Are we actually underpowered?

[Icemyn]

7 hours ago, Math Mathonwy said:

It's easy to miss since Papa isn't very visible during the game  

But man your family is good in Malifaux!

We seem to have a bit more repetitions than most people and a willingness to travel.

Often when I go to large events I expect to see only a couple familiar faces.
The Chicago guys in the Midwest(Adepticon/GenCon), the DC guys out east (NOVA/etc).
Not too many people want to travel 10 hours to play.

My brother tends to find all the neat interactions and combos, I tend to find ways to break them.

On Topic:

Guild have probably the best Minion in the game in Austringers, outside of that much of their cheap stuff is fine, but not great.
Most of the competitive guild masters use their crew to buff them.
It's oft repeated that every competitive guild list starts with 2 Austringers and Francisco for those reasons.
If you can manage to kill the guild master they become supremely lackluster, but while they are firing on all cylinders they can be frightening.

As an outcast player I find guild to be the hardest faction to play against because the way they play is very similar, kill things and control the center of the board.
Only Guild gets Austringers who control zones much better and masters with much more frightening firepower.
While Outcast stuff tends to be durable, guild stuff tends to be made of glass.
Once you get on top of them they generally don't fight well, which leads to "cheese" lists like Papabox.
As a faction they seem to be trying to balance high ranged damage/range with low resilience.
That balance seems to be pretty close to where you want it honestly.
Things like Lure and Leap seem to break that balance as you can pick them apart piecemeal.
As Justin mentioned they also have mediocre general upgrades in the face of Oathkeeper/Imbued Energies/Recalled Training/Wings of Darkness/Dirty Cheater.
 

 

[icebreaker]

Perdita's crew can be extremely durable vs WP attacks especially with promises. Hoffman crew can be durable. Guild have the Peacekeeper, the Ryle, the Judge. 

As for me the Guild CAN be durable

[Hagisman]

57 minutes ago, icebreaker said:

Perdita's crew can be extremely durable vs WP attacks especially with promises. Hoffman crew can be durable. Guild have the Peacekeeper, the Ryle, the Judge. 

As for me the Guild CAN be durable

It can be hit or miss. In my experience Guild either has one stat High and the other Low. 

Perdita can get WP on her crew up with Aura Ancestral, but that doesn't mean anything if your opponent is only attacking Df like Lady J or Lilith.

Hoffman has High DF and Armor triggers on Df but that doesn't mean anything against Pandora or other masters that attack Wp. 

You can front load your crew to defend on one front but a good mix is typically what you need. My Perdita lists typically have high Df models with Aura Ancestral and a Pistolero. So I have either Df5 or 6s on  and Wp of 7 at the least on everything else. The trouble is you have to stay working a small bubble for that and blasts will kill you. 

[LunarSol]

I've often pondered the US/UK split on the faction but found more questions than answers.  Is it just player preference?  Is it terrain? (Guild is probably the faction most affected by terrain honestly)  I honestly don't know.

In terms of the faction itself, I find the biggest issue comes from the lack of a fast, effective, cheap melee minion option.  It doesn't really affect the faction's top end viability, but it tends to result in McMourning/Lady J/Lucius lacking the tools and support to fight effectively in the middle of the table.  It's a little easy for them to wind up overextended while the rest of their crew needs to hang back around their effective ranges.

McCabe gets around this by removing the biggest limit on the Hounds.  Orderlies might also just be what the doctor ordered  but I can't help but feel like what's missing is essentially faster Witchling Stalkers that drop their condition removal for the speed to make full use of their melee.  What I really want is some kind of melee Death Marshal that could benefit from Lady J's currently niche push upgrade and Inspiring Swordplay.

[Hagisman]

2 minutes ago, LunarSol said:

McCabe gets around this by removing the biggest limit on the Hounds.  Orderlies might also just be what the doctor ordered  but I can't help but feel like what's missing is essentially faster Witchling Stalkers that drop their condition removal for the speed to make full use of their melee.  What I really want is some kind of melee Death Marshal that could benefit from Lady J's currently niche push upgrade and Inspiring Swordplay.

You could take Witchling Handlers? Though I'm not sure that they work that well. I find if you have a model that has area buffs they become huge targets.

Death Marshals while not the best in Melee are still formidable. Just as good as their peacebringer sh, with a slight detriment. Ml5 is not as good as the Withling's 6, but still good. 

[4thstringer]

I was hoping that with the wardens box out we would have our melee minion.  are people finding that they don't get the job done?

[LunarSol]

I've played around with Handlers and quite like the package, but find it a tad expensive to really sing.  You're paying 8 stones to buff 5 stone models and that really doesn't pay off until you spam the things, at which point you really just need to go all in with 4+ of them, Disrupt Magic and Reincarnation support.  It's cool, but I'm not sure its efficient enough to work with the masters I mentioned.  Maybe its the right answer, but I'd still love to have something more melee focused and ideally Death Marshal themed.  

[Hagisman]

15 minutes ago, 4thstringer said:

I was hoping that with the wardens box out we would have our melee minion.  are people finding that they don't get the job done?

They are hit or miss for me, but I've been running them in Lucius with Dashel. So they get the 0 action to focus. they need to pick their targets carefully. Otherwise try become squishy.

Guardians are better because with double defensive they are more likely to get  for grind to a halt or a good flip. 

I tried them as objective grabbers and they didn't before well at extraction or Guard the Stash, but my opponent had ignores cover  

Quote

I've played around with Handlers and quite like the package, but find it a tad expensive to really sing.  You're paying 8 stones to buff 5 stone models and that really doesn't pay off until you spam the things, at which point you really just need to go all in with 4+ of them, Disrupt Magic and Reincarnation support.  It's cool, but I'm not sure its efficient enough to work with the masters I mentioned.  Maybe its the right answer, but I'd still love to have something more melee focused and ideally Death Marshal themed.  

Every once in a while I look to throw Exorcists into my crew so I can give out undead and decapitate. 

[Ludvig]

I agree with Icemyn, enemy board control hits us hard because a lot of our models are glass cannons. I also envy the factions who get 4ss minions with either really high defence stats or really good defensive abilities while also being faster than the guild ones a lot of the time. It feels like we are paying a high price to have mediocre shooting attacks on every darned low ss minion (guild guard and wastrels for example). I know outcasts have a similar position there.

The upgrades are just really unfortunate, I don't think anyone intended for them to be scummy, it just sort of ended up that way for reasons beyond my understanding.

I still don't think any of this makes the entire faction underpowered. If anything I think that guild have a few models above the curve that have garnered a bad reputation so while other factions have lots of very viable choices we get sort of forced into "oh, you took those models again"-territory if we want to compete for real while other factions have several nasty combos so they catch less flak individually. Not 100% sure on this, I mean no one really likes to face Levi with the rat engine and A&D, right?

[RodneyAnon]

On 7/1/2016 at 0:45 PM, Hagisman said:

They are hit or miss for me, but I've been running them in Lucius with Dashel. So they get the 0 action to focus. they need to pick their targets carefully. Otherwise try become squishy.

Guardians are better because with double defensive they are more likely to get  for grind to a halt or a good flip. 

I tried them as objective grabbers and they didn't before well at extraction or Guard the Stash, but my opponent had ignores cover  

Every once in a while I look to throw Exorcists into my crew so I can give out undead and decapitate. 

I want to second the utility of the Guardians. I've been using one to keep my Riflemen alive. The "Protect" zero action is highly effective and the flatblade/shield combo has been mighty deadly. Just make sure you keep your Guardian within 4" of your Riflemen & Dashel (or whatever guardsman combo you're using).

[EnternalVoid]

On Warden I have always loved my two metal ones.  I take them with McCabe all the time and they generally see use with Hoffman and Lucius too.  One pops into my Perdita crew from time to time as well, I can remember pulling out both not that long ago against another Perdita in a story encounter league we did.  The Walk and Charge ranges have been important to me using them.  The table had enough cover that I was pretty certain I could force him to either ignore cover but not armor, armor but not cover, or have to charge and get close to my guys.  Sure people tend to break them but it often needs them to give it real attention or settle for a war of attrition with it.

[trikk]

I think that (after returning to Guild after half a year of playing Kaeris) that Guild is pretty straightforward. We suck at things like Exhaust their Forces, we have very limited choices of paralyzing/slowing/applying nasty conditions to enemy models. We also have internal balance issues - having a lot of models with similar purposes and overpriced/similar choice in the Henchmen and Enforcers or just their niche is not good enough to be reliable. Judge has a pseudo-lure. But it turns out its Ca5 and a projectile which makes it a lot less useful than most other. He has an anti-spirit ability but its Ca5 which means its not very reliable.

 

A lot of our Enforcers are 1SS too pricey (Handlers, Exorcists, Executionier, Guild Sergeant imho) or offer 

[daniello_s]

8 minutes ago, trikk said:

Judge has a pseudo-lure. But it turns out its Ca5 and a projectile which makes it a lot less useful than most other.

Considering you can use it on your own models then I would strongly advised not to label it as 'less useful'...

[trikk]

Which Lures-type abilities can`t be used on friendlies??

[daniello_s]

Every lure-ish can be used on friendlies as long as you have it in your arsenal. And you have it, so be happy

[trikk]

I said its "less useful" than other similar abilities. Mostly due to the projectile and low Ca...

[Myyrä]

14 minutes ago, daniello_s said:

Considering you can use it on your own models then I would strongly advised not to label it as 'less useful'...

Projectile icon is pretty sucky even when only using it on friendlies. You can't reliably pull friendly models out from close combat or forest.

[trikk]

Especially when you have Hermanos which is a 5" no cast push on friendlies

[MVBrandt]

Honestly Guild is one of the strongest factions. This is primarily b/c they have one of the most efficient sets of beater list build options out there, where you can have enough models to not be terribly out-activated, while each model can generally be quick and highly lethal, and pretty durable comparatively. These things all make for a giant PITA to deal with when someone plays them quickly or efficiently to their strengths (kill lots of things reliably).

Guild, Arc, Som'er, and Outcasts are still the strongest 4 factions by a wide margin (IMO). 

[LunarSol]

Meh, I think with Wave 2 in particular, 10T definitely got the tools to be in the top 5 and Neverborn has masters versatile enough to easily make it a top 6.  I'd also definitely consider Ressers if I was to list the top 7 factions in the game.

[MVBrandt]

Each of the first 4 can play a single master in a tournament and win the thing, in any field, if played well. This isn't true for 10T, NVB, or Rez, presently. And, generally speaking, as an example point, when we recently played in the largely-attended Bragging Rights team event up in CT, it was very easy to deal with teams who chose not to bring Guild/Grem/Arc/Out, b/c the match involving Rez or 10T or Nvb was one where they were on the back foot from the first flip. It was a visible handicap. $.02

[4thstringer]

1 hour ago, MVBrandt said:

Each of the first 4 can play a single master in a tournament and win the thing, in any field, if played well. This isn't true for 10T, NVB, or Rez, presently. And, generally speaking, as an example point, when we recently played in the largely-attended Bragging Rights team event up in CT, it was very easy to deal with teams who chose not to bring Guild/Grem/Arc/Out, b/c the match involving Rez or 10T or Nvb was one where they were on the back foot from the first flip. It was a visible handicap. $.02

Ya think?  I feel like NB could definitely play solo lilith and win a full tourney.   I think Joel Henry did just that for a long time(in the British Meta).  Honestly, I don't know about Rez or TT, but didn't someone win the British Masters with solo Seamus not all that long ago?

Out of curiousity, who would be your solo master choice for that for Arcanists? 

[LunarSol]

I assume Colette, but I can make an argument for Raspy or Ramos as well.

Lilith springs to mind for NVB, though Lynch can probably hold his own for either faction.  10T in particular seems to be the faction whose unique aspects are just now being uncovered, so I wouldn't put it past others.  My first guess for Ressers would be Kirai, but I haven't played against her enough to say that with conviction.

[MVBrandt]

Lilith has terrible match-ups within that framework (i.e. Som'er basically auto-wins vs. her in very similar fashion to how Rat Engine did). Kirai, Lilith, and Shenlong are the 3 "solos" you'd try for each of those factions, but none would make it through as readily as the Guild (Sonnia), Arc (Marcus), Gremlin (Som'er), or Outcast (several choices due to the fact the best Outcast build isn't really because of the Master) would.

[OldManMyke]

Given that Kirai won the worlds biggest (so far) Malifaux event not sure I would agree with the assumption that by playing Resser single master you are automatically on the back foot

wrt the actual topic, as Adran said the top players in the UK choose nit to play guild, often not due to power level reasons but to do with interest level reasons.  Guild, and a lot of the models around them are pretty bland models that just dont excite folks to put them on the tabletop.  If you aren't into the whole cowboy thing then you can just glaze over them 

FWIW i believe Nellie will change all this