Tactics: Master of the Hill and Zoraida

Anyone who has been involved with playing Malifaux tournaments and following the competitive Malifaux scene is aware of the Gaining Ground's documents. Gaining Grounds is the format Wyrd provided to the community for organized play and specifically for competitive tournaments. Gaining Grounds is a couple years old at this point, and Wyrd is in the process of updating the document. To that end, a new set of documents has been released to the Henchmen in advance of being publicly published. These new documents outline an updated vision for organized play, including a document dedicated to competitive tournaments. There is already some discussion about this document on a number of podcasts, and people are starting to consider how to handle the new strategies.

One of the new strategies in the document is called Master of the Hill. This is a classic "King of the Hill" strategy similar to the current Claim Jump. One twist for the new strategy is the accumulation of victory points (VP) each round opposed to calculating the VP at the end of the game. The wording for the new strategy is as follows:

Master of the Hill
The path to the top is always littered with the bodies of those we had to climb over.

Setup
Place a hill/pyramid/ziggurat/or other applicable terrain piece in the center of the table.
The top of the terrain piece must have room for at least two 50mm bases to fit while in
base contact. The terrain piece should not be set up in such a way that no model is
prevented from moving to its top. For example, a tall pillar of rock with a flat plateau
only Flying models can reach should not be used as the “hill” in this Strategy.

Victory
At the end of each Turn after the first, you score 1 VP if the number of your models with
bases completely on the terrain piece is greater than the number of your opponent’s
models with bases completely on the terrain piece, up to a maximum of 4 VP. . A model
counts as two models for determining how many models are on the terrain piece if it is
alone at the top.

Shared Master of the Hill
Getting pushed down just means there’s someone above that you can grab ahold of and
yank down yourself.

Setup
Place a hill/pyramid/ziggurat/or other applicable terrain piece in the center of the table.
The top of the terrain piece must have room for at least two 50mm bases to fit while in
base contact. The terrain piece should not be set up in such a way that no model is
prevented from moving to its top. For example, a tall pillar of rock with a flat plateau
only Flying models can reach should not be used as the “hill” in this Strategy.

Victory
At the end of each Turn after the first, you score 1 VP if the number of your models with
bases completely on the terrain piece is greater than the number of your opponent’s
models with bases completely on the terrain piece, up to a maximum of 4 VP. A model
counts as two models for determining how many models are on the terrain piece if it is
alone at the top.

The new Vassal module for Malifaux released with two boards set-up to facilitate Master of the Hill games to be played. Seeing this, I decided to get in a couple games to play around with ideas for the strategy. Approaching this strategy with the Neverborn, I decided to see how Zoraida would perform, as I believe she is the strongest for this. The goal of this strategy is to claim points each turn after turn 2 by having more models on the hill than your opponent. Zoraida has the ability to create additional models during the game (namely Wicked Dolls), increasing my number of models on the hill. These models can count for raw numbers, but can also become significant fairly easily.  Additionally, Zoraida has a spell called Repulsive which pushes models 6 inches away from her. Lastly, Zoraida can very quickly move to the top of the hill in a single movement, so should be able to be effective each turn of the game, jumping to the top of the hill at the end of her Turn 2 activation.

Master of the Hill is different from Claim Jump in a couple ways. In playing on one of the Vassal boards, you can see that the hill itself is set-up to be much larger than the 3-inch area that needs to be protected in Claim Jump. This provides a lot of additional space for scoring through having models on the hill. The Hill also provides a nice way to block line of sight from one side of the board to the other across the middle. In the Vassal Scenario (where I will focus for this article), the hill top is at height 6 and while there are some nice bushes surrounding the peak, any model sitting on top will be in line of sight of the rest of the board fairly easily. This is by intention, specifically because if a model can sit at the top alone then that model counts as two models to help with model count.

Zoraida brings some real strength to this strategy. Initially, she loves to have Line of sight to the board to make best use of her Obey ability. Sitting on the top of the hill, Zoraida will be able to create a 12 inch radius zone in the center of the board where she can fully use her Obey spell effectively, targeting either enemy or friendly models as best suits her at the moment. She does not become as vulnerable as some models due to her Proper Manners providing some protection. Zoraida can also get to the top of the hill fairly easily through her Raven ability letting her jump to the top in a single move. This allows her to act normally on Turn 1, then use her Casting Expert and another AP on turn 2 and still reach the top of the hill with her last AP.

The biggest draw I see for Zoraida in this strategy is her Repulsive ability. Repulsive is a spell that pushes all models failing the resist duel a full 6 inches away from Zoraida. If Zoraida is sitting in the middle of the top of the hill (as seen on the right), the range will not push models off the hill completely, but will certainly get them close. If Zoraida is able to activate late or last in the turn, this push can really change the overall standing on the table. This is additionally strong because as a strong caster and Soulstone user, Zoraida can push the resist total for this spell into some fairly unreachable targets. Overall, the strategy can work very well, allowing Zoraida to cast this spell, clear the center of the hill, then use her remaining actions to create a Wicked Doll and increase her numbers on the hill.

All of this seems very strong, so how do you counter this type of approach from a Neverborn player? Zoraida has a couple vulnerabilities that a savvy player can take advantage of. The first of these is a blind spot in her spells for models which are Immune to Influence (I2I). Repulsive will move models away from Zoraida allowing her to claim the top of the hill, but it is a WP resist. This means that an immune to influence model will ignore the spell and not be moved. Parking a tough I2I model near or on the top of the hill will threaten Zoraida and force her to find another way to deal with that model. If you suspect you will be facing Zoraida in this scenario, it is good practice to pull out at least one I2I model to help mitigate some of her viable strategies.

The next thing to consider is the Wicked Dolls. You should expect to see these little buggers on the table, as Zoraida can very easily create them and they count toward bulking up numbers. Facing Wicked Dolls, remember that they are fairly easy to kill. These guys have a nice defense, but they are only 2 wounds. This means that even getting a little damage onto them will remove them from the board. Just don't let them gang up on you or be prepared for their DF duel that restricts you from doing anything other than Walk for the turn. In addition, Zoraida has to burn 2 AP to create the Wicked Dolls, which will limit her effectiveness overall. She will have to choose 2 of the 3 ideal actions, Create a Wicked Doll / Cast Obey / Cast Repulsive.

One last vulnerability that both Zoraida and her opponent must consider is how Repulsive works. Repulsive pushes ALL models that fail the resist duel away from Zoraida. This means that even the friendly models in Zoraida's crew are pushed away. Sitting on the top of the hill, Zoraida will not push anyone off the hill completely, but can clear the top of the hill fairly easily. Her own models will be pushed along with enemy models, so numbers will be important. Clearing away Zoraida's crew can be a great strategy to mitigating her numbers on the hill and lock in the VP for her opponent.

Have you had some experience with this strategy or other? Have you faced Zoraida on this strategy and have some suggestions? I would love to hear about them!