Leveticus tips and tricks

[Csonti]

...
Does that help?

Thanks for the long and valuable answer but as you noted most of these were quite straight. Like don't place your Waifs in a spot where Nino can have a free try on them. Yes, that's the minimum you must do to protect them and I agree with you about this is also almost the maximum.

Keeping Levi on 1 Wd is maybe a good try but in most cases you will limit his power if you have to stop at 1 Wd. Also, Levy has to be fairly close to the enemy to deal some pain. So most of the time they can easily eat his SS's with some attacks AND go after your Waifs.

For example a pair of Silurids led by Zoraida can wipe out the Waifs from the opposite end of the board. You can't use melee range for board control against them. You can't hit the Silurids as a preventive measure provided the opponent doesn't offer them with very bad placement. And she can bring more than 2 to ensure a pair makes it at the right time.

Thanks again for the long answer!

[Lucidicide]

Thanks for the long and valuable answer but as you noted most of these were quite straight. Like don't place your Waifs in a spot where Nino can have a free try on them. Yes, that's the minimum you must do to protect them and I agree with you about this is also almost the maximum.

Keeping Levi on 1 Wd is maybe a good try but in most cases you will limit his power if you have to stop at 1 Wd. Also, Levy has to be fairly close to the enemy to deal some pain. So most of the time they can easily eat his SS's with some attacks AND go after your Waifs.

For example a pair of Silurids led by Zoraida can wipe out the Waifs from the opposite end of the board. You can't use melee range for board control against them. You can't hit the Silurids as a preventive measure provided the opponent doesn't offer them with very bad placement. And she can bring more than 2 to ensure a pair makes it at the right time.

Thanks again for the long answer!

Yeah -- sorry it isn't more helpful!

I try to come as close to maximizing the distance between my Waifs as possible while still using terrain as mentioned above. So deploying w-6"-L-6"-w. That's a good 13" between the Waifs and it's usually at least 6" back from the closest enemy model. I have not faced the Silurid threat specifically, but I find the distance between the two is usually enough when my opponent really only has the one fast option.

When they have two or more fast options, I tend to go a bit more:

L
/ \
w w

This gives me more space between me and them, with the two downsides as not as much space between the Waifs and constantly pushing me back on the board.

If you activate early enough with a Waif or two, you can really spread out that distance (never summon the full and double walk directly away, though). This should make it even more difficult for those fast models to get to them without fear of reprisal. Most models cannot ignore LoS and terrain, so getting some of that between the Waifs really hurts the ability to jump from one to another.

I don't find that Leve has to be close to deal pain. You can Wk 6" and then kill anything with 9Wds or less at 10" (or 12" if you can Wasting it twice). That's a pretty huge threat range, especially when you take into account that if both Waifs survived the previous turn you have some options on where to show up.

I also find that most of Leveticus' hard hitting does not do enough Wds to kill him. He has 8. If you take the free move and love all 3 cards with Lessons, that puts you down to 3Wds left and leaves you with 3AP. Unnatural Wasting won't do any. You can't Entropic Transformation at 3 (and I find this is rarely used in the battle anyway as Necrotic is more potent against anything you can outright kill). Necrotic Unmaking only does 1, which means you could cast it twice. I usually find, because of Waif safety, Leveticus is spending an extra action to Wk to get in the action.

Can you explain to me what is happening with the Silurids? Maybe with the specifics I can provide more useful help.

[Csonti]

Can you explain to me what is happening with the Silurids? Maybe with the specifics I can provide more useful help.

This can be done a good number of ways. It depends on terrain, positioning etc.

Say you take 2 pairs and field them in safe spots at the opposite wings somewhere in the middle of your half of the table. As you said, you need a lot of terrain in Malifaux, so this shouldn't be a problem. You activate your less important/cheap etc. models until Levi is done then Momma Z and his Totem Obeys 1-1 Silurid. This is at least 5" (or 9" if you are lucky to have good charge target). Then you Leap for 9 more inch somewhere near an enemy modell (it must be somewhere within roughly 8-10 inch of target Waif depending on terrain). Self Preservation gives you a free 6" push and then you can attack with your 2" Talon two times with a Cb5 vs Df3. Even one hit could be enough but 2 is more than enough provided Black Jocker doesn't show up.

Also you can charge after Leap and/or Self Preservation in case you can reach the Waif with a 9" charge from there. The [+] flip with +2 stat is usually enough to inflict 3 Dg in one hit. And also if you can spare the Self Preservation move, you can use Blood Frenzy so you can most probably hit 2 times with 1 attack.

The ultimate combo is the use of a Nurse. Inject Speed and Stimulant in just one Silurid. With Reactivate, Wk7, Cg11, Cb9 and [+] flip on damage and a possible Obey or two he will wipe out both Waifs with ease. (But you can steroid another one just like this with the help of Furious Casting and an Obey from Big Z or her totem.) Sure that means at least one dead Silurid but in exchange your opponent loses Levy. Sounds like a fair deal to me.

[Lucidicide]

This can be done a good number of ways. It depends on terrain, positioning etc.

Say you take 2 pairs and field them in safe spots at the opposite wings somewhere in the middle of your half of the table. As you said, you need a lot of terrain in Malifaux, so this shouldn't be a problem. You activate your less important/cheap etc. models until Levi is done then Momma Z and his Totem Obeys 1-1 Silurid. This is at least 5" (or 9" if you are lucky to have good charge target). Then you Leap for 9 more inch somewhere near an enemy modell (it must be somewhere within roughly 8-10 inch of target Waif depending on terrain). Self Preservation gives you a free 6" push and then you can attack with your 2" Talon two times with a Cb5 vs Df3. Even one hit could be enough but 2 is more than enough provided Black Jocker doesn't show up.

Also you can charge after Leap and/or Self Preservation in case you can reach the Waif with a 9" charge from there. The [+] flip with +2 stat is usually enough to inflict 3 Dg in one hit. And also if you can spare the Self Preservation move, you can use Blood Frenzy so you can most probably hit 2 times with 1 attack.

The ultimate combo is the use of a Nurse. Inject Speed and Stimulant in just one Silurid. With Reactivate, Wk7, Cg11, Cb9 and [+] flip on damage and a possible Obey or two he will wipe out both Waifs with ease. (But you can steroid another one just like this with the help of Furious Casting and an Obey from Big Z or her totem.) Sure that means at least one dead Silurid but in exchange your opponent loses Levy. Sounds like a fair deal to me.

So in the case above I'd imagine you have a pretty good view of this coming. I'm going to talk about what I'd probably do -- this might not be news to you or useful. Sometimes Bad Things Happen. But anyway...

They need a 7+ for Obey on Z, a 10+ for Obey on the Doll, and a 7+ for Leap on the Silurids. All in all, this is potentially costly in terms of cards + soulstones. I don't know how many small models your Z opponents run with, but hopefully you have a decent chance to at least get to the Obey castings before you have to activate. The Silurids are running you 10 in a 30ss game, and most people are going to take something that costs more, too. So let's assume a better case for them where they can Charge off of an Obey. 9" move forward, and you have LoS. Most models you'll take with Leveticus can dump off some hurt at that range. If you manage to go with Leveticus, you can even kill a Silurid or two (if he's what has LoS). Rusty also has a decent chance here.

Assuming you can't actually react to what they just did and the Silurids are next, they'll have to Leap towards a model to get in range to use Self-Preservation (as they need to be in melee range). So assuming that all works out, they just moved that Silurid 24". That's quite a range. Then they have 2 AP for swings or a charge. Still, this is only likely to take out one Hollow Waif. If they do it with 2 Silurids in slightly varying directions, they might be able to get both Waifs.

For me, it would all come down to activations. If they are really running with a ton of cheap models, Leveticus is going to get out activated. The advantage here is that your opponent won't have a lot of heavy hitters. Play aggressively early and move up -- you already know he can threaten your Waifs almost anywhere, so don't bother keeping them safely back. Move up aggressively. Try to wait out his activations with Leveticus. His whole chain requires that he be safe while he's doing it, have a decent to good control hand, be activating after you, etc. Try to hit that nice gap after the Obeys but before the Silurids. Activate the Hollow Waifs early and defensive stance them, the ++ will go a long way toward beating the +2Cb. Since Silurids minimum is 2, they'll need two swings to kill a Waif. Hopefully they're burning cards on Obey and Leap, so don't have them open for cheating on 2 different Waifs (if they aren't burning cards on still have good cards in their hand, chances are their opening flips will suck).

From there, I'd take two approaches. I wouldn't bother killing Leveticus. Yes, it's nice to get the extra cards, but unless you tell him to take Wds, he'll only take 1/turn. Keep him healthy as you move up the board so your Waifs are less important. The chance of him being able to kill all 3 is minimal. Death's Lessons with Leveticus and only put 11+ on top of your deck so the Waifs can flip them. Use them on defense.

If even one model lives, the whole activation the turn before is largely a waste. The Silurids are either spread out or at least away from the rest of the crew and are not going to make it back into safety.

I'm not quite sure what to tell you here. It reads to me like you're ending up in a situation where your opponent is setting up something that requires quite a bit of planning. You can go for your points during this or just hang back.

Yeah... this is a hard situation without the game itself happening. Hopefully something above helps, but really it was just a brain ramble. Sorry about that.

What else is normally in the Z list? What else are you taking with Leveticus?

[Csonti]

I'm not quite sure what to tell you here. It reads to me like you're ending up in a situation where your opponent is setting up something that requires quite a bit of planning. You can go for your points during this or just hang back.

Yeah... this is a hard situation without the game itself happening. Hopefully something above helps, but really it was just a brain ramble. Sorry about that.

What else is normally in the Z list? What else are you taking with Leveticus?

Very thorough analytics there again and you indeed gather all the resources in these bad matchup. You have a solid grip of the mechanics, sir!

Just some notes:
- Obey is not a must at all, I just mentioned it to have a clear view of all the options. You can reach the Waifs without it in most cases. Also Big Z can use a discarded card (or even see her hand with luck) so she has some control over what she flips. And if you somehow do need an Obey, SS can save the day.

- Card dependance of the plan is clear but not that problematical. Usually you can attack the Waifs in turn2. At that time you drawn 2x6 cards. Provided you can reach the Waifs with Leap, Self Preservation and Charge (theoretical max threat: 9+6+9+2) all you REALLY need is 2 Leaps (7+), 2 cards for the attack that is weaker by 1 point than the Waif defence card and 2 moderate cards for the damage (6+). Since most of the flips have more than 50 chance to succeed, on avarage you will need 1 or 2 cards for leaping and damaging and you need to win the 2 key duels vs the Waifs but that's also not unlikely since you have +2 stat bonus in that battle.

- Activation control is a possible way to stay alive but that relies heavily on the lists. And the lists are made based on the terrain and the strategies fliped. So I can't give you whole lists because that will be Theorifaux at the highest level. But please note that Z can spawn Wicked Dolls or respaw her Totem that will give the team valuable activation time.

- The basic plan doesn't really need careful setup. All you need is 2 Silurids in a safe spot to spring out when Leveticus already crippled himself enough in that turn. Of course you can spice it up with Nurse and Obeys but as I said they are just overkills in most cases.

All in all thanks for your ingsights, they can definetely save Levy's .ss in some cases. And now we can discuss the surviving strategy against for example a Pigapult.

[Lucidicide]

Very thorough analytics there again and you indeed gather all the resources in these bad matchup. You have a solid grip of the mechanics, sir!

Based on our join dates, it looks like we've both been playing for a very long time, and if you're like me you started playing before you joined the board! That helps get a firm understanding of the mechanics down.

Anyway, your list and my list both show one thing about the theory -- we can sit here all day and give counter examples. I mentioned the problems with the Silurids, and you mention their upsides. I could point out more issues, and I'm sure you could cite more advantages.

At the end of the day, keeping Hollow Waifs safe is impossible. Just make sure you can make your opponent pay if they dedicate resources to killing them.

---

One thing I will stress to any new Leveticus players reading this: Keeping your Hollow Waifs safe reads like a simple task. It is not. You must understand not only your own crew, but also your opponent's crew. You have to understand their threat ranges and what you can do to mitigate it. Leveticus is, in many ways, the easiest Master to kill in the game. In other ways, he's one of the hardest. Keeping your Hollow Waifs safe is a practice in knowing what your opponent might bring at you.

What's more, it's seeing the big picture of the board. Utilizing terrain defensively and offensively. Prepping your Waifs positioning for next turn, and making sure you're OK with Leveticus spawning to either of them. It is quite an elaborate dance.

A "trick" I like to pull against non-graverobbing crews. I like to turn my SPAs into corpses if I feel my Waifs are unsafe. I activate Leveticus late in the turn and create a new Waif to replace one my opponent killed. I've even spent actions making healing flips so Leveticus will have the Wds to cast Entropic Transformation (he needs 4+).

One game I played where I screwed up with my Waifs, I had a Lelu on Leveticus, no Waifs, and Leveticus on 1 with 1ss left. If I burned the stone to save Leveticus from the 1Wd, the Lelu would hit him later in the Closing to kill him. I managed to run Ashes and Dust over, sacrificed Rusty Alyce (at full health), giving Leveticus the healing flip he needed to survive.

You'll run into all sorts of crazy situations playing Leveticus and trying to keep him alive. Know your crew, know their crew, and spare no expense.

[graeme27uk]

As a Leveticus newbie, I would like to know what you mean by "playing him aggressively"?

His spells are awesome, though requiring a 10+ to cast Necrotic Unmaking. Which in my book is quite high. Unnatural Wasting is pretty good, though it requires either a or at 8+ to cast which is again quite specific and reasonably high.

So his spells are quite difficult to get off without burning SS (of which he won't have that many).

He has no ranged attack other than his spells, and he is only ever really going to take out one model per turn if they are in range of UW and NU. This assumes they don't resist either spell.

Whilst I like Leveticus, I find that usually his minions are worse off than the other team and he simply doesn't have the movement without aid, to get him to where he can blast away.

Maybe I am playing him wrong or with the wrong crew.

[Lucidicide]

Necrotic Unmaking needs a 9+ to cast, as it's a 16 and he's a cast 7.

Regardless, I find that his spells are pretty easy to cast. Unnatural Wasting, Necrotic Unmaking, and Death Touch tend to be his work horses. I find that it's fairly easy to get both off without a soulstone by using Death's Lessons and cards in hand. Some turns it's a problem, it's true, but very rarely.

Additionally, resisting usually won't happen. If you take a minion with Df 5 and put it up against a minimum CC 16, they need a 12 to resist. That's with a 9 on Ca and a Df 5 for Rst. Any fluctuation in either direction and it'll probably be outside of possible to resist.

Taking out one model per turn is awesome, particularly when you can almost guarantee it because of the high Rst totals. Once some things have been injured, he can do more. On a lucky turn you could even get 3 SPAs via Necrotic Unmaking. But that's a very lucky turn.

As for playing him aggressively, I'm not sure specifically where you're referencing. I mention to position defensively but play offensively. Is that what you mean? If so, what I mean is that your first priority with Leveticus is making sure he's around the next turn. This, if done correctly, shouldn't take any of your resources. It's a positional thing. Once you've got that, all your resources should go into attacking. I almost never waste a card on defense or resists.

Lastly, with the crew... I'm surprised to hear you say that his minions are worse off. I don't really know what that means for you, but he has some amazing choices. If you are using a crew like this...

Leveticus
Bete Noire
Canine Remains x1
Rotten Belle x1
Steampunk Abomination x3
Watcher x1
Soutstone Miner x1

...then I could point out some troubles. First, SPAs die super easily and you're not starting with enough to get a DE (which also dies super easily). This means that before 9 points of your list becomes particularly useful (especially given Insignificant) you need to have already engaged and killed something. That can be a problem.

Second, Rotten Belle + Watcher = 7 points. The Watcher can grab you objectives, but if you're not playing an objective strategy, it's going to be a waste. It dies very easily and doesn't do any damage. The Rotten Belle is good for Lure, but not much else. It survives decently, but won't do any damage. The two are support models. My question to you becomes: What are they supporting?

Third, the SS Miner, while nice (I often use him myself), needs a specific set of circumstances to work in. He's best, like Leve, when he's killing himself. You have no way to heal him with Leveticus. I find he's nice to gain a couple of soulstones off Waifs or the initial dog and then to be a nuisance. As an offensive model, he will almost always under-perform.

Lastly, Bete. I know there's a lot of love for Bete, but I wouldn't recommend her for you. She requires a 10+ to be worth the points. Leveticus can't stack his hand. These two combined make her a risky model in a Leveticus crew, and I would argue that Leveticus will do better with that 10+ (you're not going to get a lot of them in any given turn). She's expensive (in terms of hiring costs and cards in game) for a 2/3/4 profile that you don't even keep on the table. This lets people target other things. Bete is your heavy hitter.

In summary, you have nothing but the Belle which can really take a hit. You're using a couple of models that want high cards, which ends up being a drain on Leveticus' power. You're spending 7 points on support and 9 on models that won't do much unless you get another one of them (and they drop like flies when attacked). You'll end up using Leveticus' resources on Bete and then spending Wds and AP trying to bring back the SPAs that died instead of dealing damage. Your ability to do a good amount of damage is pretty much limited to Leveticus, and Bete's power on the table will flicker in and out of play.

I'd go with fewer, stronger minions and see how it feels.

[graeme27uk]

Ok, so is it best to take NO Steampunk Abom's then as Leve should create them in game? I have read opinions on both sides of the argument.

So fewer and stronger, I am assuming then A&D are in that category.
Dead Rider people seem to be rather keen on with Leveticus.
Killjoy?
Rogue Necromancy?
Flesh Construct?

If I take fewer minions, then do I not risk being out-activated and so the other side can just pour their attacks onto me, whilst I can only take out theirs bit by bit. Levie has no way of healing any of his team, so they have to be pretty self-sufficient.

[CrouchingMoose]

Killjoy can be a good option, as can the dead rider.

However, i honestly wouldn't take Rogue Necromancy or a flesh construct with Levi.

Other options for big hitters that I would consider would be any of the other riders (although dead rider is the most durable)and ashes and dust is unkillable if you play him right (plus he can provide healing flips to the rest of your crew).

A lot of what lucidicide is saying is perfect, and while I think the crew your were asking about does not have enough hitting power, you don't necessarily need fewer stronger models to get that hitting power. If your doing an objective based stratgey, then look at collodi and his marionettes. Indivudually, they may not be able to do much, but with collodi leading them, you can get off up to 15 attacks with them (not all may hit, but its the sheer number that takes down most opponents). Combine that with their ability to fly across the board and cap objectives and they become a great option that doesn't lower you model count while also maintaining the ability to companion with each other and pile on top of a minion.