Starting but not sure if I'm doing it right...

[Zond]

I'm taking the plunge into 2e. It's been on my to do list for a while and I need help navigating the finer points of my plan. I'm open to starting any faction but Resurrectionists, undead burnout man. And I get that every master within a faction has a different play style, so it's not necessarily like I'll never get a chance to be tanky or a glass cannon if I play x. 

That being said I generally like control style factions, whether through controlling the board or ways to interfere with my opponents options. And my friends and I are competitive, and I'm definitely not up to speed on what the most optimal masters are so I need help in that regard. 

Ideally what I'd like to do is buy 3 - 5 Crew Boxes for a faction and just go to town, giving me a solid pool of minions as well as different masters to try. I'm not sure if that necessarily works however. Also as there are dual faction masters I'm also open to buying very disparate box sets as long as the majority of models can all work together and I can have a clear path for growing my different factions.  That would perhaps be the best option as I would like to collect multiple factions, as long as the minions from the crew boxes overlapped in some way.

I hope that makes sense and any help would be appreciated.

[Math Mathonwy]

When I think of control, I think of Lilith and Zoraida. Both are very control-oriented but in different ways. Lilith limits movement and has crazy movement tricks while Zoraida has card manipulation and directly controls models (both friendly and enemy ones). Both also like each other's models. Add Lynch as a third wheel and you have all bases covered. Then I'd add a box of Nephilim (very killy), a box of Waldgeists (super durable), and a Doppelganger (a swiss army knife of tricks). A very competitive core and three Masters with different playstyles able to cover any strategy or scheme combination.

[Myyrä]

The whole game actually is about controlling the board and limiting your opponents options. What makes the masters different is how they go about it. If you want to control the flow of the game without having to resort to a great deal of violence, your options are somewhat more limited.

There's three ways of preventing your opponent's models doing whatever he pleases: killing them, bogging them down in close combat, and disabling them with conditions and other tricks. If killing is not your preferred method, that pretty much rules out Guild as a faction, as they don't really do endurance or conditions that well, (although it is quite possible to build good Guild lists that also rely heavily on other tricks,) and since undead don't tickle your fancy Ressers are out as well.

Arcanists have some masters that can accomplish great things without having to focus on killing their opponents. Ramos does this mostly by summoning spiders, that are difficult to kill in those quantities, and providing useful buffs to friendly constructs, who happen to be some of the more durable models in the game. Ramos can handle himself in the interfere and outlast game. Kaeris on the other hand can play the disabling with conditions game. She also has access to all the durable constructs Arcanists have.

Most Neverborn masters can be played with heavy focus on disabling your opponents with conditions and other tricks. The exceptions to this rule would be Lucius and Lynch, who have different strong suits. Most Neverborn models aren't, however, big on durability, focusing more on speed and hitting hard or disabling opponents by other means. That doesn't mean that the models die easily, just that they have to rely on other defenses than their durability.

Outcasts have two masters that don't usually focus on killing models. Hamelin summons lots and lots of rats that will get up your opponent's face and annoy him to death. He also has access to a spell called Obey, that can be used to command friendly or enemy models take actions of Hamelin's choice. The other master is Jack Daw. He uses Curse upgrades to hinder opponent's models somewhat similarly as others use conditions. He also has access to some really annoying control models from outside his faction. As for the Outcast models, they are pretty much all over the place. There's pretty much everything there except for debilitating conditions.

Ten Thunders is a faction in which almost all masters are dual faction. That is also reflected in their model pool and they have access to many tricks the other factions enjoy, but in more limited numbers. However, pretty much all of their lists tend to focus quite heavily on killing, as most of their masters either buff the damage and mobility of friendly models or focus on killing themselves. One exception to this rule would be Yan Lo, but since he's dual faction Resser master that relies heavily on undead models, he might not be right for you. The other one is Brewmaster who is dual faction Gremlins master. He personally focuses on making nearby models too intoxicated to function properly, and can play a control heavy list if the right support is brought along.

The final faction (if it can be called a faction) is Gremlins. They tend to focus more on speed, damage and stupidity than on trickery, but there are some alternative play styles. Brewmaster does the same things as he does in Ten Thunders, Zoraida can use her Obey and condition trickery just the same as in her Neverborn dual faction, and Som'er and Ulix can get some staying power in their crews from their summoning tricks.

[admiralvorkraft]

I would definitely suggest Neverborn. Lillith, the Dreamer, and Collodi can all run a flexible denial/control game and bring different strengths to the table. The three of them plus a Teddy, Waldgeists, Mr. Graves, and Mr. Tannen should give you a good start. Adding Jakob Lynch's box for the Illuminated is generally considered to be a good call.