Sonnia and Purifying Flame

[Dogsplosion]

I listened to Schemes and Stones podcast on Sonnia and while most of it I agree with, I think there's not nearly enough love given to the Purifying Flame.

The first and most important thing (which I've not seen mentioned elsewhere) is that he is a 3SS model with Wd4 and Incorporeal, and, you eventually *want* him to die.  These aspects make him the best model I've seen for Sonnia's heal/card engine.  Any low Ram card (optionally with a SS if needed) can be used to hit Flame, who relents, and Sonnia heals 2/3 and draws 2/3 cards.  This typically means 2 damage dealt, reduced to 1 by Incorporeal.  In a pinch, 3 SS gives Sonnia 9 cards and 9 wounds healed, which is obviously a game changer.  And then the Flame flies off to explode on someone with just 1 Wd remaining.

Another great thing about him is that he can be lit on fire by a Stalker or Emissary (in which case he's not even going to take damage if you hold him back), and then he can blitz through walls/etc to give Sonnia a target to blast off of.  He can cheat in a low Df duel, giving Sonnia an even or [+] flip on damage, and if she doesn't hit her severe she can cheat in for the blast.  Assuming she's stoned for Tomes, she now has lit the enemy crew on fire, and with the +2 Burning from anything near the Flame due to his Demise, there's now likely something with Burning 3 on it.  If she sent him in at full Wds (via Emissary burn), he can even survive her Moderate hit and prevent enemy SS damage prevention from stopping the blast damage.

He also provides a 3SS activation, which is awesome for a Sonnia crew that likes to out-activate.

Finally his Ml5 and SS suppression make him excellent for throwing at a powerful enemy who is rushing the crew, forcing them to disengage esp if they want to use SS, or kill him and get Burning.

I'm sure there are other things I'm forgetting, but the card engine alone motivated me to share this info, because well, it's awesome IMO.

[Ludvig]

Like!

I hadn't thought of the heal since I usually don't tend to want to waste Sonnias ap on staying alive if I can get her out of engagement and blasting but it's a fun trick to have in mind.

The reason people prefer the child is probably because double flame walls can so completely shut down the enemy plan in some strategies so you don't even have to bother with killing. In reckoning the tricks to get Sonnia blasting outside of her LoS could be helpful.

[CapnBloodbeard]

.  In a pinch, 3 SS gives Sonnia 9 cards and 9 wounds healed, which is obviously a game changer.  And then the Flame flies off to explode on someone with just 1 Wd remaining.

Another great thing about him is that he can

I like the idea of a card engine, because I know she can be a bit card hungry.

Where do you get 9 cards and 9 healed from though?  I can't see more than about 4 cards/healed using 3SS...

Going to get my Sonnia soon, really excited!

[Ludvig]

Using the brutal effigy gets you more healing with each damaging swing. Only a card when you kill however.

[Rurouni Benshin]

I would prefer using the Brutal Effigy tactic over hitting your own Purifying Flame, personally. 

[Ludvig]

I would prefer using the Brutal Effigy tactic over hitting your own Purifying Flame, personally. 

I agree wholeheartedly, it's a poor investment of your masters AP to smack the poor flame around. It seems like it would have to be a very specific instance were you are quite sure they have assassinate and something wierdly lined up so you can't avoid it. 

[Dogsplosion]

I'm confused... Brutal Effigy's "Fear Not the Sword" gives you *one* card if you kill an enemy, and a max of *one* heal per AP.  

This trick gives you as many as 3 cards (1 for built in Ram, 1 for the Ram cheat, and 1 for a SS if you wish) for 1 AP and dealing 1 damage to the Flame.

Drawing 3 cards is a very powerful thing to do for 1 AP, and it's already won me more than one game, to use 2 low Ram cards (all I was holding) to have Sonnia draw 5 cards (I got good ones on the first AP so didn't use a SS for the second whack), put up her flame wall, and use those 5 cards to have Francisco activate last and kill a Nekima that was in the midst of my crew (with Flame suppressing Nekima's SS use, btw).

In this same situation, Sonnia with Fear Not the Sword on her would have had to discard the two low Rams to get 9 Ca, and hope to flip high enough to hit Nekima, and without damage cheats, it's very unlikely she could have killed Nekima, certainly not without putting herself in 3" to suppress SS (which exposes her to Nekima's 3 counterattacks).

This situation is just one example, meant to show that FNtS and Sonnia's Ml attack and Ram trigger are not apples to apples.

[orkdork]

Please don't use Sonnia to heal/draw off of Purifying flame. It stops me from killing her and makes me lose yet again

 

In all seriousness, I'm wondering if you guys aren't working the math out right. This is a really great option. It's not like Sonnia will do this every game, but it and the anti-SS aura are the two reasons I find her so hard to alpha.

Edited November 24, 2015 by orkdork

[CapnBloodbeard]

Listening to Red Jokers podcast, they were talking about giving the Purifying Flame eternal burning (or whatever it's called), running it through walls to reach a model you want to target, Get it into melee and shoot at it with Sonnia, even if you hit it that'll put a blast trigger (or don't worry about melee and just shoot it) on whatever is near it, then it has flaming so it and Samael are free to kill it (same thing as the OP).  Could be interesting, probably depends on the terrain and crew you face if that's likely to be used or not.  I suspect there may be games where it's not really relevant, so maybe that's not enough of a reason to choose it.

 

Malifaux Child....being able to attack with Sonnia's attack is nice, but unless those flame walls are really important to you, wouldn't the 5SS be better spent on another Witchling Stalker?

 

The SS blocking of PF seems good.....how useful are people finding it?  I feel like the situations where that's effective are unlikely to be the sort of attacks you get into

[Myyrä]

Malifaux Child....being able to attack with Sonnia's attack is nice, but unless those flame walls are really important to you, wouldn't the 5SS be better spent on another Witchling Stalker?

I don't tend to hire all that many stalkers with Sonnia and Malifaux Child doesn't cost 5ss.

[Ludvig]

The child is 3ss just like the flame, you're thinking of the student of conflict. The child is usually used to put flamewalls to block off half the enemy crew at a chokepoint.

I guess hitting the flame once and using a 1-5 of rams could be nice if you need the top up wounds. I usually tend to be at full wounds with Sonnia and then be dead one activation later, there are very few instances of being between those two states for me. If I had nicer opponents who gave me a heads up before they killed her I would probably use this trick more often.

[CapnBloodbeard]

Yeah, got the SS cost confused...lol

 

Given Misaki is one of the masters I most commonly play against, I look forward to using flame wars to stop getting charged so much!

[Rurouni Benshin]

I'm confused... Brutal Effigy's "Fear Not the Sword" gives you *one* card if you kill an enemy, and a max of *one* heal per AP.  

Are we sure that the ability only allows 1 Wd max per AP?  The ability reads "After damaging an enemy model with an attack action, this model heals 1 damage."  I would imagine that with each model that's damaged, she could gain that many Wds back, no?  Or am I misreading this?

Not saying that the Purifying Flame tactic doesn't work (since it seems to be popular already), but I just think that it's a lot more situational than most would think.  I would imagine that having the Effigy give her "Fear Not the Sword" and then "Accomplicing" Sonnia to act and then attack would come up more frequently than using her to attack the Purifying Flame.

[Ludvig]

I have always played fear not the sword as 1 hp healed for each enemy damaged when blasting. It doesn't say "one or more" so each time you damage someone with an action you can get a wound back. If one attack happens to kill 5 models you get 5 hp and 5 cards.

Edited November 25, 2015 by Ludvig

[Rurouni Benshin]

I have always played fear not the sword as 1 hp healed for each enemy damaged when blasting. It doesn't say "one or more" so each time you damage someone with an action you can get a wound back. If one attack happens to kill 5 models you get 5 hp and 5 cards.

As I would interpret and play this as well.  I haven't used it with Sonnia yet, but will probably soon.

[Dogsplosion]

Yes that was my mistake, I play it the same way as you and only meant that if you're attacking a single model you get 1 heal and at best 1 card with FNtS.

Again though, the main reason to use the Sonnia attack on the Flame is the card draw; the heal is secondary and more situational.  The card draw is IMO the more powerful move, and game-winning in the right scenario (e.g. the one I gave prior).

Edited November 26, 2015 by Dogsplosion