List Building at Dark Faux

As my full-sized report on Dark Faux is dragging along and still not ready to be published I thought I would post some more specific musings that wouldn't be covered in the main tournament report. Namely, I want to talk about list building. List building in a very short period of time is one of the most underrated skills in Malifaux. You have to have some idea of what all your models do, when to take them, and when not to. Also you have to be able to consider the strategy, schemes, terrain and scenario. Obviously knowing the strategy in advance you can think of some combinations that would be useful but until you have all the need information you can't make any final decision (or at least you shouldn't). This is also why pre-releasing schemes and pre choosing lists is problematic as you are still lacking in intel, not knowing your opponent or the board itself.

Due to the importance of list building and the fact that I have been talking about it a lot recently with other Abnormalifaux members, I thought I would go through my thought process on the lists I built for a couple of the games at Dark Faux. This will not be completely in-depth but will touch upon the main considerations I made. Also keep in mind that Dark Faux was a fixed master event so it is slightly different from games where you won't know the opponents master when building your crew.

Game 1: Squatters Rights (Corner) vs Maria

LITS
Assassinate
Distract

Plant Explosives

Vendetta


My List:

Pandora with Box Opens, Aether Connection, Fears Given Form
Primordial Magic
Doppelganger with Useless Duplications
Lilitu
Silurid
Silurid
Illuminated
Terror Tot
7 Stones

So with Squatters Rights I normally love to take Bad Juju with Hexed Among You and two waldgeists to tie up a ton of the markers off the bat (at it gives them from the shadows and therefore allows them to tie up a couple markers before the game even started). But knowing that Maria was taking the Viktorias meant the last thing I wanted was models starting closer to her. Especially ones that paid a ton for armour that Viktoria of Blood and Taelor could both easily ignore. Maria had also beaten me quite badly in our only previous game so I knew how dangerous she was with the Viks. I decided my best chance of winning was going to be playing very cagey and using my speed to my advantage while tying things up with Pandora and other models.

I always take Box Opens on Pandora as I like the Terrifying 13 and decided for the other two upgrades to take Aether Connection and Fears Given Form. This way I could use her to tie up and damage Maria's crew while also keeping her alive with the extra soulstone prevention. For this reason I also decided to maximize my cache. I decided to take two silurids as their speed would allow me to grab a few distant markers early enough that I could start out on the right foot and at least score points for the first couple turns. They are also great models for plant explosives. The fact that it was corner deployment made their speed even more important, both to get to the markers first and because they could move between markers and flip them more easily and succesfully than any other models. I also took Primordial Magic and Doppelganger because I pretty much always include them in Pandora's crew. The extra activation, card draw and situational scheme marker of the magic is fantastic (especially with plant explosives in the pool) and Doppelganger is just a fantastic tool box. I also added Useless Duplications to her to make her harder to take out (especially early). I chose Lilitu for her 4" ml range being great for slowing things down and with Lure she was a great choice for vendetta. I decided to take Vendetta on Vanessa with Doppelganger as I could steal Lilitu's lure to get a point early and then potentially copy a big-hitter to finish her off for 3.

Without waldgeists I needed some models that could actually hold markers decently and fight off opponents scheme runners. I went with an illuminated as the self-healing would be useful and useless armour 1 is less painful than useless armour 2. Finally with 4 soulstones left to spend (or 5 if I dropped the upgrade from doppelganger) I had enough for a cheap scheme runner to help grab markers, tie up models and possibly plant explosives so I went with a terror tot as they are good fast models that can be a hassle to kill with df 6 and black blood. I thought this list would provide a lot of speed, movement tricks and ability to score points even though it lacked much hitting power outside of Pandora. I knew I wasn't going to win a killing match against Maria's viktorias so I decided to not even try and just use my speed to try and win. 

Game 3: Stake a Claim (Flank) vs James Reeves

LITS

Assassinate

Breakthrough
Entourage
Frame for Murder

My List

Pandora with Box Opens, Aether Connection, Fugue State
Primordial Magic
Doppelganger with Useless Duplications
Lilitu
Silurid
Silurid
Insidious Madness
Insidious Madness
7 Stones

James was playing Tara so would have a lot of additional movement through her second activation and handing out fast. But with the scheme pool the way it was I was very confident I could win the vp race. Plus Pandora is fantastic at stake a claim. The first thing I did when building this list was add Box Opens (always), Aether Connection (Assassinate was in the pool) and Fugue State to Pandora. Fugue State (and silurids but all neverborn can take them) is the reason I think Pandora is one of the strongest masters in the game at stake a claim. Being able to turn 3 enemies insignificant a turn with her is incredible in a game with tons of interacts. The fact that the scheme pool had Breakthrough made it even more useful. Next I added two silurids because I can't imagine going into Stake a Claim without at least silurids. 7" leap for a 5 of any suit makes them the best model in the game at stake a claim since they can place a marker every turn. Next I added Primordial Magic and Doppelganger (as usual). This game though they were even more useful as primordial magic could also make models insignificant and doppelganger could copy the action to make even MORE models insignificant. Cheating initiative would also be more important than ever in this game as I wanted to make sure if Pandora hadn't insighted someone the previous turn she could do it before James got to activate tara so I could deny him Tara's ability to reactivate (and thus cost him 3ap a turn).

So my game plan was basically to have the three models that could pass out insignificant hang around the centerline making all his things insignificant while the silurids score for stake a claim. I also added two insidious madnesses to help with stake a claim, but mostly to score breakthrough for me as I knew I was going to take that scheme. I also decided I would probably take entourage as I didn't have enough killing power in my list for assassinate and I hate frame for murder (plus Tara isn't that killy). This was yet another reason for aether connection on Pandora. The final model I took was Lilitu. Lilitu was in this crew mostly for her Lure but her 4"ml range could also be fantastic for tying up models trying to scheme run. The plan with her was to lure models that were out of insigniifcant range so I could make them insignificant in the early turns. In the late turns I would lure his models away from my deployment zone to deny entourage and breakthrough. I assumed he would announce both of those since you want to be there anyway for the strategy and Tara is a great master for entourage with her extra moves. In this game I was willing to forego any killing power outside of Pandora and situationally (based on my opponents models) the Doppelganger in exchange for pts denial and speed. I would try to outrace him in the strategy by placing as many markers as possible while at the same time denying his ability to do so by making things insignificant.

That's it for this article. Please let me know if this has been a useful article to read and I can look at doing some more tactical list-building articles like this in the future. Or let me know what I should do differently, feedback is always appreciated.