Rasputina Thoughts

I've played a few games with my new favorite Master, and here are my thoughts:

• The more Soulstones the better
• Essence of Power is more useful than Wendigo in most situations
• Despite its low Defense, a Golem with Subzero is worth it.

Rasputina is going to be getting most of your kills. And she can start doing that from about 23 inches away. A probable six casts on CA7 (8 if EoP boosts her), plus a positive twist if a soulstone is used (again from EoP) means the first two turns are going to crucial. You're going to have a high model count crew given the low cost of Ice/Metal Gamin and Molemen. Use that to your advantage and out activate your opponent. If you keep an Ice Gamin within six of 'Tina, your zero can boost her damage as well, and given the fact that she already has a respectable 2/4*/5**, you'll be sitting pretty. 'Tina works best when she can wipe a model out in one activation, and that means she usually won't be acting until about the third activation (if not later) because of those EoP and Gamin buffs expiring at the end of every round. Because of that need to activate later, she's vulnerable to fast movers. Bear that in mind and keep blockers handy. 

Don't be afraid to hit your own models in an engagement, especially if they're Ice Gamin. If you hit your own, and it's a large scrum, you can cheat your Gamin's defense number down and (hopefully) get the big numbers on your opponents. And if you run into the hard to kill issue (like I did with Taelor), the subsequent icy explosion of the Gamin will kill them off. I'll trade a 4 point model for Taelor/Vik, etcetera every time.

Metal Gamin are resilient as hell, but have the added bonus of making another model Def 6 for 1 AP. I'm considering having one shepherd the rather ponderous Def 2 Ice Golem so he can retain the Sub Zero upgrade. Once a henchman is released for her crew, Sub Zero is moving over to the hench. At that point, he'll get the generic Archanist upgrade that makes him Def 4.