So where were the guild players at adepticon?

[4thstringer]

10 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

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.

I've got a game coming up with extraction and search the ruins in it.  I'll give summoning sonnia a go and see how it goes.

[Ludvig]

12 minutes ago, 4thstringer said:

I've got a game coming up with extraction and search the ruins in it.  I'll give summoning sonnia a go and see how it goes.

If you're feeling adventurous you could even take Sam instead of the handler. He is theoretically good for killing things while they burn even if I haven't made it work more than once. The tricky part is that you are then relying on Sonnia to set them on fire (sorry for once more stating the obvious).

I usually prefer to use the handler so that anyone engaging Sonnia gets smacked by the big bad witch which heals her up (since aomething bad probably just charged her) and gives me cards for other parts of my crew to use. If you had the Loco buff on her from blasting turn 1 she can put some decent damage into someone in ml. Then put up her aura that does damage at the end of the turn (if I am the first player so it happens before the enemy ends burning it is vastly preferable). If you luck out and Sonnia or the handler kills her assailant you get a stalker that can activate and potentially put burning and damage enough to get another summon out there. This hasn't been tried in like master level tournaments or anything even close but I never run Sonnia against new players so they have been of about equal skill to me (according to me). 

[Ludvig]

47 minutes ago, 4thstringer said:

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.

I've had this exact experience Lilith just clicked for me in the first game. All the stuff feels like it does what you want it to do while having some fun interactions insteadof me hunting for away to combine models to feel that they do what they should just havr on theit card. That feeling was when I played her "subpar" nephilim theme, can't wait too see how the actual good lists run.

[Ryin]

^

That's how I felt about Reva.

Her destroying things is nice, but she does other things well too and I mostly play with her core stuff. Shieldbearers are great and Vincent is good too. It all just came together really quickly.

Guild always feels like it's square pegs with a couple of square holes and mostly round pegs. The CORE is there, but the CORE is mostly the same and doesn't really change from game to game/master to master with a few exceptions.

Also, for summoning Sonnia, you could bring the conflux. They can pretty reliably put burning on something.

[Franchute]

1 hour ago, 4thstringer said:

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.

And the guy who ranked first at Adepticon was NB 

[Ludvig]

I keep forgetting about the conflux just 'cause I didn't paint the model until really recently! I need to try that myself

Too bad half of us seem to be leaning towards the guild really being that bad Let's hope it's just personal preference or some phase. If I ever got to try Nellie I'm sure I would have a blast with her. It might just be the book 1 masters and powerbuilds that are starting to show their age... It's almost like they changed a lot of stuff since then.

[Franchute]

49 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

I've had this exact experience Lilith just clicked for me in the first game. All the stuff feels like it does what you want it to do while having some fun interactions insteadof me hunting for away to combine models to feel that they do what they should just havr on theit card. That feeling was when I played her "subpar" nephilim theme, can't wait too see how the actual good lists run.

[SPOILER ALERT]

This reminds me of that discussion between Perdita and the governer general in the 3rd book, where the former Guild boss was telling Perdita about the fact that each Guild master was starting to become a bit more like what they were hunting down. In the end, Lucius got you guys 

[iamfanboy]

I was NOT there at Adepticon, I need to make this clear. NOT THERE. This is just a comment on "Guild is terrible now" thing.

I really enjoyed my first game of Guild as McMourning.

I know that the general wisdom is that "McMourning is best at Ressers", but just from the outside he seems to have a lot of good stuff for Guild. He's nearly as good at melee as Lady J, can indirectly damage to avoid triggering Frame For Murder, has scheme marker manipulation in the form of Injection and an upgrade that steals their Scheme Markers (in GG17, only really useful for 3/19 Schemes, but when it triggers...) and Nurses, man, Nurses. Mask Meds makes ANY model into a Schemer. Crow Meds barely has a downside if you've got a Witchling Stalker or two. Ram Meds straight into an Executioner?

Just, like, a thought. Borrowed a friend's McMourning to try it out. It was... fun.

[Franchute]

12 minutes ago, iamfanboy said:

I know that the general wisdom is that "McMourning is best at Ressers",

According to logfaux, under GG2017, Guild McMourning actually has a higher win rate than his ressers counterpart and he is the master with the highest rate among Guild too:

https://logfaux.com/dashboard/meta

I love Guild McMourning too.

[4thstringer]

I saw that and was stunned.  I'm not sure there is a guild master I'm worse with than mcmourning. 

[Fetid Strumpet]

Logfaux is at best suggestive. not definitive or comprehensive. It has Kirai WAY down in the rankings when she is through past victories clearly one of the most powerful masters in the game, and in my option overdue for a date with the cuddle bat.

[Ryin]

^

I don't think she did all that great at Masters this year at Adepticon. (not to suggest what you're saying isn't true, though)

 

I don't think Guild is BAD. It just doesn't have much diversity. When you pick a Guild master, you almost always start with the same 3-4 models as pillar pieces regardless of master with few exceptions. A most of the other factions have plenty of models that are fairly useless in some lists/with some masters but work quite well in others. There's a lot of choice in respect to crew building with Guild. Until the recent cuddle, nearly all guild lists started with Frank and 1-2 austringers before anything else was even picked.

The Guild is so straightforward with what it does, that there's usually only one option for what you want to do. That doesn't mean you can't WIN with other choices, but flavor and style dictate those choices more than efficiency and more than even opponent or schemes/strategies.

tl;dr The Guild is probably the most MIN/MAXEd Faction there is, which stifles diversity and, in turn stifles creativity and then, in turn, stifles interest.

[Ludvig]

I like McMourning although I haven't had enough games with him to get anywhere near competent with him.

Whatever nurse trigger it is that gives you armor but negatives goes really well with companioning into an Ortega with shrug off.

To be fair most nurse combos should work just as well in ressers since the nurse can just accomplice into Chiaki if you want to remove something from your model. The thing they don't do as well is ignore armor with any model you want which goes well with giving enemies armor in exchnage for negatives to everything. There should definetly be some debuff potential there even if I haven't made it click yet.

I would never go so far as to actually think guild is underpowered. It's just slightly frustrating that almost no models just perform out of the box and regardless of the rest of your list. I guess it's a perception thing.

If I get a necropunk or silurid or you know, a schemer I know that it will get some schemes done 100% of the time regardless of the rest of my list (barring enemy interference). If I take a mature nephilim I always get positive attack flips and a really solid damage track on a flying model. In guild I can take a peacekeeper but if I want plusflips I need an 8ss support model or a specific master and if I want it to be fast and nimble I need a specific master. It's hard to reconcile with the fact that a peacekeeper under LJ costs the same amount of stones as one hired by Hoffman when they hardly feel like the same model. If the peacekeeper isn't broken when buffed through the roof by Hoffman, how is it not subpar when recieving no buff?

It'skinda odd that I'm aupposed to use both my master and possibly master Queeg just to make my 4ss schemer oerform as well as a 4-5 ss schemer in another faction.

I also often lament the jack of all trades theme that seems to run through the faction. My thoughts when flipping through the books for the hundreth time is often: Cool model, it has an okayish ml attack and a crappy sh attack (or vice versa) and no survivability and a badwalk value with no extra move tricks. Hey, there's two more almost indistinguishable models with the same role. Then you go to another faction and see one amazing but fragile schemer, one extremely threatening ranged model and one super durable ml beatstick. It's very easy to slip into comparing their best schemers scheming to our generalists scheming. It'salso kinda bori g to have models that function to similarly to each other. 

Our boring auto includes are the models that perform consistently well and are fairly specialized (even if Frank can do several things he feels focused).

 

[LunarSol]

GG17 is definitely not kind to Guild.  There are few factions that hate Frame for Murder as much as Guild and the faction doesn't have a lot of models that really excel at performing a lot of the AP heavy schemes.  It's actually less an issue with getting there as it is with surviving to do the job once they arrive.  There are definitely answers; most of which are in Nellie's box, which its worth mentioning really JUST hit shelves officially.  Still, if you haven't started using a transparent Phiona, you're missing a lot of options for success in GG17.  That said, as cool as Nellie is, I'm not sure she's the kind of playstyle people pick Guild for when they're looking for a faction, and it definitely hurts when the game feels like its actively punishing you for trying to do what your faction feels designed to do.

[Franchute]

58 minutes ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

Logfaux is at best suggestive. not definitive or comprehensive. It has Kirai WAY down in the rankings when she is through past victories clearly one of the most powerful masters in the game, and in my option overdue for a date with the cuddle bat.

I agree that these numbers have to be taken with caution. In particular, with these numbers, we dont know how skilled were the players who played these masters. It might be the case that Perdita, Lady J and Sonnia have a low win rate just because they are more played by beginners than the other masters. Indeed, if a beginner buys the McMourning box first, it is more likely that he will play him as a ressers because he doesnt have the guild models. The Guild McMourning player is more likely to be more experienced on average because he already played other masters before. 

That being said, I wouldn't disregard these numbers completely either. They do show that Reva, Collodi and Levi are among the first under GG2017 and my guess is that many players would agree that these are very strong masters.

In the case of McMourning, I havent played him yet under GG2017, but I do believe that what he offers in terms of scheme marker manipulation is definitely a valuable dimension under GG2017, adding in mercenaries like performers who are complementary to McMourning also allows to play many of the killy schemes and strategies with more ease such as e.g. Dig their graves or Head hunter.

[RustAndTheCity]

5 hours ago, Franchute said:

According to logfaux, under GG2017, Guild McMourning actually has a higher win rate than his ressers counterpart and he is the master with the highest rate among Guild too:

https://logfaux.com/dashboard/meta

I love Guild McMourning too.

The logfaux numbers can definitely be skewed while the sample size is so small. I have played 19/60 games on there with McMourning. 

 

That being said, I've found McMourning a very strong and versatile master so far. Lots of fun. His injection 0 to push and drop a marker is incredibly useful for scoring schemes. 

[Trample]

5 hours ago, LunarSol said:

That said, as cool as Nellie is, I'm not sure she's the kind of playstyle people pick Guild for when they're looking for a faction, and it definitely hurts when the game feels like its actively punishing you for trying to do what your faction feels designed to do.

I'm not so sure now. I think maybe Nellie can, ironically perhaps, allow guild to do exactly what they want to do, which is table your opponent and win through model deletion. That's one of my favorite ways to play (i enjoy aggressive crews) and was quite turned off by Nellie when I saw her boxed set. Having looked at her a bit though, I think her ability to manage activation control and support melee models well makes her quite good at leading a very violent guild crew. I haven't picked her up yet mind you, so this is just observation in facing her, but I think that might be the case and am going to pick her up and give it a try myself. 

[iamfanboy]

Why are Death Marshals not being used more against FFM? It seems like the best thing to do - just saying, "Okay, my 6ss model removes the thing from the table I HAVE to kill but can't because it will give you VP" seems like a very, very solid answer.

Guild has a LOT of good tools, a lot of answers - and a lot of those are on strong but cheap Minions, freeing up points for high-end models as well.

Death Marshals for Schemes like FFM or Show of Force. (Maybe I'm just mad because one kept the Captain pinned in a box for three turns of Henchman Hardcore).

Witchling Stalkers for cheap condition removal.

Executioners for brutal melee that also can meddle with enemy Scheme Markers. (Seriously, Ready for Work does so much, well, work!)

Reporters for nasty pushes and other effects.

Guardians to make already hard to kill models even tougher.

 

It's just that, and this is from an outsider point of view, the answers needed have shifted away from the models Guild players are used to, so rather than learn their new tools they'd prefer to jump to another faction. It's not that this is BAD, mind you, because it's good to try new things and can often make you more aware of an opponent's victory plan if you've played their side of the table. I've seen it happen a lot, and it's not as though this game requires one to buy and paint 30 models + 3 vehicles in order to try out the new faction, either!

I think that Lady J and Sonnia aren't going to go away, because they are VERY killy and with the right scheme pool and backup they will ensure victory - it's just that you can't reach for them as your ONLY masters any more.

[Nukemouse]

Perhaps I'm just crazy, but doesn't Perdita have movement tricks through her totem and access to Obey? Not to mention her obvious synergy with Nino and his "super chatty". I would have assumed Perdita would be great for winning schemes based pools because she can handle all the killing on her own.

[Ludvig]

45 minutes ago, Nukemouse said:

Perhaps I'm just crazy, but doesn't Perdita have movement tricks through her totem and access to Obey? Not to mention her obvious synergy with Nino and his "super chatty". I would have assumed Perdita would be great for winning schemes based pools because she can handle all the killing on her own.

Agreed. Perdita doesn't have to be played as beaty as people seem to prefer. She's at least okayish at controlling enemies and if you can keep Nino alive the crew can anti-scheme. You just use her amazing attacks to scalpel out the bothersome elements, something every list usually wants to be able to do.

[AK1979]

Perdita with the brutal emissary can reliable obey opposing models; we have to start looking away from the obvious "shoot first sheme later"  mindset.

[Ludvig]

It's so sad that we don't have anything "terrifying: all" (or I may be extremely out of the loop). I would really like to play Paralyze Perdita just to mess with people's head and because "snowflake"

[bertmac]

6 hours ago, iamfanboy said:

Why are Death Marshals not being used more against FFM? It seems like the best thing to do - just saying, "Okay, my 6ss model removes the thing from the table I HAVE to kill but can't because it will give you VP" seems like a very, very solid answer.

 

Because they die in two attacks from anything with a weak damage of 3.

[Ludvig]

43 minutes ago, bertmac said:

Because they die in two attacks from anything with a weak damage of 3.

So much this. Besides, you often can't be sure which target is the frame target. A decent player won't always put it on Langston and shove him down your throat but put it on something else. 

[Tris]

Also, you have to probably invest a high card every turn to keep the target boxed, as opposed to the maybe one face card when you try and put a damaging condition on it at one point in the game