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Getting off my Alpha Strike Crutch


4thstringer

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So, I have realized that a ton of my games recently have largely have lived and died by the alpha strike.  Whether that is Nellie giving out tons of fast and using McTav or burt to take out a major piece early, using Sonnia or Perdita to hit from 14 inches away, tossing LJ forward with pushes or the emissary, or Hoffman riding a gun or beater to glorytown, I am really relying on the Alpha Strike to get my wins.   I have won in other ways, but the alpha strike is almost always a big part of it.

So how do I play Guild without relying on it?

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Short Answer: I'm honestly not sure if you can without severely handicapping yourself.

Long answer:

If you don't want to Alpha Strike, than the encounter is going to likely go one of 2 ways - You'll get alpha struck, or it will be a long slog in the middle. I don't think either options really work out great for Guild outside of certain masters. In either case, what you'll need to be successful is a way to survive through your opponent's models, and I don't think that's something Guild does very well, outside of a few models. We tend to have lower defensive stats on our models (Perdita nonwithstanding) and I'm not sure we have the cheap durable models that you need to still score your points - we don't have metal gamin or belles or rail workers.

I think if you want to play Alpha-Strikeless guild, you'd be best suited looking at McMourning, Hoffman, and Lady Justice. All 3 of those models are surprisingly durable in their own right, and the former two can both provide a lot of utility to your crew as a whole and increase the value of your smaller models that you'll need to slug it out.

McMourning will likely be doing it by using other models as scheme vectors with Injection. He'll also do a good job of forcing your opponent to "play fair", and then do it better, because he can ignore the armor or hard to wound that will make other models more durable than yours.

With Hoffman, you'll mostly be trying to outlast your opponent with heals and AP efficiency, and he also has access to quite a few surprisingly durable models from other factions (namely, Metal Gamin). His new Wave 5 upgrade I think will be a must if you want to go for slug-it-out Hoffman - making your armor unable to be ignored will be HUGE, I think.

Finally, Lady J I mention mostly because she is excellent in those rough-and-tumble fights. She has a consistent heal, can get AP efficiency by dealing damage without spending AP (With her Riposte Trigger) and can easily go to 7/9 Defensive stats (with a + flip now thanks to Swordfighter!). She can also make your minions Inspired to give them that small edge over enemy minions.

For the rest of your crew, I'd look at models that are just inefficient to kill - disguised models like the Field Reporters, Hard to Kill models like the Brutal Effigy - or models that can provide support for your crew like the Brutal Emissary or Allison Dade.

Those are my thoughts! I have to say though... if the Alpha Strike ain't broke, why try to purposefully handicap yourself? It's one of the strongest assets of the Guild as a faction. Playing without it is like playing Arcanists without Armor or Ten Thunders without a million + flips - doable, but why handicap yourself?

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3 minutes ago, RhiaCat said:

 

Those are my thoughts! I have to say though... if the Alpha Strike ain't broke, why try to purposefully handicap yourself? It's one of the strongest assets of the Guild as a faction. Playing without it is like playing Arcanists without Armor or Ten Thunders without a million + flips - doable, but why handicap yourself?

Because Alpha Strike isn't particularly fun to play against, and I want to keep having opponents in my meta.  

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Just now, 4thstringer said:

Because Alpha Strike isn't particularly fun to play against, and I want to keep having opponents in my meta.  

Sounds like your opponents need to get good. :P

In all seriousness, though, I'd look at those Masters, and maybe try to switch things up by trying out some new builds for existing ones. Maybe a Sonnia list that is more brawly with No More Masks and Reincarnation to encourage you to get closer to the action? Nellie without Delegation? (A Sin, I know.)

The other thing I might try is to see what you can do environmentally to disincentivise Alpha Strikes - maybe the only very clear charge lanes are on the sides of the board and you have to deploy first? Maybe you've got a lot of forests on the board that break up Line of Sight and make Melee models move slower. Maybe play against more Neverborn players who can Alpha Strike harder than you can. (Fuck you, Nekima.)

If you're winning too much or your games are too binary, I'd try to inspect how much of it is "I'm better at the game" vs "I'm playing better models / crew" vs "This terrain favors me". My Neverborn friend and I have have an ongoing joke that in a perfect world, the Guild gets an open plain to gun down their opponent before they can close the distance, while in the Neverborn's perfect world the entire board is severe terrain that Lilith, Nekima, the Dreamer, Pandora (kinda), Zoraida and Titania don't care about.  

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You don't have to make an alpha strike, but you really want to threaten with an alpha strike, so that your opponent doesn't want to advance into a favorable position. Hoffman and Nellie, for example, are extremely capable of just focusing on building a big turn 2, but it is more difficult if your opponent can just do whatever he wants on turn 1 with impunity.

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19 hours ago, RhiaCat said:

Sounds like your opponents need to get good. :P

I take the point you are making, but honestly I really struggle against Alpha strike lists, and it does become frustrating.  I'm having real trouble finding a way to either out-alpha strike or just survive them in any meaningful capacity - due to the nature of alpha strikes, it's really hard to avoid them since they often comprise some way of positioning a threat piece and then launching it across a significant portion of the board.

Sure, I've made sure that scenery is dense enough, and that I keep out of LOS/charge lanes, but often I find that either I cannot avoid the alpha with everything (allowing the beater into my lines somewhere), or I basically stay at the back behind cover, and surrender the board to my opponent.

So whilst I don't doubt that the fault is mine, I still struggle to find the way to address it.  Maybe @4thStringer shouldn't handicap their playstyle to keep people in their meta , but maybe some advice on how to compete with it/avoid it might help the play experience?

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6 minutes ago, Strangely Brown said:

So whilst I don't doubt that the fault is mine, I still struggle to find the way to address it.  Maybe @4thStringer shouldn't handicap their playstyle to keep people in their meta , but maybe some advice on how to compete with it/avoid it might help the play experience?

What factions/masters are you playing? Let's see if we can help you with that.

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21 minutes ago, Myyrä said:

What factions/masters are you playing? Let's see if we can help you with that.

Bless you, that's kind.

Currently I'm playing Perdita & Hoffman.  I have access to everthing up to & including wave 4.

I often face Outcasts (Viks/Levi), Neverborn (Titania/Lilith/Zoraida) and TT (Mei Feng, Misaki, Lynch)

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The basic answer is pretty much the same for both Perdita and Hoffman. You threaten them with your own alpha strike.

Perdita has huge range and high damage if you bring Papa Loco or Jury. That more or less means the opponent won't be able to advance their models anywhere visible before she has activated, and even after that she can take a charge from almost any model without dying if she has Franc's buff. She also has the ability to get to the center of the table before activating the first time, so the opponent can't be certain they are safe even at their own deployment zone.

Hoffman on the other hand can use the Emissary to sling an extremely beefed up construct very far away from his deployment zone. If the opponent isn't heavy on armor ignoring, they probably even won't be able to take down that constuct after that. If they are heavy on armor ignore, you can use his new upgrade that prevents ignoring armor to tank the alpha strike. Even Vik of Blood will not likely be able to kill a Peacekeeper with Armor +3 in a single activation if Hoffman is nearby. If they decide against doing that aplha strike, they will likely end up wasting most of their first turn, while Hoffman has upgraded his constructs and is stronger on turn 2 than he was on turn 1.

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32 minutes ago, Strangely Brown said:

Bless you, that's kind.

Currently I'm playing Perdita & Hoffman.  I have access to everthing up to & including wave 4.

I often face Outcasts (Viks/Levi), Neverborn (Titania/Lilith/Zoraida) and TT (Mei Feng, Misaki, Lynch)

Hoffman can also often tank through an alpha strike especially with the new aura.  Most of those  non outcast opponents will often bounce off a guardian fronted guild crew.  Lilith might pull one guardian forward, but that is still a reach three model in the middle of her crew then.  

I don't think I would try to tank through with Perdita, I think I would try to beat them to the alpha strike.

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28 minutes ago, Myyrä said:

She also has the ability to get to the center of the table before activating the first time, so the opponent can't be certain they are safe even at their own deployment zone.

Shackled from the Enslaved Nephilim, is that the way?  I guess I would need to have a decent number of activations, to make sure that I don't leave her up there with multiple scary models still left to activate in the opposing crew?

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37 minutes ago, Myyrä said:

If they are heavy on armor ignore, you can use his new upgrade that prevents ignoring armor to tank the alpha strike. Even Vik of Blood will not likely be able to kill a Peacekeeper with Armor +3 in a single activation if Hoffman is nearby. If they decide against doing that aplha strike, they will likely end up wasting most of their first turn, while Hoffman has upgraded his constructs and is stronger on turn 2 than he was on turn 1.

I need to get the new upgrades - I think that armour upgrade is going to make my life with Hoffman so much easier...

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1 minute ago, Strangely Brown said:

Shackled from the Enslaved Nephilim, is that the way?  I guess I would need to have a decent number of activations, to make sure that I don't leave her up there with multiple scary models still left to activate in the opposing crew?

Perdita with Frank El Mayor doesn't care about multiple scary models.

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2 minutes ago, 4thstringer said:

Perdita with Frank El Mayor doesn't care about multiple scary models.

True!

So; Frank gives Perdita El Mayor, Perdita moves up and survives, does her stuff.  Franc is further behind her in Turn 2, so he can't El Mayor again - or would you advocate moving Perdita back and then activating Frank on Turn 2?

Or do you think that after the (hopefully) successful engagement on Turn 1 she can handle what's left without El Mayor for a bit?

Appreciate that these are quickly becoming situational questions and don't expect a playbook, just a sense of when people do and don't alter their plans for El Mayor. :)  Turns 1 & 2 are easily the hardest part of the game for me.

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1 minute ago, Strangely Brown said:

True!

So; Frank gives Perdita El Mayor, Perdita moves up and survives, does her stuff.  Franc is further behind her in Turn 2, so he can't El Mayor again - or would you advocate moving Perdita back and then activating Frank on Turn 2?

Or do you think that after the (hopefully) successful engagement on Turn 1 she can handle what's left without El Mayor for a bit?

Appreciate that these are quickly becoming situational questions and don't expect a playbook, just a sense of when people do and don't alter their plans for El Mayor. :)  Turns 1 & 2 are easily the hardest part of the game for me.

We love situational questions here. 

When I play Dita (and others may disagree with me here), Frank activates near the beginning of the first turn and not til late on the second turn.    If you are worried about keeping El Mayor on (which is something I don't usually bother with), you can either obey him up with an action second turn before he activates, or move perdita back at the same time.  Or let El Mayor go just between end of 2 and beginning of three and use a combo of enfrente and hermanos to get frank to perdita during his activation.  Or use the neph to push frank up towards perdita.  Lots of options that don't require you to keep them together.  

 

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I cant help you as Im a resser player but I've also experienced this alpha strike tendency in my group and Its by far the most efficient way of playing (one I cant replicate with resser im afraid). Not sure about gg18 maybe it can fix this but arcanist alpha with miranda cerberus or reactivated howard, or a well planned  vicky catault will ruin most their opponent plans. I can say from the victim side of the game its not very fun when people have jobs, and strugles to get time to sit together and have a party to end in turn 2 with your master and a couple of models killed. I mean, I understand its frustrating for players to face this but I think the answer should come from wyrd designing defensive models capables of dealing with this.

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Its interesting, because I can say that I didn't use the Alpha Strike for a long time, but facing Arcanists I was really struggling.  Arcane energies and alpha were eating my lunch and leaving me with very little to fight back with.  I adopted the Alpha strike because I was tired of my line collapsing (this was exacerbated by the Austringer Cuddle).  But I can see that right now it isn't healthy for my small meta, so I want to move away from it.

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2 hours ago, Strangely Brown said:

Bless you, that's kind.

Currently I'm playing Perdita & Hoffman.  I have access to everthing up to & including wave 4.

I often face Outcasts (Viks/Levi), Neverborn (Titania/Lilith/Zoraida) and TT (Mei Feng, Misaki, Lynch)

Sorry to reVisit this but I realized that you don't have to alpha with perdita.  Her trick bullets and faster than you is a decent alpha strike discourager too.  Especially if you are in jury's 6" bubble.

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1 hour ago, mojopin said:

I cant help you as Im a resser player but I've also experienced this alpha strike tendency in my group and Its by far the most efficient way of playing (one I cant replicate with resser im afraid). Not sure about gg18 maybe it can fix this but arcanist alpha with miranda cerberus or reactivated howard, or a well planned  vicky catault will ruin most their opponent plans. I can say from the victim side of the game its not very fun when people have jobs, and strugles to get time to sit together and have a party to end in turn 2 with your master and a couple of models killed. I mean, I understand its frustrating for players to face this but I think the answer should come from wyrd designing defensive models capables of dealing with this.

You can most definitely do an alpha strike with Ressers. You can for example have Nico give Archie fast and have a couple of Doxies poke him forward. While your opponent tries to deal with him (and it isn't really certain they even can) you can summon more models for the second wave or follow up with Nico and heal Archie to full health if he hasn't already died.

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14 minutes ago, Myyrä said:

You can most definitely do an alpha strike with Ressers. You can for example have Nico give Archie fast and have a couple of Doxies poke him forward. While your opponent tries to deal with him (and it isn't really certain they even can) you can summon more models for the second wave or follow up with Nico and heal Archie to full health if he hasn't already died.

Sssshhhhhh.  They can't know about that.

I've been talking with some resser players about using Kentauri to bring Jaakuna forward.  If it is into the opposing crew, the incidental damage would be awful.   Even just blocking a way forward would hurt. and a double defensive Jaakuna would be a pain to hit.  You would probably need a bunch of ML 7....

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1 hour ago, Myyrä said:

You can most definitely do an alpha strike with Ressers. You can for example have Nico give Archie fast and have a couple of Doxies poke him forward. While your opponent tries to deal with him (and it isn't really certain they even can) you can summon more models for the second wave or follow up with Nico and heal Archie to full health if he hasn't already died.

Well... Archie (I love the model but he is too expensive) can just heal 4 each activation he has good dmg but only ml6 aaand you need other 3 other models with no chain activation soo it doesnt qualify (in my opinion) for a good alpha strike. Rogue necro is by far a better cheaper beater but without arcanist reactivation, inbuyed energies, or outcast oathkeeper or positive to initiative its not worth it. 

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32 minutes ago, mojopin said:

Well... Archie (I love the model but he is too expensive) can just heal 4 each activation he has good dmg but only ml6 aaand you need other 3 other models with no chain activation soo it doesnt qualify (in my opinion) for a good alpha strike. Rogue necro is by far a better cheaper beater but without arcanist reactivation, inbuyed energies, or outcast oathkeeper or positive to initiative its not worth it. 

He can also prevent and can have armor.  He takes a lot of resources to deal with.  

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4 hours ago, 4thstringer said:

I learned it the hard way, as he ran amok through my three rogue necro list.

Can you post the list you used? I've heard of the infamous double rogue necro, but triple rogue necro.... ooooh :)

Archie is good at soaking resources but I agree with @mojopin - he just doesn't have the killy factor to one-man it. Ml 6 really sucks on a 13ss model if your purpose is to explicitly murder things. With Molly, a Rogue Necro and Mortimer+Crooligan though, that gets pretty close to an alpha strike. It's still more about tying the enemy crew up for a few turns than just killing keys models. 

Until recently I've firmly believed Ressurs (Molly aside) were pretty feeble at alpha striking, but with Kentauroi I think this will change substantially. 

Guild? Eh, I feel like a Guild player can play Lucius or Nellie and win through tricks and good micro without resorting to alpha striking? Assuming you want a slightly more challenging game, that is?

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