Starting Up Malifaux: Red Chapel Gang

Model Count: 6 (Seamus, Madame Sybelle, Copycat Killer, 3 Rotten Belles)

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

Strengths: Single target elimination, positioning opponent’s models, durability

Weaknesses: Eliminating multiple models at a time, positioning on opponent’s half of the board

So you’ve picked to start with the Red Chapel Gang box. Maybe you like the idea of playing a despicable yet suave serial killer. Maybe you like the idea of dragging a key model out of the pack and assassinating them. Maybe you were just lured by one of Malifaux’s most infamous models, the zombie prostitutes. All that matters is how do we turn this choice into victory?

The crew loves schemes where you have to either eliminate single target models such as Assassinate, Murder Protégé, Make The Suffer. Not so much Vendetta, as that will usually require you pick your not so heavy hitters for the elimination duty. Seamus and the Copycat Killer both have exceptionally large guns: a weak damage of 4 is pretty high on the charts. While excellent for taking down larger targets, Seamus can only shoot once per turn, and the Copycat has low accuracy, preventing either of them from gunning down swarms. Even better, through upgrades and base abilities, Seamus, Copycat and Sybelle have access to some incredibly potent triggers. All three of them can have a melee attack option that after damaging, no matter how much, the opponent has to either discard 2 cards, burn two stones, or the target dies outright. Pull it off multiple times a turn, and you’ll either be forcing your opponent to lose models they thought were nowhere near dead, or burn through all their resources to stay alive. Not a pretty option. Sybelle and Seamus can also utilize triggers that make the opponent insignificant for the rest of the game. They’re still living and breathing, they can still hit you back, but taking away the ability to do interact actions will be just as good as killing the model in some schemes and strategies.

One of the classic abilities for the crew is the Rotten Belle’s ability Lure. It’s ridiculously long range (18”) and hard to resist (cast of 8, one of the highest base casts for a spell in the game). With it, the target model (can be your own if you need to pull someone back) moves their walk towards the acting Belle, ending as close as possible. It also has a trigger to force the opponent to discard a card, feeding in to the other’s auto kill abilities. The Not Too Banged Up upgrade will let you add 2” to the target’s walk as well. What can we do with lure? What can’t we do! Drag a model that’s already activated away from its friends and jump on it with some heavy hitters, killing it with impunity. Move a model away from what they’re guarding or the key point of a scheme. It’s one of the few abilities that actually can make the Spring the Trap or Deliver a Message schemes easy, as you can drag your opponent’s leader into a minefield of your scheme markers or into engagement with another of your models. Take Prisoner also works well with it, and you can work at dragging an opposing model with weak to no melee ability into her clutches, where she can then repeatedly hit it with very weak attacks that prevent them from moving back out of melee. Pretty much whatever crew you end up favoring in the faction, the Rotten Belles will be a key piece to own, as pretty much any master can make great use out of a cheap model with lure. Running three of them in crew box starter games will have you dragging models all over the place, for the ultimate in position control.

Your third bet for victory is the general toughness most resurrectionist crew brings to the table. Schemes like Bodyguard, Entourage, and Protect Territory (where you have to keep models alive until the end of the game) all benefit from this. Every model in the box except the Copycat (who as an insignificant peon won’t be important for most schemes anyway) adds a negative flip to damage attempts against them. While only low to average defense, this will prevent most attacks without some serious buffs from being cheated, relying on the top of the deck to choose damage, often with multiple card penalties. Seamus can’t have damage flips cheated against him…ever! It’s hard to pull off, but save a soulstone or a 9+ crow card, and Seamus can actually summon up more Belles from corpses, making it hard to ever remove them all from the table. Seamus himself is perhaps the king of the Entourage scheme. Back alley will allow him to skulk around the table, alternating between shooting off his gun and making long hops deeper into enemy territory, while being incredibly hard to kill. In addition to the penalties to damage, he can only be killed if he started the damage flip at 1 hit point, he heals whenever people around him fail willpower duels or he hits them with one of his upgrade attacks, and every model attempting to target him has to take a decent willpower duel or be paralyzed.

Malifaux 2.0 has changed the game to where crews no longer have options they can never in a million years hope to achieve, but there are still some options that are harder for crews than others. The Red Chapel box will have issues with options like Reckoning, where you have to keep up a constant stream of kills. The belles themselves have little bite to their bark, and the characters are much more focused on putting a big hurt on one target at a time. If you find yourself in a situation like this, try and weaken multiple targets to near death over a couple turns and then mow them down in a row. Hopefully, the crew’s resilience will prevent your opponent from gaining too many points while you score a couple. In addition, attempting schemes and strategies on your opponent’s half of the board won’t be the best bet. Seamus can certainly dance over there with back alley, and there are some tricks with the belles (Sybelle gives belles close to her a bonus to walk, and you can walk a belle up, lure the next belle close to her and then double walk that one, essentially giving a belle a triple walk turn), but luring your opponent to you is generally a much better option than trying to get deep into enemy territory.

Expanding the Crew
So, after getting used to the box, what can be picked up to enhance the crew? Graveyard Spirit is a nice option as an alternative to the Copycat, buffing a model that you need to survive with the powerful armor +2. Can also be used as a tool to make your opponent discard a card, playing into the spend resources or die theme. The flesh construct also fits into that theme. A cheap, moderately heavy hitter, if your opponent has spent all their cards defending against your attacks, he gets a second activation, allowing him to kill a model and then head off to start killing another. To supplement weaknesses, consider picking up some Crooked Men and Necropunks. The Crooked Men give you options for dealing with swarms, having blast damage that hands out poison to everyone hit as well as the ability to turn friendly scheme markers into damaging pitfalls…which your Belles can then lure people into. The Necropunks can deal with getting onto your opponent’s side of the board. While they have a low walk, the get a (0) action to move up to their charge, letting them move up to 14” a turn. Never let yourself be dissuaded just because a piece is a mercenary: the Freikorps Specialist’s flammenwerfer is another excellent choice for dealing with swarms, passing out blasts that set people on fire or force horror checks (always a bonus), as well as adding utility such as stripping paralyzed off your minions and burning out opponent’s scheme markers.