ToMB Molly: Month 1 Post 2 - A little Tactica!

Introduction

Well there is a lot that I've learned in the past few weeks of playing with my #ToMB crew. I have tried my best to stick to my guns, and have had good success. The only thing that 'put me out of my ToMB' is one summon of a punk zombie! Which means I know where next month's budget is going. Punk Zombies are likely (based on the upgrade "Forgotten Life") in my next month purchase. I want to fit a "Hanged" in, but I'm a few dollars short. The Punk Zombies have Hard to Kill, can be affected by Imbue Vigor (they're minions), and as well all know they just kill things DEAD (Oh plus I can use my NE Dead Justice box Judge model as a Punk Zombie)

Apologies

So before I continue though, I need to apologize for 'reading an upgrade' on-the-air incorrectly. I try and hold my self to a high standard of knowing the rules. I made a mistake in both playing (my first Molly game) and talking about my first Molly game on the podcast. Specifically, I mentioned that I was excited to use "The Philosophy of Uncertainty" on Yin. Well, it makes no sense because getting the trigger to go off puts the ability onto Molly NOT on the target which Molly casts "Whispered Secret" on.

My incorrect tacitca approach was to give some negatives to the model getting "Whispered Secrets" and then knowing that if that model is killed it will be sacrificing the model that killed it. Well this is straight up WRONG!!! My apologies. 

The correct tactica is to use her "Whispered Secrets" on an enemy model to give it the obligatory negative flips on all duels (on success), but the key is that if Molly (i.e. the one who casts this) gets the Tome to succeed on the trigger for "Philosophy of Uncertainty". So, if she is killed by another model, the model which killed it is sacrificed after resolving the current action. So, this makes Molly a less than stellar target to kill, especially coupled with her base ability "Masterful Dead" (Crow trigger on Df/Wp - After this model suffers damage, it may discard two cards to reduce the damage to 1). 

New (experimental) Tactica (i.e. lessons learned)

Ok, so 11+ of crows! Yup that's what Molly wants, any 11+ of crows and she is a happy camper. You can watch some vassalfaux between Joe and me (its mulit-part) to see how we use our respective ToMB crews. This game play isn't representative of how I usually play my masters, but it was an attempt to try something new. So to the point of the 11+ crows, my upgrades have consistently been "Spare Parts", "Terrible Knowledge", and "Forgotten Life" on Molly, and "Pack" on the Rogue Necromancy, and Yin takes "Unnerving Aura". So I'm going to specifically talk about what I tried against Joe due to the Corner Deployment and Reckoning style game. For those new to the game reading this, corner deployment forces more distance between the two players crews giving a little delay to the action.

With 4 corpse counters within 6" and a 11+ crow she can use 2 AP to summon a rogue necromancy in base contact to her. So how would we go about getting these 4 corpse counters. Up front I'd like to state that while this tactic is doable it uses far too many resources. A canine with an 8+ crow can use 2 AP to dig up a corpse marker, now if you get lucky and have 1 of the right cards that's great, but you still need 3 other corpses. So maybe you have 2 8+crows, and utilize Molly's (0) Imbue Vigor to give reactivate to the canine remains (i.e. minion); needing a 9 of rams. Then he can drop a second corpse marker during his reactivate.

Well, that's two. So how do you get two more in a single turn, to reach the 4? You can use Molly's (1) The Ones Left Behind to attempt to summon 2 crooligans, meaning you need two other 8+ crows in your hand. So for those following at home, thats 4 cards of 8+ crows to get 4 corpse markers. The reason the 2 crooligans generate the corpse markers is that they die as soon as summoned since on turn 1 I don't see them being anywhere near enemy models and just die (generating corpses). Ok so that's 2 AP from the canine, another 2 AP (if he gets reactivate), 2 AP from Molly to get 2 more potential corpses and her 0 to do reactivate.

So wow, 5 high cards all with specific suits. Hopefully, now you can see that this isn't the best use of her resources. I think that taking her forward and having things die and taking advantage of the corspes on the table is a better tactic and will be the norm for me going forward. This experiment was just that, to see how well it plays out. Molly has so much in the way of avoiding death that she can be near the fight and survive, between black blood, impossible to wound, masterful dead, and her upgrade to give the trigger philosophy of uncertainty, she is a hard nut to crack.

One lesson learned here, is that sometimes it may be worth summoning a model not near an enemy to see it die and generate her that final corpse marker (assuming you need for her to utilize corpse makers). Again, this is only necessary if she uses Spare Parts upgrade as she really doesn't need corpse markers to do her summoning well. I'm actually going to stop using Spar parts for some time because I see better uses going forward for the cost.

With all of this said, the biggest take away I've had with playing 4 games with Molly is that Soulstones are key for her and that I need to probably drop at least 1 upgrade to give me some more AP at 35ss.

All-Stars

So all-stars in my games have def. been the Crooligans and the Rogue Necro combo. Using their blistering fog to give out +1 damage from blasts the rogue necro can dish out is great. Plus their 'Creepy' to apply -1 Wp to enemy models within 1" is an amazing setup for Yin, other summons by Molly, any Terrifying checks, etc. What is so nice, is that Molly can summon them fairly easily and as long as Make them Suffer and Reckoning aren't the missions they are doing a good job of tar pitting, while killing enemy models with black blood.

Ok, so I need to mention Yin! Simply, because I want him to be my All-star and he just isn't. I mostly think that is because he is expendable AND he gets a big bullseye on his head (I mean that's all that is remaining of his body). He is an absolutely amazing control piece. No doubt, his "No Escape" trigger built into his "The Fear Behind the Eyes" is worth the weight in gold, but his 8 Wd are easily dropped with ~2 AP from any average to moderate heavy hitter. Even with his "Mass of Viscera" which forces negative on attack and damage flips. So with that said, I think he serves an important role in this crew. He forces the enemy to HAVE to deal with him, and during that process the rest of your crew can do what it does best. 

Crew I've Been Fielding

Resurrectionists Crew - 35 - Dustup

Molly Squidpiddge -- 6 Pool

 +Forgotten Life [1]

 +Spare Parts [2]

 +Terrible Knowledge [1]

Canine Remains [4]

Crooligan [4]

Rogue Necromancy [10]

 +Pack [1]

Yin the Penangalan [8]

 +Unnerving Aura [1]

Painting

Finally, I'll leave you with my painting progress for this month. I have to just base the rogue necro and then finish up my crooligans and Yin in the next 2 weeks. Pretty sure I can reach that goal :)