Guild Minion power

[Argentbadger]

Apologies to AdmiralVorkraft for the out-of-context quote but I'm interested in the general view on this particular comment (it is from the Lucius thread comparing him unfavourably to Colette, which I suspect is probably accurate).

 

Guild minions are laughably fragile and slow

 

My experience (which is listed in tedious detail over the battle reports forum if you care enough to check it) has been that Guild minions are superb choices.

 

• Death Marshals, Witchling Stalkers and Hunters are staples of my lists and work for offense, scheme-running and body-blocking wherever needed.
• Guild Hounds and Watchers are crazy fast and while I will grant that they are easy to kill, they're very cheap so I mostly don't care much if it happens.
• The Austringer is such a powerful minion that it is arguably cramping design space in the Guild judging by the existence of 'non-Austringer' type clauses on other pieces.

 

I frequently play games with a huge majority of Minions in my crew, and use relatively few Enforcers or Henchmen in order to allow a bigger number of Minions.

[zFiend]

I do agree with you on that Guild has very good minions.

[Bengt]

I guess they are kind of in the middle when it comes to resilience, so if one sees a lot of Metal Gamin and Flesh Constructs across the table they might seem fragile.

[admiralvorkraft]

I'll give a little context.

 

I think Guild minions are very good; Witchlings, Hunters, Riflemen, Austringers, Death Marshals are all excellent models. That being said they are Df 4/5 across the board and 5/6 wounds, no movement tricks to speak of (a handful of friendly pushes, but not enough to keep them out of trouble), relatively little armor, virtually no Hard to Wound, no Hard to Kill, minimal access to healing...

 

In my experience most of our minions take two AP to remove. Models at similar price points in other factions tend to have more wounds (Ressurectionists), higher defensive stats (10T, Neverborn), faster/less predictable movement (Neverborn, Gremlins), healing (Gremlins), armor (Arcanists), or some combination thereof (Outcasts). We also have less summoning than any other faction in the game to mitigate our losses. 

 

Now, I'm really not complaining about the quality of the models, but everything will die - usually by turn 4 - because they aren't fast enough to get away, or tough enough to last in a stand up fight. Winning with Guild requires (in my experience) scoring your points early and often, because you will not win a war of attrition. 
 

Of course I, as a player, am terrible at actually killing models. Unless my opponent is kind enough to just wander vaguely towards me I'll get tabled - whether or not that's reflected in the final score is another matter.

[Ludvig]

I guess they are kind of in the middle when it comes to resilience, so if one sees a lot of Metal Gamin and Flesh Constructs across the table they might seem fragile.

 

This!

 

Also compare any Guild 4ss minions with Tots and Gupps and it's easy to get the idea that those are the "average" schemers and ours suck. 

 

It's easy to get in a mindset where you compare models and your own come out lacking. A lot of players (me definetly included) don't own everything from all factions so you are often very limited in what you can bring which makes other options seem very good. The more factions you yourself play regularly, the more you realize that every faction has something desireable. 

 

If it pops up in a Lucius thread you also have to remember that you are comparing everything to Illuminated when it comes so survivability/damage and Tots/Gupps/Silurids when it comes to scheming. I like Guild minions a lot more since I stopped playing "thematic" Lucius using only Guardsmen (-Wardens because I don't own any).

[The Zinc Lich]

...as an Outcast player who came to Guild because I wanted better minion choices, threads like this do kind of blow my mind.

 

Something to remember when comparing our minions to pretty much any other faction's is that, with the exception of Guild Hounds, literally every minion we have has a gun. That gun is the reason why they all come out to be slower and more fragile than the minions of other factions for their cost. Playing Guild, in my experience has been learning to leverage that ranged advantage as hard as you can.

 

If taking hits is what you want to do, take Ryle with a Tessellating Magnet and Wardens. They aren't slow thanks to all the push effects from Socially Repressed and the magnet, and they are about as tough as you are going to get for their points cost. Don't take Flesh Constructs and Metal Gamin as the base line for minion toughness, they are the premier bullet sponges from the two factions that skew the hardest towards survivability.

[Myyrä]

Something to remember when comparing our minions to pretty much any other faction's is that, with the exception of Guild Hounds, literally every minion we have has a gun.

Guardian doesn't have a gun. Guild sucks so much.

[Hunt.er]

Guild has a lack on tricks. It`s hard to resist against factions with a lot of amor or "hard to..." and healings like outcasts or rezzers. Even the "anti-x-crews" have a hard game against those opponents. And on the own side, the few adavantages are almost easily knocked out by the other factions, especially ignoring amor and other debuff stuff wich our minions can`t resist or work against without healing abilities. So anyone who archives a victory against another faction earns more respect to me than any other player. This respect increases when using Guild models only.

[zFiend]

Guardian doesn't have a gun. Guild sucks so much.

 

I agree. 

[admiralvorkraft]

Again, I'm not saying our minions are bad. They generally land between "solid" and "great" with none of them breaking into the "Incredible" range that Nurses/Illuminated/Silurid occupy.

 

As far as the gun-per-model is concerned I have really only found 14" to be an advantage over close combat. Generally if something really wants to get stuck in it can make that happen at 10"-12". Now, yeah, you get an attack in first but if a model wants to get to close combat it will if the player controlling it is even half-way competent and we really need to bring in our Henchmen if we want a meaningful counter-punch. Mid-game our reliance on range becomes a weakness as our low Df rears its ugly head again on disengaging and our humans flail ineffectually against the horrors of Malifaux. Fortunately, the game is Malifaux, not Murderfaux and by turn three anything with Finish the Job is in position to score me points when they die.

 

I would say that, with the possible exception of Witchlings, our minions (and our Living models generally) suffer from a lack of specialization. Death Marshals for example are technically competent damage dealers (Sh/Ml 5 minimum damage 2), passable scheme running (Wk 5 is good for Guild, Unimpeded is nice), and solid utility in the Pine Box. It's a model that is equally useful in any strat/scheme pool and one I never leave home without but Malifaux isn't really a generalists game. If pre-built lists were a thing Guild would be laughing, but because of the way lists are built in Malifaux we end up taking generalist models for specialist roles. Our minions also suffer from the fact that they are Living, which is hands-down (unless a friendly Kang is around) the worst thing to be in Malifaux. Of course, that's probably appropriate.

Guild's generalization does give a player greater flexibility in terms of activation order and general play than some other factions. But it's hard not to feel outclassed when your opponent can bring Crooligans for breakthrough and your best option is a Watcher.

In closing (and I'm probably going to stay silent in this thread from here on out because I'm interested in reading what other people have to say) I think Guild minions are solid models, I frequently take crews made up of little else and hold my own when we count up scores. But our minions never break into the upper end of the power curve for their points - they won't scheme like Silurids, hit like Students/Punks or Illuminated, or survive like 10T brothers or Metal Gamin. A minion heavy Guild list will always be playing a rear guard action, score points mid-game, and (to paraphrase Eddie Izzard) collapse in turns four and five like a souffle in a cupboard. 

Of course, this "complaint" - which it isn't really, just acknowledging our strengths and weaknesses (and getting a little bit defensive [i wonder how many sub-clauses I can use and keep people reading]) - mostly applies to our non-constructs. Maybe I'd be singing a different tune if I just bought the Hoffman box.

[EnternalVoid]

I will state one part of my view right off the bat and hold to it; I think this is partially the Grass is always greener on the other side deal.

 

I play most factions, though some I only dabble in *one or two masters*, but my main three are Neverborn, T10, and Guild.  I love my Guild Minions, I lament often when playing Neverborn or 10T *unless I am McCabe* that I cannot get some of the stuff I love from Guild.  Sure Neverborn have some good minions, but often they are specialist or expensive.  10T I find them just as easy to kill as Guild for the most part though hurt sometimes for having some of their minions be rather expensive ss wise.  Most Factions would kill to have access to Witchling Stalkers for one. 

 

Now about fragility.  Sure a lot of Guild minions have 6 or less wounds.  Also a lot of them are 6 or less stones.  I have generally found that unless it is a heavier hitter, most of my non-hound minions will survive 3 hitting.  But because their defense is not generally 4 they also dodge one attack *unless again a heavy hitter or my opponent throws out some serious cards*, and I can generally keep damage flips negative with only a little effort.  That is not to say they are not occationally one shot or torn to shreds.  If 12ss Langston wants you dead a 4 or 5ss model is going to have a hard time stopping him.  But we do have scattered defenses.  Marshals have Hard to Wound, Guard and Wardens have armor, and a lot of shooters have a fair bit of range or plugging power when supported.  That all said, I would say that Guild are not the durable faction, I don't think it is one of our "Things".  But I will disagree with us generally running out of guys by turn 4, generally that is my opponent. 

 

Generally for me I like getting the first step on my opponent early, it help sets the flow of the game.  Sometimes this is removing a model first turn, or using tricks to launch parts of my crew to take what I need to right away.  The fact that I find many of the Guild Minions often hard hitting, surprisingly accurate, or sometimes durable for their prices helps this *Two guild guards take a bit for someone to dig through*.  Not a lot of Ml6 5ss models with a 2/3/5 damage spread that also causes burning if they damage.  Or a Ml5 with a 2/3/4 but a free Ram for Critical strike if you already activated.  Or a 3ss 1/3/4 with a Ml5 and a possible 3 attacks on the charge.  Then you start getting to the crazy tricks a single Rifleman can start getting with a little focus and a fellow guard, not a lot of other factions can get a 5ss minion to 3/4/6 14" range, positive to hit and damage, and 4/5/7 if you get another Ram.  Oh and Sh6 which is nice.  Or a range 12" who cares about LOS Sh7.  So if I can get control of the game early, often with tricks or my master, the Guild minions can hold the day for me by being good little soldiers.  If they die in the process then they died in the line of duty.

 

That said I can see the whole slow, and we are not as durable as some other factions.  But several of our Masters can make up for the Slow and a lot of them can really ramp up the offense too.

[Bengt]

Again, I'm not saying our minions are bad. They generally land between "solid" and "great" with none of them breaking into the "Incredible" range that Nurses/Illuminated/Silurid occupy.

 

As far as the gun-per-model is concerned I have really only found 14" to be an advantage over close combat. Generally if something really wants to get stuck in it can make that happen at 10"-12". 

I'd say Austringers are pretty amazing.

 

For range, models with greater threat than 9" (e.g. Cg 7 and 2) is pretty rare really.

[bertmac]

Having played arcanists guild minions definitely feel squishy. Hunters and wardens are great. Witchlings are good but are easily 2shotted out of existence just like death marshals.

[zFiend]

Too bad hunters and wardens are tough to come by.

[The Zinc Lich]

I think that the Watchers are the single minion most deserving of a box that will never get one...

[Carcosa]

I just want to chirp in for a moment and note that I don't think guild minions suck, I think they are very cool actually.

As for comparing Colette to Lucius, I was never really comparing the 2 masters per se, but Lucius's Command vs Colette's Propt -nothing else-

[Fetid Strumpet]

I don't think you can just flat compare abilities without taking the entire package into account.

[Carcosa]

Do you mean the entire available roster Fetid?

[Fetid Strumpet]

No, although that comes into it. I mean that the total package of what a master can do has to be taken into account.

[Carcosa]

Would you be inclined to expound upon your thoughts in the collette thread?

[dgraz]

Witchlings are good but are easily 2shotted out of existence just like death marshals.

Most things are easily put out of existence if you're attacking them with something that does min 3 damage.

 

Even just the Df 5 means most damage flips are at a  :-fatebut Marshals are also H2W making it even worse.

 

So if we're talking about those two models being 2-shotted by something then we're talking about Enforcer level damage dealers at the minimum....and they're going to take out most minions in an activation.....so I'm not sure if this is a fair comparison to most other minions.

[4thstringer]

I think I said this in the gremlin thread, but I will repeat it here.  I think part of the reason for the perception that guild minions are fragile is that the most popular ones, the Death Marshalls, the Witchling Stalkers, the Riflemen, and the austringers all pretty much are.  They are two hit deaths for anyone with a min damage 3, and with a def 5 that is going to happen often.

 

This ignores some of our tougher minions.  The hunter is the most commonly taken one, but for a seven stone model I wouldn't call it very tough,  The warden/guardian and the lawyer are a good bit tougher if you have the cards/suits to spare.  The guild guard, especially in twos are a wonderful road block for 4 points, with their armor and 5 wounds.

 

and of course, as was said earlier, shooting is a big deal and should be considered when thinking about the survivability of a model.

[4thstringer]

Most things are easily put out of existence if you're attacking them with something that does min 3 damage.

 

Even just the Df 5 means most damage flips are at a  :-fatebut Marshals are also H2W making it even worse.

 

So if we're talking about those two models being 2-shotted by something then we're talking about Enforcer level damage dealers at the minimum....and they're going to take out most minions in an activation.....so I'm not sure if this is a fair comparison to most other minions.

 

I don't have my books to compare other minions, but off the top of my head i puts them in the same category as Young Nephilim and  Tannen, both of whom I consider fragile when I use them.   They are the points they are because their offensive and tactical abilities are top notch, but it is important to know their weaknesses if you are going to use them properly.

[bertmac]

Most things are easily put out of existence if you're attacking them with something that does min 3 damage.

 

Even just the Df 5 means most damage flips are at a  :-fatebut Marshals are also H2W making it even worse.

 

So if we're talking about those two models being 2-shotted by something then we're talking about Enforcer level damage dealers at the minimum....and they're going to take out most minions in an activation.....so I'm not sure if this is a fair comparison to most other minions.

Rail workers/metal gamin even ice gamin have a decent chance of surviving as long as the opponent doesn't ignore armour and all are cheaper than dm's! Willie for 6ss has df 6 and 7 wounds. That's just off the top of my head!

[dgraz]

Rail workers/metal gamin even ice gamin have a decent chance of surviving as long as the opponent doesn't ignore armour and all are cheaper than dm's! Willie for 6ss has df 6 and 7 wounds. That's just off the top of my head!

But they don't have the hitting power/utility. Rail workers I'll give you are pretty sick, but they are slow and need to get close...that's why Guild shoots. 

 

Honestly, no minion I can think of is better than the Stalker. Dispel Magic is freaking king in this game. Everything is a condition....sometimes I'll hire one with Perdita and his job is just to follow her around as best he can in case she receives some type of condition.