RhiaCat

I've been out of the game for a hot minute - when did Lady J go from one of our most subpar masters to one of our best? Did the Jury and Swordfighter help her out that much?

If this is the Winter Murderland in the DMV Area... it's not fixed master, my friend.

Like I said, totem summoning upgrade is taken more for the chain activation. While I agree that normally the summoning cost is high, Sonnia is also drawing at least 1 card whenever she damages a model in melee thanks to her built-in Ram, which does a lot to lessen the pain of that cost. Sonnia can put a lot of burning out, but only on her ranged attack. In melee Sonnia, you'll need the burning the handler lets you give out to get the summons (also not sure on the exact timing since I don't have my cards on me, but I believe the Handler lets you get a stalker if you oneshot a model since it gives burning as part of the effect of the attack, and not a trigger)

This is an example list I would likely look at running for Melee Sonnia. 50 SS Guild Crew Sonnia Criid + 7 Pool - No More Masks (1) - Cherufes Parting Gift (1) - Reincarnation (1) Francisco Ortega (8) - Wade In (1) - Hermanos de Armas (1) Master Queeg (7) - Promises (1) - Expert Sleuth (1) Witchling Handler (8) - Disrupt Magic (2) Witchling Stalker (5) Witchling Stalker (5) Brutal Effigy (4) (exported from CrewFaux) Francisco is there for his melee prowess, Queeg is there to get Promises and movement shenanigans. I think the beat way to go in melee is the summoning route, and use the Witchling Handler's (0) to get the burning on them. Sonnia has Parting Gift to let her, after winning initative, activate the Handler, throw up burning Aura, then chain activate to Sonnia. Summoning the Purifying Flame is gravy. Stalkers fill out your crew, and Brutal Effigy is there because why wouldn't you take one of the best Guild Minions?

I'm really enjoying this discussion and I'll be the first to admit thay parts of my chart are far from correct - the only ones I really think I'm super confident with are Lady J and McMourning. With Nellie vs. McCabe, I agree that both masters are pretty survivable. My main distinctions is how the two enable models to trade up Station Wise. Most minions, even with fast, are going to have a tough time killing enemy enforcers or henchmen. McCabe has the upper hand crew-wise, imo, because his AP handout is a bit more efficient on minions (1 ap for 2 with black flash) and handing out the sword makes it very easy for models to cut through most defensive tricks and, again, trade up in station. Regarding Hoffman vs. Lucius, I'm normally looking at a Doppelganger with Retribution's Eye copying Nekima's attack on a model that Lelitu has lured in. Every time I've brought a Hoffman crew vs. Neverborn, I just get sliced to bits (I haven't gotten to play the matchup with his new Upgrade, however, which changes things A LOT.) Too often, I find that just having shit tons of wounds is the way to go vs. Neverborn since they don't have a model like The Hanged, and they can get through most defenses. Not to mention, the Terracotta Warrior's ability to negate an entire Nekima hit. Regarding Headhunter, McMourning and Lady J are my Go-tos because both can spend 2 ap to kill a model and pick up a head in the same activation - Lady J with her new placement effect, and McMourning with inject + On The Order. McCabe is a fantastic pic (and I don't think I adequately took his new upgrade into account - I believe it hands out Don't Mind Me, IIRC? - which makes his headhunter game a LOT better. Hoffman probably gets upgraded here too, since he can use Machine Puppet to grab the head. (I really need to play Hoffman more! His new upgrades did a LOT for him and I love the idea of a fast min 5 Francisco with cyborg <3) I'm really loving this discussion - what master into what scheme pool is a topic that I feel isn't discussed nearly enough, and it's always good to hear other people's thoughts, especially on Masters I rarely play.

I don't have much experience with Nellie, but it has always seemed to me that she's a support master that works best with models that are good already since she has no limitation to handing out fast, and she seems like she would die relatively quickly against dedicated killing models with high min damage that you'll often see in Collect. You're correct that we have some pretty killy enforcers and minions for her to buff, though. I think that Lucius edges out Hoffman just barely, mostly because Lucius can make very good use of the Thralls, which are VERY survivable minions, has access to Terracotta Warriors to soak damage, can tarpit reasonably well with Red Tape on himself and the Scribe, and is less bubbly than Hoffman. That said, I don't play Hoffman too often, so I think my opinions on his schemes could be very wrong. (I also play against Neverborn and Outcasts most often, so I'm used to all of my models getting one-activationed, making the heal not super great.) I disagree on McCabe being a bad master in Collect, because he can stay in the back lines and be quite slippery, and he can buff minions a LOT and make them trade up in bounty points very easily. My opinion is far from universal, however.

I threw together a quick chart to detail my general experiences. This is far from a comprehensive list, and new options have come out for a lot of masters in the last few books. This is as of Wave 4 models with Wave 5 upgrades. I haven't personally tested any of the Wave 5 models myself. (Fair warning, I really like Lady J and Guild McMourning, and I rarely play Perdita, Hoffman, or McCabe. That will likely color my experiences.) I've also gone ahead and attached the excel file I used to throw this together if anyone else wants to throw in their two cents. If you'd like some more in-depth commentary on a specific strat / master pairing or would like me to explain a choice more in-depth, please let me know, I really love Theoryfaux. MalifauxGuildMasters.xlsx

I've always found Queeg to be a huge asset in a Lady J crew, less for his movement abilities and more because Promises is an amazing upgrade. The fact that he can get Lady J 6 inches of movement is just gravy, imo. While I like the idea of the emissary, the investment to get a Lady J hugely up the field early turns isn't worth the cost in my experience. The Emissary is good, but I don't know if he's 10 stones good. Your mileage may vary. I also think that after Francisco and Queeg, I find it REALLY difficult to shove another high cost model into a Lady J crew, and the Emissary tends to be my first cut.

I'd love a change to make Guild totems overall more playable options. Printing Press, Enslaved Nephilim, and Luna have been playable since they first came out. Errata and new upgrades have gone a long way towards making Purifying Flame and the Scribe playable. Mechanical Attendant mostly sees play as just a cheap activation that Hoffman can sap AP from, and Zombie Chihuahua in Guild is basically an easy way to give McMourning Poison +2 for if he has That's the Stuff. Governor's Proxy and Scales of Justice are laughable options. I'd love to see Proxy not have a flip for the heal, or for Scales to not have an opposed flip for it's ability to give a + or - to the next flip.

What is the deal with these models? I can't figure out a niche where they fit in to Resser crews, and while they're solid models for going around killing scheme runners, they seem far too expensive for what they're going to be doing most games. Unlike Arcanists, there's very little cute burning synergy in Ressers. What are you all planning on doing with Lampads, and what do you think their role in Ressers is, moving forward?

As quite an avid Ironsides player - what was the matchup? What Master did you play against her, and vague lists? Her new toys make her quite a pain to deal with - were you outactivating her? Focus firing her models when you could? You mention her + flips negating cover - did she damage her models herself? She's really a solid master with her new upgrades, but there is a lot of ways to try and take out her key pieces. I'd be more than happy to help out against her for future matchups, but I'll need some more information.

The Armor ignoring is the big thing for me. With almost every faction getting more and more ways to ignore Armor, he's not all that tanky in my experience.

I've never had much luck with him personally - I most commonly play against neverborn and he can die to a stiff breeze against that faction. He's always seemed pretty good, but I've never had much luck myself. Plus it's hard to justify playing him when Nellie is so much better at Crew Support.

For a long time, I was NOT a fan of Vendetta, and found myself taking Badge of Office for that Red Joker protection nearly every game. The biggest reason I didn't like Vendetta was because it was hard to have a situation where I preferred to take the second attack trigger since it's less consistent than just taking the Crit Strike because of the second attack flip. Lady J not having a great way to engage a model outside of charging meant that you were rarely getting the + flips to damage. I ended up liking the Red Joker protection more than a few possibly lucky attacks. If I needed to kill something, I'd just stone for a Ram and use a high ram in hand for min damage 6. It's just more consistent. With Swordfighter, though, I really have liked Vendetta. It still lets me get my 3 attacks a turn, and with her naming a model ability plus the greatsword, you're often looking at single or double positives on damage. That's ridiculous, and greatly reduces the opportunity cost of not taking the Crit Strike trigger. I'm not sure how I feel about Ashwood. I prefer to just kill a model rather than lock it down. I think it's more of a situational upgrade, with Lady J getting it against Outcasts and maybe Ressers? I'll have to play with it more, but as of now, I'm not in love with it. I just like killing things with Lady J so much more.

On the topic of Ressers, It's worth noting that with their access to consistent lures (which guild now have access to as well with everyone's favorite spaniards) they can pull off an anti-alpha strike - A technique my friend has so lovingly dubbed the Flytrap. Take a cornerpiece model of theirs, drag it in with lures and such, then jump on it with your killy models - flurrying Peacekeeper, anyone? While it might get similar complaints of unfairness or uninteractivity, killing one or two models a turn feels a lot less bad than losing 4 or 5. Plus, you'll be able to give some guild masters that don't get the spotlight often a chance to shine - McCabe or Lady J could certainly use more table time. Melee guild doesn't get enough love (outside of Francisco and Phiona, of course.)

Sounds like your opponents need to get good. In all seriousness, though, I'd look at those Masters, and maybe try to switch things up by trying out some new builds for existing ones. Maybe a Sonnia list that is more brawly with No More Masks and Reincarnation to encourage you to get closer to the action? Nellie without Delegation? (A Sin, I know.) The other thing I might try is to see what you can do environmentally to disincentivise Alpha Strikes - maybe the only very clear charge lanes are on the sides of the board and you have to deploy first? Maybe you've got a lot of forests on the board that break up Line of Sight and make Melee models move slower. Maybe play against more Neverborn players who can Alpha Strike harder than you can. (Fuck you, Nekima.) If you're winning too much or your games are too binary, I'd try to inspect how much of it is "I'm better at the game" vs "I'm playing better models / crew" vs "This terrain favors me". My Neverborn friend and I have have an ongoing joke that in a perfect world, the Guild gets an open plain to gun down their opponent before they can close the distance, while in the Neverborn's perfect world the entire board is severe terrain that Lilith, Nekima, the Dreamer, Pandora (kinda), Zoraida and Titania don't care about.

Short Answer: I'm honestly not sure if you can without severely handicapping yourself. Long answer: If you don't want to Alpha Strike, than the encounter is going to likely go one of 2 ways - You'll get alpha struck, or it will be a long slog in the middle. I don't think either options really work out great for Guild outside of certain masters. In either case, what you'll need to be successful is a way to survive through your opponent's models, and I don't think that's something Guild does very well, outside of a few models. We tend to have lower defensive stats on our models (Perdita nonwithstanding) and I'm not sure we have the cheap durable models that you need to still score your points - we don't have metal gamin or belles or rail workers. I think if you want to play Alpha-Strikeless guild, you'd be best suited looking at McMourning, Hoffman, and Lady Justice. All 3 of those models are surprisingly durable in their own right, and the former two can both provide a lot of utility to your crew as a whole and increase the value of your smaller models that you'll need to slug it out. McMourning will likely be doing it by using other models as scheme vectors with Injection. He'll also do a good job of forcing your opponent to "play fair", and then do it better, because he can ignore the armor or hard to wound that will make other models more durable than yours. With Hoffman, you'll mostly be trying to outlast your opponent with heals and AP efficiency, and he also has access to quite a few surprisingly durable models from other factions (namely, Metal Gamin). His new Wave 5 upgrade I think will be a must if you want to go for slug-it-out Hoffman - making your armor unable to be ignored will be HUGE, I think. Finally, Lady J I mention mostly because she is excellent in those rough-and-tumble fights. She has a consistent heal, can get AP efficiency by dealing damage without spending AP (With her Riposte Trigger) and can easily go to 7/9 Defensive stats (with a + flip now thanks to Swordfighter!). She can also make your minions Inspired to give them that small edge over enemy minions. For the rest of your crew, I'd look at models that are just inefficient to kill - disguised models like the Field Reporters, Hard to Kill models like the Brutal Effigy - or models that can provide support for your crew like the Brutal Emissary or Allison Dade. Those are my thoughts! I have to say though... if the Alpha Strike ain't broke, why try to purposefully handicap yourself? It's one of the strongest assets of the Guild as a faction. Playing without it is like playing Arcanists without Armor or Ten Thunders without a million + flips - doable, but why handicap yourself?

I love Carlos, but I'm not sure how much he warrants a place with Kaeris. He gets us burning, sure, but I'm not sure he's super great. His movement tricks are good but not great, and the burning is not super bad. I have having to pay for his upgrade since I'm not Colette.

That's what I figured, but I wanted to double check since I haven't played Arcanists in AGES (I've been a guild and ressers traitor whoops)

You are correct! I must have misread that question in the FAQ, or confused a model being killed with when a model is removed from the board. Thanks for keeping me in the right!

I played a game with Kaeris earlier, and while I didn't win (Misaki's new Blast Anywhere upgrade is bonkers. AND it ignores armor? I got all but tabled turn 2 after mispositioning, whoops.) I think that had I won initiative the turn I got tabled, I would have likely tabled my opponent. I can't paralyze models, but kneecapping them for a turn and then giving them a lingering penalty the turn afterwards is ridiculous. I wasn't super impressed with Blinding Flame to be honest, but I will trust the opinions of those who play Arcanists much more than I do. I'm glad we're seeing Kaeris get an upgrade that opens up a more offensive playstyle for her than her other two limiteds, which I feel made her take more of a support role in her crews. The big thing that pushes me towards Kaeris is how much she can do that plain doesn't care about resists from your opponent. With flaming angel and heatstroke, you're looking at easily debuffing multiple models without any way to resist it. Once people figure out how to play with it well, I think we're looking at a much stronger Kaeris. ALSO: How important do you all think the Emissary Upgrade is on her? I always find myself craving instinctual..

I played a game today with Sonnia using both new upgrades. No More Masks saw absolutely 0 use since Sonnia never got in Melee. Cherufe's Parting Gift, though, was amazing. The fact that the summon doesn't require LoS OR Range means you're almost always getting free activation control with the Purifying Flame, or at the very least eating a few AP from your opponent. Add in a - flip to casts from Disrupt Magic and giving her long range chain activations, and I think she has a much better time. Especially since the timing of the summon is a little nicer, letting her summon after killing instead of after reducing to 0 wounds (she gets to use her trigger to apply burning!). I've always thought the Purifying Flame was too squishy to do its job, and to be honest I forgot how good the preventing Soulstones was. Sonnia can definitely pull off some clever bullshit to kill off masters and henchmen now. Overall, I'm REALLY happy with Parting Gift. I wasn't sure about it, but after trying it out, it is one HELL of an upgrade.

I have to say, I'm very surprised that I haven't seen more discussion of the upgrades that Kaeris got in Wave 5. Heat Wave seems like it could go a long way in making her a threat - as far as I know, Heatstroke is one of very few abilities in Malifaux that hands out negative numbers to stats rather than negative flips, and the only time they have to resist it is giving them burning - which Kaeris has a Ca7 on, which makes it VERY hard to resist. I think that it's going to make Kaeris into a terrifying model against Elite Crews or in pools where you have to kill large enemy models like Masters or Henchmen. Giving a model -1 to all of their duels is very good already (Nekima would be much worse if she was Ml 6 and Df 4!) and the fact that with a single AP (And a stone or a high tome) you can give a model -3 to all of its duels for the turn and -1 for the next turn is very scary. Flaming Angel goes a long way into making Kaeris incredibly Mobile, and you get pretty solid action efficiency with movement + handing out burning with a single AP. Handing out Burning in an AoE off of immolate isn't bad either - it gives her a way to hand out mass burning for Heatstroke, and it gives her a way to easily hand out burning to models with high defensive stats - the same trick Sonnia uses to kill high defense models by blasting off of nearby low defense models. I think that it's really going to shine against factions with little condition removal (Ressers, Neverborn, Gremlins?) and I think it really boosted her playability. As a big fan of Kaeris lore-wise, I'm super excited. What are your thoughts on her new tools?