Hamelin the Plagued in low SS games

[Aramoro]

We've just started playing Malifaux with Colette as my first Master and getting into how to play her and it's fun, I picked up the Rising Powers book to have a look and a came across Hamelin who looks like fun. So I though I would give him a go as I'm basically a terrible human being.

Currently we're playing small games, 25 SS so i'm Trying to work out what the balance should be between holding stones and having a crew to use.

My first thought was :-

Outcasts Crew - 25 - Scrap


Hamelin the Plagued -- 3 Pool

• Malifaux Rat [2ss]
• Malifaux Rat [2ss]
• Nix, the Bull Terrier [7ss]
• Rat Catcher [5ss]
• The Stolen [3ss]
• The Stolen [3ss]

but that leaves me with a very low Pool, so perhaps drop both rats for another The Stolen, give me one more stone in my pool. It's tricky to know coming from Colette where I'll regularly have 7 SS pool and use them for everything. Is Nix just too expensive and better to have another The Stolen, Rat and 2 spare stones?

[Guy in Suit]

Go with stolen or rats, not both - would be my advice for a small game. The small cache isn't so bad with Hammy - just don't expose him unnecessarily.

[Finnegan]

Keeping ing mind I've plyaed very little Hamelin, and played him in 25SS only once, my crew was

Outcasts Crew - 25 - Scrap
Hamelin the Plagued -- 5 Pool

• Malifaux Rat [2ss]
• Malifaux Rat [2ss]
• Malifaux Rat [2ss]
• Malifaux Rat [2ss]
• Malifaux Rat [2ss]
• Nix, the Bull Terrier [7ss]
• The Stolen [3ss]

One Stolen for security in case I made a mistake causing Hamelin to die when i didn't want him to, Nix for his general awesomeness, and the potential to get a ratcatcher once I'd killed an ennemy model or two/sacced a Stolen or two. No need to start with a Ratcatcher, and with 5 rats to start with you can outactivate your opponent quite easily on the first turn.

[marshimartian]

I'd say take more stolen, you can always use them to sac for your abilities. And because of Inevitable Fate, you get a rat out of it.

[Aramoro]

I knew Nix could summon Rat with Severe damage on his attack but I didn't know he could summon a Ratcatcher, I must have missed that somewhere. More Stolen, less Rats, that seems reasonable.

[Finnegan]

No, Nix can't summon Ratcatchers (dang, that would be OP XD )
Rats can sac three of their own to get a Ratcatcher instead ((1)Rat Problem),
Yeah, it does mean you're using 6SS worth of models to get a 5SS model, but considering you can do that any time with a rat which hasn't activated yet (as long as you place your rats right) and that the Ratcatcher can do so much for the rats, I think it's a viable strategy, even moreso with the potential for outactivation without the cheesy self-killing rats.

[magicpockets]

Don't start with any Stolen, you're not going to die turn one and can summon one for free. As a guide, I'd consider this for 25ss -

Hamelin with 4ss
Wretch 2ss
Nix 7ss
Rat Catcher 5ss
Rat 2ss
Rat 2ss
Terror Tot 3ss

But it REALLY depends on your strategy and schemes - for example if you've got Treasure Hunt you want a Student of Conflict and 2x Guild Hounds in there.

Hope it helps, and if you have specific schemes in mind let me know and I'll give you some ideas

[Aramoro]

Well I played a quick game the other day there against my friends Sonjia Creed and I have to say it went very well/badly depending on your perspective. It was a simple 'Destroy the Evidence' and I had Bodyguard and Hamelins specific scheme. My opponent conceded at the start of turn 3 when he lost the Initiative flip and was about to have Sonjia eaten by Rats. This lead us to believe we were doing something wrong, The sequence of events was something like

Rats move up, Writhing Mass to get close, Rat Catcher kills them all and Voreacious Rats to get more, they Writhing mass forwards around a Witchling Stalker and Impetuous for the before attacking.They kill the Witchling Stalker who explodes Voracious Rats kicks in and they surge forwards again onto a poor Franciso Ortega who is also devoured by the Writhing Mass/Impetuous/Attacking. That was my bottom of turn 1, turn 2.

Is that normal? How do you play against that, is it a simple case of just running away from the Rat Swarm or wading thought it to punch Hamlin in his stupid face?

The thing is I really like Hamelin but I don't want games to be an entirely negative play experience for my opponent.

[Argentbadger]

I am the Guild player from Aramoro’s game. We spoke about this for a while after the game, and my concern comes down to: killing the rats is pointless because they respawn and reactivate. However, you can’t ignore them as they also kill you with a thousand cuts and you can’t cheat to avoid it (as that gives Hamelin a chance to get good cards in hand). I think in this case some rats had up to four activations, and it seems to me that there is no upper limit. I’d like to have been able to shoot things up a bit first but the range of my guns is 10” and rats can cover that with only two activations.

For reference, my crew was Sonnia Criid (+8 soulstones), 2 Witchling Stalkers, 2 Death Marshalls and Francisco Ortega. This wasn’t particularly selected to ‘counter’ Hamelin, or even really to do with the strategy; I am still trying to learn what things do. I thought (in retrospect) that the Witchling Stalkers would be good since they can Dispel Magic to get rid of the Insignificant and have a magic weapon with which to hurt Nix.

We are both pretty new at the game, so Aramoro wasn’t using particularly cheap tricks; I imagine that you could spend ages just having rats kill each other until I run out of activations for a start. Anyway, later on it occurred to me that a decent option would be to take Nino and start to Headshot important models (i.e. Nix and any rat catchers) until Hamelin has no cards left, all the while avoiding the temptation to cheat.

I’d be keen to play against Hamelin again when I’m not tired and whiny. It was certainly frustrating watching a tide of rats run over my Witchling Stalker, get blown up, then all reappear (plus one) and repeat the trick with Francisco Ortega.

[magicpockets]

Anyway, later on it occurred to me that a decent option would be to take Nino and start to Headshot important models (i.e. Nix and any rat catchers) until Hamelin has no cards left, all the while avoiding the temptation to cheat.

This is one of the easiest ways to beat Hamelin, kudos for working it out - you'd be amazed at how few (if any) people do