Collodi Box Help

[bashamer]

I played Collodi in a league; starting with the boxed set the first few games.

The basics:
1. play for strategies and schemes. you don't win a fair fight, simple as that.

2. recognize you are WAY the underdog against any other box. you have 17 point crew, that includes the full SS allotment. As I usually only use 2 SS with him it was more like a 12 SS crew vs a 25 SS crew. You can't afford to play a symmetric game, meaning you can't afford to do the same things your opponent can. Marching forward to start holding an objective turn 2 is a death sentence for Collodi. our crew has no wounds, you have to nip around the edges and strike just in time to win the game.

Tactics;
Try and draw out your opponents activations and don't try and activate all your models at once. The only time you want to activate more than 1 model at a time is when your opponent could remove an opportunity for one of those activations. Meaning; Activate Collodi turn 1, make everything fast and do not activate anything else; see what they do; then activate one marionette or wicket doll and again wait what they do. Once you see an opportunity then you strike. Then if you are engaged and you win initiative now you try and activate as much as you can to get you strikes in before your opponent can react.

One thing to remember vs Shamus, try and have him draw a model that has not activated; after he is done sucking you in, activate and snap back to Collodi

Once you expand:
1. add some stitched; They are good normally; they are silly amazing w/ Collodi and buff his entire crew against ranged attacks. your crew can add 2 stitched to the boxed set and bring 5SS in a 25 point game.

[schattenwyrm]

I play collodi too and I also have yet to beat my friend, whom I´m playing against!!!! I think from the 8 games we played until now I only won 1 game.... its a very sad story cause he has a perdita crew... and thats just ridiculous to play against with a collodi crew!!
The hints being given by the players here are good but not really usable in a fight against perdita....

The point with creepy fog is nice but if your opponent wins the initiative you are screwed!!! And dont forget that he can use a ss to re-flip the ini flip....and against a perdita crew the stitched together are rather useless, cause of ortegas stubborn that gives them +2 wp... you really have to have good cards to win a wp duel but since stitched are very slow they just run away xD and shoot from a safe distance! And perdita is immune against wp duels... nice very nice!!!
Altough collodi has a good alpha strike I rarely use it to get into a melee fight. The ortegas are very beefy and I end up using all my hand cards to make like.... 3 wounds on 2 targets and then its his turn... last game he just sent in papa loco and destroyed everyone but 2 wicked dolls (far away), 2 stitched (also far away, very far away) and collodi who died then to perdita. But he lost 3 of his crew too.. which was fun!!! I could get nino with a gamble duel (had good cards on my hand and he flipped a 2 (so happy xD) and couldnt cheat much better either so nino died but I still had to fight perdita with 1 stiched together, against whom I had absolutely no chance, obvious.
And going for cover is rather pointless too!! with obey and her fast he can position his ortegas in good strategic positions that will allow him to shoot everything that moves.

I´m kinda frustrated about having bought a collodi crew.. I really love the fluff (thats why I bought it in the first place) but collodi doesnt seem to be a very balanced henchman... I mean he doesnt even have paired weapons (!!!??!?!?!)

maybe I´m just playing him wrong.. I dont know but I just dont seem to get around his defenses and win a game...

[Adran]

Collodi can be a very powerful henchmen.
Him and 4 MArionettes can deliver 10 attacks (with paired weapons) on targets 18" from Collodi in 1 activation.
The range can be greater, it'll just cut into attacks.
There isn't much that is going to survive that.

His pounce is consistant and pretty scary.
Wicked dolls can also jump straight to where ever he is.

Typically he also has a lot of cheap models meaning you can probably out activate any other crew, timing your strike for when you want.

Facing the Ortegas I would probably slowly advance the Stiched, making sure they put their fog up at the end of their activation. Before the ortega are in range to shoot you, you should be able to strike out at them, removing one or two models.
They can't see through the fog, or even far enough into it to shoot the stiched.
If the stiched are getting fast each turn, then they can be moving 8" a turn and still getting the fog up.

The biggest risk you have is when they get iniative on you and the whole family shoots before you get an activation, so be weary of that, and try and keep your crew safe from that.

Finally, The game isn't won on combat. You can almost complete the reclaim malifaux scheme on turn one, breakthrough is again almost a garenteed 2 VP. keep clear of his guns if you don't need to walk into them, make him come to you.

[011121]

Perdita is one of the hardest targets for collodi to tackle. Kaeris is another bad one. That said it's not impossible. If he's brought papa loco that should be your target for the stitched, as his WP sucks. You say something about hitting for 3 damage on 2 targets, why are you attacking 2 different targets? Hit one enemy until they're dead as this game has no system for reducing effectiveness due to wounds.

You can also try using an arcane effigy which has some decent ranged firepower of it's own.

Against perdita I'd be more inclined to spend the first couple turns filling more dolls with stones (be that the effigy, stitched, collodi himself, or just the marionettes). Also make sure to have wicked dolls, they're awesome for the cost.

[schattenwyrm]

Well I dont really want to sound grumpy but.... from the experience I have made from the games I played until now I still say that Collodi is really a bad crew to face an Ortega one!

I know that advancing with the stitched is a viable strategy but it all depends on the initiative if I fail all my figures are located on one place..... Perdita just has to cast obey on papa loco and he may then be in range for his ridiculous self-explosion spell. And it doesnt really matter if my figures are protected from range attacks until I come close enough to attack them... His strategy is atm to just kill all of my figures and I cant just stay back and gather any objectives cause he easily can kill any of my dolls... he one-shots almost everything I have! Besides collodi and the stitched... I usually go for cover but that means that I have to split my forces and the stitched and the dolls usally stay behind. I mean.. the range of their guns is huge... and they have trigger happy and so on! If I move around to grab objectives that means that the stitched have to be left behind and collodi and the marionettes are defenseless. In his turn he can usually move his figures so that they can shoot mine.. with obey or perdita moves 2 times and then shoots... and I cant really attack her or them cause papa loco is always in the near... what am i suppose to do??!

To your point about attacking 2 diffrent targets... I didnt have any other option. I wanted to get into melee so that he couldnt shoot at my dolls without to at least hit some of his own figures or losing an action. He had his figures placed near a corner of a house and my dolls and marionetts couldnt all attack that target on the corner cause they only have range 1 and there were already 2 marionetts covering him and another ortega was beside him so i attacked both. It was a good move at the end... altough it may not sound as an option... but I didnt really have any other options he was about to win the game anyways and I could (thanks to papa loco) get 3 of his figures killed with only perdita and nino staying alive.... and two of my stitched that then could kill nino with gamble your life but against perdita I couldnt do anything. Huge speed and fire burst dmg.

Oh and about hitting the same target... the dolls are so damn weak, it all comes to luck! 1/2/4 i think is the dmg... against 8 or 6 wounds... and I have to flip a severe dmg card... all just luck. Against the def of the ortegas I also lose hand cards wich I cant use when he attacks me then.... thats what is happening in my games.

I know that I still have to learn a lot and should have bought an easier crew for the begining but I like the fluff around him and still do.... maybe I am playing him wrong (which in some moments I really do) but against the Ortega I really dont see how collodi can win a game when the opponent is just going for the kill and not for the objectives...

And I am just letting my frustration out here... man its so frustrating to have the feeling that my crew is just not playable against the ortega family, it feels so terribly bad! -_-

Ah yea an arcane effigy will be my next buy, as soon as I get some money and perhaps the widow weaver also

[011121]

It sort of sounds like you aren't using enough terrain. Specifically it sounds like you have huge fire corridors. With Collodi's maneuverability there should be no problem jumping from one area of cover to another... unless you just don;t have much of any cover.

As I said Perdita is one of the hardest targets for collodi because ranged attacks and high Df are two things that make his life hard. There are bad match ups in the game. When I first started I had Ophelia vs my son's dreamer. That's a match that is getting really close to unwinnable. The dreamers strengths match up really well with the gremlin's weaknesses and lead to a very one sided un-fun game.

That said you say a couple other things that make me wonder. I never, and I mean NEVER assume I'll get anything but minimum damage on an attack (1) but that hardly ever matters because I usually get 15 of them. I've torn apart teddy's in one turn (with ease, it wasn't even close) and a teddy is WAY harder a target than any ortega except perdita herself. This makes me wonder if you are buffing your dolls up before the attack. Assuming you use 2 marionettes to move you should till get 10 or so attacks off on the enemy before the wicked dolls come in.

You may also want to consider running Zoraida with Collodi as the henchman. If nothing else it means Papa Loco won't hit the table (unless perdita has a death wish).

[TedPro]

Suggestions for Collodi:

- Consider buying Zoraida and a Voodoo doll. In a very fighty game, sometimes Collodi performs better as a henchman of Zoraida rather than a leader on his own.

- You can get anywhere quickly, but that's not always a good idea.

- Have your Marionettes hide behind terrain as they're dragging Collodi around. If they have Fast, it's a great third action.

- Once the Marionettes start dying, Collodi gets much slower, and usually spends all his time trying to make more.

- A Marionette with Fast and Flurry and Melee Expert is very scary.

- Four Marionettes with Fast and Flurry and Melee Expert are even scarier.

- Collodi is amazing for objective grabbing. His main defense is to let Marionettes die.

- Those Stitched Together do massive damage. They are your battle-tanks.

- Consider picking up some effigies. I especially like Brutal and Arcane.

- Any objectives that you can accomplish without coming into enemy threat range? Do those first.

[schattenwyrm]

hi again guys and thanks for the hints

well we do have some cover opportunities on our table, i just dont seem to use them right I think... we have some rocks, mostly 2 woods and some walls and I think like 6 houses. My problem is that he always manages to place his figures in good positions and cuts my path then. He just needs to move his figures and has a good shooting postion and I wont be able to attack those figures cause he moves papa loco with them.... If I dont wont to lose all of my army Ill have to go find another place to hide... that done he just moves them around again. He doesnt really move them apart.. why should he??!! If I had papa loco that can one-shoot 7 figures of the opponent I wouldnt move him away from the other figures also.
Not to forgt that he has companion.. so when I see an opportunity next turn he just uses companion and moves that figure away or puts someone near him or in a good shooting position and that opportunity is gone. I mean he also uses cover so that I have to go around the corner or something like that if I wont to attack him, then he uses companion and has 2 figures ready to attack mine... They have range 10 dont forget that!!! Nino even 16 i think.

I usually do buff my marionetts when I attack. I use fast and melee expert on at least 2 of them! But I cant really believe that you can kill anyone with them... With combat 4 against a def of 6.... thats a +2 difference!!!! It may seem small but its huge! I only have in my deck one card that will get my attack to 18!!!! And thats the red joker and usually you wont have it in your hand cards... u have like 8,9,10 and 11 sometimes 12 and 13. Ok lets say I have the joker and I use it, what does he need to stop my attack? He needs only a 12 or 13, how many of these cards are in deck? 8+1 (red joker), so 9 cards that can forfeit my attack. Lets be more realistic. I attack him and cheat fate with a 9, that makes a total of 13.. what does he need to defend? at least a 14. This means that he can use the 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and a joker. That makes 25 cards in the deck that he can use to defend. From the 10 attacks that I mostly can use on one of his figures (2 marionettes with flurry and a wicked doll, the other marionettes were used to get there) 3 are successful (as I said, this is my experience til now) and with a 1/2/4 dmg... I usually make 3 dmg.... and that means that I also used hand cards!!!! so next round I dont have any to defend.
Then he activates all of his crew (companion) tries to escape and then shoots from miles away all my little dolls, cause the stitched are somewhere at the back 10" away or could not be activated. Or just uses papa loco when his figures managed to disengage.

The same game when he attacks me. My dolls have a def of 5 against a combat of 7 I think or even 8.. not sure right now but that means that I have to flip high cards or use them to survive while he only needs like 6 or 7 to hit me!

And stitched together dont do any dmg.. come on combat of 4 and def of 4 what the hell!! They are only good cause of creepy fog (wich is obsolete as soon as u lose ini) his spell and gamble your life (which is also not a reliable option against an ortega crew) to use on papa loco. But he will do everything to not get him in range of a stitched together. And while Im chasing papa loco with them he is killing my little dolls... and if I keep them together he sends papa loco in as soon as I give him an opportunity, thanks to companion and obey there are a lot of opportunities.

Yesterday he said he was going to buy an austringer............I am so doomed

I really think I will get another crew... but the Ortegas are so damn hard to play against it makes no fun...

did anyone here play with collodi against an ortega crew?? How is it from your point of view? Is it just me making bad decisions or is it really almost impossible to win against this crew? And which schemes are u using?!

[Tiaden]

I agree with you Ortegas seem to be one of the toughest crews to face with Collodi. From my experience Collodi hates everything that can shoot and really likes tremendeous amounts of terrain.

Remember Malifaux is designed in a way that you start building your crew after you know strategies and the terrain. So if you see some nice shooting lanes that block your way to your objective and you are forced to play Collodi because you have no other master then you are in a disadvantage by game design. And loosing when you start with a disadvantage is ok. (Actually this shouldn't sound negative. I consider this a great feature of Malifaux its just difficult for players who just start with the game.)

If you know you face Ortegas and you play Collodi I would definitly take Hold Out as a scheme. If he wants to deny you those 2 VPs then he has to come to you and he running into your threat range is exactly what you want.
As a second scheme you could either take something like Stake Claim or Bodyguard if you want to play more defensive and avoid combat at all, or Grudge (Papa Loco). Grudge is perfect since you will kill with Meele strikes from you Minions either way and you have to kill Papa Loco either way too.

For a list I would recommend you trying out the Wicked Bomb list. (Works best at 25 Pts. I would think) This is Collodi, 4 Marionettes, Arcane Effigy and the rest Wicked dolls. If you want to stall the game you could take a Widow Weaver and produce each turn a Wicked Doll. Its Ok to have only 2 or 1 SS left. Just the strategy reflip may be important as is an initiative flip probably but thats it.

If your strategie allows you to avoid the orthegas you are in an advantage.

E.g.
Treasure hunt: Dish out fast in first turn, use 2 Marionettes to bring Collodi to the marker. 1 Wicked to grab the counter which then double walks back and you pull string Collodi back too.

Reconnoiter: wait for turn 6. Then dish out fast Move Collodi in the center and spread your dolls out to dominate the squares and pray that the game doesn't have a turn 7.

Claim Jump: same as Reconoiter, pray for the game ending in Turn 6. Although you may manage to be the first one close to the strategy site and then the ortegas have to close in again.

Destroy the Evidence: If he camps on the counter in his deployment zone you may want to go with only 2 VPs from strategy if this is already enough to win.

Slaughter: Maybe you want to just simply reflip strategy. Or you go full risk.



OK now you are set up. You manage to get 8 VPs without engaging the Orthegas, so if he wants to win he has to engage you, which is your chance.

Usually you should stick together so that everyone benefits from Puppet Show. Your first activation is the arcane Effigy which gives Collodi the additional AP. Second activation is Puppet Show and a double Breath Life Meele expert which I usually put on the Wicked Dolls but doesnt matter much. It may be woth cheating a mask in to get the third expert out of the spell. You don't want to need to cheat your attack flips either and having an attack more may be huge.

If you lost initiative he already had to activate 3 models if not only 2. But in lets say 25 point games this may already be half his crew. And he should be within 20" of you.

Now you usually need to out activate him with a Marionette or a non Meele Expert Wicked or maybe with the Widow Weaver which actually is the main reason for including her.

When he has only an abysmal amount of activations left you make a walk, pull string action with the first Marionette to bring Collodi forwards. This may even be used to out activate when you have a save spot half way to the enemy. Then he should already be done or only have maybe 1 minion left to attack you which shouldn't hurt you significantly. You take the second Marionette to pull string Collodi right into the Ortega pulk and start attacking Papa Loco. I know he will explode and kill all your sweet little dolls when he explodes but you can't allow him to throw his dynamite and so its better to kill him with only loosing 2 or 3 dolls than waiting with it. And if he is too close together he may dish out damage to his own fellow Ortegas and this compensates the loss you have though the explosion. So just (0) action jump in your Marionettes and Wickeds to tear him apart. 6 fast - Meele Expert - Wickeds dish out 24 attack which is hughe. Marionettes prime job is to move Collodi so that the Wickeds can 0 Hag Toys in and attack. But if he is close together each Marionett may still 0 jump in Pull Strings and Flurry out 3 attacks.

Focus on getting down those Def 4 Orthegas. Not on Perdita. She may use soulstones to prevent damage, has an insane Def 8 and so may suck up too much attacks. You want to reduce the amount of attacks the enemy has by as much as possible since every attack that hits is a dead doll. This is also the reason high cards are better to cheat a defensive flip with than an attack. You usually will be only hitting with a negative flip to damage. So you can't cheat damage and then you will be doing only 1 or 2 damage. Which is ok with around 30 Attacks + Poisen in a round. Only if you win the duel close enough so that the enemy won't want to cheat and then you have the opportunity to cheat to a straight damage flip and then cheat for sever damage it may be worth doing it but that seldom happened in my games.

In the following round you really want initiative, or the game to end. Either you want to Alpha strike with Collodi and the most probably only 2 Marionettes in his reach. A fast - Meele Expert - Flurry Marionette dishes out 5 attacks that not to be underestimated to finish him off. Or you just did enough so he can't chase you anymore in the left over 2 turns or so and you hold string those Marionettes to escape with Collodi take the loss of another couple of Wickeds and win the game through VPs.



Remeber to use Pull Strings to its fullest extend. You can cross more than 10" with one Marionette. 8" distance between those bases and 60 mm which is more than 2" from the bases of the Marionette and Collodi.

[McDoogle]

I play collodi too and I also have yet to beat my friend, whom I´m playing against!!!! I think from the 8 games we played until now I only won 1 game.... its a very sad story cause he has a perdita crew... and thats just ridiculous to play against with a collodi crew!!
The hints being given by the players here are good but not really usable in a fight against perdita....

Well I dont really want to sound grumpy but.... from the experience I have made from the games I played until now I still say that Collodi is really a bad crew to face an Ortega one!

Suggestions for Collodi:

- Consider buying Zoraida and a Voodoo doll. In a very fighty game, sometimes Collodi performs better as a henchman of Zoraida rather than a leader on his own.

- You can get anywhere quickly, but that's not always a good idea.

- Have your Marionettes hide behind terrain as they're dragging Collodi around. If they have Fast, it's a great third action.

- Once the Marionettes start dying, Collodi gets much slower, and usually spends all his time trying to make more.

- A Marionette with Fast and Flurry and Melee Expert is very scary.

- Four Marionettes with Fast and Flurry and Melee Expert are even scarier.

- Collodi is amazing for objective grabbing. His main defense is to let Marionettes die.

- Those Stitched Together do massive damage. They are your battle-tanks.

- Consider picking up some effigies. I especially like Brutal and Arcane.

- Any objectives that you can accomplish without coming into enemy threat range? Do those first.

+1 On everything TedPro has said.

Perdita is a neverborn hunter in the fluff-makes sense for her to be difficult to deal with!

You can pull off some nasty melee combos with Collodi but his main strength is his obscene speed. If you think about Collette she is similar. She is another quick support character who can potentially dish out some hurt. She has magicians duel, hilarious as it can turn models into mannequins. Similarly Collodi has dismantle, a superb anti-construct spell. However neither is meant to be all that killy.

Many strategies and schemes in Malifaux do not require you to kill you opponent. Collodi is superb at line in the , plant/destroy evidence and deliver a message. He should not be taking on other crews but buffing his own minions to be really difficult to kill before striking late game. with x4 marionettes and 3 dolls Collodi can literally grab 6/7/8 vp in the final turn of the game.

I cannot tell you enough how useful both the arcane and brutal effigy are. Brutal can be given filled with stones (Making him Armour 2, object 1, hard to kill, healing flip on a 9 of anything) and fast- he is a melee beast with a minimum damage of 3 (critical strike) or 4 with another ram...minimum damage of 12 if all attacks go through.... Arcane is great as it has range and is very versatile. Stitched are great as everyone knows. Also quite like to use hooded rider as he allows some melee fun-no particular synnergy here though. Another great all round minion are insidious madnesses-stop them cheating willpower duels!

Zoraida is great with Collodi. She is amazing at forcing you opponent to change his battle plan. If she starts the game being able to see a non-master ortega she can summon a voodoo doll to him and obey/hex him to her hearts content (+ flip to spells, ignore range andl line of sight, gain poison 2 EVERY start close phase.... Santiago and nino are great bets for this. Wait for their buffs to kick in and then use the against their own crew! Arcane is great here as he can give her an extra AP a turn- that means she can use crystal ball, summon a wicked doll and cast 2 (1) spells a turn- brilliant!(You can probably tell that she is my fav master!)

In short listen to TedPro's suggestions and bear in mind Collodi's Strengths-arguably the best objective runner in the game (dont forget wicked dolls can (0) to him with 2AP and complete most objective schemes), buff dolls- and remember that Malifaux is designed for different masters to be used for different missons. If you work towards getting Zoraida, Voodoo doll, brutal and arcane effigies and (I'll let you discover the beauty of using this model yourself!) the widow weaver you will do ok in most scenarios. Hope some of this helps-enjoy playing the Puppet Master!