Belles & Sybelle Companion

[Lister]

I'm a pretty new Malifaux player and, while looking into how other people use Seamus and the Rotten Belles, have read in different threads up on the boards here that one trick is to activate Sybelle and simultaneously activate all the Belles around her. I've been checking it out in the rules and on the V2 cards and, maybe I'm being thick or maybe all these people are just assuming something that isn't there, but I just can't see how this is done within the rules as written.

Rotten Belles have the Companion(Sybelle) ability, but Sybelle doesn't have a way to companion another Belle. The rule as written is:


Before activating a model with Companion, nominate any number of the referenced model(s) or model(s) with the corresponding Characteristic within 6" of one another. These models activate simultaneously. Choose one of the nominated models to activate first, and complete its entire activation. Then the Controller chooses and activates another nominated model. Continue activating the nominated models until all nominated models have completed their activities.

So given that the Rotten Belle has Companion and Sybelle is the referenced model, the rule would apply to Sybelle and the Rotten Belles thus...


Before activating a [Rotten Belle], nominate any number of [Sybelles] within 6" of one another. These models activate simultaneously...

So you can activate a Belle, which activates any number of Sybelles, but not the other way round right? Right??

[Ratty]

Before activating a model with Companion, nominate any number of the referenced model(s) or model(s) with the corresponding Characteristic within 6" of one another. These models activate simultaneously. Choose one of the nominated models to activate first, and complete its entire activation. Then the Controller chooses and activates another nominated model. Continue activating the nominated models until all nominated models have completed their activities.I think it's the highlighted phrase witch matters. So you say your activating the Belle, she companions Sybelle, then any number of additional models with companion (Sybelle) within 6" of Sybelle may companion her.



Another example would be totems, if you had multiple totems which have companion (master) in a brawl and some Masters laid out thus

T <-6"-> M <-6"-> T <-6"-> M <-6"-> T

You could activate a Totem and companion a master, then all other totems could companion a master as long as the chain isn't broken. So in this example, you could end up with 2 masters and 3 totems activating.

If however it looked like this.

T <-6"-> M <-6"-> M <-6"-> T

One Totem could companion a master but the other one couldn't as the Masters don't have companion (master) and there is no model with the ability to bridge the gap.

Note: I wrote this before I was a rules marshal. Totems should say Companion(Connected Model), so you can't do this. However companion still works this way, just consider Masters to be something you could companion to, and the Totems as something that could companion to it. Ie. Masters = X, Totems = Model with Companion(X)

[Lister]

I suppose it depends on the interpretation of "corresponding Characteristic"; I took it to mean models that have characteristic X referenced in the Companion(X) ability.

What you're saying is that it is any model with the same ability? Or are you saying that it is any model that has Companion(activating model)? The latter makes more sense, except that the first clause of the rule, "Before activating a model with Companion" isn't satisfied by Sybelle, who does not have Companion, so she would still break the chain.

So before a Belle activates the Controller nominates Sybelle to activate simultaneously with her and then before Sybelle activates the Controller cannot nominate any models with Companion(Sybelle) to activate simultaneously as Sybelle does not have Companion, so the chain is broken.