Who Besides Mei When Vs Guild?

[Boomstick]

I've noticed that more often than not, when my opponent declares Guild I end up bringing Mei. Granted, my primary Guild opponent brings a LOT of Perdita and Sonnia, so it generally works out for me. But I can't abide becoming that predictable in Malifaux, which I love in no small part due to the vast flexibility between hiring pools, factions, and sstrats& schemes.

So, who do you find yourself bringing to face the Guild besides our favorite Steam-Venting comboist, and what tricks, if any, do you prepare for potentially dealing with Sonnia/Perdita?

[spooky_squirrel]

I've dropped Ironsides into Guild a couple of times now, but my opponents have been dropping Lady J and Sonnia typically. With Ironsides into Perdita, you can potentially pull key pieces out of position, but you need to be aware of the fact that Frank with Debt to the Guild can take Ironsides down in a single activation, so you need him dead or hamstrung before your opponent decides to commit him to the fight and you will want to avoid trying to sucker him into Ironsides unless he's already activated.

With Sonnia, because she likes to blast, you'll want to space out more and provide targets of opportunity that interfere with her ability to kill things that she wants to kill. Last time I faced her, I accomplished this (to limited extent) by having Fire Gamin get summoned in by the Mechanical Rider, who then would race in to tie up models that would not want to be set on fire themselves. Sandeep could potentially do similar things, including using Banasuva to fastball Poison, Ice, and Fire Gamin into things that would prefer to not be engaged or exploded on.

I'm curious how a Sonnia versus Kaeris match would go, especially if you go with healing on burning. I know that Sonnia likes stuff to be burning so that she can do nasty things to them, but if her primary targets are used to draw cards by Kaeris, that could make things amusing--but it relies on the Sonnia player not paying attention to Kaeris' abilities with regards to burning things (don't count on this). Similarly, I'm curious if a well-crafted G&D Kaeris crew would be able to use their mobility to move from cover to cover to get inside the shooters' minimum range to tie them up and allow scheme runners to do their job versus a Perdita crew. I need more Guild opponents in my local meta to try these ideas out.

[crimzzen]

Raspy, I always drop Raspy.  Walls, card control, paralyze and slow.

[hydranixx]

The plethora of ranged damage Guild offers really hurts, and if you don't have a plan to work around that, you can get tabled quite easily. One thing in our favour is that there's not a lot of armour-ignoring models outside of specific Masters (Perdita, Lucas' Sabre, McMourning's buffs), so you can sometimes get decent results just man-moding it with a big fat tank or two - Joss, Rail Golem, Emissary, Snowstorm etc, partnered with some healing to keep them going.

Langston can offer soft cover to everyone within 4" for a turn and since he has Nimble it's not a huge waste to spend 1 AP to do it. Against Guild, you can consider it like a mini version of Mei (It's even referred to as a steam cloud, too). Of course, he's not there to deploy steam every turn, he's there to rack up the kill count and die! But on turn 1, that cover can be incredibly useful to help your crew mitigate incoming fire. Also, almost all Guild are Living, so his Terrifying (12) can be very potent against them.

To be blunt, the best anti Guild tech that isn't Mei that I can think of, is Snowstorm. It hands out Bulletproof +1 to nearby allies, while having a tremendous Bulletproof +3 on itself. If Snowstorm gets among the enemy, it should have no problem killing pretty much any dedicated supporter/shooter they have (two-thirds of their faction). I think Snowstorm solves a lot of issues for Arcanists, and should be considered even if you're not going with the Frozen Heart theme.

 

3 hours ago, spooky_squirrel said:

I'm curious how a Sonnia versus Kaeris match would go, especially if you go with healing on burning. I know that Sonnia likes stuff to be burning so that she can do nasty things to them, but if her primary targets are used to draw cards by Kaeris, that could make things amusing--but it relies on the Sonnia player not paying attention to Kaeris' abilities with regards to burning things (don't count on this). Similarly, I'm curious if a well-crafted G&D Kaeris crew would be able to use their mobility to move from cover to cover to get inside the shooters' minimum range to tie them up and allow scheme runners to do their job versus a Perdita crew. I need more Guild opponents in my local meta to try these ideas out.

 

It's a very brittle match up. Both masters become better at hurting whoever's on fire, but Kaeris has incentives to put her own models on fire. If she risks the AP and resources to do this though, Sonnia's raw casting power can be decisive enough to just straight up murder most of them in record time. As the healing only takes effect at the end of the turn, most Sonnia crews, which are well known for raw ranged damage output, will have plenty of time to dispatch the models they need to kill and ignore the ones they don't.

There's also the ever-present issue of Kaeris simply not being in the right place so all your Burning just kills your stuff instead of healing it. Sonnia often hires Death Marshals and the Brutal Emissary, both of which can pinebox Kaeris on a critical turn. Of course, Guild could also simply kill Kaeris; if any faction has a chance of outright randomly killing your Master, it's them with all their damn Critical Strike. 

You can spread Burning much more conservatively, and deny Sonnia her targeting buffs, but by that point you're really playing a pretty neutered version of Kaeris. To be honest, a lot of Sonnia players use her without any real commitment or consideration to Burning anyway - it's a Witch Hunter subtheme that pales in comparison to her extraordinary damage potential.

I think the edge goes to Sonnia if the player's are both experienced and roughly equal skill. It's definitely a fun match up though . It feels a little bit like playing against the Viks with anyone; both players are on the razor's edge. I recommend that you try it.

[Frollo the Wordbearer]

What about an Ironsides gunline?

It's a bit a curve ball, but could be fine.

Ours gunfighters (gunsmiths, ox mages, firestarter,..) have a nice range with their guns/spells and A LOT of positive flips.

"Fight fire with fire" urh urh urh

[Mxbedlam]

I just bring Marcus and get a Cerberus, Marcus, Blessed combo in their face on turn 1 or 2. Kill everything and then go scheme. No one alpha's like Marcus.

[retnab]

4 hours ago, Frollo the Wordbearer said:

What about an Ironsides gunline?

Pretty reasonable with Oxfordians, if they take some damage first (Willie's good for that, drops a blast just from walking) for the Hand Picked Men aura then they can get scary good at doing damage.

[spooky_squirrel]

8 hours ago, retnab said:

Pretty reasonable with Oxfordians, if they take some damage first (Willie's good for that, drops a blast just from walking) for the Hand Picked Men aura then they can get scary good at doing damage.

Going this route also opens up some more control options if you're needing to pull apart a synergy bubble or simply put your opponent out of position for scoring. Baked in Tomes, especially on the Nemesis Mage can get you up to 6-8" in pushes ( from resonance, on flip, from Nemesis Ward upgrade, and 2" per ). There are other things that can benefit from HPM as well, like Gunsmiths (to keep up the gunline?) and Large Steam Arachnids or a rope-lashed Rail Golem to make up for the lack of melee.

With gunlines you will want to watch out for things that take cover or shut down shooting/casting, or that just don't give a stone about shooting while they careen across the board and into melee.

[bertmac]

Bring anyone. Guild are fairly poor compared to Arcanists.

Not sure I've ever lost vs guild whilst not playing them myself.

Kaeris can be ok vs sonnia. Don't set your own people on fire, take purifying fire for the pyre markers, kaeris, firestarter, hank and Cerberus are all fast enough to get to sonnia turn 2 at the latest, kill off Frank with the Cerberus.

Have fun crushing the fascists with your comrades!

[osoi]

I haven't really ever brought specific masters vs guild. I'm generally not too fussed.

 

Raspy is someone who I really enjoy with them as double Ice pillars can force them to move about wasting a lot of AP. Play her more control orientated.

Ironsides, if the strat and scheme pool suits such as guard the stash or extraction she can work well again with control

Kaeris, even having faced Sonnia with her hasn't been a problem if once again you can keep the pressure up and she is more than mobile enough. As with everyone when you expect a Sonnia drop maybe look away from just Ca actions

Mei is good but not just for Vent Steam, choose your time to break out.

Marcus is just plain great against everyone

Sandeep is the same as Marcus as crew choices are really flexible

[bertmac]

Also hoarcat prides are a great 5ss minion when expecting lots of SH attacks and good for doing good weak damage so aren't worried about hard to wound.