The Zinc Lich

I wonder if the other factions have a tier list as solid as we have here? I don't think that anyone is going to argue that Perdita is anything but the top, and Lucius and Justice are anything but the bottom two options. Don't get me wrong, the balance is still really tight, but it takes a lot more work to get good results out of the people on the bottom than it does for the people on top...

...well, this thread escalated quickly.

Probably a meta difference. I find most cagey opponents will slingshot something fast and disposable into melee with Sonnia before making important activations to keep Sonnia from dropping flame walls or just shooting something off the table. While Sonnia plays a fine attrition game thanks to Reincarnation, she isn't known for excellent activation control, and making an initiative flip after the enemy leaped a Necropunk into melee with Sonnia when you had no activations left to extract her from it is sad times. Francisco is cheap, accelerates Sonnia, and improves her defenses, but his real value, in my mind, is Enfrentante a Mi. Can't tie a good witch down.

Very much this. When I run Sonnia, I make sure that nothing else she brings will require cards or soulstones, because she really likes hitting that severe damage and she's really prone to dying. She also has some glaring weaknesses, namely her total lack of defensive tech combined with low Df and her slow ground speed and a middling to mediocre melee ability. Of all the masters the Guild can take, I really feel like Sonnia is the one that most appreciates Francisco; He can move her with Hermanos, she loves El Mayor, and he gives her a way to disengage from melee. I've finally broken down and put the Justice box on order, so I'll experiment with The Judge, but Cisco does so much... I'm on the side of taking Witchling Stalkers for her. They're just good models, and they do a very good job of flushing out stuff that is trying to hide from her. Explosive Demise is where I get the majority of my important instances of burning, either from people trying to get rid of the Stalker from too close, or trying to get past stalkers on their way to engage Sonnia herself. I guess it is local meta, because the people I play certainly don't run away from Sonnia. Unless it is a casting-focused crew, she tends to attract tarpits or gets sandpapered to death over the course of several turns. I love Sam, but I don't play him with Sonnia any more. He has a great damage output, but he also really appreciates having some cards and defensive tech to himself that Sonnia just can't spare. He has a permanent home, along with some adopted Stalkers, in a lot of my McMourning lists; the guild does not have a single model that deals more damage per attack than Sam does, and that makes him top a top quality option for McMourning's Precise buff. He's also a good elite pick for Lucius if you are bringing Stalkers, as What Lackeys Are For goes a long way in getting him to Rapid Fire locations.

I will take a moment to say that I really like the things that they came up with instead. I do think that Santiago and Nino deserve a little love, and Perdita definitely doesn't need to be more buff. The Avatar is cool and is a great love letter to her 1e model. Now I kind of wish they were still around so I could pick one up I wouldn't say it's what I was voting for, but what I wanted wasn't what the majority did. I'm content.

I... actually really like this. A lot. There is something to be said for totally removing someone's ability to do something. Most lists will have something that can approach without charging, but it is rare that entire crews can. Against something that is pretty ranged-light, such the Neverborn or Resurrectionists, that could be one hell of a headache. Why not fuse our irritating ideas and trade some of the Oiran for Missingno? I've heard good results from people using Hamelin's no-charge aura with her, it'd work the same here. It is such a shame that the Hidden Agenda upgrade is Ten Thunders only...

The problem with having fixed lists like this is you seriously limit what is viable to play. I mean, you say it yourself: you pick your top three masters to try and beat everyone else's set of three masters. When you have a pool so large to choose from, only the top percent of content in the game sees the table. We already see that kind of thing over in Warmachine and Hordes tournaments, where they added tournament regulations like Divide and Conquer to try and encourage more variety. 1 In fact, by removing the faction divide, you make the issue even more prevalent. You can pick a spread of masters with perfect points in differing areas, covering every weakness you have. At least in individual factions, where you only have seven options to choose from, you may need to win by using less powerful tools more skillfully. Whether or not that is a problem, I suppose, is a matter of opinion. It does lower the cost of entry to whatever top-3 masters you are playing, and it makes discussions about the real, tangible power of each master more practical, but at the cost of limiting the scope of what you are discussing. Not for sure if I'd want to play it, but I'd be interested in some good discussion on it. I think you are pretty much absolutely spot on about the "top three". In that kind of environment, I'd put Sonnia in my rotation, as she is definitely the master that I feel most comfortable putting up against Leveticus. Counterspell Aura does so much to hinder Leveticus' ability to hurt Sonnia and the people immediately around her. 2 Assuming she doesn't let him charge her for a Death Touch (which is still super threatening, because Levi is awesome) the cost of Soulstones to attack her is pretty prohibitive, especially if you are rolling on a low cache. Grounded Magic is incredibly bad for Leveticus' damage output; he doesn't have a great minimum damage, but can fairly easily get to a Neutral flip on damage and he could drop a high card from his hand to fill in. I don't think I've heard of a Leveticus crew bringing condition removal, as Leveticus typically doesn't have to worry about it, so he has to nuke his hand to try and cast and has to deal with a tome requirement on his main moneymaker. The Guild All Stars list is Francisco, Austringers, and Witchlings, so she should fit right in with all the power pieces. She's perfectly fine hunting waifs and the Mech Rider has neither immunity to blast damage nor burning. Stacked on top of that, I'm very comfortable dropping Sonnia into pretty much any problem on the Resserectionist platform, assuming we still hire crews by faction. The prevalence of lure, strong Ca actions, limited condition removal, no real special resistance to blasting. Colette certainly doesn't like the matchup, as she is allergic to blast damage, and Witchling Stalkers are very hard to remove without them lighting you up for Sonnia. Leveticus is just too good to not take against an enemy set that doesn't have a good answer for him, and Perdita is in there to check high-tuned assassin lists that could threaten Sonnia or the Waifs. I suppose that it a pretty kill-focused set, but Levi and Sonnia will be churning out minions as a byproduct of smashing face, so it isn't like they can't be decent VP hunters. I don't know, I guess I would be interested in seeing what everything shook out to be. 1: Divide and Conquer, or DNC, is listed with a number. That number represents how many times you must use a given leader in a tournament. This can lead to a "list lock", where you must play a list in a given situation, even if you know it is disadvantaged, to satisfy DNC requirements. The idea is to prevent people from simply playing the single best list in the game over and over again. 2: Unmaking is one of the most useful attacking spells in the game, and its ability to consistently remove pieces from your crew is one of the biggest tools Leveticus has. If he has to stone for a tome to hit a model three times in four, he can't stone for Unnatural Wasting or Desolate Warping, which is really what he would rather be spending his cache for.

Perdita also has a faster walk speed and access to free movement and disengagement. She's actually stronger in melee than at range, which is something Sonnia can't really brag about. She also filters cards for you on turns where you don't need either of her Trick Shooting (0)s. And she *also* has a big WP buff bubble, and ignores Manipulative-style effects. And then, on top of that, her totem has an enormous 6 inch push with no casting duel, and both of them have Obey effects in a sub faction where everything has Companion. You hit the nail on the head when you were talking about Hoffman: chain activations combined with Obey effects is really, really good. I will never really forgive the forum for removing the option of getting the suit on Perdita's Obey from both her Avatar and the Emissary because "its better to just shoot her gun instead"...

I had a big reply half typed, but this thread is off topic enough. The ap-multiplying masters, if I'm not mistaken, are Colette, Collodi, Hoffman, Lucius, and Ulix. If I had to rank them: 1) Colette- if you don't think she's the best, you haven't played a good enough opponent. 2) Ulix- enormously wide ranging, powerful effects, plus competent summoning, kept out of the number one slot by poor model selection. 3) Collodi- Controlling attacks and huge library of powerful AoE buffs, excellent hiring options. 4) Lucius- Excellent range on his AP multiplying effects, let down by how card intensive it can be, mediocre triggers, and by the fact he occasionally paralyzes what he targets. 5) Hoffman- Machine Puppet has the most restrictive targeting restrictions next to Ulix's Prod/Shot in the Rear, and denies triggers. Perdita is universally loved because she has an excellent statline, access to movement without using any of her valuable AP, ignores armor and incorporeal, and is almost always at least neutral on damage flips, on top of having a surprising amount of passive support abilities and bar none the best totem in the Guild arsenal. There really isn't anything she *can't* do.

I think it is important to note that a charge action does not create extra AP. The attacks that it generates are not new actions, they are made as a part of the Charge action. Not to mention the fact that My Bidding specifies no triggers specifically so that you don't declare triggers on attacks made as a result of using it. If they wanted you to be able to use triggers in certain circumstances, they would have specified it. Using spurious language to try and circumvent the intended design smacks of self interest and poor sportsmanship. There's no exploit here, move along.

I agree completely. McCabe just answers too many questions too easily with his upgrades, Promises is one of the most powerful buff auras out there, he has really easy access to Reactivate, and he turns Guild Hounds into some of the best scheme runners in the game. The more tech of his I see, the more cemented in one of the top slots he is, especially considering that the guild is famously starved for dedicated scheme completing power compared to the other factions. I think that McMourning is a close fourth, though. He plays a very strong game and gets VPs very easily, on top of just trivializing lists that rely on Hard to Wound or Armor. Hoffman and Lucius are both fine masters, but they just don't stack up against the really powerful extra AP masters...

I'm surprised that we've gone this far without mentioning any Guild models. On a killyness-for-cost basis, it is hard to beat a Guild Rifleman, and if Sonnia can hit several models with blasts, the damage-per-AP is really quite rediculous. I'd do something like: -Sonnia Criid -Captain Dashel -Papa Loco --Hermanos de Armas -2x Witchling Handlers -3x Guild Riflemen

Good on you for recognizing that SC2 was the height of the series (although 3 will always be remembered for Chronicles of the Sword). Pardon me while I get misty over all the heads Voldo took way back when... Let's see, you are a fan of the Warcraft 3 Undead (massed melee, regeneration, weak ranged elements), Chaos Space Marines (tough, notably more close combat oriented than standard Space Marines), and Lizardmen (Tough, almost no ranged elements). All three of those picks bring potent magical powers to the table, which matches up with Warlocks, Magus, and Wizards. The Terrans, as well, support defensive play, even though they are, conversely, the most ranged-focused faction in the game. In fighting games, however, you have one intensely zoning focused character (SC2 Nightmare), and three rushdown/mixup characters (I-No, Cammy, and Taki). So, let's see if we can't find a casting-centric crew with tough central elements supported by a forward skirmishing force. I think that I'm going to have my first repeat recommendation, and see if you'd be interested in what Kaeris brings to the table. The Arcanist constructs are some of the toughest models in the game, from the smallest to the largest. There's tons of armor everywhere, and Kaeris can bring a fair amount of healing to the table, along with increasing their damage output due to Powered By Flame. She's a perfectly fine offensive caster and, even if she doesn't have Chain Lightning, Accelerant fulfills the role of "burn everything" fairly well. She even has summons, if you miss the feeling of the Undead and Warlock experience. Fire Gamin can be used in much the same way as Spider Mines, and flight isn't too far off from the maneuverability of a vulture, just saying. Well, your other tabletop picks are all of the highly durable but low mobility type. Your WC3 pick was influenced by the two high durability, low mobility elements of the Orcish Horde. Your WoW picks are 2/3 healing classes and your Warframe picks have a definite darkness and poison theme going. Your Yu Gi Oh card picks are both card types that get stronger over time or in greater numbers, and you have a noted love of samurai. I guess we're going two for two here, that all sounds like the kind of stuff that Nicodem brings to the table. On a long enough time line, as long as Nicodem is alive, he wins every game. The only balancing factor is that the game is only five (ish) turns long. He's also one of the only masters in the game that can frequently end the game with more beef on the table then he started with. He has a noted love of (samurai) punk zombies and there's nothing stopping him from summoning in the poison-themed Resser minions when the situation calls for it.

Yeah, there aren't very many situations where I've gotten Deadly Dance to work. I have used it when I was close to a corner as a sort of pseudo butterfly jump, but mostly, I find the AP better spent making another Bisento attack. I think the intention might have been to make the *threat* of Misaki pushing out of combat such that people wouldn't even try. I think it might be another case of something the first beta testers overvalued on her card. It's sort of the same story with her Disguise upgrade; no one really wants to take it because Stalking Bisento is so critical to her offensive output. I do sort of want to try out hyper-slippery Misaki with Missingno and the Disguise upgrade. Can't charge her, can't push to her, can't walk to her. I think it'd give the Neverborn, especially, fits.

I am in the process of putting together my new Body of Evidence plastic set, and I'm kind of stumped on what to do with McMourning. I like the head-on-a-plate for Resser McMourning, but I was thinking about making him a little more... guild like. I heard tell of someone who sculpted a new hand so that he was presenting a Guild badge, and I love that idea. Unfortunately, I don't have nearly good enough modelling skills to not make it look like pants. Has anyone seen a mini for a police officer or FBI agent presenting a badge that I could do some surgery on?

I think this speaks more to why I boggle every time someone complains about Misaki just dying after she goes in to attack something. How much of the enemy crew are you exposing her to? 6/7/12 is an *awesome* stat line. People complain about Perdita's 7/7/10, which I personally think is pretty comparable (let's just ignore Francisco for the moment). I think we can all agree, though, the for survivability, VS wins. Armor 1 and Freikorps Suit isn't nothing. He might not have anything close to Bisento, but he does have a damn good gun without being useless in melee. I think that we have pretty much hit on why people are so constantly disappointed in VS. He still really feels like a mark 1 henchmen. You look at how much Collodi, Lucius, Kaeris, and (especially!) Molly changed between the editions, VS feels like he was sort of left in the dust. On the plus side: +1 def +2 wd +1/0/2 on knife He gets the Steam Trunk On the minus: No more Magic Resistant No more Ruthless (!!!) No more on damage vs. undead Same amount of AP (he had nimble) Augmented Jump cuddled (used to be a (0) that gave flight and immunity to disengage) Aura is +1 wp instead of +4 (!!!) No more construct slowing No more Crit strike on gun (!!!) While we can agree that The Shirt Comes Off is a great upgrade, I feel like the other Freikorps specific upgrades are kind of pants. Outcast general upgrades are really good, so I don't mind that much, but I think they kind of lowballed his power because he was such a dominant force in the first edition... One last thing on the Freikorpsman that no one has mentioned yet: Hannah really appreciates access to Reference the Field Guide for her Horror trigger and her Bury spell. I would pay the extra Soulstones for that ability on its own.

(Sorry everyone, I don't have much time right now, so I'm just going to crank out an easy one. You guys have really diverse tastes ) Nicodem! Of the stuff you mentioned, you have two summoners, one unstoppable terminator horde, and the most magically-attuned race in Warhammer. All of them have supportive magic effects (except Magus, who just vaporizes you with Dark Matter). Nicodem summons and re-summons whatever you need, then buffs them to make sure the can do their job better than anything the enemy brings. Meanwhile, he hoses the enemy down in Decay blasts and slows. Really, all you had to do was mention Necrons and Warlocks, because "Necron Warlock" is exactly what I would describe Nicodem to someone who has never seen him played before. I tried doing some research on the EQ ranger, but I was completely unprepared for the reams and reams of information on that game littered over the internet, so I kind of defaulted to the Ranger archetype from pretty much all the other games, sorry. If it was just the first book masters, I would agree with you on Gremlin humor kind of falling flat, but the second book has done a lot to round out the flavor of models they can take. Merris is what did it for me; the idea of a Gremlin with a functional jetpack made of junk and cooking oil never fails to make me smile when I think about it.

...That makes three pretty serious rules misreads in one week. I think I need to go back and study the rulebook again.

Well, you list an adventure game first off, which means that you enjoy stuff that makes you use your brain, and if you liked Grim Fandango, you like smiling at hijinks. Once again, I'm going to have to go with Gremlins here. I suppose Neverborn and Ressers have more brain bending going on, but there's nothing quite so amusing as seeing what happens when you put Gremlins on the table. Your most played character is a ranged specialist in Everquest, and Tomb Raider is on your list of picks, so well endowed, duel wielding adventure ladies must, on some level, be your cup of tea. Get yourself Ophelia and shoot some fools off the table. Good choice on Street Fighter Characters. There is nothing so satisfying as getting a hard knockdown and dropping a slow Sonic Boom on top of someone who was so looking forward to Shoryuken-ing you. That being said, all of your most memorable moments involve crushing the enemy through hilariously over sized death machines. In Syndicate, it's gauss guns. In Bloodbowl, it's a dude who is frequently mistaken for an ogre. Where are we going to find the biggest, meanest pile of guns in the game? Sonnia Criid. Not just because the lady herself has a well deserved reputation for turning the enemy's crew into a smoldering pile of slag, but Sam and the Witchlings are top-notch damage dealing models and Witchling Handlers are one of the very few things the Guild has to make their shooting game even stronger, thanks to her aura. I have nothing against Soulcal, but I will fight you over 2D vs. 3D. Well, Siegfried, Zas, and Ivy are nothing if not rangy. They win by attacking the enemy at angles and ranges where they can't strike back. Your favorite Bioware characters are, more or less, the intellectual and the mystical, dealing with their enemies from range (except Jaheira, who kind of just turns into a bear and mauls people.). My recommendation is Collette for you. She has the magic, she has the stealth and the puzzle solving, and she has a kit that lets you scoop up victory points from angles that can't be predicted and, more importantly, can't be stopped.

Well, the Romans and the Persians are united by a strong, fast early economy coupled with powerful rushing units giving them the ability to come out strong and swinging right out of the gate. The Persians in particular have a strong bias for cavalry and are notable for not having access to Heresy, forcing them to rush opposing Priests hard, or lose their expensive, powerful units. The GDI, as well, has less of a focus on battlefield manipulation and more on the precise application of force, winning straight up fights as long as they get to fight on even terms with their opponents. Orks and Eldar are both races that rush hard, as well, and they are notable for needing to play a precise footsie game with the enemy (Eldar are delicate and fleet, Orks just bash stuff in melee) to win against more sedentary, shooty armies. this positioning focus is shared by the Allies in Red Alert, who just don't have the piles of armor that the Russians bring to the table. My suggestion? The Swamp Friends. While Zoraida is the archetypal swamp fiend master, as she can hire regardless of faction, they work perfectly well with a variety of masters in both factions (My favorite is actually Ulix and Mactavish with Penelope deploying beside Boars). The big reason I suggest them is for Hexed Among You; deploying three minions (plus however many Wild Boars you want) From The Shadows is an *extreme* positioning advantage, and allows you immediately put the enemy on their back foot while the rest of your crew does its thing.

I think that things are going to change up once wave 3 hits. Lady Justice's Conflux is a heck of a lot more compelling than McMourning's, and the Mounted Guild Guard is going to work wonders for the Guild's undervalued melee threats.

Outcasts in general are pretty flexible, but there are some standouts. Hamelin and Nix don't gain conditions, and the rats can self-sacrifice if they get conditions on them, so he's a really good choice for Distract and Cursed Object. He also shines in Turf War. Leveticus is pretty much impossible to assassinate, and is great at killing masters, so if Assassinate is in the pool, he's a good choice. Tara and Jack Daw can both move their crew across the table quite fast, so they are good picks if corner deployment comes up.

Fortunately, we're getting a new one with an adorable bowler hat in plastics. I, for one, can't wait.

Deployment: Standard Strat: Turf War Schemes: Assassinate, Distract, Protect Territory, Vandetta Opponent: Resurrectionists Ban: Nicodem. Molly is probably the better pick for Turf War, but I will be bringing Nix, so the Black Blood flood is less of a concern. Take: Turf war with a model interacting scheme? Hamelin, all the way.

Alright, I love you guys, but it is going to take me a little time to get through the backlog. Being popular sure is a burden The GDI are Gremlins, period full stop. They move fast, have middling to poor defensive stats, and all of their most powerful weapons are self destructive. They win fights by getting places that the enemy doesn't want them to be and by making sure they outnumber the opponent before they commit to a fight. I spent my shift at work wondering about this, and my official answer is: Wong. The Toxin General gives up the big blasting power of the Demolition General and the sneakiness of the Stealth General for anthrax everywhere. Toxin damage just sweeps away infantry and light vehicles, meaning you can build more anti-tank units to make up for the generally lower effectiveness your units have against them. Wong is a card carrying member of the super blaster club. You point him at a cluster of enemies, and anything without more than six wounds is probably going to be gone by the end of his activation. There are some targets that Lightning jump just isn't crazy effective against, and Wong relies on the rest of his list to clean up what he can't. Fortunately, he has Glowy, which helps the other heavy lifters in his crew get the job done. There isn't a great analogue to Toxin Tunnels, but What Goes Up has the same feeling of winning the game with the added benefit of killing unsuspecting fools. Semi-serious answer? Nicodem. You just have to line up Nico, corpse counters, and high crows to win the game instead of block shapes. Brewmaster! I know that you said you don't want a 10T answer, but hopefully, Brewie is gremlin enough for you. The archetypal elf deck is made up of a combination of masses of 1/1 elves and synergistic cards that take advantage of them. Sounds like Gremlins to me. You specifically choose the Lannisters for their control abilities, you select the CC-focused support roles, and even your non-duo picks are champions with access to very meaningful stuns. Not only does Brewmaster have access to his frankly ridiculous Drinking Party aura, but Pick Yer Poison, Hangover, and Blaaaargh are all really good control options.