Gremlin dissection: The young Lacroix

In the third dissection of the gremlin crew we have the young Lacroix. They are the small “up and comers “ in the family and they are the totems of Lacroix. They have a supporting role in handing out upgrades to Ophelia and getting yourself some cheap models to help you out activate your opponent.

The stats

The young have a cost of 2 and have the Peon, Living and totem (Lacroix) characteristic. They are also gremlin and they are kin, which lets you target them with the abilities that Ophelia has.

They have a Df of 5, Wp and Wd of 3. They have a Wk of 6, which is pretty fast, and no charge. They are also Ht 1.

The skills

They have 4 abilities: Gets Into Everything, Role Model, Insignificant, Small Target

The first one is Gets Into Everything. You get to make an Attack action that’s printed on Ophelia’s gun upgrades within 6’’ and you get a Sh -2 penalty. That’s pretty good especially with the threatening gun upgrades which lets you fire twice a turn. For the other guns you drop the upgrades, so you can only fire them once.

The next one ( Role Model) lets you hire 3 of these models instead of the normal 1. They are a great addition, but I might be getting 2 in the future instead of 3 to save some costs.

With the next one (Insignificant) you can’t take interact actions, so they can’t be used for objectives or schemes that requires you to take interaction actions.

The last one (Small Target)  gives the attacker a [-] to hit you with shooting attacks. This helps them to survive  a little longer, but they are still fairly easy to kill.

The attacks

They have 2  actions they can do.

The first one is a shooting attack: the Much Abused Pistol. It deals 1/3/4 damage and has the trigger Dumb Luck, which lets you double the damage and you suffer half the amount of damage a s well. The trigger isn’t that useful, because when you do moderate damage, you kill yourself as well. To do severe damage is not that likely either, since you need to have a bit of luck to get that severe off.

The next one is a tactical action “Here You Go!”. It lets you attach one of Ophelia’s gun upgrades to her. It effectively let her use upgrades without spending the additional soulstones to take them in the first place; also Ophelia can use other AP instead of wasting an AP to get the gun she needs.

They are totems, so they can’t take upgrades. What you see is what you get.

The looks

We only have one picture for the 3 models so that’s a bit disappointing. The old models look really nice and they have a nice flavor so I recommend the old models while you wait for a new release.

The playbook

Keep them out of harms way, because they are fairly easy to kill with 3 wounds. Try to use cover and other intervening models as your advantage. They already get a bonus with their tiny-ability, so every bonus will help. You’ll probably struggle with the reckoning strategy, so I tend to experiment with1 or 2 Young ones.

I tend to place them behind Ophelia, except if I want to shoot something, then I try to place them parallel to Ophelia.

Another use for the young Lacroix is, in later game turns, use them to stop other models from moving, by engaging them in close combat. In the later turns you can make sure that your opponent’s models have to deal with these small nuisances instead of focusing on completing schemes and strategies. In that way they serve another purpose instead of handing out upgrades to Ophelia. And if you use defensive stance on them they can tie models up for multiple turns (if you’re lucky that is)

Gremlin dissection: Francois Lacroix

In the second dissection of the gremlin crew we have Francois Lacroix. He’s the only henchmen in the La Croix family so he’s the second on my list.

The stats

He is a cost of 7 and has a cache of 6. Which means that when he leads a crew in smaller games he gets 6 soulstones from the start. He has the living, rare 1 and henchman characteristic. He also is a gremlin and he’s kin, which ties in with Ophelia’s  abilities.

He has a DF of 4, which is average for a gremlin. He has WP 7 and that’s a very good stat. He has 10Wd which is also good. A Wk of 5 and a CG of 6. He’s also HT 1. Overall he’s pretty decent statwise. He is not too high costing and he can use soulstones, which gives him some more survivability and he can use his tricks a little bit better.

The skills

He has companion, which lets you activate after a friendly model ended it’s activation within 6’’. It’s handy to have especially when you need to do some extra damage to a model before it activates.

He also has the ability Reckless, which gives him an additional AP at the cost of one extra WD. It gives him the ability to do some additional shooting or perform an interact or something else. You have to plan it out though, because you can only do this at the start of this model’s  activation.

The last ability he has is Squeal, which is a defensive trigger and needs a mask. You can push away 4’’from a Ml Attack after you received damage. You can potentially stop a second attack on a charger or stop a Flurry action. You can cheat in the mask with the use soulstone ability.

The actions

He has 2 Attack actions. He has the Dueling Sword and the “Rough rider” Attack.

The Dueling Sword is a ML of 6 and a ram. It has a Rg of 2. It does 2/3/5 damag and can be doubled with the Dumb luck trigger, which is already build in. The downside to the trigger is that you receive half the damage you do when you declare the trigger. The use soulstone ability can help you to prevent some of the damage you do. All in all this is a great attack and can be intimidating with the potentional to do 10 damage in one swing.

The “Rough rider”   shooting attack is a 5 and a mask and has a range of 10. It does 2/3/4 damage and has two triggers. On a ram you do the Dumb luck trigger, same like the Dueling Sword.

 The other trigger is on a crow( Loose Trigger) which let you make the same Attack action again. You have to damage your enemy and it will cost you one wound. Again, you can cheat in the crow with the use soulstone ability.

He also has a casting action (Gremlin Menace) with a Rg of 6. You can push 5’’ toward a model. Your targets a condition which gives him [-] to attack actions when targeting Francois.

He also has a (0) action (Showdown)  which is also a ca of 5. You need a TN 10and a tome. When it succeeds you can discard cards to gain a [+] for that duel.

The tricks

Out of all the upgrades I would choose dirty cheater. It gives him some more survivability and combine that with the damage prevention from the use soulstone ability and you can potentially let him hang around the board a little bit longer.

The upgrade team work is an ability that lets you place this model into contact and then push another model out of harms way.

If Francois is your leader and you are playing against something like Pandora, you can use liquid bravery to give yourself and models around you a boost to their WP. This combined with the high WP makes him a good candidate to take this upgrade.

The looks

He has the same feel and abilities from 1.5. he looks the same as well with the cigarette in mouth. I like this look and maybe get him when the new box comes out.

If you need a good support piece for the Ophellia crew or another gremlin master, I think Francois is the gremlin you need. He has a lot of damage potential and some movement tricks as well (via upgrades that is).

The playbook

I use him primarily as a potential threat and damage dealer. With his loose trigger skill he can dish out a lot of damage if you have some high cards in hand and some soulstones to burn. You can get around the board fairly quickly and has some nice synergies with other models in this Ophelia crew.

With the current schemes you can use him as a Scheme marker – dropper. Or, when you have the scheme frame for murder,  start the game aggressively and then kill a model. You can bait your opponent in killing your model and because he’s a henchmen you’ll get  3 VP.

So I’ll play him aggressively and in that way your opponent has to divide his attention between Ophelia and him. Two great shooters are better than one.

Link to the artwork: http://coolspyro17.deviantart.com/art/Day-72-Dissection-348092579

Gremlin dissection: Ophelia Lacroix

So this will be a small segment where I’ll discuss all the different models in the (current Malifaux 1) crew. Once the “new” box will be out, I’ll revisit this segment and talk about the new set as a whole.

For now, let us get our dissection equipment out and dive into the gremlin master: Ophelia Lacroix

The stats

If we have a look at the stats you can see she has a few interesting stats. She has a DF of 6 / WP 6 which are practically the same for all 3 pure gremlin masters. The rest of the stats are average, but the only thing she has is a WK of 6, which is fairly quick. She can zip around the board quickly enough and with some movement shenanigans she can do some board control as well.

She is Ht 1which is handy with her crew. They don’t have to target her or other HT 1 models within 3’’ of her. Some other models have the same ability as well which can come in handy.

The last thing is a cache of 3 which is OK.  You need a bit more stones I think since she can be easy to hit and you need those to get in suits for her offensive and defensive triggers. I normally play with a cache of 6 – 7.

The skills

She has 4 abilities on her card. Most of them I like and one of them is ok, but I don’t see myself using that one a lot.

The first one is companion. This one is like the previous kin-ability where you could activate more than 2 models each time to kill models in one swoop. Now you have the ability to activate one model and herself. It specifically states a friendly model and not a kin model so any model in her crew can trigger this ability which gives you a bit more versatility in model selection.

The Plink! ability lets you reduce the damage by one. This is before damage prevention, so it can give you a bit more durability, but you need the upgrades to make this gremlin work. I’ll not be using this one a lot. It’s a nice bonus for me, nothing more.

The next one is a defensive trigger which needs a mask. It’s Second Loudest Squeel. When you suffer damage, you can push up to 4’’. This one is nice since you can move out of combat this way or when you get hit by ranged attacks or casting, you can potentially push further behind a wall so that you’re safe for the other attacks. It also states up to 4, so you don’t have to go the entire 4’’. It can come in handy when you need to push away, but not that far so you don’t push into another melee, hazardous terrain, ect.

The last one is an ability she had in 1^st ed and that I used quite a lot. It’s “Shoot High, Boys” and it lets you fire into combat without targeting your own gremlin HT 1 models. I’ve used this one more than I can count. It’s effectively a 6’’ bubble in which your gremlins only target the enemy (HT 2 or greater) models. Combine this with her speed and other movement tricks and you have a very good shooting enhancing master.

The actions

She has 2 (1) actions and 2 (0) actions on the card.

The first one is “Rough riders”. It has a basic shooting attack which she can use in ML as well. It has a decent value of 6. It does 2/3/4 damage and gives [+] to all attacks (basically paired from previous edition).It has a trigger on a ram which does double damage and she gets one wound in return. It’s the same as her 1^st edition card.

Her other one action is Reload which let her attach an upgrade which has her name on it. Currently there are 3 upgrades. The action is also a tactical upgrade.

The 2 (o) actions are With My Eyes Closed and Ooo, A Girl. The first one gives your SH attacks a [+]. However your opponent can choose which enemy model you have to hit. It has to be in LoS and range. It’s for the rest of Ophelia’s activation.

The second one (Ooo, A Girl) lets you push a friendly gremlin within 8’’ into base contact with you. It’s great to get models out of combat or reposition your models so they can shoot better or attack faster, drop scheme markers, ect..

 The tricks

She has 3 personal upgrades. All 3 are guns she can use. They all have a secondary ability as well.

The first one is My treatenin’ gun. It hands out horror duels (TN 13) and dishes out 4/5/6 damage. The trigger on a ram lets you pulse the horrorduel for all models . You have the ram build in so you can always choose to let the gun do the pulse or not. The additional (0) action lets a gremlin within 8’’ do a (1)action which gives a [-] to that duel. You can use it to drop a scheme marker as well so it’s a sort of obey you can do with this action. Also you don’t drop the gun when you used it so that’s nice as well.

The Jug rocket ignores LoS and you discard this upgrade afterwards. The additional (0) lets you replace a gremlin within 2’’ to somewhere within  8’’  of this model. So this is a nice movement trick as well.

The Hooch igniter ignores cover, hands out blast and on the ram trigger it gives burning +2. You discard it when you use this gun. The additional (1) action takes away Slow and Paralyzed conditions within 10’’ and gives them burning +1 instead.

From these upgrades I would always take the treatenin’ gun. It gives you the option to hand out paralyze and the (0) action is nice as well. The other 2 upgrades are a bit situational. The Hooch igniter is nice against a crew like Rasputina which thrive on slow and paralyze. The other one is nice if you have a lot of blocking terrain. You don’t ignore the cover, but you can still shoot something, which you couldn’t do before.

Out of the other upgrades I would choose dirty cheater, which heals your model when you cheat. It gives some more durability to the model.

Some maybe upgrades are gremlin see (shrug off a condition)( but it competes with the other (0) actions you have as well), liquid bravery (which gives you stubborn and also another (0) action, giving +2WP) and quality mash liquor (giving you or a model within 2’’ a 1/2/3 heal for a (1) action).

These 3 upgrades give you some variety, but they compete with better (0) and (1) actions which do better things in my opinion than these 3 upgrades.

The looks

I love the models in this crew and I love the new artwork. I can see me buying a new box set when it comes out even though I have the old models. The overall feel of the crew and specifically this model  is the sort of thing I like in the “new Malifaux”. It a bit darker, more gritty and they look more dynamic as well.

Overall I can say that if you are looking for a master that can shoot well, move fast and do some crazy movement tricks as well, then this master is the gremlin you are looking for.