Friday, June 13, 2014

Tale of Malifaux Bloggers: Molly Update Delays

This update is for April and should have been posted on May 17th.

Wow and Sorry, is all I can say at this point. Things have been hectic as of late and I missed all of May as far as an update to my Molly ToMB progress for the month of April.

The good news...I've been playing Molly still, so she continues to be my main master the past few months. Besides her, I've been playing a little Tara down in VA with +Aaron Darland, which was an amazingly fun game. Also, played some Molly against +matthew m against his Dreamer crew. Both really close games which I lost by 1 measly point. I've also been running events and prepping for events:


As far as painting progress, I've made none! Yup after my Adepticon painting blitz I just couldn't get the energy. I did assemble a fair amount of terrain from my Renaissance Miniatures KS delivery of the East Asian terrain (which is stunning).

Ok so what did I buy for May? Well as I stated for April, it was going to be the Punk Zombies. Oh boy, yeah these are amazing. I have finally mastered what I simply call the "PZ Bomb", the amount of damage this thing can deal out is amazing. The other day in a two player game I coupled it with the Valedictorian + 2 Punk Zombies dropped in between a Guild line with stunning results. I'll go into more specifics in a moment on how/what it specifically is.

$-wise I have $4.51 left over from last months Beta + Necrotic Machine purchases giving me a total of $29.51 for this month. The new Punk Zombie plastics have been released in May, but I have the old metals. Here is a cost breakdown for those tracking costs (both come with 3 zombies):
 
  • Metal Punk Zombies - $15
  • Plastic Punk Zombies - $21

I ended up purchasing the Nicodem box for myself since it comes with 3 of the new Punk Zombies and he is the only Ressurectionist master I do not own. However, I'm using the cost of the old metals for cost tracking. So at the end of May that leaves me $14.51 left over, but wanted to make sure newer players see all the options for purchasing the Punk Zombies available (as a note there is one other valid Wyrd Punk Zombie model, it is the Judge from the rare, hard to find Undead Lady Justice Nightmare Edition box from Gencon 2011). I'll be saving the $14.51 for next month.


Ok, so let's go over why the Punk Zombies are so great in the Molly crew. First of all they are horror minions so benefit from her ability to reactivate them, and they can be summoned by her. Along with the necrotic machine's (0) Brethren they can be pushed 4" towards the necrotic machine. The punk zombies also gain Black Blood while within 6" of Molly which is stellar. Now punk zombies are fantastic models alone, but with all of Molly's abilities from taking her upgrade Forgotten Life they just go over the top. When summoned in they must be placed within 6", so gain Black Blood and loose all of their wounds minus how many enemy models they're standing near. The key to summoning a Punk Zombie in with Molly is that you really want it to be near 2+ models so it can take advantage of its Hard to Kill. If not than don't summon a Punk Zombie in, it is a waste to do so unless near 2+ enemy models for this reason.

When Molly summons anything in she forces every enemy model within 3" to suffer 1 wound if it fails a Wp 15 duel. This is nice and helps deplete your opponents hand, but isn't the main source of damage. Now ideally its nice to get two Punk Zombies down here, but really isn't necessary, it just increases the damage output. The reason is that the Punk Zombies, if placed in a position to get max benefit, can use their Slice & Dice. Now be careful with this as it does 3 dmg to ALL models within (Aura 3") who fail a Df 13 duel, meaning it can hit your own models. But come on, we're ressers, we can take advantage of this can't we? Oh you bet your decayed eye sockets we can, watch and learn.

Can anyone think of a model that is pretty resilient and can get some really great movement (who may also be a Horror)? How about oh, I dunno the Valedictorian? So you get the Valedictorian into the mix there; within 3" of the PZ. Also, have it within 6" of Molly so it gains Black Blood and then use the Slice & Dice from a Punk Zombie. Of course the Valedictorian will choose to fail and take the damage. It has Armor +1 so it only takes 2 dmg, and as a Henchman you can choose if you want to dmg prevent, but it really isn't necessary. You do want to take at least 1 dmg so you can trigger Black Blood! So let's count it up.

  • 1 dmg from summon to all enemy within 3"
  • 3 dmg to every model within 3" from Slide & Dice
  • 1 dmg from Black Blood to every model without black blood within 1"
That's around 5+/- dmg to all models in the area. Now sure this is all contingent on some duels passing/failing, but you can see the potential I hope. Add in any other mix of more models that can take the slice and dice dmg that can have black blood and your dmg numbers can get pretty high. This also can quickly force your opponent to have to use a lot of cards.

The observant reader may be asking, "how does Slice & Dice action get taken during Molly's turn?". Well its from her (0) Whispers of Future Flesh on her Forgotten Life upgrade I mentioned earlier. This gives any friendly Belle or Horror (within LoS and 10") the chance to take a (1) Action; Slice & Dice is a 1 action. It's also great coupled with her Tear of the Gorgon upgrade to allow her to take two (0) actions. The second I take besides Whispers of Future Flesh before ending her turn is (0) Gorgon's Cry to give her Terrifying (All) 12 until her next Activation. 

We're not done! After Molly is done, she can accomplice, and choose the Punk Zombie she summoned to activate which he will than choose to do Slice & Dice again, potentially handing out 3 more dmg to everything within 3" (and potentially the extra 1" from Black blood on Valedictorian).

So that's the PZ bomb, I've come to really like it and there are obvious variations and I have perfected which are better for certain situations. For example, if you setup some other key things before you drop it you can also make it hard for specific enemy models to pass. Like activating a Dead Doxy and having it give -flip to duels the enemy model is the defender of (via Confusing Feelings trigger from (0) Take the Lead). Also, during Molly's activation, but before dropping a PZ in use her (1) Whispered Secret to give a model -flip on all duels. These combined make it very tough for enemy models to pass the duels required from the summon (Wp 15), and the Slice & Dice (Df 13). 

One quick note if you have the opportunity to put the PZ in a more tactically advantageous position he may just want to use his 2" Ml attack and do some dmg to one model. My main reason for enjoying the Slice & Dice approach is that it really can kill an opponents hand (and their models). 

So that's all for my incredibly late update which was due May 17th. I'll be ready for the next one coming up June 17th. Any guesses what I'll be buying? I already used it here in this update; I'm a dirty Cheater at ToMB!


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