The Plague tidings
I am going to document m 4 games with Hamelin so far and see what nuggets of information I can extract from my tortured memory!
Game 1 vs Seamus in Ply for Information.
As my friend declared Ressurs I reached for Taelor from my admittedly limited pool of Outcast models. Immunity to Horror duels is nice vs a faction that thrives on them. My list was:
Hamelin: Piper, Sewer King,Plague Pits
Taelor: Oathkeeper, Scramble
Midnight Stalker: Scout the field
Baby Kade: Scramble
Big Jake
Wretch, 2 rats and a Stolen
Report
The Plague spreads to the table top as Hamelin faces Seamus in Ply for Info. The rat engine is a little slow to start but eventually Seamus leaps out to shoot Big Jake. The shot hits the tree Jake is cowering behind sending a flock of angry birds swirling away. The Copy cat Killer leaps and shoots Taelor but misses. Hamelin responds by luring Taleor and Baby Kade into position and Taelor drops Oathkeeper to charge Seamus, dealing 6 damage to the Mad Hatter. The Midnight Stalker was stalked by the Rogue Necro and hid behind a building. 2nd turn and Hamelin declared recover evidence, with the models in the backfield close to the stalker being the targets. Seamus activated and thanks to multiple horror duels and live for pain healed all the damage Taelor had caused. Baby Kade passed his horror duel so in an act of pure spite, via Seamus' new upgrade, Sean dealt 4 damage to the wee Bairn! Baby Kade charged Seamus and thanks to Taelor assisting him, got 7 damage through! Then Taelor followed up and dealt 3 damage using the trigger to deny SS prevention before hitting the trigger on the next attack to ignore HtK. Seamus stoned to prevent and flipped BJ! With Seamus out the Rat Catcher plied the CCK which reminded Sean we were playing Ply. Sean's belles, Doxies and Sybelle were now in the range of the Plague pits and started getting Blight.
Turn 3 saw the Stalker pick up 2 evidence markers and with negatives on all duels Sean had the chance to kill him, but chose to farm Ply from him. I could only equal his score as I had to keep out of range of the Set up that was happening near Kade, Taelor, and Jake. I didn't know which one was the target and I needed to keep close to the centre to score Show of Force. Turn 4 saw the Stalker claim the last evidence marker and run while Jake and Taelor scored ply from the doxie. Hamelin started to use the Blight condition to drop 4 - 7 damage on models which was very powerful given Blight isn't removed! Stolen could Also do it which killed a Belle and put Sybelle under a lot of pressure. Final turn and I removed a marker to deny set up so Sean killed the target (Baby Kade) then I used Bleeding disease to kill the remaining models other than the Doxie next to Jake.... who was the Take Prisoner target I kept Taelor just out of engagement range which meant I couldn't deny the extra VP, but I didn't see it coming anyway! Game ended 9 - 4 to Hamelin.
Game 2. vs Marcus in Ours!
This game I took
Hamelin: Piper, Plague Pits
Nix: Scramble
Benny: The Bigger they are
Freikorps librarian: Oathkeeper
Big Jake
Wretch, 2 Rats, and a Stolen
Report
Once more the stench of decay emanates from Oxford as Hamelin sought to claim Natures domain as his own. The Plague host clashed with the Lord of Beasts to claim Ours! By right of conquest. Taking experimental crews; Hamelin was flanked by Nix and Benny Wolcomb while opposite him Marcus brought a Grootslang. The vermin tide quickly formed as Marcus spread his beasts across the table, slowly picking up Blight along the way.
Turn 2 saw Benny spot an enemy scheme marker and commanded a rat to sit next to it. Hamelin obeyed the Friekorp Librarian to place a scheme marker before consuming the December Acolyte from the inside as the Blight became toxic. At the end of that turn Benny flipped the scheme marker to friendly and Hamelin was able to score Guarded Treasure. However due to the position of the Librarian he couldn't score Ours! Which Marcus did as he slinked through the Forest, afflicted by Blight but otherwise unmolested.
Turn 3 and Marcus howled and charged the filthy abomination that was Nix causing all of 3 damage thanks to Nix's various layers of defence. Nix used the Blight against Marcus, dropping him to 6 wounds before Myranda came to help heal him. Marcus' beast suffered under the weight of attacks and blight and Hamelin was able to score both Guarded Treasure and Ours. The battle worsened for Marcus who ran for cover in the opponents deployment zone while Hamelin searched the ruins. It turns out Marcus was in fact performing Undercover Entourage - sacrificing his crew to ensure his escape. Hamelin wins 9 - 4
Game 3. vs Molly in Symbols of AUTHORITAH!
I took
Hamelin: Piper, Plague Pits, Tools of the Tyrant
Ama No Zako: Oath Keeper, Bigger they are
Taelor: Scramble, Oath Keeper
Midnight Stalker: Scout the Field
Wretch, 2 rats, and a Stolen.
Report (from opponent)
Adam and I played a game of Symbols last night too, and I got severely blighted!
First turn Adam was making rats, throwing rats, combining rats etc whilst Molly moved into Adams side of the board and summoned a punk zombie which I then reactivated. Adam then started using his ‘normal’ models and activated Taelor, who after being obeyed forward a little dropped oathkeeper and charged Molly taking her down to 4 wounds. Amano Zako shifted forward and the stalker moved further into my half taking a crooligan down to 1 wound.
Second turn my cards decided to form an upside down triangle numerically speaking which meant Molly started taking blight from a recently moved plague pit because, even with stoning for the mask trigger, I couldn’t hit taelor to push away. I did manage to put some hurt on her with Molly and Sybelle but at the expense of lots of blight. The rest of my crew shuffled around a little with my rogue at first trying to get to the stalker and finding the jumping beggar too hard to get to so went after Amano. The stalker in the meantime took out one of my symbols. At the end of the turn I looked through what was left of my deck to find all bar 2 of the remaining 12 cards were picture cards!
Turn 3 started with Molly still trying to push but just killing Taelor off and healing up to 9 wounds, but now sitting on blight 12. With Taelor out of the way Sybelle moved forward and round and summoned Molly away from the plague pits ready to take out a symbol marker. There then started a period of every man and his rat trying to kill Molly with Bleeding Disease. 2 stolen failed then to pass their Horror fuels against her, then Hamelin went. I was confident that the 13, 11, 2 crows and sufficient cards to drop for her trigger would see her survive, only to black joker the defence flip against Hamelin and die horribly. After that it all just went to pot and everything else quickly died to blight either from Hamelin or Stolen whilst the stalker and Ama No Zako cleaned up my symbols. We called it at the end of turn 4 at 8-1 to Adam.
Game 4 vs Marcus in Ply for Information
I took
Hamelin: Piper, the Plague, Tools of the Tyrant
Nix: Scramble
Benny Wolcomb: Tally Sheet, Infectious Melodies
Midnight Stalker: Scout the Field
Wretch, 2 rats, and a Stolen.
This one ended 8 - 4 to Hamelin
Thoughts and Revelations on the Rat Bastard
The Hamelin core is quickly becoming Piper upgrade, Stolen, 2 rats and the Obedient Wretch, this comes in at 12 stones and 5 activations and forms the basis of the Rat Engine at the cheapest level. The Piper upgrade gives you two very very useful abilites/actions. Obey is very good for Hamelin as it avoids the gun symbol on the Pipes lure action and Ca7 makes it difficult for your opponent to defend against being obeyed. The No charge aura makes it likely any alpha strike comes in sub-optimally. You need to ask your opponent what their threat range is (especially their engagement range) and then place your model so that they are just out of engagement range assuming the opponent's charge stops at the 6" point.
Over the course of my games vs the Ressurectionist's, I've realised (after 2 games) that Hamelin, Nix and Benny can just ignore the paralysed condition if they fail the horror duel.... d'oh! I'll save my high cards from now on. It does mean that you'd burn cards from your deck if you decide not to cheat to pass the Horror duel but its much better to have the decision about whether to pass or continue to fail than be forced to pass! This makes Manipulative more frustrating to deal with than Terrifying for a Hamelin/Nihilist crew because if you don't pass, you lose the AP.
Thinking that Tools of the Tyrant and The Plague upgrade make for a horrendous Interact denying combination is a trap I think. In order for the Plague's 'Sick in the Bed' condition to become active (the condition means the model must discard 2 cards to interact) the opponent's model must have Blight 4 or more. This won't happen until turn 3 or 4 at the earliest so for much of the game this 2ss upgrade is pretty ineffective (compared with the Piper at 2ss). the easiest way to get Blight on the opposing crew early? Plague Pits upgrade! But this competes for upgrade slots and since the Piper is mandatory (IMO - its offensive and defensive capability cannot be understated) you are forced to choose between the Plague or the Pits.
From my games I am definitely leaning towards the Pits as the go-to upgrade. The Pits awaken the latent destructive potential in the themed Hamelin crew. With Blight escalating you are quickly able to push large amounts of straight damage through, typically on models with high defense but average Willpower, and the threat comes not just from Hamelin, but from his crew too - Nix, Benny, Obedient Wretch, and the Stolen all have the Bleeding Disease attack, and with so many attacks some are going to get through, causing damage way out of proportion to the model's cost.
What I am really liking about the Hamelin crews I make is the ability to plug and play models. The Rat Engine is established and you can really throw different models in to accomplish the objectives in the game. For scheming in the opponent's half you add in the Midnight Stalker. For damage you can obey you plug in some of the various Freikorps or Mercenary models available to you. This allows for a lot of tailoring to the game and opponent, without having to re-think the game plan each time.
I'll be exploring more lost models in the future (I really like Kade) and more Freikorps with Hamelin, and see what the Master of Rats can do with them!
Game 1 vs Seamus in Ply for Information.
As my friend declared Ressurs I reached for Taelor from my admittedly limited pool of Outcast models. Immunity to Horror duels is nice vs a faction that thrives on them. My list was:
Hamelin: Piper, Sewer King,Plague Pits
Taelor: Oathkeeper, Scramble
Midnight Stalker: Scout the field
Baby Kade: Scramble
Big Jake
Wretch, 2 rats and a Stolen
Report
The Plague spreads to the table top as Hamelin faces Seamus in Ply for Info. The rat engine is a little slow to start but eventually Seamus leaps out to shoot Big Jake. The shot hits the tree Jake is cowering behind sending a flock of angry birds swirling away. The Copy cat Killer leaps and shoots Taelor but misses. Hamelin responds by luring Taleor and Baby Kade into position and Taelor drops Oathkeeper to charge Seamus, dealing 6 damage to the Mad Hatter. The Midnight Stalker was stalked by the Rogue Necro and hid behind a building. 2nd turn and Hamelin declared recover evidence, with the models in the backfield close to the stalker being the targets. Seamus activated and thanks to multiple horror duels and live for pain healed all the damage Taelor had caused. Baby Kade passed his horror duel so in an act of pure spite, via Seamus' new upgrade, Sean dealt 4 damage to the wee Bairn! Baby Kade charged Seamus and thanks to Taelor assisting him, got 7 damage through! Then Taelor followed up and dealt 3 damage using the trigger to deny SS prevention before hitting the trigger on the next attack to ignore HtK. Seamus stoned to prevent and flipped BJ! With Seamus out the Rat Catcher plied the CCK which reminded Sean we were playing Ply. Sean's belles, Doxies and Sybelle were now in the range of the Plague pits and started getting Blight.
Turn 3 saw the Stalker pick up 2 evidence markers and with negatives on all duels Sean had the chance to kill him, but chose to farm Ply from him. I could only equal his score as I had to keep out of range of the Set up that was happening near Kade, Taelor, and Jake. I didn't know which one was the target and I needed to keep close to the centre to score Show of Force. Turn 4 saw the Stalker claim the last evidence marker and run while Jake and Taelor scored ply from the doxie. Hamelin started to use the Blight condition to drop 4 - 7 damage on models which was very powerful given Blight isn't removed! Stolen could Also do it which killed a Belle and put Sybelle under a lot of pressure. Final turn and I removed a marker to deny set up so Sean killed the target (Baby Kade) then I used Bleeding disease to kill the remaining models other than the Doxie next to Jake.... who was the Take Prisoner target I kept Taelor just out of engagement range which meant I couldn't deny the extra VP, but I didn't see it coming anyway! Game ended 9 - 4 to Hamelin.
Game 2. vs Marcus in Ours!
This game I took
Hamelin: Piper, Plague Pits
Nix: Scramble
Benny: The Bigger they are
Freikorps librarian: Oathkeeper
Big Jake
Wretch, 2 Rats, and a Stolen
Report
Once more the stench of decay emanates from Oxford as Hamelin sought to claim Natures domain as his own. The Plague host clashed with the Lord of Beasts to claim Ours! By right of conquest. Taking experimental crews; Hamelin was flanked by Nix and Benny Wolcomb while opposite him Marcus brought a Grootslang. The vermin tide quickly formed as Marcus spread his beasts across the table, slowly picking up Blight along the way.
Turn 2 saw Benny spot an enemy scheme marker and commanded a rat to sit next to it. Hamelin obeyed the Friekorp Librarian to place a scheme marker before consuming the December Acolyte from the inside as the Blight became toxic. At the end of that turn Benny flipped the scheme marker to friendly and Hamelin was able to score Guarded Treasure. However due to the position of the Librarian he couldn't score Ours! Which Marcus did as he slinked through the Forest, afflicted by Blight but otherwise unmolested.
Turn 3 and Marcus howled and charged the filthy abomination that was Nix causing all of 3 damage thanks to Nix's various layers of defence. Nix used the Blight against Marcus, dropping him to 6 wounds before Myranda came to help heal him. Marcus' beast suffered under the weight of attacks and blight and Hamelin was able to score both Guarded Treasure and Ours. The battle worsened for Marcus who ran for cover in the opponents deployment zone while Hamelin searched the ruins. It turns out Marcus was in fact performing Undercover Entourage - sacrificing his crew to ensure his escape. Hamelin wins 9 - 4
Game 3. vs Molly in Symbols of AUTHORITAH!
I took
Hamelin: Piper, Plague Pits, Tools of the Tyrant
Ama No Zako: Oath Keeper, Bigger they are
Taelor: Scramble, Oath Keeper
Midnight Stalker: Scout the Field
Wretch, 2 rats, and a Stolen.
Report (from opponent)
Adam and I played a game of Symbols last night too, and I got severely blighted!
First turn Adam was making rats, throwing rats, combining rats etc whilst Molly moved into Adams side of the board and summoned a punk zombie which I then reactivated. Adam then started using his ‘normal’ models and activated Taelor, who after being obeyed forward a little dropped oathkeeper and charged Molly taking her down to 4 wounds. Amano Zako shifted forward and the stalker moved further into my half taking a crooligan down to 1 wound.
Second turn my cards decided to form an upside down triangle numerically speaking which meant Molly started taking blight from a recently moved plague pit because, even with stoning for the mask trigger, I couldn’t hit taelor to push away. I did manage to put some hurt on her with Molly and Sybelle but at the expense of lots of blight. The rest of my crew shuffled around a little with my rogue at first trying to get to the stalker and finding the jumping beggar too hard to get to so went after Amano. The stalker in the meantime took out one of my symbols. At the end of the turn I looked through what was left of my deck to find all bar 2 of the remaining 12 cards were picture cards!
Turn 3 started with Molly still trying to push but just killing Taelor off and healing up to 9 wounds, but now sitting on blight 12. With Taelor out of the way Sybelle moved forward and round and summoned Molly away from the plague pits ready to take out a symbol marker. There then started a period of every man and his rat trying to kill Molly with Bleeding Disease. 2 stolen failed then to pass their Horror fuels against her, then Hamelin went. I was confident that the 13, 11, 2 crows and sufficient cards to drop for her trigger would see her survive, only to black joker the defence flip against Hamelin and die horribly. After that it all just went to pot and everything else quickly died to blight either from Hamelin or Stolen whilst the stalker and Ama No Zako cleaned up my symbols. We called it at the end of turn 4 at 8-1 to Adam.
Game 4 vs Marcus in Ply for Information
I took
Hamelin: Piper, the Plague, Tools of the Tyrant
Nix: Scramble
Benny Wolcomb: Tally Sheet, Infectious Melodies
Midnight Stalker: Scout the Field
Wretch, 2 rats, and a Stolen.
This one ended 8 - 4 to Hamelin
Thoughts and Revelations on the Rat Bastard
The Hamelin core is quickly becoming Piper upgrade, Stolen, 2 rats and the Obedient Wretch, this comes in at 12 stones and 5 activations and forms the basis of the Rat Engine at the cheapest level. The Piper upgrade gives you two very very useful abilites/actions. Obey is very good for Hamelin as it avoids the gun symbol on the Pipes lure action and Ca7 makes it difficult for your opponent to defend against being obeyed. The No charge aura makes it likely any alpha strike comes in sub-optimally. You need to ask your opponent what their threat range is (especially their engagement range) and then place your model so that they are just out of engagement range assuming the opponent's charge stops at the 6" point.
Over the course of my games vs the Ressurectionist's, I've realised (after 2 games) that Hamelin, Nix and Benny can just ignore the paralysed condition if they fail the horror duel.... d'oh! I'll save my high cards from now on. It does mean that you'd burn cards from your deck if you decide not to cheat to pass the Horror duel but its much better to have the decision about whether to pass or continue to fail than be forced to pass! This makes Manipulative more frustrating to deal with than Terrifying for a Hamelin/Nihilist crew because if you don't pass, you lose the AP.
Thinking that Tools of the Tyrant and The Plague upgrade make for a horrendous Interact denying combination is a trap I think. In order for the Plague's 'Sick in the Bed' condition to become active (the condition means the model must discard 2 cards to interact) the opponent's model must have Blight 4 or more. This won't happen until turn 3 or 4 at the earliest so for much of the game this 2ss upgrade is pretty ineffective (compared with the Piper at 2ss). the easiest way to get Blight on the opposing crew early? Plague Pits upgrade! But this competes for upgrade slots and since the Piper is mandatory (IMO - its offensive and defensive capability cannot be understated) you are forced to choose between the Plague or the Pits.
From my games I am definitely leaning towards the Pits as the go-to upgrade. The Pits awaken the latent destructive potential in the themed Hamelin crew. With Blight escalating you are quickly able to push large amounts of straight damage through, typically on models with high defense but average Willpower, and the threat comes not just from Hamelin, but from his crew too - Nix, Benny, Obedient Wretch, and the Stolen all have the Bleeding Disease attack, and with so many attacks some are going to get through, causing damage way out of proportion to the model's cost.
What I am really liking about the Hamelin crews I make is the ability to plug and play models. The Rat Engine is established and you can really throw different models in to accomplish the objectives in the game. For scheming in the opponent's half you add in the Midnight Stalker. For damage you can obey you plug in some of the various Freikorps or Mercenary models available to you. This allows for a lot of tailoring to the game and opponent, without having to re-think the game plan each time.
I'll be exploring more lost models in the future (I really like Kade) and more Freikorps with Hamelin, and see what the Master of Rats can do with them!
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