Having not played for a while I attended a tournament in
Canterbury at the weekend and decided to give Tara a run out in place of Jack
as I’m a little rusty with my Malifaux at the minute. I will write up a
tournament report later but I ended up finishing 2nd and
interestingly enough was contacted on twitter by @geekphotoguy to give some
tips on how I use Tara. I thought that sounds quite fun so here goes…
Firstly I’m not going to write an essay on everything she
can and can’t do, there is an excellent in depth review of all that here http://spiralingcadaver.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/sounds-of-silence-tara-and-obliteration.html
and I’m pretty sure that photo guy only has a limited pool of models so I
thought I would look at this pool and how I would play them in each strategy,
which schemes to pick and what to buy next.
This is the pool of models I’m looking at
Tara (obviously)
Karina (not mentioned but I expect he has her, probably
best not mentioned eh?)
Void Wretches (I will presume 3)
Nothing Beast
Death Marshal (also 3 I presume)
Killjoy
Bette Noire
The first thing that strikes me about this selection is
that there are 3 hitters, which is good for reckoning but not needed in most
other strategies unless you’re a blood thirsty looney that likes to kill
everything on the board (which won’t win you many games). So if you’re
squeezing them all into one list it’s going to be a low model count.
Secondly you have 3 models that are fighting for the
buried slot (I’m counting the nothing beast in these 3) although the DM will
help with this.
There are also models there that are fighting for cards.
Bette requires you to have a 10 in your hand at all times where possible, and
if you don’t then you need to be really careful (also watch for anything that
strips suits away). Killjoy likes masks. The nothing Beast would you prefer to
have fewer cards and then there is the problem with hand management. This
selection of models requires a fine balance of having the correct cards or not
having cards at all. The latter leaves you in the hands of your deck which can
be cruel.
In conclusion, this is a pool of models I have taken once
with Tara in one of my very early games (barring Killjoy) and I soon dropped
the void wretches, the nothing beast and the death marshals.
Most other players seem to say these are fine, great
models, very useful and indeed they probably are, but for me, as Resser, I
don’t like paying for Dead of Winter. Necropunks (and now Crooligans) can do
what wretches do. Bishop can do what the Nothing Beast does, only better. Bette
makes it into a list that’s facing living and I found the death marshals pine
boxing too convoluted and difficult to keep track of when I was learning.
Tara’s tricks and talents
When I first began playing Tara I thought her talent was
to bury enemy models then to use the void wretches to attack them, or to try
and steal their abilities, or to unbury and activate them.
I soon found that these abilities can be countered /
resisted by the opponent and if your relying on them things can go quite wrong
quite quickly. Tara can end up out of position and can be very vulnerable.
Slow, Slow, Quick,
Quick, Slow
I now think Tara’s ‘thing’ is AP manipulation. She is
able to get 6 AP per turn, she is able to hand out AP to your other models, and
she is able to take AP from enemy models. With 5 turns in M2E AP is King, and
Tara is the Queen of AP manipulation.
To do this you need to utilise pull the void and hence
Knowledge of Eternity is always in my upgrades (and the positive initiative
flip is sometimes a game winner, nut don’t rely on it). It has an 8” range and
a CA of 7 so it’s pretty reliable and I use it almost every turn either to give
my models fast or to give the enemy slow (just make sure they aren’t immune to
slow before you do it!)
Bishop Bomb
Bishop can of course be exchanged for your choice of
heavy hitter but I prefer Bishop simply because with Bishop you can get 5
attacks at range and he can chose his trigger (I find ignore armour /
incorporeal or hard to kill the best) and has cage fighter to help him stick
around but the principal is the same, and great fun. Certainly something with
an extra AP already is a better choice for this although the Nothing Beast can
be a bit vulnerable after being dropped off, particularly if you lose the
initiative!
1. Start
turn, spend a stone to draw a couple of
cards to ensure a nice high hand
2. Activate
Tara, gain reactivate, pull the void on Bishop giving him fast and chose to
fail the resist for the trigger burying him (if you have a void wretch you can
heal him while buried later if you like)
3. Move
Tara
4. Tara’s
second activation move again, cast faces in the void from Obliteration Symbiote
and unbury Bishop
5. Have
Bishop activate next, charge said target for 2 attacks then flurry for 3 more attacks.
6. Keep
the high cards in your hand so if anything hits him you can cheat in to win and
trigger cage fighter giving them a cheeky smack in the face. If you’ve buried Bette
in the meantime you can pop her out when Bishop kills the target to give them
an extra choice of who to hit thus keeping Bish alive a bit longer)
Anyway that’s all fun and should definitely be done but
it isn’t always the best course of action.
With Tara I often find it’s easy to get sucked into using
reactivate as her 0. This isn’t always the best use and with anything that
requires laying scheme markers or taking interacts you should be using her
ability to shut down interacts within 6”
There are many other things that she can do and certain
things that seem really easy such as making everything fast for the cost of a
few cards and an enemy model getting fast but I found these things to be quite
difficult to pull off without getting you into trouble so to be honest I would
simply stick to learning to bury / unbury trick (you will require Obliteration
Symbiote and Knowledge of Eternity) and getting used to shutting the enemy down
by preventing interacts.
Positioning
So where should Tara be in all this? I find the answer to
be not too close to anything! She has a decent resist against casting (remember
the plus 2 to DF & WP) and is immune to SH attacks as long as you are
holding or can stone for a Mask thanks for through the hole.
However, she doesn’t like being hit in the head. She is,
at the end of the day, a support master and requires careful positioning. I
believe she needs to be sitting just behind the action handing out the AP.
She’s an enabler making her crew do the work.
She is also an objective grabber. She can potentially
move 20” in a turn and still interact which means she can make a late break for
an objective, make a late break to remove a counter, bury, move and unbury an
objective grabber and so on and so forth. Add in the upgrade that allows her to
move back to her deployment zone and she can be very annoying at removing that
vital opposing scheme marker.
Limitations
So what doesn’t she do well? Well her combat skills are a
bit meh despite the impressive looking sword. Glimpse the void WP 13 duel can
be resisted but is handy late in the turn when the opponent is sweating due to
having no / low cards in hand, although I still prefer to do this through pull
the void rather than by bashing things with her sword.
She will go down like a sack of spuds in melee so beware
when assassinate is in the scheme pool and don’t over extend her.
I was going to look at the strategies and schemes with
the model pool available
I will first off start by saying I would take either
Bette or Killjoy dependant on what I
was facing. Bette is great against living crews due to the paralyse trigger but
otherwise can struggle.
Bette is also AWESOME for bodyguard with Tara as long as
you can keep the cards you need safe and keep Tara alive. Simply bury Bette
with at one with the night, heal her and pop her out on full wounds in the last
turn for your 3 points.
Claim Jump
For available models it would be
Tara (Knowledge of Eternity, Obliteration Symbiote, Dead
of Winter) - 5
3 x Void Wretches – 12
2/3 Death Marshalls – 12/18
Killjoy or Bette with no heal aura thing (decaying?) –
15/10
Worth dropping a void wretch / marshal to fit Nothing
Beast in at 10
So with turf war you want to look at your schemes. It’s
quite hard to stop the scoring from the strategy particularly in the early
turns. Use the void wretches to flood a flank for marker dropping (whichever is
weakest) but keep one on hand and out of trouble to bolster the scoring for the
claim.
Use Tara to utilise Bette / Killjoy to take out anything
that’s going for their schemes or simply drop killjoy into the middle of
whatever is scoring for their strategy but bear in mind whatever you’re putting
in there is probably going to die. I would use the marshal for holding the
claim territory, keep them in cover and use their ranged attacks. If there are
no blasts in the opposing crew so you can maybe utilise the scheme markers they
drop. I would keep Tara near the back to threated / counter anything that going
for your side of the board. I would take schemes that utilise marker dropping
such as protect territory & breakthrough or interacts such as distract.
To bolster the crew for this strategy I would consider
adding a couple of flesh constructs simply because they are so bloody hard to
get rid of and Belles to lure things out of the scoring zone)
Squatters Rights
Very tricky with this model choice simply because you
don’t have a lot of resilient models to hold the markers.
Tara (KOE/OS/DOW) - 5
3 x void wretches – 12
Nothing Beast – 10
Killjoy – 13
Bette Noire - 8
Simply get the wretches to you markers ASAP and use
everything else to try and kick the crap out of things and hope your wretches
can hang on (which they won’t) but then use Tara to move things to where you
need them and use her ability to stop your opponent interacting with the
markers.
Schemes – with that list anything that requires you to
kill stuff! Again Flesh Constructs are good additions as the can sit on the
markers to hold them (and you can get them there T1 by burying / un-burying
them) and Necropunks
Reckoning
Tara (KOE/OS/DOW) – 5
Nothing Beast (decaying Aura) - 12
Killjoy (decaying aura) - 15
Bette (decaying aura, unless it’s rare 2) - 10
Void Wretch – 4
I usually find the key to reckoning is not to take too
many models (less to kill) and to run with a high cache to help keep things
alive. The strategy is usually very tight so you need to focus on your schemes.
Keep the void wretch hidden and use to it to attack / heal any buried models
and as soon as you get access to other models I would drop it and DOW for the
upgrade that lets you move Tara back to het deployment zone, handy for getting
her out of trouble! What to add? Bishop & Johan as a tough filler for 7
stones, handy with his condition removal)
Reconnoitre
Tara (KOE/OS/DOW) – 5
3 x Void Wretch - 12
3 x Death Marshall – 18
Bette Noire (decaying aura) - 10
Another tough one with this model selection, and a tough
one in general with all the summoning masters that are out there. I would look
to get some more cheap minions (Necropunks rule) to flesh this out and pick up
a pack of guild autopsies so you can make use of the spare parts summoning
upgrade.
Stake a claim
Tara’s speciality subject. Keep her in the backfield and
make use of her ‘pull the void’ to make enemies slow, if they are slow they can’t
drop claim markers and use her ‘no interact’ 0 action to shut down the enemy
while running your Void Wretches round to get your claims. Void Wretches can
also hand out slow. Again bolster with Necropunks and Belles (Belles can cast
undress to hand out slow) or Nurses for paralyse.
Schemes
Schemes are probably the most important part of the game
so decide which ones you like and learn how to do them. I like bodyguard on
Bette as you can pop her out late on (Frame for Murder is also good on her),
Entourage as Tara can activate twice, protect territory and breakthrough if you
have fast minions. I normally stay away from assassinate and I hate spring the trap
and plant explosives (I just find it too difficult to concentrate on this while
doing other things, personal preference I suppose) If your opponent has
distract then bury your distracted models as they don’t count if they are
buried!
What to add in
next.
It has to be said the only one of these models I actually
take in my Tara crews on a regular basis is Bette. I generally replace the Void
Wretches with Necropunks, the Death Marshalls with Belles / Nurses and the
other hitter with whatever suits, quite often Flesh Constructs.
There are players out there that will sing the virtues of
pretty much every M2E model. Some people love Hanged and everyone agrees Punk
Zombies are solid models but I have never taken either so It’s whatever takes
your fancy to a certain extent. I would say Necropunks (or Crooligans if you
prefer) and Belles should be your next 2 purchases, after that it’s your
choice, pretty much all the Resser minions are solid models.
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