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 Grot 6 wrote:
I'm sorry if it comes on a little strong, I honestly didn't mean to try to sound condisending if that how it is honestly being taken as.

Taking it a step back, in reading of the other posts from the OP, he is saying point of fact that he is indeed playing against power gamers. They are playing hard core lists there and he is playing Ramos. As to someone saying one or the other, I'll pull back on the overtone, because quite honestly I found this info out the hard way myself, in playing with pandora. I honestly didn't see that errata, but i'll go back and check that out. ( I stopped playing her after around a couple of games. Like I said, I found her... not to my liking.)

Findas, I didn't mean to come off giving you impression "Saying" that they are broken. Just that it will be what you hear when you pounce her.

My impression was that Findas didn't know how to play against some of the type of tricks that Pandora is capable of.

My advice was not that "everyone has a broken list and they are all cheesy." My advice was to push in and get her stuck, then punch her hard as a followup. that you sacrifice a snack, and use the followup and kick her teeth in.

I mean, in all honesty, Ramos could sit in his backfield, summoning spiders turn after turn after turn, swarm them up. move near Pandora, and... BOOM! Blow them all to hell, and then Pandora takes those wounds with 0 defense. Also not all Pandora players cry cheese when they lose, I lost this weekend in a tournament to a Marcus player, and this was after I told him of a nerf to his master...

Exactly, but that is exactly what the OP is looking for.

He doesn't know about the landmines, he doesn't know fielded attachments, I don't think that this was about exactly one specific opponent. He was having issue with all of his opponents at his club there and he was looking for ways to beat such and such with Ramos.

He said right off the bat that he's getting this from his other players. Said that, "He like the game, but hates the players". He distinctly said that he was getting his hindquarters kicked and, that he was really having a hard time with his Ramos list, and it was not just about Pandora, it was pretty much ALL of the listed decks that the other players in his group playing hard/ Power game-competitive lists.

I'm not trying to point fingers, or put words in mouth that everyone is going to cry cheese. Take cheese out of the conversation if it is a point of contention and you think thats what I'm saying.

Findas said that he has Ramos. He's playing other people with hard/ competitive lists/ decks.

Aside from Pandora, he seemed discouraged with his deck and wanted advice on how to get some wins.

alfndrate you said in an earlier post "Now Pandora, Lynch and LCB are my competitive masters with Nicodem and McMourning as my goof around masters" i don't get how this fits with you saying the game is balanced surely Nicodem and McMourning must be worse than your neverborn crews else you would play them competitively too. also i really fail to see how the neverborn are glass cannons pandora is incredibly hard to hurt her soul sucking effectively neuters any attempts on her life by spider bombs as they only have 3w and wk4 cg6 they just don't get there in time. and LCB aint a glass cannon he is a massive brute sure the dreamer dies easy but unless the player has done something really stupid you have to kill LCB first.

McMourning is competitive because he doesn't need corpse counters on the board to summon Canine Remains, Flesh Constructs, and Rogue Necromancy(s), he is completely able to function with his crew using nothing more than the body part counters that he rips off of enemy models, and the counters generated by canine remains dying (yay turning a 2ss model into a 10ss model ). Nicodem can be competitive but usually only with his avatar, as he requires lots of mindless zombies and corpse tokens on the board. If you deny him this by not having any living or undead models on the board, (in the case of constructs), then he has to rely on killing his own stuff to summon bigger and badder undead.

My ressers are my goof around crews because in the tournaments I have played in and will be playing in, everything is Fixed Faction, so if I want to run Ressers, I have to use Molly, Nicodem, or McMourning (the only resser masters I own), whereas I can play my Neverborn and have a bit of a wider selection model wise and play masters I'm more comfortable with. I've only been playing ressers for about a month because Neverborn got really big at my store. We have four regular players, and 1 plays Dreamer (and sucks at it), and another got demo'd to with Neverobrn and he owns all the masters and henchmen for them (so technically half my regulars play neverborn). When it comes to my Ressers, I've only lost 2 games with Nicodem (only played demo games with McMourning). I conceded my most recent game with him because I was playing 2 against 1 after my partner had been eliminated (the dreamer player above), and I was holding my own until Zoraida Hex'd my Reanimate spell off of me, after I conceded I re-read her card and found out she couldn't do that to masters lol. So while my ressers can be, and are competitive, they're not who I want to play in a timed setting. It takes like 3 turns for me to set up my Nicodem, and I've yet to play McMourning outside of a demo.

As for Pandora and LCB being glass cannons, Pandora has 8 wounds and Df 3, her defense comes from the fact you have to beat her in a Wp duel first. To blow her up easily, you summon an electrical creation move him into base contact with Pandora (remember he's Wp 10), then you blow it up for a total of 4 points of damage 1 for being in base with her, and 3 for triggering the spell to blow up. If it dies while near Pandora, it still blows up for 2 (something Pandora can't defend against). With your spiders, you can do similar things, you move them in and blow them up. Your spiders have walk 4, but they have 2 action points, a (0) action, and (+1) Melee Expert (the swarms have (+2) Melee Master, so they can move 8 inches, use latch on to drop her defense by 2 (a cumulative debuff), and then attack her pitiful defense 1. The only problem is that latch on requires you to target the model, so you would have to go up against Pandora's Wp duel . But if you do this near the end of the turn when Pandora is most likely going to be drained of cards, then you have a greater chance of doing this.

And LCB has 10 wounds, but a pitiful Df 4, your average Cb is 5, meaning that in order to ensure you don't hit, he'll have to flip or cheat with the red joker and pop a soulstone to flip at least a 1 (since the max you can get is an 19 with the RJ), and the max he can get without spending a soulstone is 18. So technically he would need to flip at least a 2. You throw 2 spiders on him, and you've got him at Df 0, meaning he has to pop precious soulstones, which he'd rather be using on attacks. In a single turn, an average arachnid can cause at least 2 points of damage if he has to move. If he's in base contact, that going be roughly 6 points of damage, assuming he hits. So yes, LCB might be big and bad, but he has his weaknesses.

The reason why he's a royal pain in the butt is because Dreamer can spend one (0) action to use I can fly, move forward 7 inches, use a 0 action to bring Chompy in b2b with him and then bury himself. Chompy can then act with 3 action points to his name (since Dreamer used only 1 and passed the second one, Chompy gets his full 2 plus melee expert). So you add the threat range of Chompy's base to the length that Dreamer moved, and then you add 3 inches for his 10 inch Claw attack, so LCB can attack things roughly 12 inches away, and if the player gets a tome, he can trigger All Done and bury Chompy, and bring the Dreamer out. That's why Chompy is a pain to deal with, because LCB can come out, kill what he needs to and then go away. You either kill him quickly when he's out, or you kill Dreamer forcing him to stay out and then you whittle him down like any other melee monster.

I mean I beat a guy in a tournament 8-0 on Saturday using a Dreamer crew, and Chompy was only on the board for the last turn, I didn't need him, I kept using inflict dreams, which gives a negative twist to Df, Ca, and Wp duels against nightmares. Nothing says good morning like a negative twist against 4 Gamble Your Life abilities...

I would say the only Neverborn model that isn't a glass cannon is Lilith, because she has like a Cb 7 on her greatsword, a Df 8, which gets better if you miss your first attack against her... But again, she requires nephilim on the board for her tricks...

There are always ways to beat masters... You beat summoners by denying them their needed counters, you beat glass cannons by focusing your fire... The game is extremely balanced, you just need to learn what masters can do so you can stop it.

You tell me LCB has 10 w and the dreamer can move him 8" ignoring disengaging strikes and he still has all his action points and you think he is a glass cannon? oh and df4 is ok compared to ramos df2 half the time it doesn't matter what cards i have in my hand he will get hit regardless i end up throwing away high cards just to stop him losing all his wounds. you say the way to beat summoner is to not bring stuff they can use when it dies, i have that exact problem as usually my opponent has from 0 to 1 constructs.


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and small spiders don't have mele expert and are summoned slow the swarms also cause far too much damage to themselves if pandora takes control this is why they never make it to her before they die.

Your opponent usually has 0 to 1 constructs because constructs are a rare thing in the game to begin with. Yet Ramos has an ability to generate scrap counters, something other summoners don't have (Nicodem doesn't have a way to get corpse counters without bringing Mortimer, which is a 7ss model and still requires a crow in hand to get). So ramos can spend 2 action points to gain a scrap counter for free (besides the Ap cost), and then spend a (0) action to summon a spider. If I want to summon, I have to have a corpse counter on the board, within 6 inches of me, and have a 9 of crows or higher, where as Ramos needs a scrap counter within 6 inches(oh hey he made one for free!) and an 8 of tomes or higher. You have a better chance of summoning a spider than I do of a canine remain or w/e undead I wish to summon. Add in the mobile toolkit and you need an 8 of anything or higher, effectively opening up about half the deck to you.

As for Chompy's Df 4 vs Ramos' Df 2... you're kidding me right? LCB is a melee fighter, Ramos is a caster (look at the Df of the other Arcanist masters.. Rasputina is a 3, Marcus is a 5 (he's a beast, literally), Colette has a decent Df, but is offset by her low wounds, Kaeris is a 5 or 6... Ramos is an old man...

Also, I'd like to point out that you really only need 1 high card when Ramos is getting attacked... Throw a high Crow (13 if possible), and pop a soulstone. If your attacker misses, you trigger Pneumatic Grip, which prevents that model from attacking anymore this turn.

As for Dreamer's movement, 1) It's not 8 inches, and 2) The last sentence of Flight on page 227 of Rulebook 1.5 says,

When this model moves, it is immune to disengaging strikes from all models except those that it was engaged in melee with when it began its movement.

So if Dreamer is in melee, and moves away with flight, he could still be blocked by a disengaging strike as soon as he hits the longest melee range of models that are in melee with him. If he managed to get out of melee, then he ignores all disengaging strikes. If the Dreamer were to phase through a wall (he is a spirit after all), he would still take a disengaging strike as soon as he goes to leave LoS as per the malifaux FAQs.

So if Dreamer tries to leave melee range, you smack him and his lowly Df to the ground, and you make sure that when you kill him, he's surrounded so you can't place LCB in base contact with him. But I'm unsure about that and so I'm looking into it.

Also, how often do you use Wound Prevention Flips, Healing Flips, or even Ramos's spell "Combat Mechanic"? You can spend a soulstone to stop some of the wounds coming in, you could spend a soulstone to make a healing flip if you want, or you can scrounge up a scrap counter, summon a spider, and then cast Combat Mechanic to heal Ramos...


Edit: My bad, I could have sworn they had melee expert, the swarms have master and the same walk and charge... And the best part about that is if you move up, spending 1 action point, scatter using 1 action point, you now have 2 spiders closer to Pandora that can still activate... Also, they only have slow the first turn they're summoned. So you summon them 6 inches away and on their activation, you spend 1 Ap to move them into some terrain or behind LoS blocking stuff if they're too far away, and then on the next turn you move in and chomp on some Pandy...

if you use 1 ap to move and 1 to scatter i don't think any of the spiders have ap left.


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Ok i just looked it up and i have been using them wrong the new swarm is summoned so slow and activates immediately the scattered spiders are also summoned and slow but do not activate immediatly.

findas wrote:
if you use 1 ap to move and 1 to scatter i don't think any of the spiders have ap left.

Edit: When you scatter, you're summoning 3 new spiders, so while they all have slow, you do get 3 more models to play the out-activate game with Pandora.

Or i could blow her up with lazarus i get it pandora isn't invincible just really hard to deal with. I still think you play those neverborn crews because they are more powerful.

findas wrote:
Or i could blow her up with lazarus i get it pandora isn't invincible just really hard to deal with. I still think you play those neverborn crews because they are more powerful.

After I traded away my Gremlins, my Pandora crew was all that I could play at 35ss (as LCB and Dreamer were just the models and not the starter box, which I picked up over the next few months after the trade. Sure, I had my Lady Justice and Viktorias crews who are really strong at the demo level, but I couldn't make a 35ss list (and still can't with Lady Justice) for the longest time. You can say I'm a power gamer and I can assure you that I'm not, I've been playing Malifaux since summer of 2011, and was only able to play sporadically since my FLGS was a huge warmachine and hordes scene. A year ago, I applied to be a henchman with my Rasputina and Lady Justice Crews (though I did trade my Rasputina Crew and 100 bucks for 4000 points of Iron Warriors >_< ), started building up the scene at my FLGS and was only able to play in the month of March and April really. It's been since late September/Early October that I've been playing Malifaux weekly when I moved to a new city and started up a Malifaux scene there. The reason why I play those masters is because I like how Pandora plays, she's a spellcaster that doesn't really cast spells (since a lot of her damage comes from when people fail Wp duels), I like Chompy and Dreamer's fluff, and find it humorous that the kid thinks all of this is a game. And I like Lynch because I got to playtest him over the summer, and so I saw him grow from the outline of abilities that he was to what he is in book 4.

sure i can respect that you have two crews for just having fun games with but you can see why i am having problems with a club full of crews like the dreamer, pandora and hamlin i honestly don't think any of them will need to look up my crew to know how to beat it.

findas wrote:
sure i can respect that you have two crews for just having fun games with but you can see why i am having problems with a club full of crews like the dreamer, pandora and hamlin i honestly don't think any of them will need to look up my crew to know how to beat it.

And my club regularly faces Von Schill, Zoraida/Collodi, Colette, Lilith, Dreamer, Pandora, Misaki, Lynch and Ramos... And no one thinks any of them are broken or over powered. We've all learned to deal with them. You'll never get better if you simply sit here and complain instead of looking up how to use your master better and how to kill their masters easier.

i have built my avatar now i'm not sure i can be bothered to stick the ark of fire on it i drilled into his body and put the whole of the leg ends in but that really aint gonna work on the fire

Okay, then don't put it on... You have the model built and on a base... no one is going to confuse it for anything else

Ok well thanks for the info especially on the decapitate trigger.

findas wrote:
Ok well thanks for the info especially on the decapitate trigger.

Just the decapitate trigger?

No Alf, we love you for all of it. :-)

sorry alf you really did give me a lot of good advice i guess i was just in a bad mood. you told me a lot about beating certain masters and it has helped a lot thanks.

findas wrote:
sorry alf you really did give me a lot of good advice i guess i was just in a bad mood. you told me a lot about beating certain masters and it has helped a lot thanks.

No problem man, we all get down, glad my advice has helped

Sure thing. i am still loosing games but that's because i'm playing more crews i haven't faced before (plus making stupid mistakes). I've come to the conclusion that i'm not going to get good at this game quickly but i am gonna stick at it. That being said i am considering getting another crew that are faster and has some decent ranged attacks because i am pretty tired of ramos being so slow. have you got any experience of collette or kaeris?



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Oh and could you tell me more about vassle and where to get it?

I don't have much experience with either Colette or Kaeris, but out of the two of them I would suggest picking up Kaeris, because you can run her and a gunsmith or 2 in your Ramos crew to give you the speed you're lacking.

Vassal is an independent program that runs modules (think apps) of board games. People have been adapting it for famous wargames like 40k, fantasy, Warmachine/Hordes. Some companies are okay with this, such as Privateer press, because they just want people to play. Other companies, such as GW actively try to shut down Vassal40k, though you can still get it if you look. While both of those companies don't actively develop their module (they're done by fans of the game), Wyrd developed and maintains their vassal module themselves, which you can find here: http://www.wyrd-games.net/showthread.php?37797-VASSAL-Malifaux-v1

Thank you i'll look into vassal. i was leaning towards kaeris anyway i just don't really like the showgirls thing plus i have seen what kaeris can do (another of my crushing defeats). i may hold off for a wile as i am considering getting into hordes. Thanks again.