Marcus - Success

[Acefisher1]

So I wanted to take a minute and write down a few thoughts about Marcus after failing horrifically with him, and then having major success. I want to take a look at the causes of the success, and the failures.

I have owned Marcus nearly as long as he's been around. I however, just started playing him last week. This is by no means a definitive report on how to play him, and I don't claim to be an expert on him. I do however, feel the need to share a few thoughts and think it may be helpful to others.

I decided I needed to learn Marcus a bit before a tournament so i'd have some more mobility options in a tournament I played in last weekend. I played 3 practice games against a friend and frequent opponent. I was crushed all three games. I then proceeded to play in the tournament and did very poorly, and finally played Marcus in the third and final round, witch some success, but still a loss.

In the 4 losses, I learned a lot about what I couldn't do with Marcus. This is a great deal more helpful than learning what he actually can do. I realized that he just wasn't good at getting into combat and getting out alive, alpha striking, he's somewhat weak at 25SS in my opinion, and has a slew of strategies and schemes he's not suited to. Now I knew what NOT to do with Marcus.

Tonight I busted out Marcus again, and this time, due to the strategy, and I felt I wanted to give him one last go. I won the game tonight with a fairly solid 8/0 Win. The Strategy was shared Distract, and the schemes were Sabotage on a close house on his side and Grudge on his Watcher. My opponent took Breakthrough and Stake a Claim on a hill near my deployment zone. I felt that the strategy was perfect for Marcus, when paired with some mobile models, and some hard hitting guys too.

I took Marcus, Rattler, Steamborg, Joss, December's Acolyte, and the Sabertooth Cerberus at 35SS. My opponent had Hoffman, Guardian, Watcher, Peacekeeper, Ryal, and the Mobile Toolkit.

I won't go into a long drawn out battle report, but needless to say, turn 2 I had my Cerberus viciously murder his watcher, and had Marcus fly across the board to grab my sabotage VP. I was already up 4VP. By turn 5's end, I had killed all of his models save the Peacekeeper and still had my acolyte and Marcus.

I did have fairly good flips, and his were below average, but my control was garbage and his was great. So we were even as far as I was concerned on fate cards.

I feel that Marcus is a GREAT master in certain situations, and he is great because he can accomplish certain things extremely well with little to no resistance when taken at the appropriate time. His other strong benefit is the ability to gain access to models the Arcanist faction doesn't normally have access to; IE: Night Terrors. I'm going to be picking these up to try with him, and I'm going to experiment with Molemen as well; but I digress. Marcus is a great master taken in the proper place. He excels at mobility and I found that it isn't so much him, but the crew he can build that makes him a great choice at times. The games that I lost were due more to schemes and strategies he shouldn't have been used for, and my trying to make a Model do something it just isn't meant to do, or proficient at. It's like trying to ask a Gas Station Attendant to design the architecture for a new skyscraper. They'd fail miserably, but they'll probably do swimmingly if you ask about the road conditions in the dead of a bad winter in the north where they live! You see my point.

What I did right. I took Marcus in a game where he had access to models that would take care of the strategy and he could nearly single-handedly accomplish the schemes. While some may argue that Ramos would be a better choice to the strategy, I would say there's no point in arguing, I accomplished my goal fairly easily, thus either is a viable choice. I believe I had a better overall setup though with my schemes and the strategy as I didn't have to work at them after turn 2. I don't believe Ramos would have been able to do the same. I could be wrong though, it has happened before.

In summary, Marcus is a great master when used at the right time, and for the right purpose. He is a terrible master when taken at any other point in time. What makes him a Master and not a Henchmen aren't his abilities, spells, or nasty dreadlocks. It's the ability to create a crew that no one else in the game can.

[Alex]

Are you sure that was your list? I count 40ss in your crew vs 30ss in opponent's crew.
Apart from that, I agree that when used correctly, Marcus is a winning master. I would go a bit further and say that with his great flexibility in hiring, there are no strategies in the game that he cannot complete. Contain Power is really the only one I'd feel like he might be a bad choice for, and even that depends on who the opposing master is.

[ukrocky]

Marcus is pro, but I don't understand your list at all, care to explain your thoughts behind that selection of models?

[Acefisher1]

Alex, you're correct sir, my list was indeed over points. I'll have to check into that. I used Ratty's crew creator for the list and it came out to correct points on there. May be a bug with the code when used on a mobile device. To be fair though, the Acolyte didn't do anything the whole game. He passed every turn save one where he did nothing. In the future he's the model i'd leave out obviously.

UKRocky, I chose my models based on what I wanted to accomplish. I had in mind my schemes, and decided to go with the cerberus and marcus to grab objectives. The Steamborg and Joss would defend my side of the board and take up his actions while denying shooting with steam cloud (as best one can). I moved them slowly forward to be even where he was and then utilized my full movement once the time was right to get my charges off and stop his death-ball. This tied him up and allowed me to use the Rattler for it's purpose, which was to come in where needed and get some charges and poisons on. It also picked off Ryle when he wandered off from the ball to shoot.

So the basic idea behind the list was a couple mobile models, a couple of tanks, and a mid-fielder so to speak. This gave me superb board control and the win.