The Doctor is in...

[graeme27uk]

If I were starting out, is Dr McMourning a good choice? I have tried Nicodem and he didn't work out so well....

The Dr model is pretty good, and his avatar and such also looks/sounds as if it has potential. Does anyone have any tips/hints on what should be in his crew or ways of playing him? How easy is it to get he body parts he needs?

What are the pro's / con's of the Doc?

[SoulG]

Dr. McMourning is an excellent start for a new person. He has a few tricks, but most of them are pretty rote and easy to learn. The biggest tactic to master with him is when and where to over-extend, since he's a glass cannon of a master.

Don't bother with his box. As your first, general, All-Comer's list go McMourning + Chihuahua + Von Schill + Canine Remains + The Drowned x3.

That gives you 25 points even (a 6 Cache is acceptable). Keep 1-2 Flesh Constructs on hand for summoning and a Rogue Necromancy on hand for summoning.

Pro's: Cache 6, Can kill stuff easily, easy to get body-part counters, one of the best summoning master in the game, Cache 6...'
Con's: Easy to kill.

[graeme27uk]

http://www.wyrd-games.net/showthread...ght=mcmourning

I did a search for McMourning posts to pick up what I could. Reading this post is rather nihilistic (maybe thats in keeping with the faction) in terms of my wanting to play any Ressers. I did get a bit fed up with Nicodem and the lack of hordes of undead zombies.... they did seem rather pathetic and not really a "horde".... maybe I was doing it wrong.

So am I really just flogging a dead horse going down the McMourning route? Am I wasting my time and money? I'd like to win the occassional game without my opponent having to let me win or feel sorry for me.

NB Dreamer sounds fun, both in terms of fluff and the models. I can imagine a boy's toybox coming to life to lay waste to Malifaux. However, I have yet to try him out and work out how all the complexities work with the Bury mechanic..... I've played three games in total, not yet with one using all the correct rules (still learning...). Pandora from what I can make out, whilst fun for one person is game-wrecking for the other.

Maybe I'll just go back to trying to figure out what to be.... maybe Rasputina, Sonia, or Ramos...

[OldManMyke]

Take with a pinch of salt as I'm really not very good but McMourning is a very fun master to play if you don't mind losing now and again. The Body Part / Summon mechanics make for a very interesting game once you get past the first couple of formulaic turns (plenty of advice elsewhere on what those formula are) and McMourning himself can be an absolute monster in combat, slicing and dicing with the best of them.

And he is only getting better with the release of his Avatar next month

If you don't like his fluff though, and don't buy into the whole idea of a mad doctor frankenstein working under the noses of the guild to further his own lunatic ideas (Heath Ledgers Joker) it could well be that he just isn't the master for you.

The best thing I've found since getting into this game is that there are masters for every style of play, you just need to find the once for you.

[SpiralngCadavr]

I personally love McM, and he'll never get you a horde of Zombies, but 2-4 big, demoralizing summons over the course of the game (for me, most often 2-3 flesh constructs or 1-2 and a rogue necromancy) is a lot of fun (and, I find, more effective than a bunch of weaker ones: even if the big guys die, your opponent needs to be sure they go down, and that's often a lot of resources).

I'm curious how much you're recycling your own minions: I haven't played Nicodem, but it seems like they work on similar principles, and McMourning (at least how I play him) generally wants a good kickstart with friendly body parts to get him going (no innuendo, please :p).

Unfortunately, you're playing a skirmish game, so you're probably never going to get "hordes", but if you want a pack of Canine Remains (as many as you can fit), Nicodem, and Rafkin, you'll get a pretty good army of recycling weak guys (which will variously grow stronger or weaker as they're recycled, and, in some cases, can slowly grow their ranks), which might not be the most effective, but would be pretty cool, I'd imagine.

[graeme27uk]

Take with a pinch of salt as I'm really not very good but McMourning is a very fun master to play if you don't mind losing now and again. The Body Part / Summon mechanics make for a very interesting game once you get past the first couple of formulaic turns (plenty of advice elsewhere on what those formula are) and McMourning himself can be an absolute monster in combat, slicing and dicing with the best of them.

And he is only getting better with the release of his Avatar next month

If you don't like his fluff though, and don't buy into the whole idea of a mad doctor frankenstein working under the noses of the guild to further his own lunatic ideas (Heath Ledgers Joker) it could well be that he just isn't the master for you.

The best thing I've found since getting into this game is that there are masters for every style of play, you just need to find the once for you.

I like the idea of a Mad Scientist, so no issues with that. But am I doomed to disappointment by getting him? I like his concept and like the idea of frankenstein'ing my own constructs. But when it comes down to it this is a game and no one really likes to constantly being on the losing team, so I have to look at the stats and how they behave on the tabletop as well.

I also can't see where it says that you can summon a Rogue Necromancy. It's not under the Monstrous Creation on my card (downloaded from Malifaux website).

So how do you get your "friendly body parts"? Use Canine Remains and just chop them up first turn? Convert SS to Body Parts?

[OldManMyke]

Better players than me will tell you if you are doomed to lose all the time but I dont think you will - I havent in my limited games, ad Malifaux seems to be about who you fill your crew out with as well to help with victory. The pullmyfinger wiki has loads of information on the basic McMourning techniques

Details of summoning Rouge Necro are on its card

[Calmdown]

I like the idea of a Mad Scientist, so no issues with that. But am I doomed to disappointment by getting him?

Certainly not. He's very good, and rewards skill a lot. You can do horrible things to most opponents with him. You will still be disappointed when you play against certain masters at how lacking you are in some areas (Neverborn, Hamelin, Gremlins) but that goes for everyone and skill can overcome a large part of the hurdles that you have facing those crews.

So how do you get your "friendly body parts"? Use Canine Remains and just chop them up first turn? Convert SS to Body Parts?

Chopping up Canine Remains or Desperate Mercs, or attacking your own models that you arent worried about losing wounds on (such as Belles, or regenerating models like Dead Rider and Sybelle).

You only really do this to get your first 1/2 summons out though, as soon as McMourning commits you'll be rolling in body parts (and corpses, if playing vs the correct opponent).

McMourning is probably the master I've had the most fun playing. And I havent mastered him yet by any means, but I've not found anyone I can't give a very difficult game to at worst.

[CrouchingMoose]

If youve only played 3 games so far...I wouldnt get discouraged...i know exactly what your feeling and i lost almost every single one of my first 10 games, mainly because i was playing masters i partially understood against great players who fully understood their masters. Hell, i didnt even tealize nicodem drew cards for summoning for my first 6 months with him. So my suggestion would be figure out what you like and go with that, and while you may lose at first, just keep trying and figure out what you did wrong and what you could do better.

At least thats what worked for me. Thats not to say I win every game, but i do make my opponents work for the wins they do get rather than it being a complete slaughter.

[Fetid Strumpet]

Doomed to disappointment? Well that really depends. Even though Resser's are, in my opinion, the weakest faction overall, it is not as if you are going to lose every single game you play with them. You can even win most or all your games with them, depending on what your local meta is like, and the skill level of yourself and your opponents. Playing McMorning can be very fun as he is built well for the intent behind him. He doesn't have all the advantages that some other Masters have, and there are many strategies that he's not quite so great at, but thats true of all the masters in the game that are not top tier masters.

One of the defining things, again in my opinion, that makes certain masters so good is the ability to construct solid crews to do just about everything, and even then top tier masters are often mildly weak at something. For example, Kirai, one of the recognized top masters in the game, and by leaps and bounds the most competitive master resser's have, has some issues if Contain Power comes up. You either need to take a different master, or accept the fact that you are most likely not going to get the 2 points from your master dealing the death blow.

McMorning is probably the 2nd most competitive Resser master. His abilities are solid and he has the largest effective Cache in the game. That is HUGE. SS are exceptionally powerful, and the more you have at the beginning of the game the larger the crew you can bring and still have a 8SS cache. I personally think it was given to him because it was assumed that you would trade some of them for BP, but I'd personally never do it, BP are very easy to get and SS can decide the course of the game.

If you personally are a competitive player, who winning most of your games is important to, than McMorning, and really ressers outside of Kirai, might not be the master for you. If you are fine to play at a disadvantage against a few masters, and don't mind losing to the occasional more powerful master then he can be very fun. Nothing in the game wants to be next to him if he wins initiative, as he has the potential to get 4 or more attacks on his target, and a focus casting of Dissection can kill almost anything in the game if it connects. Additionally the only effective defense anything has against him is a high Def # as Armor and h2w are ignored by his precise ability.

He is a deadly Melee monster with some additional speed built in, and an effective summoning spell. He can bring the largest crew in the game, outside Collodi being used as a master, and still have 8SS to begin the game. His summoning mechanic is very unique, and isn't dependent on having to face a particular style of crew. He is a very solid Master, and is one of the better designed and balanced Book 1 Masters. He is very fun, and the fact that he serves as such a powerful beatsick means you don't have to devote as much of his SS to fill that role, allowing greater flexibility of crew design. You are not doomed to failure by playing McMorning. The only real issue you are going to have is if you want to play competitively, and don't want to own another master.

Also just to let you know, certain models were released after the initial masters were, and in order to make certain, to some extent, that Seamus and McMorning don't fall behind on their summoning compared to Nicodem, newly released models will change the conditions of the spells required to summon them. For example, Seamus has the Spell Arise my Sweet, which allows him to summon a Rotten Belle, but the Dead Doxy, which was released in book three, has a trait which is called Part of the Harem, which allows a model with the spell Arise my sweet to summon her. The same is true of the Rogue Necromancy. That model has a trait called difficult to construct, which allows a model with monstrous Creation to summon it by using 8 BP.