My First Gaming experience with Marcus
Where am I now?
Unsurprisingly my painting hasn't got very far, I will say now that you should quit reading this blog if you want to read all about that.
Yes, I haven't fixed that bloody RSR and all I've done really is build the models, sort the basis of my bases with cork and undercoated it all.
Oh and I (badly) drybrushed the bases, but that isn't worth an entire post, especially as lots of snow will cover it.
This post is going to cover my first gaming experiences using solely my #ToMB month 1 stuff which is simply the "Claw and Fang" box.
I will start here by thanking @clankers86 the "teaboy for Malibros" Jan Proudley.
Both games were against him, the first was "realfaux" hosted at his place and the other was a long late one on Vassal.
He's such a trooper, always fantastic to play and always good for an insightful chat helping myself and him to improve as gamers.
Cheers Jan!
Initial Thoughts
I knew that Marcus box comes to 34 soulstones before upgrades. At 40 ss games I have less space to wiggle, especially as 4/6 members of the crew could take upgrades, but on the positive side Marcus starting cache of 4 is pretty decent.
Now I do realise I could leave a model at home, but that isn't an option in my mind for 2 reasons.
- I want to test each model as much as I can
- There isn't many models
The latter is the biggest roadblock I think I will have to find my way around.
6 Miniatures is not too low an amount but in 40 stones games I would tend to want to field more in a lot of schemes and strategies.
I will get more into this in a moment.
The other issue is that, though Myranda can heal Beasts, on paper I feel they look pretty weak, bad in the toughness department.
The one game I've used the Cerberus it quickly occurred to me that it's a glass cannon.
Hitting power, but low def, no armour, hard to wound or any of that good stuff.
Cojo is Hard to Kill... but, he's Cojo, we'll get back to that at some point too.
The first game
This is a brief overview, I meant to take photos of this game as I went along but... I didn't.
Also I want to be nice to Jan and he requested I didn't go into too much detail afraid I would bag on him.
Jan declared Neverborn and Dreamer, with wave 2 out now he's been trying to get table time with the crew.
We flipped Reconnoiter as Strategy and the schemes were Line in the Sand (but we didn't flip it?), Bodyguard, Outflank, Take Prisoner, Breakthrough.
Well shit!
Recon, with this crew. The jackalope can't claim a quarter so it's down to 5 models.
Jan was also taking summoning Dreamer, for me with my fixed crew this game should have been unwinnable.
There's always two parts to playing almost any Strategy. Scoring points and denying them.
I can score, but I knew that if I just held back and attempted to play "safe" Jan's crew would easily be able to score points at the same time, continue gaining a model advantage and then just stop me getting points by out activating me.
Hmmm...
On top of all this, I was really unsure how easy any of the schemes would be to get.
But first what did I take?:
- Marcus
- The Trail of the gods
- Feral Instincts
- The Hunger Cry
- Jackalope
- Myranda
- Imbued Energies
- Cerberus
- Cojo
- RSR
- +2 stones for a total cache of 6
Now this game was a while ago but luckily I did take down some notes on my upgrade and scheme selections.
"Trail, get into quarters quick, larger base damage vs smaller minions (day dreams/alps). Hunger +2wp vs Neverlose shenanigans. Feral, may come up, instinctual gives more play...
Imbued Obvs"
To elaborate on those notes from my phone, Trail of the gods most appealing ability is the Hare form, getting Wk 8, I knew in Recon that Marcus may have to be "deciding piece" when it came to figuring out what was scored and actually using his 3AP to potentially walk 16" then place a marker would be good for Breakthrough (possibly Line in the Sand).
The Hunger Cry is an ability that gives my Beasts within 8" +2WP and if I've turned any of Jan's things into beasts and they fall within the bubble they get -2WP, this seemed strong against a crew of dreams and other wondrous things I assumed would have things attacking my Willpower.
Also it has an additional (0) action as did Feral Instincts which along with the one on his base card and now Instinctual I could do a lot of things with Marcus (3 general AP, 2 zeroes and potential extra AP from the Trail for 6 Actions!) and really became a tool box.
Imbued Energies on Myranda is an "obvious" choice because for the 1ss it is either going to be an awesome extra AP one turn if she stays as herself and is being useful or, the more "obvious" part is that when she is sacrificed to Shapechange, not only do I get a new toy but I get to draw 4 extra cards, which at worst can be used to helped the newly summoned beast.
Now I realise the big cat and monkey can also take upgrades but I didn't want to spend the soulstones, I didn't trust their toughness to waste more points on them and also I liked the idea of testing them raw as it were.
Scheme wise at the time I went for:
Bodyguard (Cojo)
Breakthrough
"revealed for max VP seems easier than line, outflank is counter intuitive, take prisoner hard without experience"
Well I do think that Marcus, the leaping Cerberus and the slithering Rattler can probably give LitS a good go, but as I knew to win this damn game I was going to have to push hard to stop Jan constantly outnumbering me I would be in his half of the board and Breakthrough is usually a lot less awkward positionally.
I'm not actually sure why I think Outflank is counter intuitive, for the Strategy it probably isn't but may I realised I wanted to get stuck in and not waste 1/3 of my crew at the table edges.
Take Prisoner I said was hard without experience, what I think I meant by this was unless you know the opponents crew it is hard to know what miniatures you can survive "hanging around" and what will even let you (pushes etc) also, I didn't know how long my guys could survive standing next to things.
I took Bodyguard, mostly as being hidden and having 1/2 my crew potentially being the chosen model, I could play "tricks".
Now it's obvious from the get go that Cojo would be the choice though, but I do like banter.
Jan did quickly note that Bodyguard on Myranda isn't typical as she Shapechanges so in the game I did let her lurk a bit as to maybe indicate I was.
The Cat also jumps in so quick that he will eventually die.
Cojo also has Hard to Kill as mentioned earlier, he is also very slow which means standing back isn't too unnatural for him to do.
In hindsight I could have actually got Take Prisoner, Jan's starting crew had Teddy and Coppelius and I did hang around Teddy a lot, however I did also suspect one of the two could be a Bodyguard (which Coppelius was) and I wasn't sure which Jan would choose.
Breakthrough was a solid plan and definitely was easier than Line in the Sand.
Outflank may also have been doable, but this was only because I...
Sorry Jan...
Brutally slaughtered the Dreamer Crew.
Conclusion of the first game
Well I won, Jan eventually just shook my hand and conceded.
Jan made a few mistakes in the game and one I took a big advantage of as soon as I saw it was that in Recon you cannot score if within 6" of the centre.
This put him on a back foot early and from then it was an uphill slog for him.
I lurked about Myranda early holding one of my sides quarters to gain VPs and also, to become a Cerberus when the model died.
Side note I will cover this another #ToMB blog, but if you start Marcus, at least in tournament play, you will need at least a Sabertooth Cerberus extra for Myranda to become unless you always hold her back.
I say, if playing at home just use a proxy or a base if a second big Beast isn't available for her and learn what she becomes most often.
Early doors Marcus giving most of my crew +2WP was priceless, as the game moved on I did a sort of pincer manoeuvre to split Jan's numbers and give me a better chance to spread scheme markers for Breakthrough.
Jan may've got a single point for Strategy, but with the big cat killing Coppelius early and him never really getting to move where he wanted, that was about it.
I felt I had done a good job of taking some control of the activations, very precisely killing models Jan had yet to activate and poking dead the freshly summoned 1 wound Nightmares. All this helped negate the fact I should really always be out-activated.
With a turn to go and most of my models, Cojo not even down to his last wound and on Jan's side of the table.
I was getting full scheme points and never missed Strategy.
Final Thoughts
I'll end with a run down of how each model performed, what I liked and didn't
RSR
Slither is actually quite smart essentially charging through dense terrain, he is good at tying things up and even though he in this game did a kamikaze it kept a lot of Jan's things in a bad position (that no score centre zone) and also threw poison onto something.
He seems a nuisance, but not one that is impossible to get rid off.
So far, I like him.
Cojo
Too slow! 3" reach is very nice and though Hard to Kill is good, def5 and not that many wounds is not.
His walk is painful, his charge doesn't equate to much and at his cost, I want to be able to get around to where I like and if not affect the rest of the crew in a helpful way.
In this game he was fine.
I can see his pushes also being highly useful and at one stage I think it did help me a lot.
However, I was not too impressed with him
Sabertooth Cerberus
As good as I remembered, he can be a deadly assassin if untouched and leap is simply a powerful ability.
I wish he was tougher, but the trick is to not get into fights with hordes of miniatures that can hurt you.
I like him and can see him accompanying Marcus most games.
Jackalope
Leaping then charging is not a joke especially when you are then doing a minimum of 3 damage.
The horned bunny can definitely finish off fights or take out those smaller minions your big beasts don't want to waste their time with.
In this game I didn't get to use multiply as he never got hit, this along with charging 1W freshly summoned models he easily made his cost back.
Myranda
A very strong model. Def 7 is hard to take down without dedication, move 6 is fast but awkward being the only thing that really worries about cover (I forgot this one turn and wasted AP) and Shapechange is fantastic as we all probably could tell.
Not only did it give me a fresh cat when my first died, it also importantly gave me an extra activation one turn.
The change to heal early turns also is nice against ranged attacks, if say, a big beast has only really suffered a single big hit.
I will definitely be fielding her again and again.
Marcus
The man himself.
I will definitely have to make a separate post in the future solely about him, Trail of the Gods in this game turned him into such a great toolbox as he could be pulled out to do so many different jobs.
Get all over the place with Wk8, smash little minions with a single AP, even go into a full on mega rage, sinking cards in to gain extra combat AP and damage.
For a good while he stayed back this game, using Alpha to fire a 3-headed cat shape missile right at Coppelius.
Early doors, as I previously mentioned, the Hunger Cry update protected me quite well and was a valuable tool.
Also one turn I could've Alpha'd Teddy. The idea of that just makes me tingle
I hope to try different upgrades at some point, but I did enjoy this set up and I love Marcus' versatility.
His future outside of #ToMB depends on what match ups I feel he is better in than the other Arcanist masters or whether he excels at certain Strategies over them.
To be honest his crew is not bad by any stretch but as of right now, I think it's what holds him back over Ramos, Mei and even Raspi in my mind.
Now this is why I'm using him for this experiment, I am aware he can take almost anything those other masters can but the Beast synergies are a big section of the tool box that he is.
Game 2 will come soon
Well I was going to use this post for game 2 as well, but you can wait a few days for that.
This post has gone on for far long enough, but I hope you enjoyed my scrambled thoughts and rambles.
Until next time
-Ben (@psientologist)
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