Ryin

This is something that was said between m1e and m2e. People said it would be way too simple. I do not miss m1e one bit, personally. Players will find the subtle complexities in the game and as the new edition expands, it will blossom in completely, same as m2e

Definitely interested in it. I’m someone that felt a new edition had become necessary. Just a few points. +2 Def is better than Especially considering that Focus had become ubiquitous to the point that we’re almost irrelevant as well as the addition of new mechanics and themes. Sure, you can cheat if you HAVE to hit a model, but you might be using a 12 or 13 if your model is injured. This edition also seems to have much more focus on hand control over activation control, and so you might not HAVE that card even if you need it. Speaking of, they already teased that some crews will chew up pass tokens for abilities or be able to manipulate them in other ways, so it’s definitely still a factor.

Headless Horseman/woman Philip and the Nanny.

Ive used Bete in a few games with her. Sometimes she dies, sometimes she doesn't. It's about knowing when to pop her out. Turn one I didn't mind holding the ten. Sometimes I don't mind if she dies. A lot of times I'll pop her out just to have her go snatch up an objective, where even if she dies, I'm getting points. She's a distraction if I hold the 10 or a scalpel if I don't. When an Archie or hanged is bearing down, sometimes Bete is just not a priority target, even if she's right in their face. I have yet to use the Emissary with her though. I'm not usually sure who to take out, really.

Just won another game with Reva. I think I have 10-12 games with her under my belt now. I've won all but two which were ties against Asami. The last game I played was against a Zoraida with a McTavish, couple of sillurids, Iggy and a dop. won 9-5 but he was not really prepared for Reva, which I have found is what happens a lot. If you aren't ready for her, she can throw you so off your game that she just snowballs. His two silurids were dead on turn one because he activated them too early. He spent most of the game hiding his crew in the forest, hemming my stuff and slowly burning it down, and it worked pretty well against those models, but Reva didn't care about McTavish's aura and was still wrecking his stuff in the backfield, just slowly moving up with her (0) action. At the end of the game I only had Reva and Bete Noir left on the table, but he only had Zoraida left. (I was actually surprised Bete lived, but I also brought Archie a hanged and Yin) Archie, by the way, I love. I don't think he's ever survived a game Ihave brought him with, but for Reva he just does a lot of work. Aside from being able to throw corpse counters, he's such a huge damage threat, that people HAVE to divert attention to him, which means they are spending less time trying to get at Reva or my hanged or Vincent if I take him or whoever. He did also take Eliminate the Leadership, and got Reva down to one wound, but she ended the match at 5 or 6 wounds up thanks to her triggers and front of card ability. I don't think she's unbeatable, but you definitely have to KNOW how to beat her and I think that for people who have not played against her and sit down across from her, it's going to seem like there's nothing that you can do against her. McTavish was eating a corpse marker every turn and I still had enough corpses to do Look on My Works with 1-2 corpse markers on a couple of turns and still have plenty to attack anything I needed. My opponent never got a model on my half of the table, which is something I find to happen quite a bit with Reva as I have played her.

@Ludvig yeah. I think there's a big difference between trying something out or finding a niche list for a model and it having serious consideration. For me, that's really what it comes down to. Is this model being seriously considered by players during list building. Nothing is going to be taken ALL the time, but if people are seriously considering it, they are buying it and putting it in their bag. If THEY aren't finding a use for it, they still may talk about it or recommend it to someone who will.

@Ludvig that's arguably over half the generic totems and more than a few master specific ones. I think an issue was, even by book 2, there really weren't faction metas. The game was still growing. Wyrd was still sort of figuring things out and still transferring rules from 1.5 most of the generic totems really do not have metaplay taken into account. (The same could be said about some of the effigies too, I think)

I guess to bring it back around to the topic at hand, what generic totems aren't just niche or corner case use totems? I feel like the Primordial Magic, old cranky and maybe Malifaux Child to a certain extent do not fall into that category, but, as mentioned, I have never even seen anyone take the essence of power, governor's proxy or grave spirit. I wouldn't even take the grave spirit with anyone but maybe Tara (I am still not a big fan of Karina even WITH her summon upgrade, tbh) or MAYBE Molly if you weren't summoning the Necrotic Machine. I think Kamaitachi si probably only useful in SOME Lucas builds, but I don't play Ten Thunders, so i can't really say. Maybe Asami? I have heard some people don't really care for Amanojaku. Another question is, what is the ratio that makes the most sense for balancing a totems use? As in Master's Specific Totem/No Totem/Generic totem Where do you want that at? 60%/10%/30%? I don't know where that number is (and it could/should probably be different for every master, too, maybe. also, @Ludvig , I actually to think that the scales of justice becomes better in other crews outside of Justice. I would maybe consider taking it in a Nellie crew over the printing press, since her hand pretty much evaporates, you're probably getting both cards each turn. (well, if the rest of the scales card wasn't utterly useless. It's so fun to pinball things around the printing press)

Still too much. ;P Shows you how much I use it. I don't think I have since 1.5. I'd still take the 2 extra points for fast. Even if LJ only gets it once a turn, there's rarely ever a turn where it is not giving fast to SOMEONE. Student only ever needs to move on its own maybe one turn or, unless the whole game's just gone to pot, but I don't know if the scales are saving me THEN, either.

I don't think it is worth four points and definitely not better than fast, even at one less cost. everything else on his card might as well not even be there. Maybe I'll give it another shot, but, I dunno. I've taken the proxy in preerrata Lucius lists and he was surprisingly able to keep up and get off his fair share of healing. I have also taken him in perdita obey lists where he most certainly gets his points worth. I mean, those aren't exactly auto include situations, and I'm not even really saying the proxy is GOOD, but, I just do't think he's useless.

I think that the scales of justice is the most garbage totem in the game, personally. There are situations I can at least THINK I would want to take Governor's proxy. There is no universe where I wouldn't take Student of Conflict over Scales in a Justice list. I also find Pandora's totem to be pretty awful, too. The primordial magic existing is certainly not helping with that opinion. I just feel like I'd get more use out of a sorrow and I don't even take THEM either. Cranky definitely has his uses in certain Ulix crews, butPenelope is pretty good too. The problem isn't necessarily the totems, though. Even if some of them probably do need buffed/Cuddled. When building for a meta, there's no reason to fix something that isn't broken and the totems that get used a lot are so synergistic, that there's no reason NOT to take them. When you're looking to min/max, there's no room for a lot of the quirkiness that totems often bring in. Sonnia, for example. I don't think that purifying flame is necessarily BAD as a totem or for her, but, malifaux child just does a lot more work for her than the flame does (because it's basically a one time use bomb). People tend to only think outside of the box when trying to break the meta and a lot of times one disastrous attempt can kill that even if it wasn't necessarily the model in question's fault. Having a model that could be used during a certain strategy against a certain faction/master is great, but not if those situations never come up and I think that is where some of the unused totems are at. (if they aren't just outright bad)

Took him in one of my Adepticon matches with Reva. Held one point for the scheme where you need models on each side of the table at the centerline (the name escapes me) Hung out there for two turns and then rode off to kill things. Seemed fine with me. I certainly wouldn't be getting the mobility out of an Izamu, that's for sure and a RN isn't as survivable. For ressers, the mobility is what makes them good. If you ONLY need schemes ran, there's better options, but if you need something mobile that can survive AND kick some ass, they do a little bit of everything. Which, in a game where, increasingly, specialization is king, they tend to get overlooked. All the riders do, kinda. Cept ol gear hips.

For those that think it's terribly too easy, try playing it as Guild. It's not undoable, but I certainly wouldn't call it "easy" The only time I really outactivate anyone is with Nellie and usually only on the first turn and while her and her crew are certainly decent at it, I still wouldn't call it a cinch. She's much better at denying Claim Jump than scoring with it. Or, maybe it's just me. I always find CJ to be more miss than hit whenever I try and take it unless I'm playing someone like Reva, but then, I have Necropunks and she's pretty well good with any scheme/strat. But I play Guild, Reva/(resser)Tara and Pandora more than anything else.

Breachside Broadcast 1-7 (I think) Tells the story of Kythera. The gist of it is December thinks he can transcend there and Seamus wanted to summon the Grave Spirit, because crazypants. Nythera was the 2015 worldwide event. It was sort of a race to find this new source of power, which turned out to be Titania, who was kind of pissed (whoops) that fluff is in the Nythera TTB book

You could play for schemes and try to win 7-4 or 6-4 or bring some killy crew and try and just murder the lot of them and try and score whatever you can when the dust settles. the guild is just lacking in durable low/medium cost models that are also either self sufficient or mobile. It's really not what we do. though, if you even THINK you might get against a summoning crew, just bring Taelor. Even if you're completely wrong, she's still a really solid 10pt model, especially in a Nellie crew. Her Ml rng alone should be able to tie up a bunch of models and she's fairly durable.

I, too, am a failure pile when it comes to interference. U.U I feel like when I take a high model count, my models get wiped off the table. When I go elite, there are also some issues that are fairly self explanatory. And finding that correct balance, especially in the guild, is a rather difficult task >.< I do feel like Nellie probably gives us our best shot in this strategy, though.

Welcome! ^ ^

If you want to run something a little less demo-y then I would start with a 35 point list. with either the turf war or squatter's rights strategies. (turf war is keep as many models in the center alive as long as possible and gets models engaged fast, while teaching them about strategies. Squatter's rights is about taking interact actions and claiming locations It's a little more spread out and a little less killy but teaches more about strategies. You could even, for purposes of keeping things simple, just do 3 squat markers instead of the usual 5.) Then, I would pick one more interact-y scheme if you do turf war and one more kill-y scheme if you do squatter's rights. For example, you could do assassinate if you have squatter's rights and do entourage or protect territory (I'm not sure if that's in the m2e corebook, but it's in 1st edition) if you do turf war) Then, you can ease into a 50 SS game with random strats and a scheme pool after that. But I would definitely start with the starter set first for someone who literally knows nothing about the game. Do everything in there, then jump to a 35 point game so they get the hang of masters and model selection with a limited scheme pool and a strategy, then do that until you're comfortable and then jump into a full 50 ss game!

^ 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.

^ 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.

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 .

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.

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)

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

The guild is a hammer and avalanches as the game goes on. It relies on an initial push with little or no set up and superior firepower to weaken the opposing crew early on and then snowball more and more. This is subverted to SOME extent with Nellie and Lucius, but it's a very kill or be killed faction. Certainly not as swingy as gremlins, but guild models tend to do a job and do it well. The synergy for the guild comes in faction form rather than necessarily in certain combos for certain masters. There's utility in the guild and a lot of interchangeable pieces from master to master. Outside of a few masters, you can generally get a few pillar models that will go well in any crew and then build to taste. The guild is a well oiled machine and plays just like one. I(literally in Choffman's case) If the linchpins in a Guild crew get taken out, it can be a bad day for a guild player. Though, because of utility, most masters can be fairly self sufficient if things go sour. At least, that's my take as someone who has been playing guild since 1.5