A Quick Trick with Perdita

I know I said in a previous post I wouldn't be doing many Perdita entries, but in that same post I mentioned a nasty little combo that deserves a quick write up. So without further introductory eloquence: 

You'll Never Take Me Alive Bastardo!!

Perdita Ortega - 7 Cache

-Trick Shooting (2)

-Vengeance Bullet (1)

Francisco Ortega (8)

-Wade In (1)

Papa Loco (7)

Death Marshall (6)

Death Marshall (6)

Guild Austringer (6)

Watcher (4)

Watcher (4)

Total: 45 SS

The way this trick works is pretty straight forward. You deploy Papa Loco & Francisco within 2 inches of Perdita so they can buff her up with Hold This (plus flips to damage) and El Mayor (+2 to Df & Wp), and as soon as they've done that you use the Death Marshalls to slap them in a coffin and Bury them. Once Francisco and Papa Loco are buried Perdita will retain those buffs until they become unburied and activate (the buffs go away once Francisco and Papa activate, or are killed/sacrificed). As long as they remain buried they don't activate, so you can keep Perdita at Df/Wp 9 with built in Plus Flips to damage for several turns in a row! Just make sure at the start of the Death Marshalls' activation you make the Death Marshall win the Wp duel to keep them in the box, you don't want Francisco and Papa unburying prematurely. Now that the Death Marshalls have buried Papa & Francisco they can run around with the Watchers acting as scheme runners. You won't really need them to do much killing, as Perdita and the Austringer will take care of that.

One of Perdita's strongest tricks comes from her (1) tactical action Finger on the Trigger, which allows her to take a (1) AP Sh action at any model within a 12 inch aura and line of sight that declares either a charge or a projectile attack action. This is HUGE. If you place Perdita right she can use this ability to lock down a massive section of the board; between the Plus Flips to damage she has from Papa Loco (which aren't going away because he's been buried) and the (0) actions on her Trick Shooting upgrade that let her ignore Cover or Armour/Incorporeal this can shut down a lot of crews. Once you put up Finger on the Trigger a clever opponent will either stick to cover if they have models with Armour (since Perdita can't ignore Armour and cover at the same time), or they will try to hide them where you can't see them. After all, if Perdita can't draw Line of Sight to a model, she can't shoot it.

This is where the Watchers come in! In addition to being great scheme runners, Watchers have a fantastic (2) action called View From Up High. This allows your Leader to draw Line of Sight (but not Range) from the Watcher. As long as your Watcher can see an enemy model and Perdita has range to it, she can shoot it. Hiding behind buildings and larger-based models is no longer a reliable defense, and since the Watcher only has to be able to draw Line of Sight to the model the Watcher itself doesn't have to be anywhere near the target. A Watcher on the other side of the table can help Perdita shoot things, and since there are 2 of them in this crew there shouldn't be a single safe place on the board. Add in the Austringer which doesn't need Line of Sight to shoot somebody and you'll be giving your opponent fits, even on the most terrain heavy Malifaux table.

You can if you want swap one Watcher and 2 soulstones from your starting cache to bring a second Austringer, but I don't really recommend it. Since Perdita's going to be right up in the action you're going to need as many soulstones as possible to keep her alive. Once she starts taking hits she'll drop pretty quick, she only has 10 wounds and no Armour to keep her safe, so you'll be using stones a lot for damamge prevention. 

Schemes this trick is good at include Assassinate, Make Them Suffer, Murder Protege, Breakthrough (the Marshalls and Watchers can do this no problem), Protect Territory (you'll get this automatically once the Marshalls die and Papa Loco/Francisco unbury because of Finish the Job). This crew works pretty well in Reckoning, but it is a bit of a one trick pony. Once your opponent has played against it once they'll skip trying to kill Perdita and just go after the other models in the crew, so make sure you keep them as safe as possible.

I hope you guys enjoyed this post, give it a try and let me know how it works for you! Thanks for reading, may your flips be positive and your Jokers only Red.