Stargazer's Painting/Malifaux Corner

Welcome back peeps, another week on and another installment of Stargazer's little corner of the internet. After talking about painting last week (More specifically Seamus the Mad Hatter) I felt it was only right to discuss how I like to use him in game. Yeah yeah yeah I hear you cry "that's all well and good but you've posted the wrong bloody pic! That's not Seamus!" and you would indeed be correct dear reader that is not Seamus. However that is Seamus' totem (sidekick/physical manifestation of Seamus' magical footprint in malifaux) The Copycat Killer (Little Leprechaun with a big gun) All the masters have one of these totems and the tactics relating to the totems are directly linked to the tactics for the master so I thought I would throw him into this post as well. For info on painting him see my post last week here as he is pretty much the same colour-wise to Seamus.

So.... tactics. Disclaimer: the thoughts and tactics provided are my own there are a myriad of ways to both build a crew and play it in Malifaux giving almost infinite tactics however these are the ones I feel work the best for me :)

The main benefit of Seamus and his crew in general is that he is flexible. In fact I would almost go as far as to say he is the most flexible master around. He might not be very hitty in combat nor the ranged beast that other masters can be, he isn't even a summoning powerhouse so why take him?? Well this is the main reason to take him as he doesn't have one defined role you can adapt to your opponent and react accordingly.

Another thing of note is that in Malifaux unlike 40k and other war-games you don't get any bonus points for wiping your opponent out, nor do you even auto-win. I have won games before having nothing left on the table. As such it is important to not only focus on the damage output of your crew but to concentrate more on how you would deal with specific strategies that you have to achieve, promoting both synergy and balanced list writing (remember in malifaux there's no such thing as a cheesy or broken list as the combinations that usually work best are the fluffy ones. If you have a nasty trick you can probably bet your opponent has something equally nasty they can pull on you!)

Ok lets kick off with his abilities...

Belles of the Ball- This is in my opinion one of his best abilities, friendly Belles (most things in your crew) activating within 8" of Seamus gain +2" onto their walk. This combined with Shambling (ignoring Severe terrain) gives your crew excellent mobility meaning you can achieve your objectives/run away that bit faster.

Hard to Wound 2 and Hard to Kill- Pretty self explanatory really combined with his 12 wounds he really is a bit of a tank! If your opponent wants to take him down in one turn they are going to have to divert a large amount of their crew to take him down.

Necrotic Ministrations- I always seem to forget this however it's one of his best abilities. Whenever a living or undead model dies within 6" draw 1 control card and heal 2 wounds making him even harder to kill. Remember you can also kill your own crew with him if you really need the wounds.

Terrifying -> 12- Not a very high terrifying number however it's nice when your opponent has to burn a card to pass the test.

.50 Flintlock- May only be shot once per turn, more on this later

Onto his actions

Fast (+1)- very nice allows him to keep up with the belles or walk once to get into position for a focussed flintlock strike

(0) No Escape- Seamus automatically charges the target model within 6" if it tries to make a movement action, useful to stop something disappearing when you really want to kill it, such as a shooting model you have been chasing all game... However Seamus definitely has better (0) actions so don't expect to use this too frequently.

(0) Trail of Fear- A 12" bubble in which any living model receives -2 will power. Very nice for those terrifying duels or your spells with Rst-Wp. But remember this doesn't work on constructs or undead or nightmares... however in the right situation it can be really nasty considering most of your crews spells are Rst-Wp!

(0) Womanizer- Companion a Belle. This is very useful action for companioning Sybelle who can then companion all of your Belles, thus allowing your whole crew to activate simultaneously. Pretty handy for grabbing an objective and then buggering off all before your opponent can do anything ;)

Triggers

Excessive Bleeding- This is greyed out and for use in melee. Very good as it makes the model that you have hit insignificant for the rest of the game, meaning it doesn't count towards objectives nor can it complete them.

Slit Jugular- Again triggered in melee. An additional crow is needed but it means your opponent must discard either 2 control cards or soulstones (both precious resources) or die! Good if you have a red joker in your hand and really want to get rid of that combat monster, or to drain cards for tricks you are planning on using later in the turn.

Right we're on the home straight now, Spells!

(0) Arise my Sweet- A nice spell a high crow is needed however but bringing back a belle is priceless when your opponent has just pumped resources into killing it. Also useful if you need to destroy an objective and there happens to be a corpse counter next to it...

(1) The Face of Death- A 4" bubble of Terrifying ->14 very powerful if you are surrounded by opposing models. Burns lots of high cards or opponents fall back which means they are out of the game for 2 turns! (remember combined with Trail of Fear this can become horrific!)

(1) Live for Pain- Deal ranged damage and heal back what damage you do. With your high cast of 7 against their defense this can be powerful and if you really need the wounds back remember you can always cast it on your own models ;)

(1) Undead Psychosis- Target model cannot come within 3" of an undead model. Very useful as your whole crew is undead... cast this on your opponents melee monster and watch him weep as it can do nothing for a turn.

So now I've gone over Seamus' stats time to discuss general tactics....

Firstly his ranged attack the .50 Flintlock. This has a relatively low range of 8" however the damage arc is enormous! This baby can take off half of pretty much any models wounds in one shot! As you can only fire this once a turn you better make sure it counts. With a relatively low combat value cheat high and then soulstone to make it impossible to resist. Pretty simple really...

Seamus is rubbish in combat, yes he has nice triggers but it isn't where he shines, this is where copycat killer comes in. While being able to use any of Seamus' spells (Live for Pain is a good

one allowing him to heal wounds when he hurts himself with his flintlock.) his best use is mistaken identity allowing him to switch places with Seamus, this combined with companion means you can move Seamus, fire a shot with the Flintlock, activate Copycat and switch the two then fire another flintlock from copycat at whatever you want really dead while keeping Seamus away from harm. This is probably the best use for copycat combined with the occasional opportunistic flintlock shot.

As mentioned earlier a good trick is to use Live for Pain to kill an injured Belle gaining 2 wounds and a control card plus the wounds dealt to the Belle, and then re-summon it all shiny and new with Arise my Sweet.

Another thing to use is Copycat running into the middle of an opposing crew and using The Face of Death. This turns your 2 soulstone pretty useless totem in to a Terrifying ->14 beast! Both very funny and useful for draining cards before your crew properly hits.

One thing to remember is if you need a high crow for a spell but don't have it in your hand you can cheat in a low crow and then soulstone to give you a high enough total. Also remember if Copycat is using Magical connection to cast Seamus' spells he can use soulstones but once they are gone they are gone!!

Phew... finally got through it! I think that's the basic outline but there are still a million and one things you can do not to mention including fun with the rest of his crew... Don't take this as Verbatim just as more of a set of guidelines (like the Pirate code ;)) Have fun and experiment after all with Malifaux you never know until you try!

Any comments additions observations etc. please post in the comments.

Until next time Stargazer out!