So as promised, here's part two of my "Those Left Behind" article (Part 1 is here). Enjoy!
Jack Daw
As it turns out, Jack Daw’s playstyle happens to be almost exactly
how I like to play. In fact, I'm pretty sure he was instrumental in my decision to abandon the Rainbow Challenge and focus on Outcasts. He was just so interesting, so engaging for me that one game was just not enough! Needless to say, he's become my favorite Master in the Outcasts Faction, possibly even in the game (but that's for another blog post).
Instead of raw damage output, Jack is all about disrupting
your opponent in ways that are difficult to neutralise. He prefers his curse
upgrades over applying conditions and in fact almost none of his crews utilise
conditions, effectively eliminating the usual counter to debuff-style crews
(ie. condition removal from the likes of Johan, Chiaki etc). This preference for
neutralisation over outright damage is something I’m really drawn to. In a lot of
games I’ve found that simply holding up the enemy can be as good as killing
them, so a crew like Jacks, who can achieve that well certainly appeals to me.
My first Jack Daw Crew, initially gifted to me via the 2013 Malifaux Gift Exchange by abraxus04! :)
Of course the flip side of that is that Jack’s traditional
crew doesn’t have a lot of raw damage output. Fortunately it’s not hard to
throw in a few heavy hitters, so bringing the likes of Bishop or Taelor along
is certainly handy. Even better, the Guilty’s ability to add the Tormented characteristic to other models (including your
own) allows you to make them honorary Tormented, giving them all the synergies
that the rest of Jacks crew benefits from!
Jacks crew is also loaded with effects to make your opponent
discard cards and pass lots of duels. Discard effects are something I'm becoming more and more fond of. Individually they might not seem like
much, but stack on enough of them and it puts alot of pressure on your opponents hand, forcing
them to make hard decisions about whether to cheat/discard or deal with the
consequence of not (eg. damage, becoming Tormented, push effects, paralyse, etc
etc). It makes it harder for your opponent to keep cards for what they want to
do, which reduces the effectiveness of their crew relative to yours. It's sort of the opposite of card-drawing abilities like Arcane Reservoir and Rush of magic, and is a great way to even the playing field against crews that utilise those abilities.
Finally, Jack and his Tormented have ALOT of movement
effects which as I've said before, is an aspectof Malifaux that I've always enjoyed. The Writing Torment upgrade is my favorite, but Monty has both a pulse
and trigger to push enemy models into base contact, the Guilty can push toward
other Tormented and the Drowned with Jakunna have a great array of movement
effects too. In fact, the array of options this can give you in-game can
actually get overwhelming. I remember a game at Gencon where it was the top of
the 5th turn vs Nicodem. It was a game I was likely to lose (only
barely) but looking at the board I felt as though the potential was there for
Jack to pull some really jammy shit, push a bunch of models around and snatch
victory from the Jaws of defeat. Unfortunately I just didn’t know him well
enough to pull it off, so instead I stared at the board, utterly overwhelmed
with the options available to me!
Advancing on a poor McMourning crew...
The other challenge with Jack that’s not immediately obvious
is the need to maintain line of sight between models. Jack and his crew have a
lot of auras and pulses to utilise, all
of which require clear lines of sight to work properly. And with Guilty on 40mm
bases and Monty on a 50mm, maintiaining those lines is harder than one might
think! So far I’ve done okay with it, but I certainly feel I could do better so
I suppose it’s only something that would get better with experience.
Given my professed love for him it’s probably not surprising
that I’ve played Jack Daw more than any other Master this year. He’s a solid
Master with a lot of great tricks up his sleeve. His learning curve is steeper
than it might initially look, but he’s well worth the effort.
Yes, he's flying around on his Tetsubo. ;)
Misaki (Outcasts)
There is nothing unusual or special about Misaki. At her
core, she’s a mobile melee master with a nasty melee Trigger (Assassinate), a
solid block of stats and no direct synergy with the rest of her crew. Much like
Lilith, in practice Misaki is quite fragile, so while she can dish out some
great damage, she has a hard time staying alive if the enemy can converge on
her. By comparison her closest competition (the Viks) are both more fragile,
more damaging and have a lot more complexity with their synergies and tricks.
So why is it, then, that I enjoy using Misaki so much???
I think for me, what it comes down to is that Misaki is a
challenge. You need the Soulstones and Crows to trigger Assassinate, you need to
strip cards from your opponents hand so the Assassinate trigger will work, and
perhaps most importantly, you need to ensure Misaki won’t get killed in the
retaliation after she takes out whatever she charges. She needs a
certain set of conditions to excel, and anything less will render her either dead, a waste of resources, or both.
My typical Misaki crew, used to great effect vs the Viks during my stay in New York...
The setup I settled on with Misaki was to give her
Oathkeeper, Scout the Field and either Stalking Bisento (for killing models
without the assassinate trigger) or Disguise (to help keep her alive), along
with a 4-5 Soulstones. With the ability to discard Scout the Field and charge
from outside line of sight, I was able to keep Misaki safe while projecting a
considerable threat range around her to keep my opponent on their toes. When I
did charge in, I’d usually burn through my soulstones to get the crow needed
for Assassinate, taking out the model (assuming no cards on hand) and if
needed, using the extra AP from Oathkeeper to retreat out of danger. It meant
she’d burn out of upgrades and soulstones quickly, but if I could kill enough
high value targets with her it was worth the effort.
The Assassinate trigger isn’t the only way she can play,
although I do feel like it’s her greatest strength if you can get it to work. But
at least with the Stalking Bisento upgrade she has a Plan B of sorts, being
able to put out a lot of damage on a single model. Nevertheless, she still
needs to play the hit & run game. In fact that fragility forces you to play
smart, and it’s one of the things I’ve quite enjoyed about her.
My recently painted Shang proxy (on the left ;) ). Really disliked the standard model so I grabbed this guy from the Bushido range.
I’ve also developed a fondness for her Last Blossom models –
as it turns out the Torakage and Yamaziko are both excellent models, with the
former being perfect for flanking duties and the latter just being great. Ototo
has gotten a bad rep and if I’m being honest, there are usually better choices out there
for the Outcasts. But he’s a cool model, so he's nevertheless found his way into my lists.
;) Shang...I'll admit I've never tried. I initially thought he wasn't that great but having played Misaki a few times, I'm starting to see how card hungry she is. She really loves those crows and so the Ruch of Magic from Shang is potentially quite useful to her. In any case I now have an actual painted Shang model to use, So the next game I have with her will undoubtedly involve him!
After Jack Daw, Misaki has become my second favourite Outcast
Master. As far as face-beating goes I prefer her to the Viks, if only because the Viks feel less "Hit and Run" and more "Tactical Nuke", preferring to destroy everything in reach and hoping the consequences will be worth while. While it's undoubtedly effective, the more evasive Misaki just feels like she's more my style.
Hamelin
Hamelin was the last Outcast Master I played, and it took me
a few tries to get the hang of him. To be honest I had certain preconceived
notions on how he works, due in no small part to his previous incarnation in
Malifaux v1.5. The truth is that while his fundamentals are similar, he plays
quite differently to how he used to. He still summons rats and applies Blighted
to other models of course, but he’s now much more of a support Master than an
outright denial machine.
In playing against him (once again vs Chris/Kadeton) I found
that Hamelin’s crew was superb a scheme denial. Malifaux Rats could engage
models to prevent scheme marker placement, Rat Kings could remove scheme
markers, the Rat Catchers had the amazing Don’t Mind Me ability and just about
everyone in Hamelin’s in-theme crew had some way of preventing your opponent
from easily achieving Distract or Cursed Object. If nothing else, it tends to limit the selection of likely schemes for a Hamelin opponent which is either very annoying or really great, depending on what side you're on!
"Distract" you said? Sorry, that's just not happening...
When playing him myself, it quickly became obvious
that he has a serious lack of killing power. Blighted can prove fatal to enemy
models over time but it takes time to put enough Blighted on the enemy, so it’s a late game ploy. So if you need to kill models early
then you need to bring in some out-of-theme elements. Fortunately there’s not
shortage of heavy hitters. As a Lost model Kade is pretty effective, but I also
got some great use out of shooters like a Convict Gunslinger. As it turns out, Hamelin
himself divides his time between summoining Rats and supporting his crew with
spells like Obey, something that those high damage models really appreciate!
Random fact of the day - much like Mr Daw, my Hamelin crew started life as a gift from Ramses via the 2013 Malifaux Gift Exchange. Thanks Ramses!
Speaking of Rat summoning, I know people have expressed frustration
at the tedium of summoning an endless cycle of Rats, Rat Kings and Rat
Catchers, but I actually quite enjoyed it. The sheer number of activations is a
great advantage in-game but the Rats themselves have little to do, so with some
practice the numerous rat activations go pretty smoothly. Mind you, I’ve only
played 2-3 games with Hamelin so perhaps with time, the repetition will get to
me. For now though, it’s a thumbs up for Rats! :)
In the end, Hamelin has taken third place on my list of preferred
Outcast Masters. Jack and Misaki remain my favorites, but Hamelin himself has
proven to be really enjoyable in the games I’ve played with him. Perhaps his
biggest problem is that I don’t like the standard Hamelin model with his oversized
head. Even adding a top hat hasn’t improved things, so if I ever come back to
him on a more regular basis I’ll probably replace the model!
Wretch plus Rats. One of my all time favorite combos. :)
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