Sonnia's mobility help

[Aeglos]

Hello people,

I'm still new to game  (have only played 10 games or so) and I have some issues with my main Master - the best fire thrower Sonnia Criid. While being amazing and very fire friendly it seems to me that the crew lacks speed in running its schemes. I want to keep it thematic and I currently have these models for her(outside of box purchases):

 

3x Witchling Stalkers

3x Witchling Handlers

3x Death Marshall 

1x The Judge

1x Brutal Effigy 

1x Malifaux Child

Freikorps box set

Hannah

Recently I played a game at 50ss against a Tara player. Final score was 9 7 for him, mainly because I couldn't keep up with the scheme markers. He was always running away and hiding from my LoS using cover etc. So my question is this: should I invest in some guild runners and/or brutal emissary or should I just hire more Marshalls when I need scheme running?

 

[Adran]

Sonnias best answer to an enemy of fast mobile scheme runners, is to kill them.  Use your stalkers to cover the flanks, and add burning to enemies near them. Once the enemy is on fire, it is normally very easy for Sonnia to blow them up.  She isn't going to easily do something like power ritual, but can play denile of the enemy doing the same fairly well. 

The 2 player starter set comes with some fairly fast scheme runners for guild, and they are also witch hunters, so ought to be thematic (depending on how you choose to define thematic).  Other reasonable guild schemers would include Dogs and the Watcher. Neither of which I would find as unthematic in a Sonnia list. 

Alternatively, models like the peacekeeper or the executioner have ways of removing enemy scheme markers. 

When the sanctioned spellcaster comes out, that might be something to consider, as masters and henchmen can use their AP to give her extra actions. 

[Ludvig]

The emmissary doesn't do much scheme running as far as I know.

Guild hounds and watchers are generally considered the dedicated runners in guild. Watchers are hard to come by since only the old metal ones are sold separately so that basically means hounds. Hounds are cheap which helps with out-activation too (against outcasts you may be screwed on that front no matter what you do but that's another thread).

A lot o scheme pools don't force you to choose the marker heavy ones so you could aim for less marker-based schemes.

You should be able to draw LoS to something on most boards. If the board is verydense the aforementioned hounds make great targets for getting your blasts off. As long as the hound can see something the blast can hit it. 

[Hagisman]

The Brutal Emissary will help you get those little cretins that have hidden out of line of sight with Sonnia's conflux. Ranged Burning +1 that ignores line of sight.

For mobile scheme runners you can look at:

• Guard Sergeants - They can throw Scheme Markers around.
• Guild Austringers - They can allow models to move and interact
• Guild Hounds - They are just fast scheme runners, but require another hound nearby to lose insignificant. But they also can 1 action Charge enemies near scheme markers.
• Watchers - Fast scheme runner, but fragile.

For scheme marker denial:

• Executioner - His 0 action destroys scheme markers
• Hunters - They can push at end of turn to get closer to enemy scheme markers.
• Peacekeeper - Destroys scheme markers with a tactical.

[Aeglos]

The main issue in the game was that Tara's little scheme runners placed 3 Markers for A Line in the Sand and 2 for Power Ritual ... at TURN 2. I couldn't get a stalker fast enough in both corners... and those pesky walls afterwards.

Maybe I can't really stop that and should focus on running my own schemes in these cases...

The idea was to use the Emissary's 0 action to light ONE thing on fire. After that ... well FEUER FREI!

I am 100% getting an Emissary when it comes out.

So the choice is now is to decide between

Austringers (but I really don't like how they look :D) or Hounds (which are adorable) for scheme running.

+

Peacekeeper

 

OR

 

The Hoffman crew box.

 

A Sonnia player's advice would be most welcome

 

Thematically I view Sonnia and her crew as a necessary force to deal with the threat of unsanctioned spell casting. The crazed doctor personnel doesn't really feel like they fit in.

 

[Hagisman]

4 minutes ago, Aeglos said:

So the choice is now is to decide between

Austringers (but I really don't like how they look :D) or Hounds (which are adorable) for scheme running.

+

Peacekeeper

OR

The Hoffman crew box.

 

A Sonnia player's advice would be most welcome

My suggestion is to go with the Hoffman box, but that is mostly due to the sheer amount of win that box is made of. Hunters, Watcher, and Guardian are some of the best Guild models.

Barring that Hounds are cheap, but situational in my opinion. They do better with McCabe/Luna. And Peacekeeper will be hard to fit into lists unless you build around him.

First thing I'd suggest is get a 50mm and make a really good Proxy/Conversion for your brutal Emissary.

[Adran]

I'd go back a step. 

How was Tara getting 3 line in the sand markers down and 2 power ritual markers down by turn 2? Thast quite a lot of AP spent on that. Void wretchs aren't that fast. In a standard deployment, they need 4 AP just to cover the distance from 1 corner to the next, plus the AP to drop the markers. Yes, Tara can make them fast, at the cost of a wound, and use her bury tricks to move them up, but the down side to that is Sonnia is very good at killing things, which will unbury anything buried with Glimpse the inevitable. 

It can be done, but it takes a lot of your opponents effort to achieve this sort of thing. 

I don't know your crew, your opponents crew, or the table, but a lot of the time you had what you needed to stop it, if you had decided to try. Sometimes its worth deploying models and leaving them to guard the deployment zone if you expect your opponent is doing power ritual. You don't need to chase them down if you know where they are trying to go already. Just get there. And even if they get there first, they won't score power ritual until the end of the game. You can remove the markers when you do get there. 

A stalker is pretty good at killing void wretchs that come into your half to do power ritual, and unless there is a huge huge amount of blocking terrain I would have expected Sonnia to be able to kill some of the models that were dropping markers in the middle. And if that is the case, you might also want to set on fire the purifying flame, and use him as something for Sonnia to Target without LOS but that she can drop the blast damage onto the opponents. (Ideally with the trigger to give them all burning)

[Aeglos]

@Adran  Yes well we started with corner deployment so moving 15 inches and placing a marker was quite easy for Tara and the wretches. I was clustered pretty tightly around Sonnia and Sam and didn't even try to deny the scheme markers. You're right though, I should have send some units to remove scheme markers. I just completely forgot to do this.

In hindsight Samael really doesn't do much when the other crew prefers to run and hide... 

Has anyone tried the handler yet? Just by looking at her card in the rule book a little drool drips down  

 

@Hagisman Proxy for the Emissary should be ok and it's definitely a good idea. I favor him over the rider and peacekeeper mostly because it has a cooler model IMO. And getting 2 heavy hitters seems like too much overkill.

[Adran]

Ahh corner deployment. Makes Power ritual much easier to do. Also makes Sonnia burning things much harder as you're further apart. 

 

Handlers can be good. But remember if you are looking at her "hand out burning Aura", the attacker needs to see the target still, so it doesn't open up as many extra targets to Sam and sonnia as you might expect. They are also good at speeding up witchlings. 

 

 

 

[Aeglos]

Boosting the speed of Stalkers and positioning them out of their turn seems like pure win to me. IMO Burn Them! Burn Them All is for when some suicidal Melee cluster decides it's a good idea to go out in the open or when you're attacking models with Armor. I'm pretty scared of going off against Rasputina with her heavy armored gathering of beasts.

[Aeglos]

A little update. Went for a rematch against the same Tara player. Similar schemes & strategy:

Standard deployment (THIS helped a lot)
Turf War

Bodyguard

Cursed Object

Plant Explosives

Protect Territory

This time around I actually pressed forward (and took 2 Stalkers in stead of the Judge) while making sure Tara didn't get more 3 shots at Sonnia. There was minimal contact between crews again and a lot of cat and mouse between a Marshall and a Stalker. End of the game I protected my territory and Sam didn't have a scratch on him so 10 points the easy way. And I made sure Karina couldn't get anywhere thanks to 2 Fire Walls so she didn't get the first point for Bodyguard

I came to realize that Miss Criid herself scares a lot of people and just by bringing her near the center ensure most players just stay clear and don't invest in engaging her at all.

But I still can't wait for the Handler to arrive and to finish the proxy for the Emissary. Later on IF I find something that heavily screws me over I'll invest in a Hoffman box.