Guild Hounds, viability outside of McCabe?

[Hagisman]

I've been trying to figure out how best to use Guild Hounds outside of McCabe. Since Luna is essentially the Guild Hound Master by getting rid of Insignificant for them it seems a bit like you're taking a hit if you take them out of McCabe crews.

Currently my philosophy is that 2 Guild Hounds = 1 Six Soulstone model.

So they would be vying for the same place as a Death Marshal, Warden, Austringer(not often), Pathfinder, or Lawyer. Especially since they have to contend with the Insignificant which without it would make them excellent scheme runners at 3ss.

Usually I run the Watcher and now after Nellie's release the Field Reporter.

How do you guys feel about them?

[Ludvig]

I use them sometimes. I feel like they are a single 9ss scheme runner which leads to you building a list because you like hounds rather than throwing in a nice 3ss dude at the end of list building.

The three hounds approach is nice since you can live with loosing one and you can have a pre-runner hound that moves up to let the other two place two markers from being close to it. If something threatens them you send one hound to tie it up and let the other two keep scheming. If the enemy has a scheme-runner that can't push (there a a few rare ones  ) you can move one hound to prevent their interacts while still letting your hounds interact.

[trikk]

They are good in Interference and decent in Inspection.

They also are pretty cheap activations. If you take 3 sometimes you really surprise your oponent with 9-10 activations.

Had a Dita vs TT McCabe game when they gave me 3 Inspection points for going defensive in a quarter.

Had a game with Sonnia and 2 dogs but it was the BJ  festival- Sonnia flipped 3 and got killed by Vulture.

[Myyrä]

10 minutes ago, trikk said:

the BJ  festival

Sounds like something completely unrelated to Malifaux.

[Hagisman]

12 minutes ago, trikk said:

 BJ  festival

Sidetracked... Can you elaborate what this festival is about?

[psychogeek]

Consider strategies and schemes needing sheer numbers (GG2016 in particular). They are minions so they still count for things like guard the stash, interference, etc. Still great models for their cost. Also consider how they have the "guardsman" characteristic. There are some particular synergies there

[Hagisman]

4 minutes ago, aquenaton said:

I can imagine that there were flying Black Jokers all over the duels

Ah that explains it. I'll just extricate my head from the gutter.

[Cadaverousbirth]

It sounds like that game...blew...........

 

 

...Hounds are good but die easy. Best to hide them and run around yelling "woof woof!"

[trikk]

13 minutes ago, Myyrä said:

Sounds like something completely unrelated to Malifaux.

Naughty hamsterish-otter!

[Myyrä]

5 minutes ago, trikk said:

Naughty hamsterish-otter!

I was obviously referring to one of the music festivals going by that name. What did you think I was talking about?

[Hagisman]

1 hour ago, Ludvig said:

I use them sometimes. I feel like they are a single 9ss scheme runner which leads to you building a list because you like hounds rather than throwing in a nice 3ss dude at the end of list building.

For my 9ss models I typically am looking for a Henchman or Enforcer. In other cases I just go for the Guardian for the durability and bonus 0 action.

What do you find yourself not bringing to put in 9ss worth of scheme runners?

[Ludvig]

1 hour ago, Hagisman said:

For my 9ss models I typically am looking for a Henchman or Enforcer. In other cases I just go for the Guardian for the durability and bonus 0 action.

What do you find yourself not bringing to put in 9ss worth of scheme runners?

Other scheme runners mostly. If I'm going for some marker- or distract-type schemes I might go effigy & watcher or hounds, I would probably not include all of those at the same time. I have had the effigy and the hounds at the same time to be able to threaten a lot of schemes if the pool is very marker heavy.

Since we have a lot of guildies, a couple of von Schill players and a double Katanaka-Schlong player our boards tend to offer a lot of LoS-blocking terrain which really helps the pups.

[Phatt Manta]

The hounds 1ap charge if target is close to a scheme marker gives great range to deny vp for a turn until stronger units can get there for schemes that don't score if a piece is close to the marker. Backfires terribly for exploding schemes.

[D-solad0r]

And has a useful attack for its cost

[LunarSol]

I will say, my previous arguments for Hounds outside of McCabe have been somewhat diminished with Field Reporters as an option.  A pair of them can do a lot of the things I'd take 3 dogs for.

I'll still maintain that the dogs primarily just need to lose Insignificant when near Guardsmen instead of specifically other dogs.  Ditto for rules like Patrol and the like, but its not exactly a pressing issue.

[Cinnamon Bear]

I like taking Dogs with Lady Justice in some strategies. They're decent scheme runners, and they've got a deceptively good attack that can easily benefit from Inspired. Although I guess honestly in those strategies I'd be better off with McCabe in general, I like having some additional fast melee minions hanging out with Lady Justice. If I ever get around to picking up the Starter Set I might consider Orderlies instead with her.

But who doesn't love dogs?

ARCANISTS. And you don't want to be an arcanist.

[Vilicate]

I have mine follow Lucius around at a distance; then once someone engages him (hopefully close to a scheme marker) I just Focus (0) them from Dashel and charge in. flip on the first attack and then a on the second/subsequent attacks makes them hit pretty decently.

[EnternalVoid]

To be honest I think I have taken Hounds with all my Guild Masters, even Hoffman *though he has used them the least*.  With Perdita they are cheap activations and mobile, they fill out my crew and let me have the numbers to feel more secure that I will be able to hold off Perdita's activation late turn 1.  They also let me make good push points for the Enslaved as they can spread out and he can push models towards them.  I don't feel as bad using a 3ss model to bird dog for ideal pushes.  Also at Height 1 my opponents cannot use them to block LOS to Perdita as she can shoot right over them.

With McCabe I really don't need to go into their uses, Luna and his upgrades give you all sorts of options.  Same with Lucius as he loves cheap minions for all sorts of things.

Sonnia has used them much the same way as Perdita as cheap activations and as bird dogs, though hers is to threaten to use them as Blast Points sometimes.  With their speed it is hard to avoid them and if you blink a point of burning on them they can basically be your signal flare.  You will only get a single severe blast off one but if that is all you need great, otherwise make sure you hit your burning trigger so that the models you blasted are all burning as the new targets.

Lady Justice I use them again, gasp, as cheap activations and hunting dogs.  That said they seem to serve a different primary goal though, as they often are trying to lock down a model that I don't want charging, escaping, or interfering.  They do that with Perdita and Sonnia but they don't seem to need to as much, likely because both have such a range threat it is not needed as much.  With Lady Justice it becomes more important.  That said I also just like the imagery of Lady J chasing down some target with a pack of dogs.

Hoffman I have used them when I needed models indepentent of him and needed numbers.  Generally this is when I want to take Hoffman but the Strat or scheme pool is not exactly ideal.  But they have served me well as I don't feel any need to draw them into Hoffman's ball and they sometimes throw people off being so fast and loose with a master people generally expect to turtle up.  I have used this a few times in stuff like Turf war where the dogs were able to run off and do schemes while Hoffman made the center a moshpit.  Also had a great Reconitter game once where I had 3 hounds and two guild guard hold one flank while Hoffman, a watcher, wardens, and a Rail Golem either held another or were going on the offense to prevent my opponent from claiming a second quarter.  The Dogs and Guards held out like champs with only the Watcher having to fly over at one point to give me the one extra body I needed near the end.

 

[OrtegaScion]

I've started running two in place of one of my Death Marshals (which are usually an automatic 3 of).

 

The hounds team up to keep Nino out of trouble, because 9/10 games he gets hunted down and torn apart before he gets to go Western on something. They're also then on a flank to scheme run if needed. 

[Ludvig]

Good tips Void. I'm gonna need to set some dogs on fire! I have extra proxies so if I like it i could even model them as flaming dogs for my Sonnia crew which would be awesome  

[yukonicus]

So were totally okay to target our own dogs with spells?  

[Myyrä]

 

So were totally okay to target our own dogs with spells?  

There isn't a rule forbidding targeting friendly models with Attack actions, so it's normally permitted. Some actions explicitly tell you that they can only target enemy models though.

[Ludvig]

 

So were totally okay to target our own dogs with spells?  

You might not be ok with it if you are a dog person or have a concience  

[decker_cky]

Targeting your own Guild Hounds with attacks is positively correlated with later playing Seamus...