Are we actually underpowered?

[Surrealistik]

2 hours ago, trikk said:

Well, if we get ahead on Wave 4 and lose on Wave 1 are we ahead or behind? Either you look at the faction as sum or it doesn`t make sense. If you don`t agree with the arguments I doubt anyone can do anything about it as it doesn`t look like you can be convinced.

True but the difference isn`t as big as a lot of people think

These changes are fine. I am pretty hyped about them. The current Sonnia crews I run are (in my and my opponents opinion) stronger than the papabox+2 austringer ones. Nobody is telling you to L2P but if several people that proably play Guild are happy with the changes and like them then I think the errata worked really well. If you feel Guild is weak you can always 

I find sometimes its hard to break the meta. You`re so used to Francisco/Papa Box/2 Austringers that its hard to look past that. The errata did exactly what you said. Austringers are now specialized units. Sometimes I will take them. Sometimes I won`t. It depends on the pool. I also believe making an errata to half the models would only cause chaos and frustration amongst players. Even with the slight errata some people were complainig. The only thing austringers lost is frustrating long range shooting which ends up forcing them to move sometimes. They were a very annoying piece that could one shot a terror tot 18" away that was hiding behind 3 forests. I personally didn`t find them that abusive when I didn`t play Guild but I understand a lot of people could

#1: You have to keep in mind that top factions which were already placing better than guild also got some really nice goodies, and few major cuddles. Arcanists for example, they had what, the Colette cuddle? I think that relative to other competitive/top factions Guild came out of Wave 4 and this errata wave less strong overall, yes.

#2: It's not utterly crippling perhaps but it is definitely significant.

#3: Lucius is nothing to me as is the Guardian; these changes are purely bitter. I doubt that current Sonnia crews are better than precuddle papabox.

#4: Disagree. Austringers are still generalists, but less powerful generalists. I do agree that it would be difficult to throw around fucktons of errata as compensation for their cuddling but  it would still be preferable. Again I agree with changing Austringers to be less omnipotent, but I disagree with the way they were Cuddled, and the lack of account for the fact that they were the pillar/hub of Guild lists.

Also yes, I think in balance between the scheme changes and this, GG2017 is going to be GG for Guild unless another errata comes to our rescue in 6 months.

[JDAntoine]

13 hours ago, Starrius said:

do you think this is also shown in why they have shown in the other side that the guild have lost control?

A little! But it's also a logical outcome of the design. If the old Governor General kept the ties between his strongest assets strong the Guild as a whole could have remained connected. What we see is that the old GG was so self focused that a large part of his trust into others was a severe misjudgment. If it wasn't for Lucius and McCabe then the old GG could still have reigned.

I do believe that Franco Marlow will  not make the same mistake and I do hope his design will lead to a 'Guild faction purist'. 

12 hours ago, Wolfpact said:

Well, you may have a point. A lot of varying hooks and aspects, coupled with the fact that they are sort of 'vanilla' in a game with some very gonzo factions - play a bunch of cops and soldiers,or play.. a Jack-the-Joker with undead hookers/ an army of nightmares lead by a dreaming Earth childand its horrible 'pet' Tyrant / An ice witch and her cannibal cult and snow/ice monsters/etc. .. and the list keeps going on... then take the fact into account that even 'badass normal humans' has competition with the 'Korps - dieselpunk WW1-esque badass mercenaries with specialized roles and mages, or the Barrows Gang -outlaws are cool, and they have the Old West vibe and the 'plan the Heist, adapt on the fly' sort of cool cred.. or badass chicks with swords in stripperific outfits... or badass, steampunk miners representing a worker's rebellion in various, very-compatible forms....

Then factor in..honestly, the Guild are, frankly, the bad guys. Slavery, imperilaism, plutocratic corruption, mage-hunting and exploiting... they're evil, authoritarian scum of the highest order, which is a bit of a thematic turn-off for some.. and for those who enjoy being the bad guy? They're a very 'mundane' sort of evil compared to.. well, nearly every other faction of 'bad guys'.

I largely agree, but perhaps even more interestingly, Guild and Ten Thunders have a ton of Dual Faction Masters but it isn't strictly clear for newer players that this is the case. Even Nellie can be deemed a Guild/Outcast Master. It's currently only Lady Justice, Sonnia and Perdita who are 'faction purists'  with all others being mixed into something else, one way or another. 

So perhaps because of that, the fact that Wave 1 was the only 'full Guild Master' Wave Wyrd is considering a newer design. As stated before I have high hopes for a Summoner Master named Franco Marlow. The fact that we have no real use for non-Austringer Guardsmen in itself really is a missing part in 'Guild' identity. All Guild models that work well arn't typical 'Guild Guards'. This in turn makes Guild non-typical, while even the mixed Ten Thunders have a clear definition of what Ten Thunder models are, while their Masters are roughly as dual faction as ours a ton of TT Minions work really well. We can't really say that.

Being the human bad guy isn't so much a problem, as long as they are 'bad ass' in design. Nellie was a bit of a miss on that part and again I think our truest 'bad asses' are only found in Wave 1. All the others are just too mixed into different factions aswell. 

10 hours ago, Surrealistik said:

In general I think a lot of you are looking at the changes through some seriously rose tinted glasses.

Bottom line, Guild is definitely worse at competitive level play, and it was _not_ a problem faction in this respect to begin with; this is the fundamental issue. To emphasize, a reasonably balanced faction at top-high level play was diminished to the point where it may no longer be viable there.

Were Austringers overtly centralizing? Yes. Should they have been changed? Absolutely; but not without something else to pick up the slack at higher level play as Guild's competitiveness was largely upheld by them, which we simply didn't get (Lucius/Guardian buffs simply don't compensate for a blow to one of our best and most universal tools; we needed a buff to something that could fit in any list to compensate; for example, maybe Guild Guard could be made not shit? Alternately turning Austringers and other models into powerful specialists would have been even more preferable).

Sonnia is straight up weaker; took a considerable cuddle and got nothing in return. Was she competitively strong with Papabox? Yep. Problematic? Nope. Net result? One of our most competitive (but balanced) masters became significantly less competitive. By the way, this isn't even getting into scheme changes.

I think we manage to remain strong and I think you have some serious valid points regarding a lot of our design.

As is I too believe that in some of the cuddles another thing could have been given in return, likely boosts in other 4 to 6 cost Minions.
Lucius became good, which is great! Lucius is also as Guild/Neverborn as they come, so if you like Mimics or Neverborn, your still likely want to play Neverborn instead

[JDAntoine]

Thought of the day:

I think Guild can play on a high competative level but with less faction-only-tools as most other factions can. The one who do play on this competative level with Guild-only stuff are Sonnia and Perdita. If we have to put a name to our weaknesses I would say there are 3-ish, 1. Guardsman, 2. Enforcers and 3. Death Marshals. Which in turn make our crews very predictable. 

There remains to be a severe disconnect between what Guardsman supposed to do (lorewise) versus what they bring to the table. All non-Austringer Guardsman have a pairing/chained design that currently is not seen in other factions and is something I can't deem excellent design for the simple reason that it removes the advantage of being able to customize your crew pre-battle. As the only way to be certain you have something going on with those synergies is by having a pre-build Guardsman themed list. Next to Austringers the Guild Hounds also serve a purpose but this purpose is largely exclusive to Luna (McCabe).

Other than Guardsman (who should be a large part of our identity) we also still have a large slew of Henchmen and Enforces who for lack of better words just feel a point (or two) too high. Samual, Dashal, Exorcist, Handler, more can technically be added and lastly we have Guild Marshals who are suprisingly lackluster with the queen of Guild Marshals, Lady Justice. The Death Marshal, who was potent got indirectly Cuddled...

What this leads to insn't an underpowered faction but pre-filtered options. Unfortunatly most choices available can be crossed instantly because they would lead to obnoxious high cost pre-builds, leading to 7 guy crews which in most cases is pretty far from ideal, also under GG 2017. 
Things like Reporters/Witchling Thralls excite the Guild, not because they are that incredibly good but because it has been a while for us to recieve anything worthwhile in Minion form. 

The future of Guild is looking decently bright but does not seem to remove the predictabilty of our competative crew compositions. Which is only reinforced with very true quotes like:
 

13 hours ago, trikk said:

Well, for example I started Guild then I had a 3 month Arcanist experience but nobody blasts like Sonnia so I`m back at Guild

[Tris]

@JDAntoine

I might agree with you that guild lists are more predictable than others in most cases, but if you announce guild on a tournament people still don't know what you'll bring.

And yeah, we have quite some models that feel like they are either one point too expensive or need something more to do - although I like their ideas in general (guardsmen get stronger in teams is imho great design, but atm maybe poorly executed).

 

And I finally have to say a word about Death Marshals (as we had quite some posts on them already in the errata thread) - you always state that they were potent pre cuddle.

I foundd that statement very interesting from the beginning, as nobody touched them in any way.

I get what you want to say, the papa boy was a reason to take them in a sonnia list, but that did not make the Marshal a good choice!

Instead, it merged Papa/Marshal more or less into one model, and that was a viable choice.

The Marshals are and were always the same and I would like to see one or two buffs for them in the future (one more wound, one more walk and charge? Buffs for the box could easily turn out to be to strong and hatd to balance :/ ) , but they still have some tricks up their sleeves, especially in gg17 and their box can threaten everyone late in turn or with low willpower.

I had tournament games were a Marshal was in charge range of my master, I had only rubbish cards in hand and I feared the box (luckily, no one tried to box him :p).

 

 

@Surrealistik

I would still like to have an argument with you, but It seems like you are ignoring my question :/

Maybe you think my questions have nothing to do with the topic?

Nonetheless, I would like to know where you think the weak points of Guild as a faction are, to see what could be done to improve us as a faction

[Starrius]

as a new player (less than 5 months) I originally started with guild as they  came in the starter set.  Having played them for 2 months and looking at other factions and models the reason why I as a newer player left was because I felt that the faction/models were very samey.

 

I know that all factions have models that are always taken in all builds, and it felt that guild seemed to have more of these models than other factions. 

"Comments like if you take less than 2 austringers you are not doing it right" was something I had actually said to me once.

Francisco is another model, I once comments that as a new player I didn't want to use him because he felt like a crutch with people saying that the whole faction was based off of him being a viable if not important model that all masters are based off of.

 

As a new player I actually found this disheartening and I think this could be one of the reasons why I ended up changing faction.

 

While other factions do have models you will always take I feel like they aren't the only options and not taking them doesn't hamper you as much.

 

If this is how I feel as a newer player I can only imagine how the experienced players who have been playing guild a long time can feel.

 

I don't think guild is an underpowered faction but I feel it's design has stagnated and people have got so used to only using certain models that having to consider other feels like a reduction in power.

[trikk]

Guild is certaibly playable without Austringers and Francisco. But on a high level you optimize your lists and thats why he is an autoinclude. Doppel is the same for NB. I do however wish a few models in  Guild had a Df stat boost and El Mayor giving out +1 instead of +2.

 

I do think people stagnated and can't come out of the frank+ 2 austringers and I thats why I like the errata. I didn't play GG17 yet but I find it harder than GG16 and the sad truth to me is Nellie solves all GG17 problems...

 

 

[JDAntoine]

1 hour ago, Tris said:

@JDAntoine

I might agree with you that guild lists are more predictable than others in most cases, but if you announce guild on a tournament people still don't know what you'll bring.
And yeah, we have quite some models that feel like they are either one point too expensive or need something more to do - although I like their ideas in general (guardsmen get stronger in teams is imho great design, but atm maybe poorly executed).

And I finally have to say a word about Death Marshals (as we had quite some posts on them already in the errata thread) - you always state that they were potent pre cuddle.I foundd that statement very interesting from the beginning, as nobody touched them in any way.

I get what you want to say, the papa boy was a reason to take them in a sonnia list, but that did not make the Marshal a good choice!
Instead, it merged Papa/Marshal more or less into one model, and that was a viable choice.

The Marshals are and were always the same and I would like to see one or two buffs for them in the future (one more wound, one more walk and charge? Buffs for the box could easily turn out to be to strong and hatd to balance :/ ) , but they still have some tricks up their sleeves, especially in gg17 and their box can threaten everyone late in turn or with low willpower.

I had tournament games were a Marshal was in charge range of my master, I had only rubbish cards in hand and I feared the box (luckily, no one tried to box him :p).

Hi Tris,

The Guild has become rather predictable for the higher competative levels. The prime reason for this is that the Guild exclusive powerful Masters we have simply said arn't that many and what is exclusive to your faction also makes up your faction 'power'. 

There are several layers of impact regarding the Death Marshal that seem either be missed or (logically) not fully understand yet by a part of the player groups, which is largely the consequence of players playing several different "personal" builds. However first I'll get into the indirect consequences of the Errata. 

Death Marshal
First we have to start on how you somehow missed the Errata on the DM, he did get changed and is on the list allready. Something that might seem as insignificant as Void is per definition a larger change as Guild players currently give credit for.

Other than that (and I'll try to keep it short) this is what indirectly happend to the DM:
(NR) Tara became better and with her Death Marshals became better
(+) Lucius became better and with him Death Marshals became better
(-) Papa Loco's effect became worse and with it Death Marshals became worse (Papa Loco's effect is largely exclusive to the Guild, other than Jack Daw)
(-) Francisco's effect became worse and with it Death Marshals became worse (Frank's effect is exclusive to the Guild)
Netto result, NR, +, - and -, ergo the Death Marshal became worse for the Guild. 

The prime reason for me to thake the DM with Papa Loco was not because they became one model, instead it allowed us to have the most potent effect of Papa Loco to be always there and the prime weakness of Papa Loco (early game/exploded/controled kills) to be removed. 

So this errata brought at least 3 indirect changes to the Death Marshal, even more outside of the Guild.
 

1 hour ago, trikk said:

I do think people stagnated and can't come out of the frank+ 2 austringers and I thats why I like the errata. I didn't play GG17 yet but I find it harder than GG16 and the sad truth to me is Nellie solves all GG17 problems...

It's difficult to call it stagnation. I see it as the result of not having (or recieving) 'better/alternative' options for a few years.

The thing is, Lucius' change is massive but this change is not exclusive to the Guild. The changes applied to both Papa Loco and Francisco are rather exclusive to the Guild as the Papabox combination was exclusive to the Guild.

What we see is that Guild has recieved a massive overhaul last Errata but much more has to be done to have Guild gain more options, I hope the test team sees this aswell. In the last Errata the Guild did not gain more options other than Lucius which is also not exclusive to the Guild.

1 hour ago, Starrius said:

I don't think guild is an underpowered faction but I feel it's design has stagnated and people have got so used to only using certain models that having to consider other feels like a reduction in power.

Based on the results we have where Guild did competatively preform this is also true. The use for a very small set of used models comes from the small disconnects in many other choices.

[trikk]

I have to say that the change to francisco is a veeery situational (-). I never felt the need to use Pinebox on him. I feel the buff to Lucius is more in plus than the change to papa loco. The Francisco change is a minor detail.

 

We lost PapaBox but we got Numb which mitigates his main weakness. If you put him in Counterspell aura range you can really make obeying hard. You can also do a safe trick with Abuela obeying him to move to Sonnia, then Chain to him, give buff and then walk away. The buff is usefull for 3 turns usually. Then it's not that necessary.

 

I think the DMs are still solid with Lucius and McCabe. I will try to play 2 more often to prove this point

[JDAntoine]

3 minutes ago, trikk said:

We lost PapaBox but we got Numb which mitigates his main weakness. If you put him in Counterspell aura range you can really make obeying hard. You can also do a safe trick with Abuela obeying him to move to Sonnia, then Chain to him, give buff and then walk away. The buff is usefull for 3 turns usually. Then it's not that necessary.

I think the DMs are still solid with Lucius and McCabe. I will try to play 2 more often to prove this point

We didn't get Numb, we allready had Numb. It's not so much about what can be done to migate the change but what you recieve in turn of losing an option or three.

DM's can be made solid. The real question is if I think it's good design that the one who 'trains them to become a DM in the first place' actually is the worst with them. 

[trikk]

I know what you mean but it still stands that Numb on Loco mitigates a lot of his weaknesses without providing the iffy gameplay experience of the papa-box.

 

So are we discussing DMs or Justice? The GM synergies are lackluster and Justice is great at alpha striking and surviving with recruiter but her synergies are basically non existing. That doesn't make DMs bad. Same goes to witch hunters. Most of them work better with Nellie or Lucius than with Sonnia. 

[JDAntoine]

26 minutes ago, trikk said:

I know what you mean but it still stands that Numb on Loco mitigates a lot of his weaknesses without providing the iffy gameplay experience of the papa-box.

So are we discussing DMs or Justice? The GM synergies are lackluster and Justice is great at alpha striking and surviving with recruiter but her synergies are basically non existing. That doesn't make DMs bad. Same goes to witch hunters. Most of them work better with Nellie or Lucius than with Sonnia. 

It removes the early game weakness partially. Numb does not in any way shape or form replace the previous effectiveness of PapaBox.
We're discussing DM's and their functionality exclusive to Guild.

It's wonderful that Lucius was added to our ranks but the fact remains he allready should have been there. It's a fix for something that simply said was bad design before, it's not like Lucius is a newly added option, if you understand what I mean. It is an improved option. 
DM's are not bad but they are most certainly not on the same competative flexible level as Austringers for example.  

For better or worse this Errata was heavily influenced by Nova 2015/2016 and the Guild crew that took both championships with the exact same choices. When you look at Arcanists for example multiple choices are added Errata after Errata, expansion after expansion. Even with the recent Upgrades to Executioners and Dashal I find their inclusion unlikely. 

Nellie, McCabe, Lucius or general support Masters will make Minions/Enforcers/Henchmen better, this is their job, the point remains that several Guild exclusive choices (also Masters) are not good enough on their own and this shows. So what you are left with is 2-4 high competative choices, some of which are not competatively exlusive to Guild players.


 

[trikk]

I cannot agree. The difference between Lucius being something new and being drastically changed in an errata from rubbish to at least ok is for me irrelevant. You were lacking options. Now you got them. Thats what matters.

 

Numb is not there to replace Papabox. Numb is there to allow you to Table people with Sonnia turn 3 with lowered chances of being obeyed to blow up in your face.

 

Every faction has bad units. Or ones that work just with a specific master. Neverborn have a lot of mediocre henchmen and enforcers. TT have like 5 monk units and lot of people use 0.

 

I think the errata to papa was not done because of someone winning some tournament but because while writing the book they didn't figure out that the papa will be in a box. Justin was a more conservative designer. He changed single units or loopholes like the Mei Feng Conflux so it stayed. Aaron is more open to errata and changes bad interactions or models that are played incorrectly. Thats why Prompt was changed IMHO

 

Currently competetive Guild masters are: Sonnia, Perdita, Nellie, McCabe, McMourning. I think you can go with most of them to a Fixed Master Tournament and do well.

 

Saying youre limited 2-4 options is not correct as I have 8 different models in my Sonnia crew and none of them is an Austringer

[JDAntoine]

Not really, again more options got removed than there where gained.

Nellie currently is not a proven competative Master. Neither McCabe and McMourning are exclusive to guild, which is the whole point  

[trikk]

I can assure you Nellie is a competetive master. 

This means out of 8 masters 6 are competetive. But 3 of them are dual faction so we are undedpowered.

 

I also feel a lot of people underestimate Hoffman. While gets eaten by Viks I think he canstand his own in a lot of S&S

 

That doesn' convince me

[Tris]

@JDAntoine 

I still think that we are all talking about the same thing, but use a different approach and words to describe it, therefore we start to turn ourselves in circles:

Facts:

- Death Marshals could use a buff (if that should target either the models themselves or their overall use/synergy with Lady J is debatable).

- We got hit by the last errata, probably quite hard.

 

- The 4th wave stuff and 'Newcius' where not intended to counterbalance the cuddles.

 

But:

- 'Newcius' and wave 4 stuff had impact on our faction overall.

- how huge that impact might be/not be has yet to turn out, imo.

The Nellie box wasn't on general release yet (february, yeah!:D), the same holds true for the other wave 4 stuff. (so some/many players didn't get to try it on a tournament yet)

Our new Upgrades are widely used, so they are good.

 

So, I guess we could agree on these facts?

 

The errata was a cuddle.

I think thanks to wave 4 we gained more competetive options, but hard data on their usefulness is still missing.

 

On to our Marshal friends:

And still, imho Death Marshals made Papa Loco better, not the other way round.

I get what you mean that one was taken because of the other, the two of them lived in symbiosis^^

But DM wasn't per se better because of Papa, and he isn't worse now.

 

But as I said, I think that we just have a different point of view on that matter

[Myyrä]

I'd say double Austringer hasn't really been an optimal choice ever, at least not in all situations. Their damage is too weak to threaten anything other than the feeblest of scheme runners. I haven't really been using double Austringers after the first six months of playing Malifaux.

[Tris]

13 minutes ago, JDAntoine said:

Not really, again more options got removed than there where gained.

Nellie currently is not a proven competative Master. Neither McCabe and McMourning are exclusive to guild, which is the whole point  

What options got removed?

And what options where added?

 

And yeah, Nellie is not proven to be competitive(although I would say there are string indication that she might very well be^^)  but there's also no proof that she's not

 

And I don't get why the availability of some models in other faction makes us worse?

McMourning, McCabe and Lucius play very differently in their other faction, and mercs are a thing, that's the reason of existence for the merc rule

[trikk]

5 minutes ago, Myyrä said:

I'd say double Austringer hasn't really been an optimal choice ever, at least not in all situations. Their damage is too weak to threaten anything other than the feeblest of scheme runners. I haven't really been using double Austringers after the first six months of playing Malifaux.

I've been. Now I stopped and I strongly agree with this.

[JDAntoine]

40 minutes ago, Tris said:

What options got removed?

And what options where added?

And I don't get why the availability of some models in other faction makes us worse?

McMourning, McCabe and Lucius play very differently in their other faction, and mercs are a thing, that's the reason of existence for the merc rule

See the errata for what got removed .

Options that where added are related to Lucius, in other words not exclusive to the Guild.

It does not make the faction worse. It can be a reason as to why not too many stick with the faction. As mentioned I do not feel we are underpowered, but we have a very select ammount of models who actually see top competative play. 

The last three do not actually play that differently in their faction at all unless with differently you mean 'better', McMourning is a heavy beater with better Poison interraction in Ressurs, McCabe and Lucius preform their own support. McCabe in TT is argaubly more potent thanks to TT having more potent Minion choices. Due to how Neverborn has very little good ranged choices they gain (ranged) Austringer acces with Lucius. 
 

[trikk]

25 minutes ago, JDAntoine said:

See the errata for what got removed .

Options that where added are related to Lucius, in other words not exclusive to the Guild.

It does not make the faction worse. It can be a reason as to why not too many stick with the faction. As mentioned I do not feel we are underpowered, but we have a very select ammount of models who actually see top competative play. 

The last three do not actually play that differently in their faction at all unless with differently you mean 'better', McMourning is a heavy beater with better Poison interraction in Ressurs, McCabe and Lucius preform their own support. McCabe in TT is argaubly more potent thanks to TT having more potent Minion choices. Due to how Neverborn has very little good ranged choices they gain (ranged) Austringer acces with Lucius. 
 

But Austringers got Cuddled :P.

I think Lucius and McCabe got a solid Guild-only buff with Thralls. A Debt is also an hench/enforcer upgrade that bumps up Guild Lucius vs NB Lucius. I also think we get more from NB than they do from Guild. Changelings and Doppel and Tannen vs new Austringers and Queeg? I'd go for it

 

Guild Mcmourning is different than Resser one. Their is a poison bomber/summoner. Our is a tarpit (Badge, Frank) with giving out precise. He's also a great addition to gg17 with FFM on a suit and giving out interacts.

[Whut]

I take issue with several proposals in this thread:

1) Death Marshals are underpowered, therefore they need a buff.

There is one clear answer to this - who cares? Every faction has many less than stellar options. Ressers have Draugr, Carrion Effigy, Canine Remains, Dead Rider, Onryo, etc. They don't care much, they just take their better options.

10T have quite possibly one of the worst minion selections in the game - High and Fermented River Monks are awful, Wastrels are awful, Oiran, Thunder Archers, Torakage are awful. I could go on.

Union Miners, Large Arachnids, Most Gamin suck, even with Sandeep.

Young Nephilim, Beckoners, Bloodwretches, Wicked Dolls suck

Wouku Raiders, Freikorpsmen, Desperate Mercenaries, etc are all garbage.

Bushwackers, Wild Boars, Bayou Gators all suck.

The list only quadruples or more if you begin to include Enforcer and Henchman options. So why do we care specifically about Death Marshals? Just take Witchlings, Thralls, Reporters (these things are NUTS), Brutal Effigy, etc.

2) Guild lists are more predictable than other factions' lists.

Absolutely not true. When I go against guild, I have to prepare for EVERYTHING. I have to prepare for the "cross the board on turn 1 or immediately lose" scenario against Sonnia, for Perdita's mix of absurdly high stats, dangerous shooting, and even more dangerous melee, for Hoffman's ability to throw 2-3 of the most buffed-up, scariest beaters in the game WITH strong mobility, healing, and obey support. For McCabe's ability to send four tiny fast scheme runners out while still spending the bulk of his ss on core central models who he then buffs and fights alongside. And now for Nellie who will virtually never be out activated because she can delay her turn and effectively paralyze  (5" push plus slow is effectively paralysis) AND remove from objectives up to 2-3 models per turn, ensuring it is virtually impossible to score Extraction/Stash/etc against her. (Not to mention all the other ridiculous stuff she can do)

All of these end in completely different games and you need to be prepared for ALL of them.

3) Guild need help to remain viable in GG2017

I still don't see how anyone can think this. Sonnia is still almost as powerfully "win on turn 2" gamebreaking as before, just with Austringers slightly turned down and perhaps a desire to keep Papa closer. She still 9 times out of 10 outright wins the game against anyone if she gets two attacks (with a plus to damage) against any model in the opponent's crew.

McCabe just got MUCH MUCH more competitive with the addition of Thralls. These things are crazy and McCabe can give them Reactivate.

Perdita got no worse aside from no more Austringer cheese, which was never required in the first place.

Nellie dominates in any Area-based scheme and perpetually controls the board. You will NEVER out control her. She, at any moment, can delay 5+ actions, then push a friendly Executioner 10", give it fast, and then let it charge you for 4 attacks on ANY model through any gap in your defensive line (nearly guarenteed to kill Reva, for instance) she reverse-obeys, pushing you into her models for free attacks, she effectively shuts down any enemy beater entirely by perpetually pushing and slowing them, she herself as a (0) pushes around and places scheme markers for free, etc.

The 2017 schemes are also fair game for guild. The new always-take is decent for McCabe and Nellie. The new Dig-Their-Graves is a Phiona Gage with Transparance lottery. Frame for Murder is guarenteed with an Executioner. Field Reporters are better than Performers when it comes to removing enemy scheme markers, as they are cheaper, replace the marker with your own, are more mobile, more tough (disguise is gold), and more versatile (slowing, debuffing, pushing, or damaging an enemy from 8" away while being able to choose your suit is more universally useful than pushing closer and sometimes paralyzing when the stars align).

 

Guild as a whole are in a better position now than they have EVER been before, hands down.

[trikk]

34 minutes ago, Whut said:

I take issue with several proposals in this thread:

1) Death Marshals are underpowered, therefore they need a buff.

There is one clear answer to this - who cares? Every faction has many less than stellar options. Ressers have Draugr, Carrion Effigy, Canine Remains, Dead Rider, Onryo, etc. They don't care much, they just take their better options.

10T have quite possibly one of the worst minion selections in the game - High and Fermented River Monks are awful, Wastrels are awful, Oiran, Thunder Archers, Torakage are awful. I could go on.

Union Miners, Large Arachnids, Most Gamin suck, even with Sandeep.

Young Nephilim, Beckoners, Bloodwretches, Wicked Dolls suck

Wouku Raiders, Freikorpsmen, Desperate Mercenaries, etc are all garbage.

Bushwackers, Wild Boars, Bayou Gators all suck.

The list only quadruples or more if you begin to include Enforcer and Henchman options. So why do we care specifically about Death Marshals? Just take Witchlings, Thralls, Reporters (these things are NUTS), Brutal Effigy, etc.

While I agree with the message, some of the mentioned models I see quite often and find competetive.

 

As for gg17 Sonnia is weaker as from 4 suited ups: one is FFM, one requires interacting with enemy, one requires killing near markers and one requires crossing the middle. Those are way harder for her than hunting party/show of force

[JDAntoine]

If the exuse for pieces 'sucking' is 'because other pieces suck' you have reach the limit of your design. 

[trikk]

1 minute ago, JDAntoine said:

If the exuse for pieces 'sucking' is 'because other pieces suck' you have reach the limit of your design. 

No matter what you do some things will always be better and nothers subpar. This applies to board games, miniature games and even video games where rebalancing is easiest.

 

Its the hard truth but its the truth.

[daniello_s]

27 minutes ago, trikk said:

As for gg17 Sonnia is weaker as from 4 suited ups: one is FFM, one requires interacting with enemy, one requires killing near markers and one requires crossing the middle. Those are way harder for her than hunting party/show of force

Agreed with FFM although you can hit the target with Burning and once it gets final wound from Burning it won't give enemy any VPs.

Scheme which requires killing model near scheme marker - really that hard to pull for Sonia? You can use Deliver Orders to setup scheme marker which must be at least 4'' away from enemy (as far as I remember) and then blast this model into the sky.

As for others - you can always choose Claim Jump and kill anything which would try to stop you scoring it (Sonia can do it easily from safe distance as you know it well). So this is one scheme. Second scheme you can choose from 2 non-suited - I'm sure you will found something nice there which you can achieve.

Can see her suffering much in GG2017.