So where were the guild players at adepticon?

[4thstringer]

It seems like the negative defines us more than everything.   (Or frank).  We don't have summons,  We don't get many plus flips,  We don't have leaps.  Other mOvement tricks are rare.   We aren't survivable.  We aren't terrifying.  We don't alpha strike well. Interesting. 

[Ludvig]

29 minutes ago, 4thstringer said:

It seems like the negative defines us more than everything.   (Or frank).  We don't have summons,  We don't get many plus flips,  We don't have leaps.  Other mOvement tricks are rare.   We aren't survivable.  We aren't terrifying.  We don't alpha strike well. Interesting. 

Don't alpha well? Conpared to what? The emisssary has opened up some pretty disgusting alphas including LJ who defines beater master for the game. We don't lure enemies to us, that still holds true. We don't have many plusflips built into models but pistoleros can get anyone a plusto defence and promises still buffs every ugrade carrier which can easily be your entire list. Lucius now also gives plusflips to several stats so we can easily build a list where several models have plus to defense, willpowe and melee attacks at the same time.We still suck at the activation game and gratuitous scheming at long ranges though.

[trikk]

Yep, reporters or no reporters. We`re not going to be as good at Leave Your Mark as Firestarter, Necropunks or Iron Skeeters. And without summoners the only counter to activation game is Nellie but my current POV is that Nellie is the counter to most of our problems....

[Ryin]

Sorry, I played Ressers at Adepticon this year. >.<

Though, I did play McCabe in teams! As Ten Thunders >.>;

I did good with Reva, too, but I also played 3 gremlin players. 

I've taken Greed to Enforcer Brawls and done really well, but this year I took Angelica and came in 4th or 5th. (They weren't too clear)

I still consider Guild my main faction, I just really don't take them to tournaments too often. Or, if I do, just place in the middle somewhere.

i plan on running Nellie eventually, as Pandy is my best master and she's Guild Pandy (wooo!) but I'm not comfortable enough with her for tournaments yet. 

 

Don't judge me o.o

[Ludvig]

@Ryin Does your comment about placing in the middle with guild mean that you place better with your other factions?

[Ryin]

I made top 10 of Adepticon this year with ressers. I placed top 20 with Neverborn 2 years ago (I dropped after three games last year so it's a NC)

Went undefeated in my last two local tournaments  with ressers (tied one game) and Neverborn respectively (playing Reva and Tara  and then a fixed list Pandora)

Generally when I take Guild to tournaments I end up going 1-1-1 A lwin, a loss and a tie. This rarely matters in terms of list composition and master choice. Though, I tend to play missle Justice, and that usually makes for a quick game (either I wipe them or they do)

[Ludvig]

Well Justice feels like a weak master to me but if it's true for whichever master you pick it's definetly a bummer.

[trikk]

Well. I'm almost exclusively playing Guild in tournaments and I usually place in the top3- top5 of 16-30 people events, so don't lose hope

[Ryin]

23 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

Well Justice feels like a weak master to me but if it's true for whichever master you pick it's definetly a bummer.

I've played them all in tournaments at some point except for Nellie. It doesn't bother me too much and doesn't stop me from being a Guild player. I just guess that my style jives a little bit better with other masters. I know Reva's pretty easy to pick up, but I've done really well with her. (only wins or ties with her so far)/ I'm also pretty decent with Resser Tara (except against fricken Hamelin in interference ~.~) And Pandora. I sort of tend to hop around a bit and maybe it's my issue with Guild. I never really FOCUSED much on any one master. My best ones are LJ, McCabe and Lucius, but knowing how to play Lucius didn't really matter too much before the changes and I haven't really hit the ground running with his new toys too much yet.

I don't care for Choffman's playstyle, (I play Ulix too but play him as pig farm, not pigblll), and as powerful as Sonnia is, I've always been kind of weak with her. I do alright with Diita and McMourning. Lil better with Perdita, though.

 

And, actually, I think Justice is great, but even if she's a murder bot, there almost always comes a point in time where I break her away to do some strats and/or schemes. If I just had her kill everything, I'd probably lose more. I think the knock on her is always why up close with LJ when I can shoot with Sonnia/Perdita, but Lady Justice has some things she can do since she's a little closer up.

[Ludvig]

Does Justice wreck more face than Reva with Litany of the fallen? I'd say no and Reva has range 22" and can do it from complete safety under optimal conditions. LJ has very few tricks other than raw damage in ml and other models get really close to that raw damage but at a greater range and ignoring defensive abilities that she doesn't ignore. I find it really hard to not view her as weak compared to Perdita, Reva, Viktorias and probably others too that have very similar damage output but with more extras.

[Fetid Strumpet]

And that raw dmg is effectively litany of the fallen. In how many critical instances is the sheer hitting power of Lady J not just pretty much equivilant to reva's flat dmg track with litany? There are very few situations. 

Lady J has some issues with the way the game turned out, but her dmg track which is effectively litany of the fallen already isn't one of them. 

The biggest one being she doesn't have interesting choices to make each turn. She does one thing better than anyone in the game, but if she doesn't get to do that 1 thing every turn or at the very least every turn after 1 she doesn't feel useful. Additionally while counter play should exist it's just a little too easy to counter play her. She is going to pretty much delete with little hope for avoiding it just about any model in the game she gets into combat with, but in order to feel like she did something useful she wants to be able to use that on who she wants, and at the moment she generally has issue with it. There are enough chaff models in the game in most crews that preventing Lady J from getting to what she wants to hit is pretty much the order of the day.

What she needs firstly is other actions besides her sword that are interesting and useful to do every turn. Masters are fun and good when you always feel they are contributing to the game and when you have interesting decisions to make. Currently if Lady J doesn't get into combat she doesn't feel useful, and when the opponent can often mitigate her impact by selecting who she fights in those fights before they eventually grind her down she can just feel unsatisfying.

[Ludvig]

@Fetid Strumpet That was exactly my point. She is more or less matched in raw damage by other models and sometimes even outmached if certain defensive rules are present. In the meantime those other models can actually do other things that aren't just smacking stuff, she doesn't need more damage, she needs something else than damage.

I'm not atall surprised at any playergetting better results with Reva than LJ, I think it's one of the rare instances in this game where you can make a good comparison because the models are similar enough to allow it.

[4thstringer]

18 hours ago, Ludvig said:

Don't alpha well? Conpared to what? The emisssary has opened up some pretty disgusting alphas including LJ who defines beater master for the game. We don't lure enemies to us, that still holds true. We don't have many plusflips built into models but pistoleros can get anyone a plusto defence and promises still buffs every ugrade carrier which can easily be your entire list. Lucius now also gives plusflips to several stats so we can easily build a list where several models have plus to defense, willpowe and melee attacks at the same time.We still suck at the activation game and gratuitous scheming at long ranges though.

This is what I get for trying to do this while sitting a CEU's.  I misread someone elses thing saying we don't alpha well.  I still feel out alphad by many factions, but you are right on that.

I gotta give pistoleros another try.  My problem with them was keeping them up with my main force.

[Fetid Strumpet]

My point was that Reva isn't better than Lady J because she has access to litany of the fallen. Lady J's dmg track IS litany of the fallen. No one outshines her in that area. A Ml7 min dmg 4 possibly 5 possibly 6 weapon which gets positives on dmg when not charging? Reva doesn't come near it. The issue is that sometimes an ability is designed so powerful that the requisite balances to make it manageable shackle it too much to be consistently useful. Terror in 1st edition was like that. Seamus' gun is like that in this edition, and Lady J's sword is like that in this edition. I very much believe if Lady J just had a just had a more flat and reasonable dmg as her design brief from the beginning like Reva's she would be better than she is right now, because a lot of the limitations that got applied to her at the start, and the lack of support she has gotten would have been non existent because the developers would have felt more free to give her other things, and the ability to use her sword more often. Making something amazingly powerful but then limiting the ability effectively use that ability is far less satisfying than just having a decent ability you can use all the time. 

Reva is a more satisfying master to play because she has multiple interesting decisions to make during a turn, and Masters like Lady J, Seamus, and Mah don't. I'd like to see Lady J get some combination of getting her pistols back, getting the ability to put up good aura buffs around her and or being able to give out her AP at range to Guild Marshals. Then she will actually feel like she is doing something even when her sword is left in it's sheath. Heck just giving her an upgrade that gave her flight would make her a heck of a lot more effective.

[Adran]

21 hours ago, 4thstringer said:

It seems like the negative defines us more than everything.   (Or frank).  We don't have summons,  We don't get many plus flips,  We don't have leaps.  Other mOvement tricks are rare.   We aren't survivable.  We aren't terrifying.  We don't alpha strike well. Interesting. 

Sonnia can summon, and do so fairly well. I've played against her summoning lists where she ends up with more points on the table at the end than the beginning. 

[Tris]

22 minutes ago, Adran said:

Sonnia can summon, and do so fairly well. I've played against her summoning lists where she ends up with more points on the table at the end than the beginning. 

I still think that's a myth, at least if you want to score reliably and win the game in 2017

It's just either to slow or requires to much setup, imo.

[Ryin]

Don't disagree with fetid. LJ is limited to either swinging her sword or running schemes and if she's not swinging her sword, it feels like a waste to most.

That being said, I still love LJ and have fun playing her. With my middle of Justice, I can get to anyone I want on turn 1. Win or lose it's s short, fun game. And, lately, I've been considering some different tactica for her. 

I think Reva is a better master in general, but, even with everything that's been said about LJ, she's still one of my favorite masters to play. When I play Guild, I almost always bring her to at least one round of a tournament .

[Ludvig]

I would say Reva does come near it, not in raw damage but if the opposing modelhas any form of defensive ability. Let's say your target is someone like Joss so the target has SS use and armour +2 or +3 and htk. Could also be a peacekeeper or any incorporeal model.

Does the couple of extra points of raw damage on LJ really make up for the 22" threat range from relative/complete safety and the ability to choose stat (negating some really useful triggers) as well as ignoring ss use and most of the defenses in the game? 

My problem in guild is usually not that I'm lacking in choice of models that do high damage to models without defensive abilities, one of the guild staples are min damage 3 henchmen with the possibility of debt and stoning/cheating rams. We also have several min damage 4 enforcers that can take debt. What is it that Lady J adds that I couldn't get elsewhere in my list that makes her good? Ressers on the other hand don't have many models with that kind of threat range so she closes a good gap for them. She can also casually boost activations with an automatic summon.

In the choice of doing damage from a safe place from turn 1 onwards and needing to get your master up the board to a really risky position and maybe still do less damage to the target you need to kill I know what I would choose. I guess I don't really need us to agree to this but I had spent far too long typing.

[Ludvig]

42 minutes ago, Tris said:

I still think that's a myth, at least if you want to score reliably and win the game in 2017

It's just either to slow or requires to much setup, imo.

The only real requirement for summoning is Sonnia? A handler also helps so most of your models can put on some fire. If no blasty opponents present themselves to Sonnia you can use something of your own as a blasting point. The hard part is getting Sonnia to survive the opposing hitter(s).

[Tris]

13 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

The only real requirement for summoning is Sonnia? A handler also helps so most of your models can put on some fire. If no blasty opponents present themselves to Sonnia you can use something of your own as a blasting point. The hard part is getting Sonnia to survive the opposing hitter(s).

The requirement is putting burning on them, and killing them afterwards, ap/resources not spent on scoring (most of the time anyway)

[4thstringer]

Resser: have a corpse marker, or a friendly model nearby, or an opposing model nearby

Dreamer: Whatever you need.

Arcanist: 1 scrap for 3 spiders, or just gaiman for free from rider or Sandeep

Guild: first put burning on enemy model, then kill it, also be within charge range so kill is close enough by.

Not really comparable.

[Math Mathonwy]

3 hours ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

Reva is a more satisfying master to play because she has multiple interesting decisions to make during a turn, and Masters like Lady J, Seamus, and Mah don't.

You've said this before and I've challenged your view before: Mah has plenty of interesting choices to make each turn - she has a very versatile Push, a different Push effect, and can Charge wherever she likes, basically. She has a lot of options. If you play her as you would Lady J she probably feels very boring (and extremely weak) but I would argue that she is quite a bit better than LJ when you utilize her options.

[Franchute]

11 minutes ago, 4thstringer said:

Resser: have a corpse marker, or a friendly model nearby, or an opposing model nearby

Dreamer: Whatever you need.

Arcanist: 1 scrap for 3 spiders, or just gaiman for free from rider or Sandeep

Guild: first put burning on enemy model, then kill it, also be within charge range so kill is close enough by.

Not really comparable.

And a stone or two cards...

I think it is reasonable that summoning is a bit more tricky for Guild, if her hitting power is supposedly stronger, especially in the case of Sonnia.

[Ludvig]

I agree that it's a lot harder for Sonnia than the pure summoners but she can falk back on the more traditional blast them to kingdom come and all she invested was 1 ss and an upgrade slot (the latter can really hurt). If you only go for something like a single stalker per turn while whittling down your opponent it shouldn't be too hard to score strat & scheme points.

I usually want to kill at least a few models in a game, one of which my opponent is usually fortcoming enough to shove in my face turn 1.

The handler countercharging whoever is wailing on Sonnia can lead to the hilarious two stalkers from one model trick. The sad part is that in interference where you really need it it's the hardest to set up, you want the strat to be extraction or something so you know where Sonnia's aura needs to be.

[4thstringer]

12 minutes ago, Franchute said:

And a stone or two cards...

I think it is reasonable that summoning is a bit more tricky for Guild, if her hitting power is supposedly stronger, especially in the case of Sonnia.

But that's the point.  Since we aren't defining factions by what they do, it only makes sense to define them by what they don't do.  Amongst the things that guild doesn't really do, summoning has to be on the list.   Super expensive, very corner case.

I've been branching off to NB recently, and it just feels better.  Maybe I had stagnated in guild and need to be more creative, but NB stuff just seems to work, rather than feeling like I have to jump through hoops to compete.