Sonnia: What exactly does she do?

[Velcro]

My understanding is that she's a caster, a melee beatstick, and anti-magic all in one. I think I understand her Burning mechanic... I think... but I'm having difficulty really grasping what she is excels at outside of potentially destroying Arcanists. Does her crew box actually facilitate her play style well? What should I be focusing on when building for her?

[Myyrä]

Sonnia isn't really a melee beatstick at all. Both her Ml skill and damage are pretty bad (for a Master). The only good thing about her melee attack is a trigger that allows her to heal and draw cards.

She also doesn't really excel at beating Arcanists, even though they are her thematic enemy. The prevalence of armor and low Wp values make it somewhat difficult for her to deal lots of damage. Which isn't to say that she can't be used against Arcanists with great success, she just isn't significantly better against them than most other factions.

Her crew box facilitates the play style that revolves around Burning relatively well. However, that style isn't the one she excels most at, at least in my opinion.

What I like to do with her is ignore the burning altogether and just focus on models that can boost her more directly. If I really want burning on something, Sonnia can do it herself.

Some models that I like to use ordered by how often I take them with Sonnia:

1. Malifaux Child allows you to cast two flame walls (from Cherufe's Imprint upgrade) per turn instead of one. That allows you to control quite effectively where your opponent's models can go. I have kept Izamu stuck behind a building for half a game by just throwing a flame walls with Malifaux Child. I also have made McMourning and Sebastian waste three turns walking with two flame walls, while Sonnia killed half of his crew (although that guy didn't know at all how to deal with flame walls).
2. Francisco can give Sonnia +2Df and +2Wp, get her out of melee engagements and help her move around with Hermanos de Armas. He will go a really long way in keeping Sonnia alive against some of the heavier hitters in Malifaux.
3. Watcher can use its View From Up High action to allow the friendly Leader to draw LoS from its location. That means that if you stick a Watcher on a nice vantage point or far on a side where it can see most of the field, your opponent will have really tough time hiding from Sonnia. If your opponent does manage to stay outside of LoS of both the Watcher and Sonnia the Watcher can just go merrily on its way and complete some schemes. A Watcher can also remove cover from enemy models by attacking them or moving near them. It can also be used to shoot at models hiding behind corners by moving it to engage them while leaving it visible. Because friendly models can't hit Watchers when firing in an engagement, you can now just aim at the Watcher and hit the model hiding behind the corner, who doesn't even benefit from cover because he's near a Watcher.
4. Papa Loco and a Death Marshal can be used to give Sonnia to damage flips for pretty much as long as you want. That allows her to get moderate and severe damage much more often and deal nice damage with those blasts. The only downside to this combo is that it is relatively expensive, but it can be totally worth it if you don't need to bring a big crew.

 

[Ludvig]

Sonnia is a lot more about board control than anything else. She makes the enemy not very keen on being near you and can place flame walls so they can't go where they had intended to.

I'd say arcanist are actually a bad matchup for her since they frequently have high armour values which removes a lot of the damage she does through blasts.

 

[Velcro]

5 hours ago, Myyrä said:

Sonnia isn't really a melee beatstick at all. Both her Ml skill and damage are pretty bad (for a Master). The only good thing about her melee attack is a trigger that allows her to heal and draw cards.

She also doesn't really excel at beating Arcanists, even though they are her thematic enemy. The prevalence of armor and low Wp values make it somewhat difficult for her to deal lots of damage. Which isn't to say that she can't be used against Arcanists with great success, she just isn't significantly better against them than most other factions.

Her crew box facilitates the play style that revolves around Burning relatively well. However, that style isn't the one she excels most at, at least in my opinion.

 

 

4 hours ago, Ludvig said:

Sonnia is a lot more about board control than anything else. She makes the enemy not very keen on being near you and can place flame walls so they can't go where they had intended to.

I'd say arcanist are actually a bad matchup for her since they frequently have high armour values which removes a lot of the damage she does through blasts.

 

Now I'm really confused. The PullMyFinger entry for Sonnia quite literally reads: " The Anti-Arcanist. Capable of fighting in melee and at range, but specializes in magic (both casting and countering it). Her powerful pyrokinetic abilities punish all she faces with ash and immolation", which is the exact opposite of what I'm being told, but being a new player I've been directed to that wiki more than once for information. This seems very counterproductive in this case, especially as a newb to the game. Still, I very much appreciate the info and a more detailed rundown of what to expect from her and what to look out for in terms of how she plays and what to bring.

Thanks for the replies

[4thstringer]

She is capable in melee, but not master level.  As it says, she specializes in casting.  Particularly her blasts and flame walls. The counter thing is her trigger, which I recommend never depending on.

The anti arcanist part is fluff that just didnt end up working out because arcanists became the premier armor faction.

[Ludvig]

3 hours ago, Velcro said:

 

Now I'm really confused. The PullMyFinger entry for Sonnia quite literally reads: " The Anti-Arcanist. Capable of fighting in melee and at range, but specializes in magic (both casting and countering it). Her powerful pyrokinetic abilities punish all she faces with ash and immolation", which is the exact opposite of what I'm being told, but being a new player I've been directed to that wiki more than once for information. This seems very counterproductive in this case, especially as a newb to the game. Still, I very much appreciate the info and a more detailed rundown of what to expect from her and what to look out for in terms of how she plays and what to bring.

Thanks for the replies

As 4thstringer points out the text in the beginning is flavourtext from the book and she is an arcanist hunter in the lore. That part doesn't match the actual gameplay. The info on how she actually plays and what to bring later is up do date however. It's just that the most popular arcanist models have really high armour and she is one of the few masters who can't ignore it and who does a little damage to a lot of targets which makes armour even more effective.

[wizuriel]

In terms of gameplay I actually tend to like Sonnia against Ressurectionists, Perdita against Arcanists and Lady Justice against Neverborn. 

[Velcro]

Hmm, interesting that the fluff is so far off from in-game. Still, this is all good info to have

6 minutes ago, wizuriel said:

In terms of gameplay I actually tend to like Sonnia against Ressurectionists, Perdita against Arcanists and Lady Justice against Neverborn. 

What makes Lady J your pick vs Neverborn?

[Ludvig]

15 minutes ago, Velcro said:

Hmm, interesting that the fluff is so far off from in-game. Still, this is all good info to have

What makes Lady J your pick vs Neverborn?

It's not that weird considering how many different themes fit in every faction. If a different subfaction of arcanists had been more popular to play it would probably have been true. The thing is that no faction really has a single "thing", all of them can look very different.

[Velcro]

Oh for sure, I didn't mean to insinuate that fluff is gospel, especially faction-wide. I was more just referring specifically to Sonnia, given that's how she's been presented. I wouldn't expect the entire Guild to curb stomp Arcanists, unless I mistook your meaning.

[Druso]

Wizuriel, why to pick Sonnia against Ressers? They have Hard to Wound, and this is a crap for Sonnia who wants to do Moderate or Severe damage in order to get that awesome blasts she have. Without thinking in strats&schemes I´ll probably go with Perdita, because he can have a great wp (perfect against lures) and can ignore Hard To Wound.

[Hidelfon]

Hi! 

  I have playing short time,  but I hope it helps. 

Sonnia has counterspell aura.  Which makes lures impossible to non ss users (and requiring a suit and a stone for them) and many casts. 

She likes "hold this"  buff from Papa Loco together with Ca9 she can go to a straight flip for damage against low defense resser models. 

She has "ground  magic"  which can make casters (specially summoners)  very sad. 

I am afraid that Perdita cannot ignore hard to wound ? ( cover or armor+incorporeal) so,  outside melee,  she does 2 damage per shot before triggers. 

Edited April 4, 2016 by Hidelfon

[Ludvig]

On 2 april 2016 at 6:49 PM, Velcro said:

Oh for sure, I didn't mean to insinuate that fluff is gospel, especially faction-wide. I was more just referring specifically to Sonnia, given that's how she's been presented. I wouldn't expect the entire Guild to curb stomp Arcanists, unless I mistook your meaning.

I agree that it is a little backwards. It's funny because Perdita, McMourning and McCabe are a lot better picks against arcanists in my opinion.

[Adran]

Sonnia is set up to hunt magic users running from the Law. This used to be the  good description of the Arcanist faction, but time has changed the make up of the arcanist faction, so they contain a much larger percentage of constructs than they used to. Hoffman is the guild master set up to beat constructs. (and McMorning and McCabe are generally good at ignoring Armor). They still have a relatively high percentage of Ca attacks, but not enough that her reflect magic trigger is always going to be important. 

That said, she is not bad in Ml. her sword is pretty decent, in part let down by the average Ml she has with it. It does have one of the best triggers in the game on it, so I'm not upset if she is trapped in melee drawing cards and healing. She won't kill there in a way that Justice or Perdita will, but she is competent there. 

Her crew box can facilitate her style, if you play there that way, the witchling stalkers are a great way to spread burning, which if you want to use sam and sonnia to ignore line of sight, is good. You can play sonnia that way well, and build on that theme. But you can also play sonnia with out any buringing what so ever if uyou want, and she'll still work fine.

To start with I would recommend using her crew box, and slowly adapting to find what you want from her. Its a pretty good set of figures. The stalkers are a good minion for any guild master, condition removal can be a life saver. Sam is a little more questionable. He is one of the best damage dealers in the game, especazilly if you're adding burning,  but is very fragile, so after someone has seen how much hurt he can put out, they are unlikely to let it happen again, and he is pretty easy to kill if you focus on it. 

[Druso]

Just a fluffly note, Hoffman is not there to beat constructs exactly but Amalganation (mixing bones&iron and so) and to watch Ramos operations.

I´ll probably never take Sam without Sonnia and even with her is far from being a must but Sonnia starter is great as Adran said because of Witchling Stalker (nice Ml damage and Condition Removal...and they explode when they die!)

[Ludvig]

Having forced myself to play a few games with 'ol Sam I can say that he works decently when teamed up with a couple of stalkers or a handler and some nice + flip shooters to light stuff on fire (hunters or Ryle for instance). That being said almost any other model in the same price class is easier to get good mileage out of.

Stalkers are a blast. When people maneuver to try and kill them from outside their ml range and you just cheat in a really low mask so they die right in their face and set them on fire. Less fun against snipers but no one can be perfect.

I really wish Samael would have been givien smoldering heart (I think that's the one, the burning def trigger that a bunch of arcanists have).

[Mutter]

What does Sonnia do?

She makes my stuff dead, that's what she does. Almost every game. I hate her ...

[redarkham]

Sonnia is great at long distance aggressive tactics. After either stacking a burning condition on a fig with a stalkers attack, or Sam's witch hunt she can ignore LOS to hit them and her range is respectable. She is versatile in that she can boost a stat once per turn via her lore 0 action. This can get you up to CA9 and if the target has a will of 6+ now she is casting at a CA9 with a positive to the flip. I always take Cherufes Imprint with her so you can drop the two 50mm flame wall tokens. This gives you board control which guild lacks a little since IMO McMourning/Perdita/LadyJ are mostly beatsticks, The Hoff is straight crew boost, Lucius is your boost/shenanigans, while McCabe is really a wild card in how you set him up. Try this list out:

Sonnia - Cherufes Imprint 1ss
Sam + Witch Hunt 11ss
Brutal Emissary + Sonnia Upgrade 10ss
Witchling Handler 8ss
x5 Witchling Stalkers 20ss

[trikk]

49 minutes ago, redarkham said:

Sonnia - Cherufes Imprint 1ss
Sam + Witch Hunt 11ss
Brutal Emissary + Sonnia Upgrade 10ss
Witchling Handler 8ss
x5 Witchling Stalkers 20ss

Make that  x4 Witchling Stalkers. 

I would also go with CounterSpell Aura/Dispel magic if you have so many Witch Hunters.