Brand New Guild Player

[TheSultanOfSalt]

Hey folks,

I'm a brand new player. I saw the game and liked what was demoed for me so I picked up a Lady J box and some hounds to make myself a 50ss squad. 

I had my first games last weekend to great success and joy. I've since ordered Perdita's box and Sonnia's.

I was wondering what sort of advice the community would offer to their newest guildmate? I've read nearly all of the guild articles on pullmyfinger and I've found with my limited knowledge of the game that the information is simulataneously too much and not enough. I'm sure as I come to understand the game better it will be an incredible resource but I lack the context to appreciate its tips.

 

TL;DR: Hi! I'm new. Nice to meet you! Models and advice for a layman?

[Lucidicide]

Generally, I'd encourage you to use the same models over and over until you're really comfortable with the core rules, and only then try out a bunch of other models.

I'd also encourage you to not worry too much about Schemes early on, as, again, fluency with the core rules is very helpful.

 

In terms of the Guild in general, shooting is obviously your friend, so you need to know how to get around terrain. This means knowing actions like "Focus" in order to bypass cover penalties. Understand that, generally, melee won't be your friend so positioning on the table is important. It's okay to premeasure!

And remember that the Guild is in charge, and your opponents are just pretenders to the throne.

[TheSultanOfSalt]

That's great advice, thanks. My introduction to the game was Lady J being a whirlwind of murder. i basically just charged from model to model cutting heads off with reckless abandon... 

I schemed very little. So while I mostly tabled my opponents I only won both games by a point or so.

How are death marshalls when it comes to Guild's ranged threat? They were my only shooters. Are they a good baseline for what to expect on atk, rng, and dmg?

[Gnomezilla]

I keep forgetting the death marshal (I only have one) has a gun at all, if that tells you how often I have him shooting. His job is to put someone in a pine box and that requires close combat, so I spend his AP on getting into close combat and then using that box. Maybe that will change when it is his job to put my own model in the box.

My Guild collection and strategy is pretty much the opposite of yours (I squish things with stompybots of various sizes and their supporting masters), so we'll have to wait for a more conventional Guild guide to read this, sorry.

[LunarSol]

Welcome!

The core trio sets are a great place to start, IMO.  They contain a good mix of some core models for the Guild.  The only common additions I'd recommend are Austringers and the Brutal Effigy.

In general, I find Guild, and those masters in particular rely a lot on the Master and Henchmen to get kills.  Focusing on shooting with the minions can make it hard to compete on schemes if you go for a dedicated "gunline" strategy.  As Aaron mentioned you'll often need to Focus to get past cover, and while it gets damage in, 1 shot a turn isn't going to kill a lot of models efficiently.  

Rather, I treat the guns on Minions as a backup option.  When I fail to kill something and leave it on a point or two of health?  BAM!  Turns out my scheme runners can all finish the job for me.  As a baseline strategy though, I find having Death Marshals and the like focusing on locking people up a lot more interesting and fun than having them sit back and shoot.

[TheSultanOfSalt]

I did get to box a Victoria of Blood and run screaming with her to the other side of the map. That was pretty funny. Definitely appreciated him there.

I used hounds as my scheme runners. and by scheme runners i mean murders near scheme markers. they were awesome. And i really liked the Judge too!

[admiralvorkraft]

Sounds like you're getting the hang of it OP! 

I'm going to (slightly) disagree with Aaron here; while I think it's a good idea to start learning a relatively small pool of models and grow that slowly, I feel like you can't learn how a model functions without putting schemes and strats pretty much front and center. These are how you score your points, and ultimately that's what the game is about, so it doesn't really matter if you know how to murder everything effectively (hand management, and Focus is the answer) if you don't know how to use your models to score points.

But take any advice from me with a grain of salt, as one - I'm the Guild's resident contrarian. Two - Aaron's in charge of designing Malifaux and here I am telling you he's wrong. 

The most important thing is, (0) Welcome to Malifaux! It's not perfect, bad things happen, but it's the best minis game I've ever played, hands down. I hope you have a blast.

[TheSultanOfSalt]

Thanks everyone for all the warm welcomes and advice! I tried to get some Austringers but i couldnt find any online and my flgs doesnt carry them atm :(. Same with the effigy.

Tbh, @admiralvorkraft, my henchman said the same thing. He said that my murder tactics were very on point, but my scheming tactics were mostly ignored.

Ill be trying a Criid list this weekend. Ill let you know how my defensive schemey minded list goes as opposed to last weeks whirlwind of retribution (I know which one sounds cooler...). 

Are there any strong hand control elements in the game? Like factions or masters that function by forcing top decking?

[admiralvorkraft]

The masters that do the most direct hand control are Jakob Lynch (10T/Neverborn) who stacks your own hand, and Som'er Teeth Jones (Gremlins) who can force both players to ditch their hands but has tools to compensate. Honorable mention goes to Zoraida (Neverborn/Gremlins). In Guild, Perdita has the best hand manipulation with her Hero's Gamble action.

If you really want to drill your resource management and scheme-ing skills, just pick up Lucius and force yourself to learn him. He's the only truly bad master in the game, but he will teach you how to focus on scoring points. You'll lose a lot, but he will make you a better player when you break out the real masters.

[skoatz]

25 minutes ago, TheSultanOfSalt said:

Thanks everyone for all the warm welcomes and advice! I tried to get some Austringers but i couldnt find any online and my flgs doesnt carry them atm :(. Same with the effigy.

Tbh, @admiralvorkraft, my henchman said the same thing. He said that my murder tactics were very on point, but my scheming tactics were mostly ignored.

Ill be trying a Criid list this weekend. Ill let you know how my defensive schemey minded list goes as opposed to last weeks whirlwind of retribution (I know which one sounds cooler...). 

Are there any strong hand control elements in the game? Like factions or masters that function by forcing top decking?

Before spending an AP, ask yourself if what you plan to do will either score you a VP or get you closer to scoring a VP by fulfilling the strategy or schemes.  If it doesn't, then don't do that.  You'll start thinking more and more about the strategy and schemes that way.

[Ozymandias79]

Yeah, I've found that most people coming to Malifaux from other wargames tend to focus on the killing aspect of the game and forget about the scheming aspect.  I have tabled my opponent, and still lost... 

My approach now is very much the same as skoatz above.  Does this action get me closer to scoring a VP?  If no, and another action does, then do the other action.  There are some nuances, of course, but for a new player that's probably the best approach until you figure those out. 

And the Brutal Effigy is a great piece to go with Lady J.  He rewards her for killing, and is a pretty decent scheme runner himself.  The other models I like with her come in other crew boxes (Francisco, Guardian, Hunters), so maybe plan on picking up the Perdita and Hoffman box at some point.  

[jphealy]

Since your getting Dita, I would really recommend starting out with her for several games.  Besides being fairly forgiving of mistakes (god bless 9-9 stats) she is very good at teaching several key Malifaux concepts.  She teaches a little bit of hand management with the prevalence of discard mechanics and her Hero's Gamble and learning when to do them all and allocating cards to them.   She teaches positioning and order of activation with all the pushes in her crew and trying to keep El Mayor up and when to let it drop.  
Also she does have an Obey so you can start to learn a little of how control masters can work.  Both offensively and defensively.  

If you do go this route BUY PISTOLEROS.  They are sooooo god with Dita.  

[TheSultanOfSalt]

I did kind of want to try Lucius. Mostly cause i hear he's bad. I want to know what makes someone bad. Also i want Captain Dashel.

@Ozymandias79 I do want the Hoff box, but he seems like a master i need to dip into other factions to have a relevant list so Ive stayed away from him for now. His theme seems super fun though.

@jphealy I do want to try Dita but I feel like she may be a little too generic gunline for me. i picked her up mostly for all the shenanigans her box enables. like Papa Box and Frank. Im gonna give her a shot (see what i did there) for sure though. She seems like guilds catch all master.

@skoatz Ive been trying to pretend that Im wounding my enemy to make schemes easier for myself. But... then my blood gets a little hot and I decide I have to murder everyone. I need to play the game a little less like WarMachine and a little more loke Bloodbowl.

Also, has their been a campaign event with maintained squads that dwindle or grow based on success like in a Bloodbowl season? A bit of a tangent but that would be pretty exciting.

[LunarSol]

16 hours ago, admiralvorkraft said:

The masters that do the most direct hand control are Jakob Lynch (10T/Neverborn) who stacks your own hand, and Som'er Teeth Jones (Gremlins) who can force both players to ditch their hands but has tools to compensate. Honorable mention goes to Zoraida (Neverborn/Gremlins). In Guild, Perdita has the best hand manipulation with her Hero's Gamble action.

Perdita's hand control is odd.  It competes heavily with other things she wants to do and often isn't available when you want.  It's great for salvaging a bad situation though.  In terms of really giving you a hand advantage though, I'd probably rate Nellie higher now though.

I think what the OP is specifically asking about is hand denial though, of which there are lots of ways to go about it.  Putting the opponent on negative flips is the primary method of shutting down cheating (can't cheat on negatives) but there are also ways to force discarding scattered about.  There are a lot of ways to "tax" the opponents hand at least, that I find makes a more effective strategy that simply trying to force discards.

[Ozymandias79]

2 minutes ago, TheSultanOfSalt said:

@Ozymandias79 I do want the Hoff box, but he seems like a master i need to dip into other factions to have a relevant list so Ive stayed away from him for now. His theme seems super fun though.

You can run Hoffman just fine without any Arcanist models.  I'm about 50/50 whether I take them or not, but with a Peacekeeper, Ryle, and the Brutal Emissary, I don't see too much need for arcanist stuff except in certain cases.

[jphealy]

Oh Dita is 

5 minutes ago, TheSultanOfSalt said:

I did kind of want to try Lucius. Mostly cause i hear he's bad. I want to know what makes someone bad. Also i want Captain Dashel.

@Ozymandias79 I do want the Hoff box, but he seems like a master i need to dip into other factions to have a relevant list so Ive stayed away from him for now. His theme seems super fun though.

@jphealy I do want to try Dita but I feel like she may be a little too generic gunline for me. i picked her up mostly for all the shenanigans her box enables. like Papa Box and Frank. Im gonna give her a shot (see what i did there) for sure though. She seems like guilds catch all master.

@skoatz Ive been trying to pretend that Im wounding my enemy to make schemes easier for myself. But... then my blood gets a little hot and I decide I have to murder everyone. I need to play the game a little less like WarMachine and a little more loke Bloodbowl.

Also, has their been a campaign event with maintained squads that dwindle or grow based on success like in a Bloodbowl season? A bit of a tangent but that would be pretty exciting.

Oh no man, I would say Dita is in no way a generic gunline. (I might be biased here  )  Once you learn her she is incredibly mobile and often times likes to be right in the middle of ML.  I honestly find Sonnia to be more of a static gunline (well fireball line) than Dita is.  She often for me acts as a slow-moving turret in the center of the field while Dita is zooming all around shooting stuff in the face.  

@Ozymandias79 I agree Hoffman can run very well with pure guild.  Its just the versatility of some of the Arcanist models.  They are just extra tools in the Hoff's toolbox.  

 

 

[Ozymandias79]

Absolutely, my point was that they aren't a requirement.  

[spooky_squirrel]

 

2 hours ago, TheSultanOfSalt said:

I did kind of want to try Lucius. Mostly cause i hear he's bad. I want to know what makes someone bad. Also i want Captain Dashel.

@Ozymandias79 I do want the Hoff box, but he seems like a master i need to dip into other factions to have a relevant list so Ive stayed away from him for now. His theme seems super fun though.

He can pull in from Arcanists if you wanted to use that, and typically people who do that only need one box to have all the useful toys: Ramos' box. That would give you Joss, Howard Langston, and Steam Arachnid Swarms (as well as Steam Arachnids, but Hoffman can make better use of the Swarm than Ramos can with Power Loop).

It's not necessary, however. There are many solid constructs in Guild, and there's something to be said for not deploying a heavy armor skew (similar to not deploying a heavy shooting skew or heavy anything skew: scoring strat/schemes varies from game to game and people will drop different things into you). Guild has many solid options on their hiring roster that can do their job without being tied to a specific master.

 

2 hours ago, Ozymandias79 said:

You can run Hoffman just fine without any Arcanist models.  I'm about 50/50 whether I take them or not, but with a Peacekeeper, Ryle, and the Brutal Emissary, I don't see too much need for arcanist stuff except in certain cases.

The things I see people looking at is getting Ml 7 Swarms to maximize the chain attacking, Ml 7 on a Rail Golem, Ca 8 to help with casting-related abilities (Hoffman can get to Ca 10 on his support spells), and other similar effects. The swarms have a solid use in counter-scheming, because they can eat scheme markers, the Metal Gamin (the Ca 8 source) is a pretty handy tank for camping on an objecting with Stand Ground (not as good as it was, but it still takes more AP to tear down than other 4 stone minion options), and a Ml 7 Fast Rail Golem is a nightmare. Especially if you bring anything along that will set it on fire before it activates.

 

However, if you're looking to stick with Guild pure, you have many interesting and good options. One of the things I'm looking forward to doing with McCabe is using Mounted Guard to pull Wardens up the field for greater threat. Hoffman could do the same thing, only to better effect with how he can enhance his constructs. One of Hoffman's big weaknesses is against control crews that can pull his armored ball apart, so it might not be a bad idea to consider having a Sanctioned Spellcaster in your pool to (0) to keep key pieces nearby and provide a go-to Ca attack in case someone throws incorporeal things into the scrum.
There's always Sidir and Frank to consider as well, and they won't care too much about where Hoffman is when it's time for them to engage the enemy, though they have some support abilities that are definitely worth considering. Sidir's ability to intercept an attack targeting Hoffman can be used to stop a controller from pushing Hoffman around cold (Laugh it Off after becoming the target), and Frank's El Mayor is incredibly useful in general.