Sonnia crew question

[amanwing]

Hi,

I want to try out my new painted Emissary and I was thinking about something like this:

Guild
50ss Crew

Sonnia -- 3ss
 +Cherufe's Imprint - 1ss
 +Reincarnation - 1ss

Brutal Effigy - 4ss

Brutal Emissary - 10ss
 +Conflux Of Incineration - 0ss

Francisco Ortega - 8ss
 +Wade In - 1ss

Papa Loco - 7ss

Witchling Handler - 8ss

Witchling Stalker - 5ss

Witchling Stalker - 5ss

The plan is to activate Papa and use “hold this” on Sonnia. Brutal Effigy activates uses “Fear not the sword” on Sonnia and places a Scheme marker close to her. Emissary boxes Papa, moves and throws some dynamite or moves and sets something on fire. Sonnia activates and blasts things, draws cards and summons new Stalkers. End of next activation Papa comes out of the box next to Sonnias Scheme marker and uses “Hold this” again maybe gets boxed again by the emissary. The Stalkers and Handlers are there to set things on fire if something goes wrong.
Can this work?
Would you trade the Effigy and Stalkers to one or two austringers?

 

 

[Ludvig]

I'd probably switch out the handler for a death marshal unless you don't own those. That frees up emmissary AP and lets you keep Loco in the box for a couple of turns until you have him where you want him to go explody. If you are going to have Loco pop back up near Sonnia each turn you could play him without boxing him in the first place so you don't waste precious AP. I'd also get Hermanos for Francisco so he can pull Sonnia up a little bit on turn 1 and bail her out of unfavourable engagements later.

Other than that it looks decent. The effigy should be able to handle one schemey-scheme and the rest of the list looks competent at killing.

As for austringers I'd consider using the last leftover stone to upgrade a stalker into an austringer, that would allow you a bit more flexibility in both schemes and bailing models out.

[amanwing]

Some great advice there. Thank you!

So it would be this:

Guild
50ss Crew

Sonnia -- 3ss
 +Cherufe's Imprint - 1ss
 +Reincarnation - 1ss

Brutal Effigy - 4ss

Brutal Emissary - 10ss
 +Conflux Of Incineration - 0ss

Death Marshal - 6ss

Francisco Ortega - 8ss
 +Wade In - 1ss
 +Hermanos De Armas - 1ss

Guild Austringer - 6ss

Papa Loco - 7ss

Witchling Stalker - 5ss

[Myyrä]

You have very few models spreading burning and only 3ss in your second list. I would drop reincarnation for counterspell aura.

[Alermann]

looking at the list i'm just bothered about the effigy.
I normally use Lady j but the effigy is not always good for some scheme related gameplays and such, so i was thinking about using the hounds with 2 of em u can use em as scheme runners and when u don't need em anymore you can go for a suicide strike giving them bruning condition and then blast em up with sonnia so u can blast all the enemies around them. what do you think?

[rogueeyes]

Hounds as scheme runners are great. You definitely want a itching handler if you are going to run Sonnia as a summoner. Being able to give all weapons with 4 burning is fantastic. 

Astringents are ok but 2 hounds are much better I believe and more versatile.  Plus it gives you extra AP to delay if needed.

[admiralvorkraft]

Sonnia can get some work out of her Conflux upgrade, but it's more of a fix for Sam Hopkins. I'd drop the crutch models, take Hopkins and Abuela/Judge (Back in the Box is a Ml action...). Maybe a Watcher rather than the Effigy, Malifaux Child somehow.

Sonnia plays board control and denial with the Child, the Emissary and Hopkins scoot around delivering massive spikes of damage. The Watcher is a must if you want to get any mileage out of Reincarnation, IMO - Relay Information makes it much easier to catch models in that aura.

But then my advice to most people most of the time is, "Drop Franc, drop Loco, do something interesting with the list." So take it with a grain of salt.

[Ludvig]

27 minutes ago, admiralvorkraft said:

Sonnia can get some work out of her Conflux upgrade, but it's more of a fix for Sam Hopkins. I'd drop the crutch models, take Hopkins and Abuela/Judge (Back in the Box is a Ml action...). Maybe a Watcher rather than the Effigy, Malifaux Child somehow.

Sonnia plays board control and denial with the Child, the Emissary and Hopkins scoot around delivering massive spikes of damage. The Watcher is a must if you want to get any mileage out of Reincarnation, IMO - Relay Information makes it much easier to catch models in that aura.

But then my advice to most people most of the time is, "Drop Franc, drop Loco, do something interesting with the list." So take it with a grain of salt.

Relay information only works when you are drawing LoS to a target. The summoning upgrade doesn't target stuff so you can't draw LoS for it. Solid advice on actually playing a list other than Family though, much more fun  

[admiralvorkraft]

Darn, you're right.

Oh well, only used it once or twice so I don't have much apologizing to do

[trikk]

But how to leave home without all those crutches?

In all honesty those are probably the most reliable crew.

 

I want to like Reincarnation but with all the Hunting Parties out there I can`t ever get it to work and I usually take Disrupt/Badge of Office as my 3rd upgrade

I do want to try a burning Sonnia, but I find Handlers and Sam underwhelming for what they cost. The Thralls might change it as they are minions, so Handlers can push them around, don`t have the  and have a nice Ca with 10" range, so they might be nice to spread out burning with a Handler nearby.

[Alermann]

handlers with austringer if used well are a great source of burning condition! if you do that properly u can burn up 2 pieces in the game and then crush em all with sonnia. hounds works good as well with handlers because of their charge as a (1) AP if enemies are near scheme markers

[trikk]

I don`t think I want enemy models within 10" of Austringers

And the Handler aura is 4 so its hard to charge with the dog to be within 4" of the Handlers.

I like Dashel with 2 Riflemen more tbh.

[Ludvig]

1 minute ago, trikk said:

I don`t think I want enemy models within 10" of Austringers

And the Handler aura is 4 so its hard to charge with the dog to be within 4" of the Handlers.

I like Dashel with 2 Riflemen more tbh.

Austringers are one of the few guildies who don't randomise in combat so if you can tie them up with the emmissary or something you can put burning om them really easily. Edit: Diestro Francisco can also tie stuff up but maybe he was banned from the discussion  

[Ludvig]

44 minutes ago, admiralvorkraft said:

Darn, you're right.

Oh well, only used it once or twice so I don't have much apologizing to do

It's tricky to pull off at all. People start hating on the poor little sod when they realize I will be ignoring cover near him 

[trikk]

Well, if the enemy is in combat Sonnia still has to randomize between targets so while Sam can smash someone (if they are within 6" ) Sonnia can still only swordpoke....

[Ludvig]

True, I was only going on the theme of getting burning on stuff. For the sake of Sonnia, burning stuff isn't needed that often and for Samael, well... We all know how reliable Samael is  

[trikk]

He`s very reliable... he just needs to get in combat . I hope the Emissary+Flaming bullets combo will work with Sonnia

[Ludvig]

I beg to differ, had him in a game yesterday. Got burning on Coryphee duet and Cassandra with imbued energies and tried attacking them both. Without plus flips I couldn't hit a single shot/slap the entire game so I wouldn't call him reliable. I think I missed 6 attacks with him and hit 0 before he died and that was more or less my entire list geared towards setting things up for him. He is semi-reliable if you have a 13 in your hand, when you highest card is an 8 he isn't doing much. His burning spell for 2 ss is on a Ca 5... He should get a  when attacking burning models or something.  

[LunarSol]

Sonnia's a bit odd with "the crew" being very good, well rounded, and reliable.  It's not an unbreakable mold but you have to decide what you're wanting to give up.  PapaBox is probably the hardest cut, particularly with the Emissary that really loves having access to a DM to do the bury for him.  I'd probably personally look to cut Franc first, but you need some other tech to get Sonnia out of combat.  Abuela with Hermanos is an interesting choice, as she can trigger some buries with Obey as well.  Haven't built a full burning crew for a while, but there's a lot of tools to play with right now. I've generally found it to be almost great, but the little inefficiencies add up rather quickly.

[amanwing]

That is a lot to think about. I never did the papa box trick and I never used him at all. So i want to do it at least once. Initialy I thought i could save 6ss when not taking a death marshal and use the emissary to bury. So I hire him as a 4 ss upgrade to a death marshal if you know what i mean.
When getting back to my list I have a core I would like to keep:

Sonnia -- 3ss
 +Cherufe's Imprint - 1ss
 +Reincarnation - 1ss

Brutal Emissary - 10ss
 +Conflux Of Incineration - 0ss

Papa Loco - 7ss

I would also like having Francisco and a Handler around but they are not set.

And I would like to summon some Stalkers.

 

 

[trikk]

28 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

I beg to differ, had him in a game yesterday. Got burning on Coryphee duet and Cassandra with imbued energies and tried attacking them both. Without plus flips I couldn't hit a single shot/slap the entire game so I wouldn't call him reliable. I think I missed 6 attacks with him and hit 0 before he died and that was more or less my entire list geared towards setting things up for him. He is semi-reliable if you have a 13 in your hand, when you highest card is an 8 he isn't doing much. His burning spell for 2 ss is on a Ca 5... He should get a  when attacking burning models or something.  

If I would take upgrades on Samael I would probably take one of the new ones. Probably a Debt to the Guild. When your highest card is an 8 not many models shine tbh :P. I feel Witch Hunt is very overpriced for what it does/requires. Same with most of Ca from Judge. But I`m a Guild Henchmen whiner. Apart from Queeg, Frank and maybe Sidir I find them meh (except probably with McCabe as he can have random models in his crew and they work)

 

Also, you probably should have Flaming Bullets, Cassandra needs a 10, Duet needs a 9 to pass, better use of a high-card-8 hand that shooting random models

[LunarSol]

28 minutes ago, amanwing said:

That is a lot to think about. I never did the papa box trick and I never used him at all. So i want to do it at least once. Initialy I thought i could save 6ss when not taking a death marshal and use the emissary to bury. So I hire him as a 4 ss upgrade to a death marshal if you know what i mean.
When getting back to my list I have a core I would like to keep:

Sonnia -- 3ss
 +Cherufe's Imprint - 1ss
 +Reincarnation - 1ss

Brutal Emissary - 10ss
 +Conflux Of Incineration - 0ss

Papa Loco - 7ss

I would also like having Francisco and a Handler around but they are not set.

And I would like to summon some Stalkers.

 

 

The big advantage to Papa is just that with  to damage, its much much much easier to get your blast triggers that really make Sonnia a monster.

The problem with the Emissary as a DM upgrade is just that he doesn't keep models in the box the way the DM does.  Instead you spend the AP of a 10 SS model to bury a model.  I do want to play with it a little more, as you can probably get enough out of Hold This to still be worth it.  The activation order is rather picky though as the Emissary doesn't hold models in the cage the same way the DM does.

I'm not sure the Emissary is the best addition to a Reincarnation crew.  It's primary advantage is helping take care of the ability to ignore LOS and unfortunately Reincarnation doesn't work with that, as its not allowed to ignore LOS.

 

 

[trikk]

I agree with LunarSol.

 

I think a lot of my opponents underestimate Papa Loco and think he`s there just for "Hold this" but actually if you position correctly you can blow up 2-3 models with ease (Pandora needing a 11 to not get 6 Wds twice followed by Booom! really hurts). Only alternative I see for him is Samael with Emissary with Flaming Bullets spam but its a lot harder to pull off and a lot more expensive. I think I would substitue Frank with something before I would drop Papa+DM. I also find Cherufe and Counterspell aura almost autoincludes for me. Even if you don`t Flame-Wall, if something engages you its most likely in Dampening range so can`t prevent or add suits via SS, so Francisco or any other counter can make quite nice work of it. Counterspell aura can really handicap the enemy. 

[amanwing]

Just played a game and reincarnation gave me only one model because of the 10 range. I won and it was very easy just blasting things to pieces. I learned that Sonnia can kill stuff without burning and that the brutal effigy is not really worth it for me. The Emissary also did not feel good enough for a 10 stone model. The handler was bored all the time. Papa was great even if boxed most of the time and Francisco was good as always. But the winner model was Sonnia (monster with + to damage). She almost won the game alone. I missed an austringer so I guess I will include one.

[Ludvig]

The emmissary can use Loco's attacks while he is buried. It's somewhat short-ranged but can be really good.

@trikk I'm an idiot! I didn't even think to copy flaming bullets. It even took me a couple of turns to remember that I could copy enemy attacks, I moved to get LoS to Samael when he was behind the duet when they have better attacks than him... Last night's game resulta in more and more facepalms the more I think about it...