[Malifaux] Dougie McMourning Part 1 or...

If Gingers Have no Souls Then Why Are They So Cute?

Actually there are all sorts of jokes you can make about McMourning from Kevorkian to Doug and yet despite his endless possiblities for humor he is one of the most under represented resser masters in Malifaux and this is just plain old upsetting to me. Last night I read a post on the Malifaux forum about a guy looking for help with McMourning and he recieved some rather troubling advice. SO! I am going to come here write up a nice little tactica article on him. Edit it and then maybe repost it.

I also want to play a few more games of Malifaux this month and a pony.

Lets start with the MAN himself shall we?

Looking quickly over his stat line we can see that MickyM has a lot of pretty distinct advantages, 12 wounds, large starting soulstone cache, 7CA! that's one of the highest in the game, 6CB, 2/3/6 damage, and his major pit fall which is his depressingly low 4 defense.

However, that's okay. Now that we know some of his strengths it is just a simple matter of building a crew that will minimize is weaknesses and then we are good to go! More on that later lets keep up with the good news.

McMourning has some pretty distinct advantages over his resser cousins when it comes to dealing with the opposition. These are some less obvious benifits. He doesn't rely on corpse counters, and he can make body part counters from non living targets. Go check A Piece for Me and Dissection do not stipulate a living model. GETEM! He also does not rely on WP checks to scatter the enemy. I've always wanted to run the Seamus fear bomb list. Every time I do I suddenly find myself across from a Ramos or Levitcus player. Not fun. McMourning, much like a honey badger, doesn't give a shit. He doesn't need some crappy game mechanics to make him scary for he is scary all by himself. He also doesn't rely on spells as much as the other masters. This is really important if your opponent suddenly decides that running Sonnia Crid is a good idea or that having a few Witchling Stalkers around is funny. Not being overly reliant on spells is amazing.

So with all his advantages why don't people play him more? Well lets face it Seamus and the Japanese ghost girl are pretty thunder stealing wouldn't you say? Also his starting box SUCKS!

So lets move on a bit. McMourning epitomizes the glass cannon aethetic. He has 4 defense and in order for him to be effective he needs to be on the front line running around doing what he does best, murdering face. Oh man can he do the face thing. McMourning is one of the most effective killing machines in the entire game. I've had games where he killed every model in the opposing crew much to my opponent's dismay. There are two caveats to this. One! McMourning is pretty much gaurnteed to kill something once he is in melee with them. Killing two things is possible with support or initiative, but don't expect to just be able to charge him in the middle of the enemy's crew and have him come out winning. That will just net you a dead ginger.

The way I usually go about killing people is start with Scapel Slinging. This nets you a body part counter. Neat eh? Then I either activate fast by discarding said body part counter and go for the dissection/Rancid Transplant combo or I just burn them down with damage. His ability to ignore hard to wound and armor means that he can reliably do his damage without having to worry about annoying defensive effects. It also means he is able to cheat his damage more often than most people so keep those moderate damage cards around. When to kill really depends on if I need to heal or not, if the defending model has attacked or not, and if it would be better to kill the defending model now or next turn. Deciding when and how to kill a defending model vs taking some damage is key to playing McMourning effectivly.

While McMourning has crap instead of defense he does have 12 health, and he heals every time he does melee damage, he can just make a healing flip for a zero action, oh and he can use soul stones or something boring like that. Why would I use soulstones when I can instead use the deliciouse organs of my enemies is beyond me but the option is there just the same. Managing his damage is one of those things that is more terrifying than fun. A good way to go about it is to never assume your enemy is going to miss. If you want to do that go play Lillith. No instead always assume they are going to hit and that you will suffer one weak and one moderate damage or something like that. Also, and prolly most importantly. Do NOT let more than one figure hit him at a time. Letting more than one person hit him at a time is a death sentence, pure and simple. Oh yeah and by all means keep him far away from Spider Swarms. Those things just do way to much god damned damage for comfort. Over the course of the game he is going to to take damage and there are times where you will be praying to the gods that your soulstone enhanced defensive flip will save you from taking it in the mouth. The trick is to make sure that you never take more than you can heal and to give more than you get.