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Searos

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I play Arcanists and want to start a second faction I was thinking guild as my second faction. I don't know much about the play style and I was hoping someone could recommend me a starting master. Also what are the advantages of guild over other factions?

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Burn them to the ground! That is the guild playstyle)

To be honest old guild masters are pure damage dealers - Sonia, Perdita, Lady J. This masters are not easy to play in GG17, but id easy to deal damage) I love Perdita. She's a bit straightforward but have some trumps in the sleeve like obey and good mobility. Sonia is even more straightforward, but she is good in the meta with 10+ activations. 

MacCabe and Hoffman are buffers. MacCabe is flexible, can buff the crew or can hit or both and very fast. Hoffman buffs in 99%. 

Lucius and Nelly is good choise if you need many interacts. But in general they are more complicated. More tricks - less damage and pretty solid.

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They tell me I play as half an Arcanist myself, which is what happens I suppose when I take Arcanist constructs and optimize them for tip-top performance. How do I express it? When I did try playing as Arcanists, I could not grasp how every construct had to be constrained to its own stats and generated AP. I expect to dump as many AP as I please through a construct which has been improved to Ml 6 if not 7. Very easy to step back and forth from Ramos to Hoffman: just use Ramos' box and hire the swarms instead of the single arachnids, fill in with Hoffman's box constructs to taste. Hunters are analogous to December acolytes--innate slow, trading their card discard (if you like that, get the infamous Guild austringers) for the long repositioning push of the chain harpoon. If you want a marker scheme--nothing schemes like a watcher Hoffman's modified--nothing. And the strength nobody seems to talk about: he does not care one jot what your hand's like, when he can use 4s and 6s to do his job he doesn't need any cards cheated from your hand, doubly so if you brought a metal gamin over from Arcanists and he's now using 2s and 4s to do his job. My opponents have stopped trying to put him on negative flips if they're not attacking him directly. There's no point. It doesn't stop him. What he doesn't bring is an easy way to grant positive flips, which you as an Arcanist have come to expect--you have to hire that in, with the mobile toolkit (I cannot believe Ramos players use that gorgeous piece of technology for scrap generation!) or the brutal emissary.

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Gnomezilla has the right of it,

Charles Hoffman is an excellent halfway point between Arcanists and Guild.  Its a great way to ease into Guild, put a new spin on models you already own, and quickly get up to regular 50 ss games using your existing collection.  Hoffman's box is also pretty boss, the Hunters are one of the best minions available in Guild, and work great with almost every master, the Guardian was vastly improved in the 2017 errata and is a great consideration across the faction, and the Watcher is one of our top scheme runners.

@Gnomezilla I like Sidir with Promises and by your side in Hoffman's crew for :+fate flips.  He also adds more ranged support, and can save a buffed up construct from a lethal strike in a pinch- which is often all Hoffman needs to heal up the construct and retaliate with great prejudice.  As you mentioned the Emmisary also has a :+fate :aura.  

The big thing with Hoffman is to not get too carried away creating the ultimate death machine.  This is still Malifaux, and everything is still very killable.  Hoffman can make something very durable but some  enemy heavy hitters can still bring it down quickly.  Having a back up beater can be a life saver, and not forgetting that Hoffman can launch a construct across the table incredibly rapidly makes him a surprisingly competent scheme master.  He probably isn't a great idea if your opponents tend to have an abundance of armour ignoring- or the Victorias, but Hoffman is one of my favorite masters to play.

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Traditionally we're supposed to shoot first and ask questions later with our preponderance of ranged attacks. I never mastered that. Playing with Sonnia's 14"+2"+however many blasts you madex50mm range might not impress someone who's come from Rasputina's 10"+12"+however many blasts you madex50mm. The difference there is that engaging Sonnia is almost as suicidal as the approach. She still has a damage track while she's engaged.

Things Guild does that nobody else can do? We have chain activation scattered over a quarter of the faction, so we'll get in extra hits before you can react, or pull off some combo like McCabe mass slowing a clump of enemies and chaining into Francisco leaping into said clump and knocking away all of our models that clump was planning to melee, leaving them to swat at 'Cisco while on negative flips. We can bring Dampening Field--goodbye, annoying opposing auras, we refuse to be bound by you! (Assuming Lucius doesn't just stroll through annoying opposing auras as though they're for his benefit. There's a whole checklist of "Lucius borrows an aura action from an enemy model" weaselly things to do. Polite Push an opposing Abuela into harm's way? Can do!) We can intercept your incoming attack with a Sidir, or a Phiona, or interrupt your charge with an out-of-activation push of you from Nellie. We can bury you and leave you to claw your way out against our willpower, which may or may not have been boosted with positive flips from a carrier of Promises. I said earlier we have trouble scraping up positive attack flips and that is true, but positive defense and willpower flips are available. We are a faction of additive stat bonuses, with stats spiking very high for Sonnia and Perdita, or the power loop of Hoffman spreading high stats among all his chosen constructs. We don't give McMourning his poison support models--we give him support like the exorcist who helps deny all triggers while base-to-base with our coroner totally above suspicion, and the brutal effigy whose buff makes him heal himself for mad amounts of damage while he's on the front line. (Really, if we put our minds to it we could be known as the denial faction. No-triggers combo. No-aura upgrade. Positive auras in duels where we are defenders, plural. The punishing debuffs of lawyers' fees hurting you when you attack and journalists' accusations hurting you when you activate.)

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1 minute ago, Ludvig said:

@Gnomezilla where is that list of helpful auras? When I've tried to find use for the ability I can hardly ever find anything worthwhile except taking less damage from Sebastian's poison.

Pistolero de Latigo confers positive flips to defense before it activates, mounted guard after it activates (I think mounted guard's is a tad more useful, but sadly I only have the former). Promises gives positives to willpower for those with upgrades, guard sergeants to those who are guardsmen, and wardens holding glowing sabers or targeting systems (my favored guardsmen) are both.

Or wait, you mean Dampening Field. Challenge aura? Nope, don't feel like taking willpower tests in order to do anything. Positive flips to friendly attacks? Not any more. Draw a card when a friendly discards a card (or however Old Cranky words it)? Actually, I don't like anything Old Cranky passively adds. Phiona's letting journalist drop scheme markers on their attacks? No, she isn't. Chatty? Silenced. It's versatile!

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I meant Lucius counting as friendly to enemies, might not have made that crystal clear ;) Dampening field can be handy against both ressers and neverborn in my experience.

Most buff auras I've found also require a keyword like undead or construct so the ability isn't helpful there. I don't want to derail this further, it just sounded like you might have a link to an actual list. :)

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The guild is a hammer and avalanches as the game goes on. It relies on an initial push with little or no set up and superior firepower to weaken the opposing crew early on and then snowball more and more. This is subverted to SOME extent with Nellie and Lucius, but it's a very kill or be killed faction. Certainly not as swingy as gremlins, but guild models tend to do a job and do it well. The synergy for the guild comes in faction form rather than necessarily in certain combos for certain masters. There's utility in the guild and a lot of interchangeable pieces from master to master.

Outside of a few masters, you can generally get a few pillar models that will go well in any crew and then build to taste.

The guild is a well oiled machine and plays just like one. I(literally in Choffman's case) If the linchpins in a Guild crew get taken out, it can be a bad day for a guild player. Though, because of utility, most masters can be fairly self sufficient if things go sour.

At least, that's my take as someone who has been playing guild since 1.5

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I'd like to chime in with something actually pertaining to the suject: I would say that we rely on relatively squishy models that won't outlast anyone so you need to be aggressive to get the upper hand early or you will be out-activated and taken apart. The faction also has a high combo/buff-potential with less single army all-star models than you may be used to from the arcanists. The biggest advantage compared to other factions and what makes guild unique is the easily available companion activations, other than that I don't think we have a niche that other factions don't do as well.

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8 hours ago, Ludvig said:

I meant Lucius counting as friendly to enemies, might not have made that crystal clear ;) Dampening field can be handy against both ressers and neverborn in my experience.

Most buff auras I've found also require a keyword like undead or construct so the ability isn't helpful there. I don't want to derail this further, it just sounded like you might have a link to an actual list. :)

Oh, right, sorry, finally clicked. The list was cobbled together back when Lucius was new, so it is well buried now...let's see...yoink (0) focus from Shenlong since Dashel's won't affect his boss, the 'push Abuela off a cliff' giggles, sidle up to Dreamer for healing and then thrash the brat, things like that.

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2 hours ago, Gnomezilla said:

Oh, right, sorry, finally clicked. The list was cobbled together back when Lucius was new, so it is well buried now...let's see...yoink (0) focus from Shenlong since Dashel's won't affect his boss, the 'push Abuela off a cliff' giggles, sidle up to Dreamer for healing and then thrash the brat, things like that.

Thanks! I though the Dreamer only healed nightmares, that's good to know! I'm not sure how often I would wqnt him to focus rather than do one of his own (0)s but I'll keep all of the above in mind :)

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