Papa in a Box

[InvokeChaos]

So this question came up in the wake of Darth Bilz pulling out a fantastic win at Nova. Apparently he piloted his papa in a box sonnia to glory, like last year. I've been talking with my group, and wanted to throw the question here:

How do 10T handle this tactic?  What are it's weaknesses? Are there any or do you just have to really focus on target priority and weathering the storm?

For those unfamiliar:

Papa in a Box is about using his ability "Hold This" to grant  to damage to a model until his next activation. Then you bury him with a death marshall or the brutal emissary and that model now has a perpetual  to their damage flips. This is really good, and is used on Sonnia to make her pretty monstrous.  I don't know the specifics of Sonnia's abilities, but I believe she has an easy way to get positives as well as a 0 action to increase her Ca, making her incredibly likely to hit.

[Rurouni Benshin]

The infamous "Papa In A Box" is pretty nice, but it requires some planning.  The way I look at it:  If my opponent is going to dedicate 13 ss of models (or more) to pull off the trick, that leaves them with about 37 ss of models at most to do the rest of the work (plus the Master).  My advice against this tactic would be the exact same thing for most corner case scenarios like this: Play to the Mission, and focus on the weaknesses of your opposition.  If you're going up against Sonnia, go after her directly.  If she's forced into melee combat, she can't use her ranged cast attack.  If it's Perdita you're facing, go after Francisco first, (as per my advice for anyone playing against Perdita).  If you're facing Lady J, go after her directly like you would against Sonnia, unless Francisco is on the table, then you go after him first.  Point is, there is no "real way" of getting around "Papa In A Box".  You just have to plan for it to happen, and do your best to mitigate the damage he does when he explodes.

If the rest of your crew is built well for the mission, then your chances of beating the trick are just as likely as winning the game.

[Rurouni Benshin]

7 minutes ago, aquenaton said:

If killing the master is too difficult, go after the marshall. Once that model is killed (by a katanaka sniper or something else from afar), papa will be alone without the possibility of giving the possitives nor exploding in your face

To be honest, I wouldn't even bother with going after the Marshal at that point, especially if he's just hiding him somewhere out of the way.  Like I said, if your opposition is using 13 ss of models for the trick, that leaves the rest of your 50 ss crew to go after his 37 ss crew.  At that point, it's just a matter of how you approach it.

[tomjoad]

30 minutes ago, Rurouni Benshin said:

To be honest, I wouldn't even bother with going after the Marshal at that point, especially if he's just hiding him somewhere out of the way.  Like I said, if your opposition is using 13 ss of models for the trick, that leaves the rest of your 50 ss crew to go after his 37 ss crew.  At that point, it's just a matter of how you approach it.

I've played against Papa-Box lists before and pretty easily handled them, in large part because of this. Even with Sonnia wrecking shop, they're just down too much right off the bat. That's against newer, or just not-quite-as-good, players though. When you play somebody who knows how to maximize Ms Criid, she more than makes up for the apparent deficit they're starting with. 

[Tapdancer]

Whilst I am dubious about going over this crap in the TT forum as well as Guild the cliff notes are as follows.   

The crew is a one trick pony which is crap once Sonnia / Francisco are taken care of.  

With only 4 stones pressure will quickly collapse.

Alpha striking with the new Yasunori is a good option.  Go after Sonnia if possible otherwise Francisco.   

Once Sonnia is engaged she is far less dangerous.  Bring in other beaters in quickly to keep the pressure up.

[qoob]

I would try focusing on Franc (with shenlong) or Papa loco (sniper or anything from further away). Papa is really fragile. 

[InvokeChaos]

6 minutes ago, Tapdancer said:

Whilst I am dubious about going over this crap in the TT forum as well as Guild the cliff notes are as follows.   

The crew is a one trick pony which is crap once Sonnia / Francisco are taken care of.  

With only 4 stones pressure will quickly collapse.

Alpha striking with the new Yasunori is a good option.  Go after Sonnia if possible otherwise Francisco.   

Once Sonnia is engaged she is far less dangerous.  Bring in other beaters in quickly to keep the pressure up.

I'm not entirely sure what the problem is? Learning how to deal with popular strategies isn't crap... and if you really didn't want to waste your time you could always link the post or ignore this one. 

I apologize if I misread your tone. 

Anywho.

I really like the idea of using Yasunori.  Bettari had been a thought, due to being able to guarantee the cheating severes. Getting up 4 attacks with being able to manipulate your deck inbetween them seems like a good way to get around soulstone use. I will have to look at her stats, see where the pros and cons are for each.

With access to smoke grenades we can at least have some protection, I'm pretty certain she ignores cover and has ways around LoS, and with Shen we can definitely get some engagement turn 1 with fast, which is also a good thing.

[Math Mathonwy]

36 minutes ago, Tapdancer said:

Whilst I am dubious about going over this crap in the TT forum as well as Guild the cliff notes are as follows.   

The crew is a one trick pony which is crap once Sonnia / Francisco are taken care of.  

With only 4 stones pressure will quickly collapse.

Alpha striking with the new Yasunori is a good option.  Go after Sonnia if possible otherwise Francisco.   

Once Sonnia is engaged she is far less dangerous.  Bring in other beaters in quickly to keep the pressure up.

It is, in fact, so easy to deal with that it has only won NoVa three years running now. Obviously a weak list easily cracked but it's a shame those in attendance seem to either suck immensely or have a weird blindspot to this list.  

[doubledragon]

1 hour ago, Math Mathonwy said:

It is, in fact, so easy to deal with that it has only won NoVa three years running now. Obviously a weak list easily cracked but it's a shame those in attendance seem to either suck immensely or have a weird blindspot to this list.  

I agree with this sentiment.

This list is not an easy one to beat and especially so in the hands of a competent player. Yes, it's a trick that costs 13 soulstones, but when that 13 soulstone trick results in you losing 25 soulstones by end of turn 3 then that trick is worth far more it's weight in stones.

That said, I would think Misaki and some smoke and shadows tricks could be a good way to deal with this list. Allowing quick pressure onto Criid.

[hydranixx]

I think it's important to note that while the tactic costs 13ss, it's not like the guild player spends 13ss that exclusively upgrades Sonnia. In many cases that DM is still able to actively contribute to your opponents VPs.

They're spending those precious 13ss to give her the damage flip buff, in addition to having extra activations on turn 1, and having a DM that can casually stroll around their half of the board taking potshots, scheme running or anti-scheme running as need be. 

So when I read "your 50ss crew against his 37ss crew"...

It vexes me. I'm terribly vexed.

[EnternalVoid]

Alright, Warning up front.  This is a Long post.  I could have made it twice as long but for now I am just doing this part.

While I am not a huge fan of the Sonnia list ran I do think a lot of people underestimate it because they don't know it.  They know an aspect of the list but don't know all the parts so assumptions are made based off only what is known.  From other threads before you can get a more complete picture of the list and why it is not as easy to pin down as you think.

First, Francisco is generally in this list, that +2 Df and Wp is big for Sonnia as it pushes her Defense to a safer level and her Wp to a nasty level.  If threatened she can use her (0) action to up her defense a further 2 making it an 8 while still retaining her strong offensive Ca of 7.  In addition you will generally see Francisco also with the Hermanas Da Arms upgrade.  This lets him for a (0) action pull another friendly model 5".  This gives Francisco two ways to remove Sonnia from combat that cannot be resisted.  The second is his Enfrentate a Mi (1) AP action that jumps him to an enemy with in 7" and pushes other friendly models 5" directly away from the target.  With both of these options Francisco has the means to free Sonnia from an alpha strike type attack as you often only have 1 model going in meaning you cannot box her in.  As long as the Sonnia player is careful of terrain he will not let you pin them in a way to prevent her escape.  This is of course not even considering that with Ml7, Flurry, and a weak damage of 3 thanks to critical strike that Francisco might be able to kill the target.  So if he cannot kill it he can generally free Sonnia unless you have a trick to stop it.  On top of this he has both Dampening and Counterspell Aura abilities making it harder for certain models to threaten her and Francisco.

The next model of note is the Watcher.  He has two ways to help Sonnia ignore cover, the first is the condition on his attack, which lacks a gun icon, is a 14" range, and a Sh6.  The second is a 3" aura around him.  On top of this he has a (2) action which lets Sonnia draw LoS from him to a target.  So from a good spot he can play bird dog and make hiding from Sonnia that much harder.  To further his value he is a walk 6 model with flight so he can be good at dropping scheme markers later in the game or if not needed.  As an added bit on top of all this the Watcher is also Stubborn meaning he is difficult to Lure.

Really the Papa in the box only has to last through turn 2 to have done all it needs.  If this list has not inflicted the damage it needs by turn 3 then it has other issues besides a positive to damage.  To be honest when I have ran Sonnia I don't generally bother with the Death Marshal as I am generally happy to have the positive damage for turn 1 and 2, but this list is built around winning on the firepower or the threat of it.  As long as the Death Marshal does not spit Papa out before the end of turn 2, you will have your three turns of positive damage.  Simple fact is even if you kill the Death Marshal turn 1 or 2, he is still getting two turns of buff unless you can kill papa loco on top of it.  So unless you have the range threat to drop the DM and then Papa before early turn 2, you are hindering him but not a ton as he will generally get his two solid rounds.

The next issue after this is the Malifaux Child and the Cherufe's Imprint's Fire Wall spell.  on a 6+ and a 9+ with a positive flip he can generate two 50mm markers that are blocking and impassable.  This is to shut down lanes and cut down options of the opponent's crew.  Worse they do not go away till the model's next activation, meaning this is not an end of turn issue where you might be able to penetrate the line on initiative.  It means they can build their walls when they go down.  And if you move into a spot so they cannot put it in the same exact spot you get damaged for it.  This makes a mental game where you don't want to take the damage but it might be best to put a model in position to deny where they can be replaced.  Sonnia does not need to cast her herself as the Child can do it if they only need one set of walls.

The next wrinkle is the pair of Austringers.  This gives her attacks that do not care about LOS or cover, that have fair range, and can effectively pick away at models.  With her blast and possible burning they can add extra pressure before or after Sonnia activates.  The scarier of the two options is that they can soften up models for Sonnia to finish.  Why do it this way?  Because the Brutal Effigy lets Sonnia draw cards if she kills models.  If she drops 2-3 models on one turn she basically is refilling her hand.  In addition the Austringers can push a friendly model and help with interacting.  This lets them get the Watcher out of combat if it gets caught and keep doing schemes, or help Sonnia get out of combat when she needs it.  With two you can even double up when you really have to move.  Every push matters in this list as it keeps Sonnia's strongest attack in the game.

The final point I will mention about its construction in this post is that with the Brutal Effigy, Malifaux Child, and Watcher it gives the list a good activation count turn 1 at 9 models.  A lot of people take 8 models, meaning even if they activate first they will get last activation turn 1.  The nifty thing I noticed though was according to another post he took Expert Sleuth on Sonnia it can really up her chance of getting initiative on turn 2 *the push I do not thing will come up much and I don't see keeping the upgrade long enough to get said use*.  Most people would have gone for another Sonnia upgrade but I really feel the two sonnia upgrades are enough for this list.  It is a list that requires you to know all the tricks it can pull to make it work, and requires you to know all the tricks it can pull if you want to crack it.

[InvokeChaos]

@EnternalVoid thanks VERY much for that comprehensive post. I didn't realize there was so much depth to that list, as I haven't played against it yet. Very informative. And terrifying, haha!

Any comments on weak points? Exploitable aspects?

[EnternalVoid]

39 minutes ago, InvokeChaos said:

@EnternalVoid thanks VERY much for that comprehensive post. I didn't realize there was so much depth to that list, as I haven't played against it yet. Very informative. And terrifying, haha!

Any comments on weak points? Exploitable aspects?

I will try and build a better expanded thought on facing the set up but I will do a shorter post for the moment.  First I will state I have faced this sort of list twice and won twice... but that was playing Guild and using Perdita.  It was very much fighting fire with fire.  The one big difference between those lists and this one was the lack of Expert Sleuth, neither list had that to give you the boost on the Key turn 2 Initiative.  I will also say me knowing the list meant I knew what it could do and what it wanted to do.  In one game I surprised my opponent as he did not know my list as well as I knew his and Perdita was able to rapidly redeploy late in the turn and lay into Sonnia's Francisco.  I won turn 2's initiative and put his Francisco down and then used companion with my Francisco to my advantage.  The other game the sonnia player won Initiative turn 2 but was too focused on my Francisco and I used a trick to deny him blasts for that turn letting me steal the momentum in the game.

The list has in my opinions three weaknesses or things it hates/fears.  The first is confident card discarding.  If you have a way to make the Sonnia player discard cards, preferable with out targeting Sonnia herself, it can go a long way to aid you.  The fact that this list in particular only has 4ss means more often than not your opponent will drop 2 cards for Sonnia's (0) action to boost her defense or her Ca.  With out any way of making her hand bigger when she draws means she is basically playing with 4 cards.  The only time Sonnia will drop a stone is if the hand is all good or the player feels confident they will not need the SS later *IE they feel Sonnia and Frank is safe, will not care about initative and Hand naturally has at least two severe cards and two higher end Moderates*.  To add to this, Sonnia is going to be going all out to get as much damage out as she can *save if she needs a Firewall, then it is 2 attacks and one cast of wall*.  She is going to be dropping cards to insure she hits and likely having to drop a severe at least once for the damage.  Basically it means Sonnia eats her player's hand.  This is why the Austringers are so important with their Sh7, as they have a good chance of hitting if Sonnia exhausted/needs her hand as you are in a similar boat against her *Ie you need your cards to defend against her*.  The Austringers can even if they get a Mask start picking at your hand.  It is also why the Brutal Effigy is so important too, every card she draws is putting life blood back in her engine.  So you need a way to force card discard or capitalize on it if you want to leverage this weakness.  All it takes is one rotten hand Turn 2 to hurt Sonnia's chances to win.  If she does not have a good hand, even after SS, and you do not present her an Easy kill or two so she can draw more and it will stall her engine.

The second is target saturation.  Sonnia likes you having a lot of models to be targets as the more you have the generally easier it is to kill them as each one is weaker.  But she does not like it when you actually start reaching all her stuff at once.  You get models in combat with the majority of Sonnia's crew and suddenly tough calls have to be made.  We are not talking a slingshot here but a Blitzkrieg.  And every model you take out of the crew is another piece of the engine coming off.  Take enough pieces off and Sonnia will find it hard to stay out of combat and then find it hard to keep her head above water.  Most of her crew is actually pretty soft.  Watcher = 4wds with Armor +1.  Austringer = 6wds.  Brutal Effigy = 4wds, Armor +1, Hard to Kill.  Death Marshal = 6wds, Hard to Wound.  Papa Loco = 9wds, low Df & Wp.  Malifaux Child = 4wds, Manipulative.  Francisco = 8wds, Hard to Kill.  Sonnia = 12wds + healing options but no natural damage reduction.  The problem is most of it wants to avoid the fight or likes to pick it at a distance.  They are not going to do you a favor and walk into your arms if they can help it.  But if you can get to good chunks of the crew he will find it impossible to handle every angle.  The problem of course is a good Sonnia player will know this and will do everything in their power to reduce your numbers down before you can get to that point.  It is less about taking huge numbers and more about having the means to accomplish the task with enough numbers but if you can you will put find the list cannot bend very far under pressure.

The Third is being able to deny her the blasts.  If you have some way to deny Sonnia her blast templates, then you have denied the tool she needs to prevent you from laying your fangs into her crew.  Which is why the Papa Loco bonus is SO VERY important to her in this set up.  With her Good Ca, the ability to Boost it by +2, and get a Natural Positive to damage means you have to cheat cards 2-3 values higher than her to force negatives normally.  And if you drop a face card and she can drop a 10 and still win the duel by at least 1, that is gold for her as you lost a high value card and she can now use her High Value Card to get her Severe damage.  To this regard Sonnia has two natural enemies, Hard Cover and Hard to Wound *Or more rare but scarier Impossible to Wound*.  This is why her Watcher is important, to get around the hard cover one.  The other forces her to target something else with out Hard to Wound or eat an extra AP to Focus if they need the blast.  Sonnia cares less about negatives to hit as she Wp6+ gives her a positive, and again with the Watcher she can get around Soft Cover.  But Sonnia also has two unnatural enemies in this regard.  Anything that can stack negatives, even to hit, means you might be able to deny her the strait shot she wants and focus a Focus out of her.  The other is SS users.  A Smart Sonnia player generally does not like targeting them because by using a SS on their Defense flip they can give any resulting damage flips a negative, basically countering Hold This from Papa.  It is how I won one of my games, they were trying to use Francisco to drop blast on Perdita thinking if they did Severe damage to Francisco it would also bring him low to kill him.  I burned through SS making each shot have a negative damage and cheated high enough Sonnia could not get a strait result.  She still got one Moderate but as I also used 2ss on damage prevention Francisco was very much still alive.  Sure I used 5ss out of 7 in one go, but I crippled the offense for a turn, Francisco was still in decent shape, and it let me advance my crew with out fire raining from above.  Any way you can deny Sonnia her blasts gives you more time to engage her across her crew.

And already this has become a fairly thick post.  If I can get around to a post tomorrow I will throw out actual ideas rather than general information and basic overall tactics.

[Math Mathonwy]

2 hours ago, EnternalVoid said:

I will try and build a better expanded thought on facing the set up but I will do a shorter post for the moment.

--SNIP MASSIVE WALL OF TEXT--

So, just as a warning, if the forum is down tomorrow I'm going to merely suppose that you decided to write a long post and the forums exploded.

But seriously, great stuff!

[PositronMike]

Looking at the list and all the discussion about it there appears to be two approaches for tackling it however neither is straight forward. The first option is to go after Sonnia but to do this you need to remove Francisco first as otherwise you won't be able to pin down Sonnia. This will take a lot of effort and in some scheme pools will probably be the correct route to go down particularly when things like show of force are in the pool as killing Francisco stops the list scoring it. The other option is to go after the Austringers as this will limit the ability to score schemes that require interacts as the list appears to use the austringers to get scheme markers down via their (2) action.

When doing either approach I would also try and kill the watcher if possible as it can reduce the incoming damage significantly.

[Adran]

The best solution to it is certainly to understand it. 

Sonnias bonus' to damage are only of use if she gets to make a damage flip. (And in particular on her  cast attack). So eitehr keep hidden from her  (very board dependent) and be prepared to spread your forces and also keep the buring off your models.  You want to keep your forces spread out, and kill watchers agressively. 

Or you engage her.  Most of My recent experience against Sonnia has been using Marcus (who if one of my preferred masters, because he suits my style well), and whilst this was not against Sonnia with Papa Loco, my most common sonnia opponent doesn't feel that she needs the help to get to the cheatable damage. (Focus from her gives her the Blast damage if he need it, and a lot of the time Sonnia doesn't have enough high cards to cheat severe more than once). 

I can very easily get Marcus engaging her on the first turn, and my crew typically gets 1 or 2 fast beaters (such as cerberus or Blessed) close enough to also threaten her on turn 2. Whilst its rare I'll Kill Sonnia early (but on a good day I've been able to get 4 attacks against Sonnia on turn 1 with minimum damage 4), it's resulted in a dead frank by turn 2, and Sonnia is very much neutered if she can't disengage. (It can often end in a dead marcus by turn 3 fairly often but he has done what I need and held up my opponent and disrupted their plan). 

In Ten thunders there is a wide choice of possible beaters to get in her face if you want to go that way. It will want to be fairly tough and don't expect it to live long. 

I'm not sure if I think its better to engage her before Frank has activated or afterwards. I guess it depends on what I think the threat she has that turn, and my chances of killing her wiht the bonus df are. If i think with Df 6 I've still got a storng chance I'll wiat till frank has been and then engage her, drastically reducing her chance to escape (Its not entirely going to work, but if I have a 2" engagement and get into base contact, then it'll take 2 austringers to get her free)

If you have long distance pushing, you can disrupt the required positioning of the models, but this will have to be done very early. If you can separate Sonnia and Papa before Papa activates, then he can't give her the bonus. 

 

 

[Blacks85]

I personally don't like this list, I don't see how it could work effectively when you're basically building a crew around your leader.

Watcher is paper thin, it has to be 3" away from you and there is no chain activation...meaning you can quite easily smash it down.
Guild marshal is super thin as well for 6 SS, basically holding another useless (or potentially auto-destructive) 7SS papa-loco inside.
There is corner malifaux child and a same useless brutal effigy somewhere around. Finally, you got the two austringer probably spread on the sides that have average-to-weak attack potential.

What does this mean? There's nothing to worry about rather than Sonia...and Sonia can't certainly destroy your army alone (unless, of course, you're moving  forward with all models touching each other )

I think the only - or almost - way to lose against such a crew is to play with fear. I'm making it deliberately easy, but all you have to do is move forward with the best speed you have just threatening much pieces as possible and the game is done. She will react on a single, or probably two target by killing one or two of them..but then you will engage her start to make her crew working to push around and save her while you can effectively push damage down and start trade more models than she does.

Everything is this crew (except the effigy) is super thin for the SS cost of the models with average-to-low damage output (except Sonnia).

With TT now is extremely easy to win, imo. You've just got the strongest piece of the game which is insanely overpowered...just 0% tested or it wouldn't be released half of its power....the new Henchman of the ONI master. With a quite easy 21 inches engagement with FAST, no LOS and incorporeal charge you can pull out 12 damages without much effort and instantkill almost anything in this game...also pieces like Rasputina, Colette, Dreamer...it basically oneshot all master that have been relied on a defensive trigger so far. (while in the process you kill a watcher, an austringer or something else with a free attack and everything with  from recalled training)

Or based on the schemes you could fight it with distance: ShenLong + 2 katanaka you can easily outrange everything in the game while spreading around 4 focused attacks with  and a very good DMG output.

Or you can hardcounter her with some elite models like MerryLaCroix or Nix (not for TT) which makes her basically auto-lose.

[Jafar]

I am Outcast player. But saw things that helps with Sonnia:
1. Range sniper attacks. Nothing ruins Sonia day like killing her models  or targeting her. As @Blacks85 said Shenlong + 2 snipers.
2. Baits and AP waste mostly she will have less number of models* so every AP counts. Try to summon some bait (with Toshiro or ONI master). Kill her models (again) or give them slow, push with Sensei Yu etc.

Also my local player who uses Sonia always protects Frank, it's easy to trick him. Attack Frank, player wastes SS / high card. Then go for Sonia Or kill Frank and go for Sonia.

I know that things on paper and in real game are different. But Sonnia is not scary, as long you won't group your models in open ares .......
 
* less models to do stats, like place scheme marker etc.

 

[Passenty]

I often play against a similiar crew, and its really not that simple to engage Crid with all the pushes(Frank and x2 austingers, so one or even two guys in the face are not enough and they need to survive frank with no ss prevention). Spreading out is not so easy either as her blasts have up to 8" range from the original target. And everybody seems to underestimate Papa Loco. DM can walk him up in the box then charge something to release him and he has companion so can chain to blow up and that can really hurt.

[Blacks85]

37 minutes ago, Passenty said:

 And everybody seems to underestimate Papa Loco. DM can walk him up in the box then charge something to release him and he has companion so can chain to blow up and that can really hurt.

Well...The guild marshall need to attack something to popout loco.

This means you have to let him charge your model 7", super easy to avoid, and even if this is the case he can threat only 4"/3" radius which auto kill the deathmarshall itself and in the best of scenario trade two models for two models...which is not that good in my opinion unless you've let the DM charge two elite models of your crew

[Myyrä]

3 minutes ago, Blacks85 said:

Well...The guild marshall need to attack something to popout loco.

This means you have to let him charge your model 7", super easy to avoid, and even if this is the case he can threat only 4"/3" radius which auto kill the deathmarshall itself and in the best of scenario trade two models for two models...which is not that good in my opinion unless you've let the DM charge two elite models of your crew

Death Marshal doesn't need to attack anything to let Papa out and it doesn't have to charge your model to use Pinebox.

[Math Mathonwy]

Wouldn't Mei Feng be pretty good against Sonnia, btw? She can shield her force rather effectively from ranged threats (and the shield lasts until her next Activation - though you can get around it by using double Focus or SS and Focus) and she herself is pretty good in putting the hurt in (especially on stuff like Austringers). Oh, and she can be really quick on her feet. Sparks could keep Sonnia from being Pushed around so you could lock her in place more easily (just keep Sparks alive so avoid Franc). Oh, and Metal Gamin make short work of the Watcher.

But really, the best way to beat that list is to join it! Play two or three games with it and you will have a far better understanding of what makes it tick - what gives it trouble and what its strongpoints are.

[Jafar]

1 minute ago, Math Mathonwy said:

Wouldn't Mei Feng be pretty good against Sonnia, btw? She can shield her force rather effectively from ranged threats (and the shield lasts until her next Activation - though you can get around it by using double Focus or SS and Focus) and she herself is pretty good in putting the hurt in (especially on stuff like Austringers). Oh, and she can be really quick on her feet. Sparks could keep Sonnia from being Pushed around so you could lock her in place more easily (just keep Sparks alive so avoid Franc). Oh, and Metal Gamin make short work of the Watcher.

But really, the best way to beat that list is to join it! Play two or three games with it and you will have a far better understanding of what makes it tick - what gives it trouble and what its strongpoints are.

Good idea, but one thing, what WP has Mei Feng crew? Sonia has for WP7+ models

[Math Mathonwy]

4 minutes ago, Jafar said:

Good idea, but one thing, what WP has Mei Feng crew? Sonia has for WP7+ models

Unfortunately Sonnia's positive is against Wp6+ and Mei Feng and Kang both have Wp 6 (Kang isn't an optimal choice against Sonnia but I could see him being taken against Guild in general). Sparks is Wp 5. But SS users aren't usually the best targets so it comes down to the make-up of the rest of the crew.

[Blacks85]

1 hour ago, Myyrä said:

Death Marshal doesn't need to attack anything to let Papa out and it doesn't have to charge your model to use Pinebox.

If you don't, this means you have to take a WP duel between DM and papa loco. DM is strongly ahead because it is 5 vs 4 with parity staying in the box.

(Beside turning jokers and screwing up your project completely..both of them.)

This means you go for luck and you'll have to cheat a low card for DM (that you might now have or used with Sonia "discard 2") or an high / medium for Papa loco which is precious.

Cards are not infinite and they are very precious for Sonia.