so many options, not enough maniquins

[izikial]

what are you guys using your preformer/maniquins for, im stuck because there are 4 difrent uses i can see, and i dont know witch his the most effectiv.

1) link the maniquin to colette/cassandra for the no weak damage buff, and leav the showgirl farther back as a resource for colette.

2) have the maniquin and the preformer stick together, so you can give the girl mask's to her ca for sirens call, and then poison things.

3) same as number 2 but have the maniquin linked to one of the leading lady's and then teleport the preformer to the maiquin.

4) link to one of the leading lady's and give the no weak damage buff, then teleport the showgirl forward but dont buff her jus let her do her own thing.

what are you guys doing with yours

[MrNybbles]

To be honest I never really liked most of the Mannequin's abilities. Here are the reasons why they generally are not useful to me and what little they are useful for (at least to me). This is based on games I have played so far.

What Mannequins are not useful for and why.
Link, Clumsy, Harmless, Performer's Cloths, Slow.
Link will get rid of Harmless. Link is the fastest way to move them (besides Colette's Illusionist). On their own they are Slow so you can only walk them once 4" in an activation. I've never walked them through non-open terrain so Clumsy isn't an issue for me. Because of all this this I have always walked them on the first turn to keep Harmless. (So far my opposition hasn't used any Terrifying or Ruthless models with ranged attacks against the Mannequins). Performer's Cloths isn't an issue with Showgirls. If hired as a Mercenary this might be an issue.

Beautiful Cloths.
Besides Bash their only melee attack is Beautiful Clothes which only does damage on a Rams or Tomes trigger. No ranged attacks. Generally I'd rather use good cards in my control hand on Colette, Cassandra, or the Performer.

Armor +3, Fixable.
Armor +3 has so far caused all my opponents to attack the Mannequins with armor ignoring models. They have so far always died in one activation so being Fixable hasn't been useful.

Mirrors
I have stopped trying to use Mirrors to prevent weak damage because regardless of how bad my opponent's hands are they could always cheat the damage flip up to at least moderate damage. For a spell I have never been able to cast without cheating a high card with Masks is better spent elsewhere. This spell is little more than a spell of false hope. If this was a (0) action then this would be useful but as-is it just costs way too much to activate.

What I have found Mannequins to be useful for.

The most useful thing I have used the Mannequins for so far is to get into Melee range with an opponent's model to stop it from making ranged attacks against my other models. Also, for some strange reason my opponent's always view the Mannequins as a serious threat and have put a lot of effort into killing them (even in Slaughter fully aware they have a ss cost of -). I kidd you not, they are the least threatening thing I had, including the Mechanical Doves! I really should start a thread claiming that the Mannequins are overpowered and see how many people catch on that I'm kidding!

Harmless is an ability I actually like since I have stopped using Link.

Companion(Showgirl) is useful in the updated rules because you can activate all the Showgirls at once and accomplish something. So far I haven't had a chance to do this yet.

Tricks of the trade looks remotely useful though I've yet to use any of these abilities for any reason. Soul Dancer is useful for this.

Here is a bizarre use for the Mannequins. If you have no Soulstones you can activate the Mannequin and use Soul Dancer to gain Use Soulstone. You then activate a Performer who casts Expensive gift which does not require an enemy model to be targeted. When the spell goes off you discard one Soulstone (but you already have zero so no loss there) and then you gain one. Expensive gift does not require the other person to still have Soulstones, probably because your opponent could use the last Soulstone to resist the spell to keep you from gaining one Soulstone. This should work much better with Cassandra (in Collette's crew) since her willpower is 5 instead of 8.

Onto the list!

1) link the maniquin to colette/cassandra for the no weak damage buff, and leav the showgirl farther back as a resource for colette.

No. This isn't very effective/useful because
1) less than half of your opponent's deck is weak damage.
2) Showgirls don't have a lot in the way of giving the enemy a negative twist on damage flips (other than Cassandra's Southern Charm).
If your opponent really wants something dead then your opponent will cheat the attack and damage flips. This sort of thing is what I first tried using the Mannequins for.

Like manga girls with big eyes it looks good on paper but in reality it doesn't turn out that way.

May be useful if Nix is attacking you since his damage is 4/3/2. I like the reverse severity damage idea though I gotta wonder why it's on only one unique model.

2) have the maniquin and the preformer stick together, so you can give the girl mask's to her ca for sirens call, and then poison things.

I've never had an enemy model standing within their Wk +1" of any of my performers. This is actually difficult to pull off. Maybe one day. . .

3) same as number 2 but have the maniquin linked to one of the leading lady's and then teleport the preformer to the maiquin.

So far this hasn't been useful for any of the Schemes or Strategies I have used. Maybe one day. . .

4) link to one of the leading lady's and give the no weak damage buff, then teleport the showgirl forward but dont buff her jus let her do her own thing.

??? I have no idea what you mean by teleporting a Showgirl forward. You can't actually teleport a Showgirl anywhere. You can exchange the position of Colette and one Showgirl (with Colette's Illusionist) or you can place them near one of your own models (Colette and Mannequins have such Spells). What you can do is Link to a Performer or to Cassandra and have her move forward. This will drag the Mannequins with her if you have a reason to. Negating weak damage still isn't worth it.

With all the options the Mannequins have they also have a lot going against them. They have 1 general AP, are the least mobile thing Collette will ever run, are not good offensively, and are not exactly stellar support. There Talents generally are not useful.

Viable Mannequin Strategy
I've basically reduced my Mannequin strategy down to walk them to where I want them then cast Beautiful Clothes and hope the spell hits and a worthwhile suit is flipped. (Masks seems to be a booby prize trigger). This helps preserve my control cards for models with useful abilities like Collette, Cassandra, Performer, (some day soon Coryphee). Companion and Tricks of the Trade may be useful someday but my opponents seem to just want them destroyed as soon as possible.

Mannequins are still useful though I'd never run them if they weren't bundled with Showgirls.

[Koali]

Armor +3, Fixable.
Armor +3 has so far caused all my opponents to attack the Mannequins with armor ignoring models. They have so far always died in one activation so being Fixable hasn't been useful.

Don´t forget Objekt 2...
makes them much tougher... :D

[MrNybbles]

Don´t forget Objekt 2...
makes them much tougher... :D

It is true that Object 2 provides damage reduction that armor ignoring abilities do not negate. However, I have lost Mannequins to a single armor ignoring 5 severe damage attack before. I have also lost a Mannequin to Bishop casting Cage Fighter to ignore armor then perform 3 melee attacks. (Cage Fighter would have been useful if any of the first two attacks had severe damage).

Object 2 does make them a little tougher, but I have always had them killed off in one activation. Oddly enough this is what makes them useful -- my opponents spend an entire activation destroying a Mannequin instead of something I value.

[Lorenz]

I have been useing the two performers in tandem to both use sirens call use one to call then if close enough try and get the - - spell off. then use the other one to sirens call to poison 4 ... hard to do but using them with companion makes it easier but it means two units to mess with only one unit.

[MrNybbles]

I have been useing the two performers in tandem to both use sirens call use one to call then if close enough try and get the - - spell off. then use the other one to sirens call to poison 4 ... hard to do but using them with companion makes it easier but it means two units to mess with only one unit.

Cassandra can also cast Siren Call via Understudy. She has better casting than a Performer and may be in a better position to pull it off. Cassandra can't do the poison gift though because it is an action and not a spell.

All this really isn't related to this Mannequins thread though.

[LoboStele]

I've decided that I'll probably only run one Performer/Mannequin pair for now. I'd prefer to use those 6 points for Johan or an Arcanist Gunsmith instead. Mostly I just use the Mannequins for swapping and then the occasional Companion alpha strike. Their spells are just tough to pull off, and if I'm sitting on a high to use Mirrors, I'd often rather hang onto it for one of Colette, Cassandra, or the Coryphees' triggers instead. Plus, this leaves me with one mannequin off to the side as well, which I can use for Disappearing Act/Mannequin Replacement if I'm able to.

[Mentat_Canis]

MrNybbles it is a very nice writeup but I disagree with you on several points. First is Harmless is not canceled by link unless it has changed because harmless ends when you make your first attack and Link is not an attack.

I do like linking my mannequin with Cassandra because they can activate together giving you Southern Charm and Mirrors. This makes it so that it is hard to hit Cassandra and if you do they will be at a negative or multiple negative twist to damage so your odds on a weak are much higher which will do nothing. If they shoot at the mannequin they have to get through 5 damage reduction and if you shoot it I am ok with that.

My biggest thing with the mannequins is that I would love to have 1 with Cassandra and 1 with Corpyphee but in play its hard to get that many decent masks when you are going to be dropping between 2 and 4 cards a turn from your hand for soulstones.

I have started just running 1 performer and attaching the Mannequin to Cassandra I do this more because I just have not figured out the performers I don't think they are that good, they die quick, they don't hit hard or fast, and the if you want mirrors on your heavy hitter you will not have the cards for Siren call.

That is my 2 cents.

[izikial]

nice feed back guys, i think ill probably end up using one pair then, they have alot of nice things between them, but it all feals a bit clunky

[MrNybbles]

MrNybbles it is a very nice writeup but I disagree with you on several points. First is Harmless is not canceled by link unless it has changed because harmless ends when you make your first attack and Link is not an attack.

Yes, it has changed in the errata.

From Malifaux Errata p.7 (Version 1, January 2010)

Harmless
Replace “…when the model makes its first attack in the
game.” with “…when the model performs an Action other
than Walk or Pass.”

I do like linking my mannequin with Cassandra because they can activate together giving you Southern Charm and Mirrors. This makes it so that it is hard to hit Cassandra and if you do they will be at a negative or multiple negative twist to damage so your odds on a weak are much higher which will do nothing. If they shoot at the mannequin they have to get through 5 damage reduction and if you shoot it I am ok with that.

I did mention Southern Charm in my first post for this very reason.

An opponent could either attack Cassandra with Paired weapons or a focused strike. Also, If the result of the attack flip is 11+ in favor of the attacker then the damage flip gets an additional positive twist. Still, negating the negative twists requires a lot of planning and resources. This can make attacking Cassandra much more difficult though she is really the only one to greatly benefit from Mirrors.

Makeup of a 54 card Fate Deck (as apposed to a 53 Fate Deck with no Red Joker). Percents are approximate. Everything below ignores control cards in hand and cards in the discard pile.
# of cards, Percent of deck, damage inflicted.
20, 37%, weak damage.
20, 37%, moderate damage.
12, 22% severe damage.
01, 2% Red Joker.
01, 2% Black Joker.

Looking at the above table with no twist on the damage flip there is only a 37% chance of weak damage being flipped which could be cheated. This is what makes Mirrors almost totally worthless in most cases.

However, with a negative twist there are two chances of drawing weak damage.

If I did this right a negative twist would actually more than double the chances of a weak damage flip (20/54 + 20/53 = 0.7477) making the chances about 74.77% that at least one weak damage card is flipped. If I did this right then that would mean casting Mirrors and linking to Cassandra is a lot better than I initially thought it would be.

I usually use Cassandra offensively and normally don't have the cards to spare to pull off Mirrors though it is a viable option. The next time I play I'll try this if I get a few good cards by the second turn.

My biggest thing with the mannequins is that I would love to have 1 with Cassandra and 1 with Corpyphee but in play its hard to get that many decent masks when you are going to be dropping between 2 and 4 cards a turn from your hand for soulstones.

I have started just running 1 performer and attaching the Mannequin to Cassandra I do this more because I just have not figured out the performers I don't think they are that good, they die quick, they don't hit hard or fast, and the if you want mirrors on your heavy hitter you will not have the cards for Siren call.

That is my 2 cents.

Why I like Performers
1) Irresistible means that any time they are targeted by an attack (and even Kirai's Spirit Food counts as an attack that targets a model) they must beat a Wp > 12 Duel or the attack fails. Also, Df 5 isn't bad either. Note: Auras and Pulses are attacks though they usually don't say they target an enemy.

From Malifaux Errata p.1 (Version 1, January 2010)

Add third paragraph:
“In Malifaux, an attack is defined as:
• Any Talent, Action, or Spell targeting an enemy
model.
• Any Talent, Action, or Spell that inflicts damage or
requires a Resist Duel targeting a friendly or
neutral model.
• All Auras and Pulses that inflict damage or require
a Resist Duel are also considered attacks.”

2) Melee attacks with Poison Ring may use Wp which is boosted by Colette if she is within 4" to a total Cb of 7. The poison counters inflict wounds (not damage) which are not reduced by Armor, Object #, or for being a Spirit. Unfortunately poison does not stack. I'm not sure if flipping the Black Joker on the damage flip would prevent the poison counters from being placed because the core rulebook's description does not say inflicting damage is required to inflict poison counters so a successful attack flip might be all that is required.

From Malifaux Errata p.7 (Version 1, January 2010)

Poison #
Replace description with: “The affected model receives the
indicated number of Poison Counters if it has no Poison
Counters on it. The affected model replaces any Poison
Counters on it with the indicated number if that number is
greater than the number of Poison Counters it currently has.
The model suffers 1 wound per Poison Counter on it at the
start of its activation, and then discards 1 Poison Counter.”

3) 6" ranged attack. It's not the greatest attack in the world but at worst it is a decent ability.

4) (0) Mesmerizing. With Colette's Wp boost it is easy to put slow on someone in melee range.

5) Expensive Gift (Cassandra can also use this via Understudy). If you have a target within 6" with Use Soulstone then you can make them loose a Soulstone while you gain one. From the way it is worded it looks like you gain a Soulstone even if the opponent has none.

6) Seduction. This is great to use before Cassandra or Colette goes for the kill.

There are other useful abilities of course, but these are the ones which will always be useful. Starting at turn 2 you should probably be using Mesmerizing every turn. In melee Cassandra and Colette are the real damage dealers and should also be in melee if the performers get caught.

The only complaint I have (and a small one at that) with Performers is Poison Gift is difficult to get to work. The only Mercenary I have seen so far that can paralyze is Convict Gunslinger and the way it is worded I don't think the Performers would have a chance to activate and use Poison Gift.