When Rising Powers came out, I looked through all the new masters and pretty quickly decided who I wanted most: the Dreamer. After that it was a little more hazy. When Colette and Kirai first hit the stores, I thought I wanted one of them. Lucius has looked pretty sweet too. But within a few months after the book came out, I decided on the second crew I would pick up from Rising Powers. Hamelin.
I settled on him mostly because the picture in the book was fantastic (it's not the picture above - that one was just funny to me). Like most Outcast masters, he has a very different play style, both for the person playing him and the person opposing him. He can't be treated as just another melee-styled master, or another spell-slinger. He's got a lot of tricky interactions to him. He does a little summoning, a little control, a little damage, and a whole lot of weirdness.
So yesterday I headed out to my local store when I got the word that the models had arrived. I picked up Hamelin's box and six additional rats filling out everything I think I'll need for this release. I will, of course, need to get some Rat Catchers and that Obedient Wretch when they come out, but for now I'm just going to talk a little about the initial box.
The plague-carrier himself. Poor Hamelin was caught in the sewers by an ancient evil, his body was hollowed out, and he became the vessel for one of the Tyrants. Now wherever he goes, disease and death follow him. The rats of Malifaux flock to him. The unfortunate forgotten people follow him. He gets along with the cast-offs.
Hamelin can only build his crew from Soulless, HT 1, or Insignificant models, though he can draw them from anywhere. He also makes all the Insignificant models in his crew (of which there are a lot) ignore the Insignificant trait. He's unable to be targeted by Insignificant models and there are a few tricks up his sleeve to make opposing models Insignificant.
Hamelin comes in with a pretty solid set of wounds, the most I've ever had on a Master. He's got great Willpower, good casting, good melee and good ranged. His stats are, generally, just better than most.
Now a lot of this comes because he does not get to cheat fate as easily as others. He gets his initial starting hand on turn one, but after that, he no longer draws card normally. Instead, each time your opponent plays a Control Card, he can draw one. So the more your opponent plays with Fate, the more you can.
Killing Hamelin can be a bit tricky. Once you kill him, he can be placed near a Stolen model and essentially get a free life. Every turn he can summon a new Stolen, so he'll be hard to pin down.
Whenever models near him are killed, he starts summoning more rats, and soon his horde of the dirty things will sweep across the table, biting and gnawing at anyone they can find.
There are a few more tricks to him, but suffice it to say he has a number of different tools he can use in any situation. Want to do a lot of damage? Toss some Fate is Meaningless and hit your opponent with your staff. As long as you hit, you can cheat in a Severe card for a nice 9 damage. Need to move your opponents around? Zap them with your Pipes or use Obedience to move them where you like or have them attack their friends. So much goodness!
Nix, Hamelin's faithful dog, was caught in the transformation under the sewers and his rotting corpse was reanimated. Now he's a very tough to kill spirit of a dog that runs around spreading the plague too. He'll be the main damage dealer in a Hamelin-themed list.
Strangely, his damage profile is in reverse, so he does more damage with Weak flips. That means any negative flips will actually not hurt him as he's probably going to take the low card anyway. He tacks on Blight counters which in turn increase the damage done to models in the future.
He's a spirit, he has Magic Resistant 2, and he heals whenever someone nearby loses a Duel, so he'll be hard to pin down. He can sacrifice friendly models nearby to Heal himself as well. He can summon more Rats if he does Severe damage with his weapon and triggers the right suit. He can help move your rats and Stolen around, giving you a little more control over them. And he can debuff non-Soulless models near him, helping to lock down his opponent. All in all, a great addition to Hamelin's crew.
These are the children of Malifaux that have been left behind. They have been caught by Hamelin's lure and follow him around.
They have no attacks and essentially just follow around giving Hamelin a way to survive an attack against him. They can Sacrifice themselves to try to force opposing models to become Insignificant (which means the opponent can no longer attack Hamelin, among other things), and if they're killed or sacrificed by non-Soulless models, the opposing model can become Paralyzed and they debuff nearby Willpowers. Finally, when they are killed or sacrificed, you get to bring a new rat to the table.
You can keep summoning new ones using Hamelin, so he's almost always going to have a couple hanging around.
Finally, there are the hordes of rats that swarm around with Hamelin. Individually, they're remarkably uninspiring. They're always slow, they can't make disengaging strikes, and other models can walk over them. They are hard to hit with ranged strikes since they're so small, though, so their size does give them some bonus.
When one activates, all rats within 4" must also go, swarming ahead. When they attack they add Blight counters doing more damage to the opponent. They can mess with Scrap and Corpse counters around the table hindering some lists.
But the real fun comes when you start combining them with Hamelin and the upcoming Rat Catchers. More and more of these rats keep being made, and eventually they'll start piling on the damage. If a Rat dies near certain models, it will just spawn a new Rat, so getting rid of them all becomes more and more troublesome.
The Rat Catcher takes this to a new level, as he has an ability that kills all nearby Rats. So you can move your Rats up, attack with them, then they'll all be killed and spawn new ones that can start attacking again.
I'm really excited about giving this crew a try. It's been a while since I've tried learning a whole new way of playing Malifaux and I think this guy is a tremendous shift from any of the other masters I've played. Hopefully I'll be able to figure him out and get some games going soon.
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