Sackville

Guild is actually in a pretty unique position of being the only faction (via Lucius) that can hire both Death Marshals and a Doppelganger. If you can put something in a box, both Aionus and the Dopp can start attacking it with Bony Fingers. Depending on the turn and whether the Doppelganger is fast, that's between four and six attacks with minimum damage 2 against whatever's in the box, and all you needed to risk was a Death Marshal.

Mei + Ironsides should be okay. Rail Workers are great minions once they're engaged but they're kinda slow, which is something the Captain can help with. Either crew would benefit from running those models together. Unfortunately, though, only Mei can hire Kang (at least, in the Arcanists) and Ironsides is the only master that can take the Warding Runes so other masters can't use Oxfordian Mages as well as she can (although you can take the Mages to support a henchman) Mei Feng is a better match with Ramos or Kaeris, though, since they play to her construct and burning focuses. Mei, Ironsides, Ramos, and Kaeris are all M&SU affiliated, though, so you should be able to pretty much freely mix and match their models and still end up with a thematic crew.

With Sparks's help Lazarus can do way more than just get drunk. Depending on the crew Lazarus can use Lure, Gremlin "Lure", or the Performer's Siren Call and Seduction actions. That robot knows how to have a good time.

I saw the Mei Feng flowchart, saw her model, and basically snap bought her when my brother and I decided to try the game. I got Ramos next, and then counted all my robots and decided to move into Levi.

The Toolkit doesn't get Joss an extra inch upfield, it actually slows him down by 4". That's the Toolkit's downside, you need to spend an AP somewhere to kill it and even if you charge it with Joss that's 2 AP for 6" of movement that could've been spent double walking for up to 10" instead. On the other hand, it's only 3ss and killing it with Joss nets you an additional scrap to use in the second turn. With the Electric Creation Ramos can kill it entirely with his own magnetism action (after it activates). This doesn't slow anything down and even gives Ramos a free push, but you only get one scrap counter so you need to start magnetizing or detonating your own spiders next turn if you didn't lose a construct or find something to kill with Joss (of course, you can always march a spider up first and then charge it with Joss if he hasn't managed to get engaged yet.) Which one you use basically depends on how fast you think things are going to play out. If 4" on Joss and 6" on Ramos isn't going to be super important then save yourself a stone and bring the Toolkit. On the other hand, if you want all the extra movement you can get and you think scrap will start naturally occurring by turn two then bring the Creation.

I'm buying them to, uh... proxy Winged Plagues. Yep. Totally not starting Ressers, they're just Winged Plagues. I'll keep them on the shelf next to all the horror models Karina needs, the Hanged and Nurse for Daw, and the Belles and Necropunks I sometimes use with Levi. But I'm definitely not going to start Ressers.

Sidir gets a free heal every turn from Ace in the Hole, which is pretty neat. That's also the best interaction between Lynch and the Archers, since a pair of Thunder Archers can share the same ace for rapid shot. Yu is also a good candidate for Blot the Sky. If you want to take rapid shots instead of using Hail of Hachinosou then the Archers are going to be a bit closer to danger, and Yu can help disengage them with Airburst.

Speaking of Torakage, they seem like they'd also be a good candidate for the Sabre. It raises their Ml and their weak and moderate damage, and they get to swing it with positive flips from Works Best Alone.

The Peacekeeper is a good model in faction but with all the other options Levi has I'm not sure when you'd want it over the Mech. Rider, A&D, or Lazarus. It's got an amazing Ml attack but it just seems kind of slow without a third AP or any movement tricks. I've never played with it, though, and maybe I'm underrating the Chain Harpoon.

Yeah the quote system here really isn't the best, I can't even figure out how to change the header on a manually added quote block. Inspired does (implicitly) say the model has to be acting, because the bonus is to actions. The difference between actions, duels, and flips maybe isn't the most immediately intuitive thing but it's very consistent and sensible once you've got the hang of it. Also, there's only like one model that I can think of in the entire Malifaux line with a shield. (It took me way to long to successfully wrestle these into two separate quote blocks so I'm gonna call it here. Have fun, dude.)

A defending model can add fate modifiers, just not fate modifier that apply to actions. Defensive gives a modifier to Df duels, and a defending model is making a flip as part of a duel, so the modifier is relevant even though the defensive model isn't acting. A modifier to Df actions would be much less useful. (This is fun but I'm going to have to stop if I can't figure out how to collapse quote trees on this forum. They're getting a little out of hand.)

Why do you need to be the acting model to get a +flip? You need to be the acting model to get a +flip from Inspired because the +flip is to actions. Inspires says "This model gets to Ml and Sh actions", not "This model gets during Ml and Sh actions" or "This model gets to Ml and Sh duels". What it comes down to is that you add modifiers to actions when you are acting, and a defending model is not acting. If you want to consider that as a peculiarity of either "action" or "to" in Malifaux Rules English you're certainly welcome to, but it's still how the rules work and is about as straightforward as it can reasonably be.

Page 32, Opposed Duels, paragraph 2. "In an opposed duel there is an Attacking model (the model that is acting) and a Defending model (the model that is targeted by the Attack Action). The rules clearly state that only the attacker is acting, so only the attacker gains any benefit from a positive flip to actions. EDIT: Even though a Ml or Sh action causes both the attacking and defending models to flip, the bonus from Inspiried will only ever be relevant for an attacking model since the defending model cannot claim a +flip to actions when it's not acting.

Maybe if you were summoning Drowned? You'd basically give an arbitrary model a "(0) Place a scheme marker within 60mm" action. Hiring the Scion plus a Void Wretch and spending Karina's summoning action all for that does seem a bit extreme though.

My thoughts are that I'd be hesitant about taking so many melee beaters with Distract and Cursed Object in the pool, every low value model you engage with Izamu or the Punks can opt to interact and you're not guaranteed to kill them fast enough to clear or avoid the condition. For similar reasons, I wouldn't be too worried about summoning elite models in at full health. Two Necropunks with their HtK aren't nearly as scary as a Punk Zombie but could easily be worth more VP. Focusing on cheaper models will also help with activation advantage, which is going to be important for scoring Cursed Object. That would also make me think about taking Maniacal Laugh on Nico. The interaction between his I Can Use That! on Undertaker and summoning off of Mindless Zombies is already very strong, and if you have the opportunity for it durdling some zombies in the backfield is pretty safe. Your opponent can't really score off them in any way and they might even interfere with a model running Breakthrough (although don't count on it). I'd drop a Punk Zombie or two and bring at least one Belle. It's a durable Turf War model, can move Izamu around, and it can break up or cause engagements which looks like it will be important in this scheme pool. Another option might be a Nurse, especially since it's something you can't summon in. They can potentially keep a weak enemy paralyzed while you siphon points off of them and they also plays pretty nicely with Izamu, although they're a little fragile for Turf War. The Canine Remains is also a good idea, and can take some corpse counter generation pressure off of Mortimer. Also Mortimer's Chatty aura looks like it could do a lot of work in this game, with so many interaction based schemes and lots of models likely to bunch up in the middle. Obviously you'll want to keep him alive anyway, but just keep in mind that sometimes he might actually need his spleen for one more turn (which is another selling point for the Nurse. Mortimer's Chatty still works even if he's paralyzed). So -2 Punk Zombies, -1 Shovel, +1 Belle, +1 Nurse, +1 Canine Remains, +1 Maniacal Laugh, and +1 stone (still a little light on stones for a summoner). Basically, I'm suggesting the Hamelin approach and just overwhelming the other guy with chaff instead of going for the throat. You might need to switch gears if the opponent brings someone like Criid or Rasputina, but in most cases a big pile up in the center where you've got Mortimer hiding behind a bunch of zombie fodder is going to be way in your favor.