’s crew, right after this word regarding our Patreon account.

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Do you know that we’re supported by Patreon? You should, I mention it every week. But, in case you’re new, here’s the deal. I’m not rich. I’d like to be, but I’m not. I also don’t have an excess of free time, and what I do have I dedicate in large part to writing this blog. I’m not asking for sympathy…I’m just asking for a little bit of money. $1 a month, to be precise. For $1 a month (.25c a blog post, in most months) you can be a part of making Malifaux Musings into the world’s premiere Malifaux information source. We discuss tactics. We discuss model releases. We discuss fluff. And, if we get enough new donors, we’ll start to have our monthly raffles for Limited Edition Malifaux stuff again. You can’t beat that. So why not throw us a shekel or two? Just head over to patreon.com/malifauxmusings and donate today!

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 Rolling in the Deep

As stated, Sandeep doesn’t immediately jump out at you as a world-beater. His stats aren’t bad, but they’re not amazing for a master either. None really stands out other than his 12 wounds, and even that is starting to become par for the course (for context, he was smack in the middle for number of wounds in Book 4, where he was introduced.) Impossible to Wound and Arcane Shield gives him some survivability, and he has good mobility tricks to get him out of tough situations. As Grrn put it, most Sandeep deaths are due to player error, rather than the opponent doing something clever. However, he has a completely forgettable melee attack, a decent ranged cast with a 2/4/5 damage flip that can use a Ram to get a + to damage, and some utility actions to push things towards him, give him a (0) action Leap, and/or to interact as a (0). He’s very vanilla, so what makes him so great?

The first things are his Beacon and Student of All abilities. Beacon lets other friendly non-peon models within 12” and LoS use his cast actions. They can each only be used once per turn, but this effectively gives Sandeep a potential for 2 extra (1) actions, as well as spreading around the use of his (0)s as well. Better, the spells are cast by the other members of the crew, creating the potential for force projection. Cast 6 2/4/5 is an ok attack for a master, but for a 4 soulstone gamin it’s pretty solid, even at -1 Ca! Second, Sandeep can take a free (1) action after one of his crew uses his CA actions and ends with a tome in the final duel total (once per turn.) That’s like an out-of-turn Fast, in exchange for doing what you want to do anyways, borrow Sandeep’s spells. He has 4 Ca actions on his card, so chances are you would get the free AP every turn just from flips, even without Arcane Storm having a Tome built in!

Next, and possibly the thing for which he is most infamous, is Deep’s summoning. It isn’t built in, instead coming from his Limited Upgrades (other than the Book 5 one, but most don’t give that one much love.) Both allow him to summon gamin, including his totem Banasuva, while attaching one of three Rare 1 upgrades that give them a buff in exchange for a hindrance of some kind. Thus, he’s only ever able to have at most 3 summons in play at a time (a system some have advocated adapting for all of the summoning masters in the game, though that’s neither here nor there.) The two flavors of his Limited favor either scheme running/interacting (To Behold Another World) or combat (To Command Another Plane.) Opinions fluctuate on which of these are better, though both Ben and Grrn prefer Behold. Both have their merits. One of the upgrades from Commands hands out + to attacks for friendly models within 3, which you can summon wherever you need it. A mobile + to attack bubble is pretty handy, as most Nicodem players could tell you. On the other hand, Behold Another World has the utility of a model that can drop scheme markers on the turn it is summoned or another that comes in with a weak version of Chatty is often more important. Probably best to try both and see which you prefer. As for what they’re summoning, well, the answer is usually Wind Gamin. Their speed and the flurry of attacks they can unleash outclasses most of what the others can do. Of course, Banasuva is a Gamin, so you can summon him, but that can be pretty card intensive. Some of the others can be useful as well for certain situations, but he Wind Gamin are really what you need to look out for.

His other biggest strength is probably the difficulty in teching to beat him. When writing about Nicodem, there are models you expect to see and you have an idea what’s going to be coming for you. With Sandeep, it could be almost anything. When I asked Grrn what he considered a “typical” Sandeep build, he offered this:

Sandeep

Arcane Reservoir

One of the legit summon upgrades

Maybe another upgrade as you like it?

Some tanky model like Anna Lovelace or Joss or Carlos

The mages

Someone carrying Well Rehearsed (could be a mage, could be another enforcer)

Fill (common choices atm are the Medibot and the Steamfitter, but I think these have a veneer of newness to them that may go away)

With the follow-up:

Part of his major strength is you don't really need other models for him to do his thing and do it well.

Ben had some thoughts as well:

I think a typical Sandeep list is going to include mages, some smaller models such as wind gamin for schemes, a big hitter in Howard or the Valedictorian.

Then finishing off with something like either a Practiced Production user and/or these days Kandara.

How it plays is always dependent on build, scheme pool etc. but typically some nice synergy between the academics getting the most out of the Oxfordians.

Little things running objectives and taking advantage of borrowing Sandeep's (0) interact, while another probably uses the arcane storm.

If these models aren't in it'll typically be the summoned ones that can take advantage.

A Mage list will probably see "Commands" making a fully powered Oxfordian weapons battery whilst a "Visions" list is taking full advantage of the expendable nature of some of the gamin.

Other than that, expect little suprises, things like Sandeep getting his free AP via Student of All to summon out of activation and other nice little things.

Sandeep crews often bring the Oxfordian Mages, because their new discount upgrades and the old wards turn them into a 15 stone hard-hitting, furious casting, tough to kill unit. Usually you see something Tanky like Carlos Vasquez, maybe a hard hitter like Howard Langston. The new hotness is to spam Slate Ridge Maulers for their toughness and ability to spam Slow, though the jury is out on whether that build will have staying power or if it’s just a meme list.

Essentially, you can pick the best models from the faction, without concern for a theme, and get the tools to complete the schemes and strategies. Another one of his upgrades even allows you to hire academics from outside the faction, so you can bring in the Valedictorian if you want. More recently, Sandeep crews have splashed in the Medical Bot and Steamfitter for their added utility. And, of course, Kandara from Book 5 is a clutch addition, as she has offense, survivability, mobility, and can free you from the summoning cap by transferring the upgrades from Gamin to herself and then discarding them (probably not useful every game, but interesting nonetheless.)

Off the Deep End: How to take down Sandeep

               This is probably the hardest part of this article, and the thing that I’ve struggled with the most (outside of fighting off a bout of writer’s block) when putting this thing together. I really don’t want to write “play the schemes and strats, and do it better than your opponent,” but that’s really what it comes down to.  There are no glaring weaknesses in Sandeep’s game. He doesn’t have a hole in his swing. And, moreover, there’s no formula for what his crews bring to the table. If you tech to kill the Mages and play against Ben, that tech is worthless since he doesn’t use them. To beat him, you have to try and be as flexible as him and play the game to the bets of your ability. Let’s see if our contributors have any other tips.

Ben) The main anti-Sandeep thing I can think of is the same case for a fair few masters and that is to pressure them and their resources.

Sandeep is Impossible to Wound but he's easy enough to hit. Resource wise it's just the hand he needs but to take advantage of 'deep and his crew there's discards, 12's for Banasuva and 8's for other gamin.

On top of this there's Furious Casting in the mage list which can be aided with the Unalligned Sage upgrade but that's a cost in itself or even stuff in my own lists like Flurry from Howard and healing from Carlos.

A few cards down and it's a much harder time for him.

Also, it's maybe cliche but anti armour is decent vs Sandeep too, the little gamin all have armour and you're bound to see something else with it.

It isn't a major deal but if that's your decider for the last model in your list vs Sandeep lean towards it.

               So discard can be useful against him. That’s a good tip. What about Grrn?

Grrn) Sandeep has a lot of Ca actions.  Sue is pretty decent into him.  Things that ignore damage reduction and can smoke the Oxfordians are also worth considering.  I think another part of what makes Sandeep really good is that there's no "oh well you took the counter model, I guess I lose" thing going on.  In general you have to play Sandeep's game and beat him at it.

               So Sue to disrupt casting and anti-armor. Probably a good idea against Arcanists in general (he said, right before playing Ironsides). And a reiteration that there is no catch-all solution.

               After my interview with Jamie, I’ve started asking players what they would bring to a game if they were playing against their Doppleganger who was bringing their list to play against them. When I asked the fellas this question regarding their Sandeep crews, this was what they had to offer.

Ben) I think the strats and schemes will always matter, I think luck is still always a factor but overall it's the player not the crew usually.

Versus my kind of list if I have to answer though I guess it would be any of the top summoners, obviously Nicodem is up there, but even solid Som'er crews.Whilst Sandeep summons his crew can't get beyond a certain size, even with Kandara upgrade shenangians.

The others can press the numbers advantage and get activation control which is not only one of the most important things in the game full stop but vs my interact shenanigans it's even more of a pain.

Grrn) Hah, yea I've actually done this a few times.  Well that's complicated.  First, I think Sue is a good consideration.  Past that I have several branches of thought.  I would definitely not take models that rely on armor and/or are slow as mages are common.  I would also try to take more models rather than fewer as activation control is a big, big deal.  Cards are going to be fairly important in the matchup, so either looking at really efficient models or models that put pressure on cards would be another consideration.  I have run a December Acolyte/Silent One gunline out of Sandeep in the mirror that worked out meh I guess?  The biggest single factor in what crew I took would be the strat/schemes though, so it’s kind of hard to answer from just a general point of view.  There's no one model I'd always consider.

               So, it seems there are some tricks that might help you. Pressure his resources. Bring some anti-caster tech, and things to help you deal with Oxfordian Mages. Don’t get out-activated if you can, obviously. And play the objectives more effectively than he can. That might be the most important bit, looking at the game and trying to figure what the rest of the crew will look like, and moving to counter that. Sandeep is a known commodity, but But the main thing is to know what to expect and be ready for it. Probably the best thing you can do to learn to beat Sandeep is play against him, so you can see his tricks first hand and know what to expect. Summoning a gamin that can interact that turn during a different model’s activation is tough to prepare for, but you’ll have a better shot at seeing it coming if you’ve seen it before. Practice, practice, practice, and be ready to play your game.

               Until next time, Musers. Remain vigilant for Arcanist terrorism. Keep an eye out for Wind Gamin. And play your friggin' stats and schemes, already! 

For more from Ben, check out his work at ArcaneReservoir.com and the Arcane Reservoir podcast. For more from Grrn, check out old episodes of Max Value.