Ryle is an expansion unit for Malifaux. He belongs to the Guild faction.
From the Malifaux Tactica Wiki page:
Overview
Ryle Hoffman is the older brother of C. Hoffman and the end result of breach psychosis and the wonders of Ramos. This once-brilliant individual was almost destroyed entering Malifaux, and only Ramos' hasty work was able to rebuild him into the creature he is now.
Ryle is a melee oriented construct with above average damage tracks and a few tricks to stay alive.
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Table of Contents
Overview
Mobility
Offense
Resilience
Soulstones
Tricks and Tips While Joining a Crew
Tricks and Tips While Leading a Crew
Building a Crew
Playing Against Ryle
Mobility
He has a strictly below average Walk and Charge but his (0) Socially Repressed allows him to push 4" aways from a model within 12" so with good positioning you can move him 12" a turn. The Socially Repressed action also allows him to escape melee easily if needed (eg. taking interact actions).
Offense
Damage is where Ryle shines. He has a gatling gun attached to one hand and a mechanical fist attached to the other one.
Hydraulic Fist
This as an above Ml stat and a remarkable 3/5/7 damage profile. Moreover it comes with Critical Strike so if you use a soulstone for Rams and cheat a high Ram card you will be doing 5/7/9. This is enough to kill a large proportion minions model in one action and threaten the rest with two.
Modified Steam Gatling Hun
This is Ryle ranged attack and comes with an average Sh stat and lower damage profile than his fist. However it comes standard with a positive on the attack flip allowing you to target models in cover at your leisure and an automatic Trigger that gives a positive flip to the damage, meaning you can get the moderate or severe damage far more reliably.
The other Trigger Raking Fire requires an extra Ram and allows you to take the Modified Steam Gatling attack against another model which has not been targeted with it this activation. It also comes with no restriction on the number of times you can use it, so as long as you have soulstones or Rams in hands and eligible targets you can keep on firing away. This is immensely powerful against crews that clump together such as gremlins or spider swarms. However, against more elite crews you will find yourself using Concentrated Burst almost exclusively.
Resilience
Ryle's weakest points are his low Df and terrible Wp stats, both of which are well below average for a Henchman. This makes him vulnerable to potshots from enemy Minions and Enforcers and means you'll rarely be able to win defensive duels against Masters or other Henchmen. He does come with a few tricks to help with this though.
Firstly he has Armor +1 and decent wounds take the edge off weaker attacks. He also has the Grinding Halt Trigger to gain an additional Armor +2 with Tomes on his Df. This means you can often pitch a weak tomes or spend a soulstone to cut 4 damage down to 1, however it cannot protect himself from attacks that target Wp or those that ignore Armor.
He can also heal with (0) Field Repairs at the cost of a card, letting him recoup wounds in the thick of things whenever you don't need to use Socially Repressed. This can also be used on friendly constructs, which is a handy way to spread the healing around.
Finally as a Henchman he can use Soulstones to prevent damage and to aid defensive flips.
Soulstones
Ryles has several options to use his soulstones. He can use them to increase the damage of his Mechanical Fist, automatically trigger Raking Fire on his gatling gun or to protect himself but adding Tomes to his Df. As well as that with his low stats Df and Wp stats you will want to keep a few stones for damage prevention flips if he gets in trouble.
Tricks and Tips While Joining a Crew
Ryle is a construct so he has obvious synergies with C. Hoffman. Hoffman can Power Loop Ryle to increase his stats and use Machine Puppet to get around his low mobility and provide more attacks.
His Field Repairs action plays well with with Hoffman but also gives him a bit of synergy with any crew with an interest in taking some constructs, such as Lucius the various construct minions.
He is also a good choice for any crew that wants a shooting model with some extra melee punch, meaning Sonnia and Perdita might like to take him as insurance against enemies getting too close to them.
Tricks and Tips While Leading a Crew
Strategies and Schemes
Ryle is pretty killy and tends to lean towards strategies and schemes which reward eliminating enemy models. He's also reasonably mobile and can support other constructs with his (0) actions and upgrades so he can serve as a dangerous and durable anchor for a crew more focused on marker based schemes.
Building a Crew
Francisco Ortega is useful if you are building a crew around Ryle as he can buff Df and Wp. He also provides ranged support, movement shenanigans and decent melee presence, so the two form an effective tag team.
Including constructs in a crew is also a good idea as they can benefit from Field Repairs and Ryles construct oriented upgrades.
Finally Ryle lacks a bit of speed so including fast objective runners should be a priority if needed.
Playing Against Ryle
Ryle is in many ways a glass cannon. Focus on him and he will die. This is especially true if you have models that can target Wp or ignore Armor. Models that can ignore armour are also useful specially if Ryle is in an C. Hoffman crew.
Do not let him hit you with his Hydraulic Fist. It's every bit as dangerous as it sounds, so you're often better off hitting him from range or after he's activated.
Expansion for Base-game, Miniatures
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