Starting Up Malifaux: Children of December

It must be the season of the witch. Time for a look at another starter crew for Malifaux.

Model Count: 6 (Rasputina, Ice Golem, Wendigo, 3 Ice Gamin)

Points Playable in Box: Up to 36 (All 6 models, max soulstones, max upgrades)

Strengths: Durability, Paralyzed Condition, Explosive, Ranged Game

Weaknesses: Speed, Ranged game

So you’ve picked the desolation and destruction that winter can lay upon your enemies (AKA the Children of December box). Viewed as one of the weaker choices back in the old 1.5 edition, 2.0 has made Rasputina a force to be reckoned with. But what can we actually do with her?

If you want a choice that will take a beating, then laugh and punch the opponent’s face in, the December crew is one of your best bets. Protect Territory and Bodyguard are your new favorite schemes. Entourage isn’t quite in the same boat, as you need to get a master or henchman on the opponent’s side, and Rasputina was NOT built for movement. The gamin and the ice golem all have armor to reduce all damage they take. While the gamin have low hit points, this prolongs them quite nicely, and the golem has both a large reserve of hit points as well as a larger armor score, meaning it will take quite a while to whittle him down. Pick it as the bodyguard target, cast December’s Touch on him, and start him equipped with the December’s Armor upgrade and he can build up to a massive armor +5 over the course of a turn. A single heavy hitter like a master gaining the initiative will give it a lot of trouble, but weak hitting swarm tactics will take forever to gain a kill in that scenario. Just be very careful not to let them get too many attacks off, armor won’t reduce damage to 0, and the crew’s low defense score makes them easy to hit every time. Cold Nights upgrading Rasputina can help prevent that, as the ability to create blocking impassible terrain stops them from all getting to your model (as well as preventing them from getting shot to death as they march around the table). The generic upgrade imbued protection can also help out here, as it can give a slight buff to defense, changing your model from always hit to sometimes gets lucky. After all that, the punching the opponent’s face in is pretty simple. No tricks and tips to the attacks, just that the gamin can pop up an aura to give your models a slight damage buff. Your golem can lay the smackdown HARD already though.

Paralyzed is one of the most potent conditions in the game, and Rasputina has a massive advantage over other crews dealing with it. First off: Frozen Heart gives the model complete immunity to being paralyzed, and every model in the box has it. While Rasputina is the only one here that can paralyze a model, she can do it to multiple people at once if they’re in base contact. Something your opponent isn’t likely to do when she’s on the table, but you can use movement effects like the golem’s Toss action to set it up. Once paralyzed, they lose an entire activation. That’s huge on it’s own. They also lose the range on their melee weapons, letting your models walk right past them without fear of disengaging strikes (especially important if you want to charge right past someone at a squishier target, but being in melee is usually where you want some of your pieces). As if all that weren’t enough, paralyzed models tend to drop dead around Rasputina. Her Child of December upgrade gives her a (0) action to debuff a paralyzed model with double negative flips, almost guaranteeing they’re going to get smacked around a lot in the near future. Triggers off of it either do a large chunk of damage, or a variable amount that can just demolish some masters (3 damage per upgrade, a fully upgraded master is going to be sent reeling). Finalizing the assault on the defenseless is the Wendigo totem, which can eat enemy models (very high accuracy, sacrifice target model). While normally only useable on height one models, it can also munch on those poor models you’ve hit with paralyzed.

The opposing models will also have to be very cautious hitting your guys if they’re already severely wounded. The gamin and golem explode when they die, automatically causing damage in a small burst. It’s possible that you’ll take an enemy model with you, and if everyone (both friendly and enemy) is in a tight bubble it can actually set off a chain reaction of exploding gamin, killing everyone. Popular among the crew is the Frozen Heart Trigger, which starts on Rasputina, but can be given to all Frozen Hearted models in an aura with the Sub Zero upgrade. On a tome trigger, any model that hits you in melee loses the rest of their activation. So if they kill you in melee, you damage them back, and if they don’t kill you in melee they get stopped cold and you get to smack them back.

You’ll notice the ranged game is in both the strengths and weaknesses category. That’s because it’s very much split between the models. The golem has no ranged attack whatsoever, and the gamin and wendigo (who can copy Rasputina’s attack spells) have a very hard time hitting people, capping out at an accuracy of 4. Not the best chances. You’ll want to get in there and start hitting models the good old-fashioned way. However, Rasputina shines incredibly at the range game. She’s got a great long ranged attack in December’s Curse, which is accurate, can create a blast or two, and has a trigger to do it all over again. Fans of Warmachine’s arc nodes should find a familiar ability here as well, as Ice Mirror lets her bounce spells through unengaged friendly Frozen Heart models within 10” of her. Can’t hide completely, as you need to maintain line of sight, but it does help keep her a lot safer and really extends the range of her spells. There’s a slight accuracy penalty, and you can’t gain triggers, but you can drop the points on the Shattered Heart upgrade to remove the trigger restriction and move the accuracy penalty to only happen on attacks generated by a trigger.

This is not a box that wants to try and achieve schemes on the opponent’s half of the board. Outside of the Wendigo, the highest walk score among the models is a paltry 4. Add to that the idea that Rasputina’s defensive ability is pretty much limited to skulking in the back row, and you won’t be getting anywhere very fast. In an emergency, you can toss your own models with the golem for some extra range, but that’s about it.

The key to expanding your crew is that you really want to pick something that can move around. It’s easily the box’s huge glaring weakness. Several of the beasts are great choices here (especially if you want to expand into a Marcus crew as well), the Razorspine Rattler and Sabertooth Cerberus both have unimpeded to ignore terrain, as well as extra movement abilities (the rattler has a variant charge, and the sabertooth has the leap spell for a (0) action move). The December Acolyte can deploy almost anywhere on the board, and gives you a decent gun. She can then drag the models she hits closer to her…and closer to your advancing army of ice. While not officially “out” yet (the model exists from the 1.5 version, but the rules are still going through the rounds of the current public beta), Rasputina’s henchman Snow Storm is shaping up to be a must have. She builds up the ranged game with even more blasts and adds bulletproof to those close to it helping you survive the march to melee. Even more importantly, she can yank a Frozen Heart model back into base contact with her, and her ranged attacks blasts can also be used to push your models several inches.