This is a very straight forward scheme that I personally LOVE. But I also like schemes that are all about being in the thick of the scrum.

But maybe more than running the actual scheme, I also like that it creates some interesting choices for some crews. Because if you aren’t careful, you can be put on the back foot pretty quickly.

And I’m sure there are plenty of people who are quite happy that Yasunori can’t complete this one!

This is a deceptively deep scheme. Can’t cheese out with a leader. And if you go for that high SS beater, you must pick something high SS from them. So the sweet spot is to have a mid-costed, aggressive model that can go for the teeth. Illuminated come to mind, as they can hit hard, go deep and are hard to shift. So it can be fairly easy to at least score 2VP.

I think honestly that’s the method to go for here. Hunt for that 2VP sweet spot, with designs on getting that 3rd if the opportunity presents itself. It can be easy to telegraph this scheme if you are a little too eager, but that means it’s pretty easy to bluff too.

All of these considerations make it a fantastic scheme in the pool. It just brings a bunch of layers that you could do. Or you don’t do. Either way it’s got to be a consideration.

I will say that I’m a slacker here and often just assume I’m 3VP down because I just know I’m going to offer up my vendetta target on a silver platter. I seem to be good at that!

First off, this scheme doesn’t benefit hordes at all, as it makes it easier for your opponent to score. I love that. Yet another thing to encourage slightly more elite crews (my favorite).

This can be easy to deny as well. Just don’t group up. But that brings its own potential problems, depending on the scheme and strategy. A counter argument to that is we don’t have extraction or guard the stash anymore. This exacerbates the situation as the only schemes and strats that care about the center now are Show of Force and Search the Ruins. Everything else is just all over the place.

As such, crews that have higher mobility or positioning tricks can really make this a consistent 3 pts. I know I’ve brought a lot of attention to 10T, but they are all about positioning and a lot of these schemes favor strong positioning capabilities. Lust is a great model for this as her whole shtick is to take an enemy and send it to a buddy. Fortunately, she’s a merc so anyone can hire her!

One of Molly’s new upgrades has an interesting interaction here in that it grants her 2 cards every time she reveals a scheme. Normally that’s 4 cards in a game, but this scheme can bring that up to 8 cards. Not necessarily a “ZOMG!” thing, but something to be aware of.

It’s also quite card intensive if you choose your targets poorly. This may be one of the most punishing schemes in that regard. Two cards is nothing to scoff at and if you had to burn your control hand, or are unwilling to pitch, and your opponent got his challenge target the hell out of dodge… that’s a big problem.

So pay careful attention to the tricks for disengagement, so you don’t get caught flatfooted when you lock in your targets, fail to kill it because they have better cards than you, and then GTFO.

I don’t like frame. I don’t like guessing if I can get a model my opponent will be nice enough to kill with the right model so that I score points. This takes a lot of the decision making out of your hand. If you telegraph it, they find ways around it. If you don’t telegraph it, they still might decide to neuter over kill.

I feel like the best luck is to pick a random model and hope they go for it. But that’s the same problem of… but what if they don’t?

I can’t rate it too poorly as it brings some interesting decisions and strategic choices to the table. But I also can’t rate it high because I don’t like schemes that can’t be scored unless your opponent “gives” you the points. A lot of schemes are reliant on what your opponent does or brings. I don’t know of another one that you physically cannot score unless your opponent does something.

But it’s not on a suit… so that makes it totally ok to have pop up once in a while just to stir things up a bit.

Deployment: Flank

Strategy: Ours

Schemes: Charge Soulstone, Smuggled Across, Make them Suffer, Vendetta and Claim Jump

Playing As: Outcasts

Pretty kill oriented pool. Ours wants you to reduce the number of models in a quadrant. Charge, Suffer, and Vendetta all require you to kill to score. Claim Jump is interesting here because flank changes the center line, but ours doesn’t change how it splits the quadrants. So effectively quadrant 2 and 3 will have the center line in them. The hard part about this is that’s the war zone quadrants. Your opponent will be in 1 (for sake of visualizing) and you in 4, read to push out immediately to start scoring. So that’s probably a dead scheme unless you can gain dominance and hold it there. You could always push for center to help, but then you have models that aren’t scoring.

Gremlins have an advantage because they are far more AP and model efficient for SS, so Charge Soulstone hurts less. Pigapult and some Bayou gremlins guarantee Smuggled Across for 3VP on turn one. Make them Suffer isn’t likely unless they play Wong, even with Francois available. He is good for maybe two points, but he’s going to be too close to dead for the third. Similarly, with Vendetta.

You’re looking at facing probably Somer or Wong here, leaning towards Somer. Zipp is not a bad choice, but they can summon three bayous with Somer, score Smuggled, and then they can die for next to no cost to them all while being in your back line so if you ignore them, they can be trouble. This opens up Make them Suffer to you though.

As already established above, Claim Jump is out. Smuggled is a decent pick, as you’re gonna be in the thick anyways. Make them Suffer is probably an auto-pick here. Lots of minions/peons potentially to be had. Vendetta is iffy. But Charge Soulstone is good. So you’re probably going with Suffer and Charge.

As to Masters… you want kill, disruption and not needing to rely on cards (in case of Somer). Daw and Tara jump out immediately. Viks as a potential third option. Tara can not only dive the back line with the Nothing Beast but can meet the bayous head on with Void Wretches. This definitely helps swing in your favor. Daw can help neuter abilities with curses, and can blitz down the heavy hitters. His ability to warp around pretty easily and provide pushes to his Tormented crew really helps with positioning. Or you could load up the Viks, dive in and try to wreck face, forcing the Gremlin player to react to you. This feels good against Somer, less so against Wong. But Somer is probably the master you’ll face here.

Ultimately I think I’d do Tara with Wretch spam here taking Make them Suffer and Charge Soulstone.

Deployment: Standard

Strategy: Symbols of Authority

Schemes: Eliminate the Leadership, Collect Evidence, Undercover Entourage, Challenge, and Claim Jump

Playing as: Guild

Symbols of Authority introduces some grey area into what you’re going to want to do here. Because you don’t know where half the symbols are going to go until after deployment, you have to play a guessing game based on terrain. The thing to watch out for is going first or second here. You really want to pick your side of the table. While knowing where your opponent is going to drop his marker is nice, you want to prevent them being able to drop a marker on the far side of some impassable terrain. That’s where you want YOUR marker. You can expect that the other one is going to be near the center line, so that it can be blitzed quickly. The benefit is that you’ll have one turn to setup how you’re going to attack the near marker and defend yours. The downside is that by going first to pick your side, your opponent gets to counter deploy. So you need to build your crew with this in mind. Mobility and durability is going to be key.

For this reason you have to count out Hoffman. He’s deceptively fast, but you need to split your forces. You need to provide severe threat for your opponent so I’m going with ranged here. You’re really looking at a Perdita/Sonnia option. While I think McMourning, McCabe, Nellie and Lucius all have the mobility, I think because you know exactly what the target positions are going to be, going with a heavy ranged master that can delete models is good. You’re going to put your “opponent” marker out in the open by the centerline. Let them come try to defend that.

Now playing Arcanists introduces several distinct possibilities here. The eponymous Sandeep, blitzing with Marcus, a Colette gun line, a challenge oriented Ironsides, or Seismic Claws Mei Fang all are viable options here. Regardless of the master though, you are going to face three oxfordians here, because their ability to push is obscene for this strategy. They also can potentailly deny Undercover Entourage and help deny Collect Evidence. For this reason I think Deep or the Ironsides MSU combo are what you will face. Ironsides might be the better pick here because she is also next to impossible to kill now, thus mitigating Eliminate the Leaderships viability. The positives that she grants to MSU helps with challenge as well. And of course there is the Jossbot.

So knowing you have a lot of pushing and control coming your way, you need something that can handle those threats. This reinforces the desire to take models that can work at range. Oxfordians do NOT like focused fire nor blasts, and in an Ironsides bubble, you’re going to be looking for blasts to ignore her defensive triggers. So I’m leaning towards Sonnia with papa. You need to be prepared for Banusuva and Joss. A Domadore would not be a bad idea here to either get a Doxy or a Rotten Belle for more positioning control as well as the heal. Field Reporters have a push away and are dirt cheap, so that’s a thought as well.

In the scheme department it’s rough going. Eliminate could be risky. Undercover Entourage isn’t very viable for Sonnia or Perdita, and I don’t think guild henches are particularly speedy either. Unless you want to bring Dr. Grimwell, hehe. Collect Evidence can be extremely hard to get to, but if you’re going a kill route, you should be able to open up some path ways. Challenge is interesting and I think a good take, especially with Monster Hunter. Especially if you have a belle involved here, you could lure an already activated mage and let the Monster Hunter go to work. There’s also Claim Jump, which isn’t horrible, but not necessarily a strong pick comparatively. It ultimately depends on what you fill your crew out with.

I’m going to assume Sandeep, Kandera, 3 Oxfordians and stuff coming from the Arcanist player. So I’m going to go Sonnia with Papa and the Effigy. Leaving the Emissary out here in favor of taking a couple of field reporters. Think I’m going to lean into a Domadore, Belle and a Monster Hunter, then make sure I have a heavy hitter, probably a peacekeeper because it has a grapple gun. I’m going to definitely take Challenge… and… with Sonnia and Papa, I’m going run the risk and take Eliminate the Leadership.

Deployment: Standard

Strategy: Put Out a Hit

Schemes: Smuggled Across, Buried Treasure, Covert Breakthrough, Show of Force, Claim Jump

Playing as: 10T

Put out a Hit is a fantastic scheme that has some interesting aspects of denial to it (by keeping the model with Contract away from the scoring markers). Or just by killing it. With this being the only kill oriented scheme in the pool, there’s actually a lot of options here because you aren’t restricted to one type of list to capitalize. As long as you have one or two things that can successfully kill (and make it back alive), you’re golden.

Looking at the other schemes, you can be a cagey pain in the ass too. Covert and Smuggled Require getting deep into enemy territory. But Buried Treasure, Show of Force and Claim Jump can all be completed on your side of the table. This screams sniper support and pushes. This pool basically can be done with any 10T master. But I would favor Shenlong, Misaki or Brewmaster.

Looking at Rezzers… there’s a lot of upgrade potential there for Show of Force. My Little Helper is always lurking around. You aren’t worried about covert breakthrough because your probably going to be playing back a bit, so you can react. Smuggled Across is an easy 2-3VP for them I feel, between necropunks and crooligans, but we can punish them for it while fulfilling
the strategy. Buried Treasure would be probably pretty hard to stop, but Shenlong and Misaki are very mobile, so if you see that’s what they are going for, you can move to intercept. Same with Claim Jump.

I think you are going to be looking at Molly, Tara or McMourning here. All three can get across the board pretty effectively, scheme their back line and drop some massive bombs that can swing advantage. Tara’s NB bomb is very dangerous here as is McMourning’s Abra Cadavra. Molly can bolt across the board and lock you in your deployment zone if you aren’t careful, but she denies herself Put Out a Hit potentially there. So I would lean towards McMourning or Tara. Though you have to accept that because of the balance of rezzers , any master works well. Reva can bully you and keep you pushed back, dropping corpses by your hit return point so that it’s never safe to approach. Kirai has the mobility to get right in your face and bounce scheme markers where needed, just like Molly. Honestly the only masters I wouldn’t consider here is maybe Seamus, Nico and Yan Lo. Nico is too slow and bubble based. Seamus has the ability to traverse the board, but I think Molly or McMourning is a better pick for the scheme pool. And because these schemes can be played back a bit, Yan Lo isn’t as effective as he normally would be.

Back to 10T… it’s a hard toss-up here as each master brings something a little different here. I think probably Shenlong is the correct choice, but being the Misaki fan I am, and relying on her sheer mobility, I think you can do a lot of damage here. Misaki is a fantastic counter to Molly if you catch them unawares (a little harder with her new upgrade) because of assassinate. Misaki’s high WP is also a great counter to Rezzer tricks in general. McMourning is a real threat no matter who you take. But you can burn through him pretty quickly once he’s activated.

I think I would probably take Terracotta and Kamaitachi with Misaki, start with The Storm and move into Stalking Bisento when you needed to delete say McMourning, for being too aggressive. You get the mobility to combat other schemes, the range with The Storm to pressure flankers and with Risk and Reward and Misdirection you should have enough healing and defense to keep Misaki up while she completes Contracts. I’d look to probably do Buried Treasure and maybe Show of Force, throwing up Yasunori with Equality to remove any threats that try to contest it with you.

. There’s a lot of passionate clamoring on the forums about this scheme, but the simple breakdown is that it’s far too easy for a few factions to score 3vp on turn 1, and not other factions. Public Demo was an auto 3pts on turn 1 for Gremlins, so this is obviously something people are not overly fond of.

The reality is there isn’t much point in analyzing this guy, he’s going to change pretty quickly. No scheme should be an auto 3VP on turn 1 for any faction. Not easily at least. There are some schemes that can be 3VP, but it shouldn’t be trivial to accomplish in one turn. But here’s a look at what I would do about it:

I echo the thought that I would like to change this scheme out from being on a suit and replace it with another scheme in the numbered section. My personal favorite for that right now would be Hold Up Their Forces. It’s an interesting scheme that requires positioning and nothing more. Undercover Entourage is a consideration, but there are a few models/masters that make it absolutely trivial. So I’d like to see it stay on a numbered suit.

That way if you moved Smuggled Across to a numbered, it’s a bit more palatable to be easier to complete. It still needs some rework. Aaron asked if it should be accumulative. I think it should. And not starting on turn 1, but turn 2. Then you have to keep guys alive and in deep. There are still some factions that have a way easier time of this, but it gives time to react by the opponent and isn’t an auto 3 pts by any stretch. I’m sure there need to be some other tweaks, but that’s a great starting point for me. Maybe remove the minion requirement, or bump it down to two?

So this is kinda feels like a more flexible Covert Breakthrough on positioning with a much harder to ignore drawback for scoring. That being said, I do like it. I just think it might be too hard to score more than 1 or 2 points. One cool thing is that you can just stack markers, as there is no requirement they stay away from other markers. So if you have ways of dropping markers at range, you have some shenanigan here.

Shenlong really comes to mind here because he can just get pushed by Sensei Yu with markers and put into position. Then Shen can push other people out. But even that seems like it’s pretty easy to deny. I’ll absolutely abandon scoring a VP by taking a really mobile model across the board and deny you 3pts. Just by being 6” away.

There’s some benefit to being able to just drop on your side of the table. But again, it’s fairly easy to stop. Unless there’s been a tremendous amount of death. And maybe that’s the answer? Maybe because it’s an end of game scheme it’s one of those that you prep early on and just defend and kill? As I mentioned above, this kind of feels more like you’re defending some bastion rather than burying treasure. Not that that’s a bad thing, but maybe a thematic change to the name?

The more I look at this the more I think it’s probably better than I’m rating it. I may increase it a couple of points once I see some reports on its play

I think I would like this more if it acted like burying treasure. How about a 1 or 2AP action that has to be taken on the opponent’s half of the table but out of LoS of any enemy? Maybe you have to discard a soulstone or two cards or something? Act like you are actually burying treasure?

Not a lot to say about this scheme. Are you willing to invest 3 cache into getting 3VP? If the answer is yes, then there you go. What I do like about this is that it really kind of benefits elite crews. And I like having schemes that allow for that. Activation control was a major deal in GG2017. And It should be a thing, absolutely. But you shouldn’t be punished for taking stronger and less models so heavily. This scheme helps in that.

I think that’s a move in general for the new GG2018. Activation control and model spam still is effective, but from what I’ve seen so far hopefully a bit less dominating. And this scheme is the flagship in that direction for me.

This scheme… man. I want to expand on the Low Point I mentioned above.

The scheme causes you to score a VP if your opponent doesn’t have a scheme marker 6” off their deployment zone. But you still have to get over there and pick it up. If you have a cagey opponent, I don’t see why they wouldn’t just drop the one scheme marker as far back as they could, and say come at me. If you do push through, get there, shenanigans, whatever… you get 1VP. Now they just have to place another and let you come after that one too. Yeah there’s the risk that if you don’t get another marker down, they could score a 2nd VP, but you can already kind of tell how that’s going and drop another one if needed.

I don’t think it’s necessarily bad. I just think that it can promote some really bad matchups.

Also this scheme really messes with Titania and really makes Parker competitive… a bit.

There is something to be said for trying to bluff this scheme, and I do enjoy that quality. You don’t have to reveal it until you’ve scored VP from it. So you can just kind of play along and guarantee you get that 1VP before dropping the bomb. I feel like this is another scheme that’s going to be another pretty solid 2VP scheme that rewards good play and positioning with the 3rd VP. And that makes it a solid scheme.

So there’s a lot going on in this change to the polarizing interference. Doesn’t matter if you’re engaged is big. This means crew management is way more important. I’ve fallen victim to “I’ll just let this guy die” syndrome many times. You can’t really do that here. Not without retaliation. What this means is Ours is a kill version of Interference, as the only denial is to eliminate the models. I imagine this is going to bring back a look at elite crews with ranged support.

Second thing is that Masters are a MAJOR player here. The wording is a bit suspect though, as there is at least one model with a soulstone cost of 0 (Huggy). Does he count for 0 or 10? I would say 0 as he HAS a cost, just it’s 0. The verbiage specifically says models without a cost… which is really only Masters. This makes the problem with McCabe and unplanned particularly bad, as you basically cannot take him in this Strat. If he gets dismounted, you lose 10pts towards that quarter.

You literally only have two methods of completing this scheme. At least from what I’m saying. You can either engage quickly and get as many secrets as you can… or you can push to the end of the game and make the Hail Mary play.

The reason for this is purely one of telegraphing. The issue with telegraphing your strats and schemes is that it makes specific models priority targets. This strategy does this by inherent design. As soon as you’ve used an AP to gain the condition, boom! You have a big fat target on you now.

What you’re left with is either playing the cat and mouse of “who am I going to tag” or you just tag everyone. If you take the latter route, t’s just can I keep three guys alive before the game ends? But because you also lose the ability to interact, you better have non-interaction based schemes. That makes it much more likely you’re going to have to bait out the points as a last-minute ploy (unless you have a super tanky model that can handle being focus fired) just so you can still interact and get your other 6 pts.

Another consideration is that while It’s fairly easy to keep at least a few models alive, it’s much harder when they have to get engaged in order for it to matter. And that’s ultimately the problem here. This strat demands for you to engage a model, and then requires you to survive the rest of the game afterwards.

All in all, it’s not a bad strat. I like it a lot. I just think it’s going to create some very bad matchups and swingy games. Much like Ours, this is going to be fairly kill oriented strat.

I don’t have a whole lot to say about this strat. It’s a modified Headhunter. You must watch where you kill things. And you need to have a plan for how to out interact your opponent. Of particular note here, the strat does not require you to place the Strategy Marker away from your base. It just has to be in base contact with the enemy. So if you took 1AP to kill the model, and are close enough, you should be able to pick it up if you aren’t engaged (or have Don’t Mind Me). This will make ranges more of a consideration as well. The extra 1” distance to interact is welcomed.

Wow. So now that this strategy has been clarified there’s a lot to take in here. There’s still a lot of potential I feel for the 2-2 strat scoring. But this kind of poke and create a weakness kind of play is intriguing. Feinting, bluffing, turtling, diving… there are so many ways to approach this and that’s part of what makes it such a strong strategy. There’s no clear method of attack or defense. It’s up to you and how you play the list you brought.

There needs to be some distance from the center line though, I think. Just to keep the scrum a bit further back. Or maybe not… maybe just let people place there to get the action hot? I think you really have to pay attention to the tricks of your opponent’s crew and that’s going to lead to frustration. The first time that a fast Archie double walks, Hulking Leaps and then claims a strat marker on an unsuspecting opponent, they’re going to be unhappy.

But, hey! It’s capture the flag! In Malifaux! How bad can it be?

So disclaimer, I’m heavily biased to this particular strategy. My favorite master in the game is Misaki. And this strat feels like it was MADE for her (and Lilith, but Lilith was made for like everything 😝 ). So let’s address the bad before I gush further.

Why discard a card? There are so many masters that are super card hungry as it is. This is randomly punishing. If you drew a swol hand… great, ditch one of those moderate-severe cards and now you have to pick a high cost target. And if your opponent drew a normal hand… they have a 1-4 to pitch and target your cheap little peon that’s in a bad place right now. I don’t like that aspect and think that they should either remove the card discard or make it MATTER. Make it so that you have to discard a card HIGHER than the targets soulstone. That way it’s a bit closer to screwing everybody equally.

But seriously, just ditch the card cost. Or make it a flip! There ya go… at the start of the turn, they can flip a card, which may be cheated.

Anywho.

Otherwise, I love this. Pick a return point, pick a target, go forth and murder, then get your ass back to Mars. I also love the fact that your opponent can’t try to be tricksy and deny you. Good thinking, Wyrd. But the other cute thing is that if you see Myrandabus on the other side of the table or some Coryphee…