Alright You Silly Guildies - Tell me... Why Justice When You Can Just McMourning Instead?

[SpectreEliteGaming]

Serious question. I usually just narrow each faction down to the two masters I am most interested in = (most powerful + a backup to do what the main one cannot, usually) - I'm not sure why I would ever see myself choosing Justice over McMourning. He can hit hard - jump around like crazy and has a considerable amount of tricks - even when taking a similar crew (ie. the Guild trio of Frank, Judge and Sidir, for example - but pretty much anything seems alright).

Also, Nurses.

Tell me what I'm missing.

[zFiend]

Seriously? Nothing dude. Unless I am missing something too.

[MasterDisaster]

When shit just needs to die fast... Justice!

When you want an easy game without having to think too hard about it.... Justice!

When you feel like having a fun game rather than a trash each other with filth game.... Justice!

 

When you want to play an interesting Master with cool tricks and have a good chance at being competitive... Hoffman, Perdita, McCabe, Lucius, Hoffman and McMourning!!

 

See where I'm going with this?

[Kadeton]

The ability to do a ton of damage, heal, push people around, drop Schemes and hand out Precise, versus the ability to do a ton of damage and heal. I know which one I'd choose.

[Myyrä]

The ability to do a ton of damage, heal, push people around, drop Schemes and hand out Precise, versus the ability to do a ton of damage and heal. I know which one I'd choose.

There's also mass condition removal, minion buffs, scrap and corpse removal, slightly better damage and better Wp. Most of the time I would leave serious games to masters that aren't called either McMourning or Lady Justice though.

[zFiend]

Most of the time I would leave serious games to masters that aren't called McMourning

Straight to my feelings.

[MasterDisaster]

Straight to my feelings.

 

To be fair mate Guild McMourning isn't quite as potent as Resser McMourning in my opinion. He's got a few more bells and whistles whilst slumming it with the Ressers than he does with the righteous Guild. 

 

If I want stuff dead I often reach for Hoffman, McCabe and Perdita. 

If I was scheme manipulation I'd go with Lucius and McMourning. 

If I want to have fun I'll grab Lady J

I will never reach for Sonnia again... that woman does nothing for me anymore. Well she does die spectacularly every game so that's something I suppose

[MasterDisaster]

Ways I have lost Sonnia in 90% of my games. My opponent flips the red joker in damge then the next attack flips a 13 to hit me and then I am sad.

But otherwise I find it hard for Sonnia to die when the opponents crew is their case.

 

Some love her, I can see why. I just can't get on with her on a personal level. She's about as far away from my preferred play style as you can get. I've never had a game with Sonnia where I have 1. Won or 2. Had her Survive the encounter. Really I picked up her box for the Witchling Stalkers, the rest is just wasted space in my case

[Patzer]

Sonnia is really good. Have her teamed up with a Malifaux Child and most things will have a hard time getting to her. Plenty of board control, summons, and damage potential. She is plain nasty! I can certainly understand why some don't like her. She does a couple of things very well, but speed isn't one of them.

 

On the McMourning vs Lady J thing. The former is way more versatile, and if you like to have that in your repertoire he is a very nice choice. On the other hand, Lady J brings a very specialized master with a mean swing. A tag team with her and Fran (and) or Sidir is brutal. Myyrä made some very good points which I agree with regarding her abilities. 

 

Their similarity is that they both are choppy-choppy masters, but they do it very differently. I think it is a play style thing more than anything. I would go with McMourning, but that is just me.

[lusciousmccabe]

Justice's anti-undead pulse things is quite boring but cripplingly powerful in the right matchup.

Otherwise she's a bit subpar, which is unfortunate.

[Fetid Strumpet]

MD, you mean BELLES and whistles, right?

[MasterDisaster]

MD, you mean BELLES and whistles, right?

 

Hahaha, probably the worst pun I've seen in a while. I doubt even zFiend could beat that one!

[Math Mathonwy]

I fail to see how Mcmourning "hits hard" 2/3/6 is fairly unimpressive. Lady j can hit you for 6 on her MINIMUM damage.

Eh, that's hardly a fair comparison. I mean, if you go there, you could calculate McM as doing an effective 10 minimum (against Armor +2 which he ignores, doing two Poison and then Catalyst and Induction going through). Add Nurse's +2 to that while you're at it

But seriously, ignoring Armor and then adding Poison (with his tricks with it) isn't the same as 2/3/6.

[Myyrä]

Mcmourning does not have induction? Of we are adding other models supporting the master (ie nurses sebastion)

Take those away you have and only do stones are suits. You get 6 minimum damage. 9 poison from infect. Expunge for 9 =15 damage.

Lady j 3 attacks = 18 damage. Yep. Lady j better.

You don't do weak damage 100% of the time even when you are at for damage flip.

[Myyrä]

Well sure if lady j hit all sever at 3 crit still no contest lol.

If both hit severe damage every time and McMourning uses (0) action for Expunge they actually do the same amount of damage.

[EntrepeNinja]

I think the main argument here is:

 

Does the utility that McMourning has outweigh extra punch from Lady J's sword?

 

If you're looking for crew synergy? Serious killing power? Probably J. Her Inspiring swordplay can hand out a lot of bonuses if positioned correctly, and the amount of damage she can do with the accuracy of Ml7 and a positive twist w/out charge just makes her a plane better hitter.

 

McMourning (when he's in his guild persona) is a) less of a beatstick than lady J. arguably less of a frontline master than ressur McMourning, and c) has a cartload more tricks and utility. Partially by using his poison on himself to give him more movement. Partially because his AP can hand out AP like a boss. Partially because he allows Nurses to be hired, and they're a well known control piece. Can he kill things? Absolutely. Can he kill as fast as Lady J? Arguably yes. It's just harder/takes more resources. I also think that given the right circumstances, he's a lot tankier than Justice- his ability to heal while damaging is great. Her's is an action you have to take, his is secondary but requires him to do damage, so it can be thwarted.

 

I fall on the side of the McMourning camp. But I can see where Lady Justice falls in the pecking order, and it's not as low as people think. Played correctly, she's as much assassin as Viks or Misaki. Charging through trees is great. Onslaught? Choice. Potential min damage 6? Why not. Why- I once saw her kill Sebastian, and McMourning in one turn, heal half her wounds, get lured back up the table with Stand for Judgment, then charge and kill Seamus the next turn. (It was a double match... naturally). Could McMourning and a bell have done that? Probably not. His "uber DPS" moves take a lot of setup.

 

ENinja

 

P.S.

I feel like it should be said that there are some potentially very high damage setups with McMourning- for instance plastic Surgery and spamming rancid transplant into expunge can cause a ton of damage to a ton of people and setup a HUGE expunge. Or bringing lawyers and sebastian to go for a large scale aoe poison bubble fest, then potentially luring with a Performer to get the expunge off on your high priority target can make for some crazy numbers. It just takes so much more effort to do it with Doug. But I feel the other things he brings (injection. Precision. Durability. Nurses.) make the effort worthwhile.

 

PPS

Standard Malifaux Crew/Master disclaimer-

   All opinions stated are subject to discrection based on the following- playstyle, aesthetic choices, scheme and strat pool, opponent's declared faction, and table set up.

[SpectreEliteGaming]

Thanks for the great replies. I pretty much was thinking exactly what Kadeton said. I also think papa smurf's argument for the dmg actually is in favor of McM in a funny way - since he has comparable dmg (honestly, I usually just see Justice as overkill and an experienced player isn't going to feel overly threatened by her - set a trap and alphastrike or tarpit) but McM has 10x the extra utility.

I narrowed my interest in Guild down to Perdita (main) and McM for backup - I was interested in McCabe but really I just don't like the models and also the gameplay isn't overly exciting.

I pretty much figured McM would be an overall better choice than Justice but am interested to see how people feel anyway. Justice just isn't tricksy enough.

Really though, when I was looking at McM I was sold on the "austringers and nurses in same list" thought. lol

[The Zinc Lich]

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.

[trikk]

Yes, but mostly Executionier and Francisco as Cavalry Charge is Non-Leader (for the Mounted Guard).

 

I don`t seem to see the idea behind The Emissary + Lady Justice Conflux, it seems meh to me, but maybe

a) you will explain it a bit and 

I will try it out

[The Zinc Lich]

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

[trikk]

I am dissapointed as I hoped you will enlighten me

[Dirial]

Yes, but mostly Executionier and Francisco as Cavalry Charge is Non-Leader (for the Mounted Guard).

 

I don`t seem to see the idea behind The Emissary + Lady Justice Conflux, it seems meh to me, but maybe

a) you will explain it a bit and 

I will try it out

 

The idea is to teleport Justice to Scheme markers. Like in enemy Scheme markers. And then activate her. Could be pretty powerful, but we'll see.

[trikk]

This seems cool, same with Executioner so that he can use Trail of Gore. Mesa like it!

 

It does seem more compelling than McMourning and the teleport might actually work instead of charge to get the  to damage.

[Ozymandias79]

When it comes down to two masters, I always think about which I would use for certain strategies/schemes.  With these two, I am struggling to think of what strategies/schemes I would take Lady J over Dr. Doug.  I can see maybe taking her if I'm going up against Nico or Ramos for the token removal, but other than that I'm having a tough time.

[EntrepeNinja]

Problem is, you won't know if it's Nico or Ramos. Would you take Lady J against all the ressurs? Or all Arcanists? I might take J against Ressurs- the ability to keep corpse counters from even hitting the table is fantastic, and shuts down Nico, Seamus, Sebastian and Toshiro's summons. On top of the other synergies against undead models.

 

I like the idea of a melee beatstick master in things like Reckoning and Collect the Bounty, though head hunter is probably more of a Hoffman game. 

 

Are the roles played by Lady J and Doug as melee masters a little more specific? Sure. But if you can drop a crew that's good at doing the scheme and strats, then maybe a melee master like J is more about "Okay, these guys will get the job done. Lady J is only here to try and take out your threats, and break your machine.

 

ENinja