Help with Shifting Loyalties campaign crew

[mercury]

My friends are running a Shifting Loyalties campaign and I would like a little help building a crew to comepte with theirs.

They have decided to run 25ss crews to start, but these soulstones need to cover the cost of my leader model (i.e. no 'free' Henchman to lead my crew).

My intention would be to run Kaeris as my Master in the longer term, so what starting crew might you recommend that will complement her later on?

My feeling is that the Firestarter (while a nice addition for Kaeris) is probably too squishy, has too little damage output and too little support function to warrant being chosen as my leader. I figured that I'd be better off with either Joss, The Captain or Cassandra leading my crew?

Though he looks pretty good in this low-model count format because of his high resilience and damage output, I would prefer not to select Joss. This is because one of the other guys (a Ramos player) in my group has already chosen him as his leader. This isn't an immutable rule though - if Joss really would be my best pick, considering my longer-term goals (i.e. a Kaeris crew), then I will be happy to field him at the start of the campaign.

[katadder]

I actually ran the firestarter in mine and hes really good thanks to reckless and his ranges.

would think firestarter, gunsmith, fire gamin and willie (at 35 i ran an additional gunsmith and fire gamin)

if you can get upgrades like helmet (hard to kill) and the regen skill the firestarter really comes into his own able to run 3 actions every turn with no worry so almost a pseudo master.

[mercury]

I'll give your suggestion some thought, but cannot help but feel that the crew you have suggested lacks hitting power.

If I were to use the Firestarter as my leader, I think I would go along the lines of:

Firestarter

Johan

Large Arachnid

Rail Worker or Gamin

[decker_cky]

I wouldn't worry too much about hitting power - you're playing the equivalent of a 12 ss game (henchman + cache = 13 in normal games). 

I'd make sure to purchase an upgrade to start - they cost double later on, so the one cheap one is great. Imbued energies on Firestarter means he can deal with your scheme running, so not a bad idea to focus the rest on beaters though, so I don't mind your list. 

[OldMetalShip]

This may be a bit late but having played 2 Shifting Loyalties campaigns with Arcanists already, as long as the campaign is scheduled for 6 weeks or longer, your best bet is starting Cassandra, Arcane Reservoir, and Mechanical Rider. This is true for basically any master in the faction. Cassandra is very good at keeping herself alive when she needs to(which is more important in campaigns than in normal games). I tend to take Arcane Reservoir with every Arcanist crew I run so that's an obvious choice. Mechanical Rider can help make up the early difference in model count then tends to shine all throughout the campaign(and don't even get me started on how broken she is if you flip Pit Fight). After that, you should be able to max your scrip in 2-3 games per week which should allow you all the scrip you need to go into any Arcanist crew by mid-campaign.

 

The two easiest bounties for us are the scheme marker one and the scrap marker one. Both should be easily completed by Mechanical Rider alone. So buy one in the first week or two then buy the second right before the last game of the week before the midway point. This should allow you to purchase a master at the very first opportunity then get their Avatar immediately after your first game with them.