Sonnia Meta

[DeadManTalking]

So I hear the crazy pyro lady is one of the better masters within this faction. I've been playing Nellie for a bit and I feel I have a pretty decent handle on her and her crew building. I've tried out Perdita and I think shes good, shes very straight forward and I think with the up coming GG18 she will see a lot of play. Theres just something about hurling giant explosions around the table the appeals to me so I think Sonnia is going to be my next endeavor into the Guild faction. All this said I'm looking for people's opinions on hardcore competitive lists/models to take with Sonnia. Did her new upgrades change her a lot? Does she still play every game with Papa Loco? Anything you guys have to give me ideas would be great!

[Adran]

Sonnia is very good at dishing out the damage,  but not so good at boosting her crew, or huge mobility.

A lot of her strength is from doing Severe damage on her flame burst and sendign those blasts out to hit lots of their crew. So you will often want ways to get to reach that neutral or better damage flip. Papa is an easy way to do this, but not the only way. Focus can often be enough, and she can also be at such a higher stat that the opponent that she can easily naturally win duels by more than 5. 

Brutal effigy is really good with her. Other than that I think a lot will depend on your play style, and your meta. You might want to hire bodyguards for her if you play very aggressively in an aggressive meta, but if you hide her back more and use other models in her crew to get things on fire she might not need the defence. 

I'm not the kind of person who will use 1 fixed list for games, rather adapt to the game and board when I pick my crew, but the High powered Sonnia lists of 2 to 3 years ago should still work in a fairly kill based game without any major need to adapt. American version used Papa, The top Uk version often used Sam and reincarnation, but both sides of the Atlantic saw tournament wins with them. 

Teh new upgrades look to be possible picks, but they support a way of play rather than create a new way. You might want the companioning if you find that your opponent gets rid of burning well, and you might want extra blasts if you are up against swarms, but both are, I would say, nice to support if you are going that way. 

[STO]

Please, help to clarify, when using Sonnia and Malifaux child, "Just like you" -action Ca value equals 4 (7-3) or 6 (9-3 Confiscated lore) ?

[Ludvig]

Ca 4, the child hasn't used confiscated lore to boost but copies Sonnia's action as it is printed -3.

[Stonewall78]

You can only ever copy printed stats, not boosted. Same goes for Hoffmans power loop I believe.

[FinalForm]

Sonnia main here

1st of all
She dishes out tons of aoe damage in some funny ways. You can actually kill something within 22 from her with pretty descent flips, and most important u can purge with fire, boi. Remember that she has + on attacks against 6+wp and if she is missed with spell- she fires back.

2nd 
She has some good upgrades, that have insane value.

-Cherufe's imprint - enemies near can not use ss (enemy henchmen within 3 has really hard time sustaining all that damages)
(1) flame wall - and here we go. Nice impasible los blocker, that can easily be copied by child. Big fu to shooting armies and to almost any kinds of alpha strike. Deals some damage when expires, be careful.

-Reincarnation - many guys here think this upgrade sucks, i'm fine with it. Kill burning stuff within 10, get your free witchling for 2 cards or 1ss. Even 1 witchling is great 5ss for 1, 2+ witchlings are unlikely to appear, but man this feels good. Guild summoner confirmed.

-Counterspell aura - Neverborn, some arcanists and all obey/lure models cries and calling suicide prevention line. Also you can make their day even worse. For (1) you can ground their magic, so they almost can not cast at all.

-Cherufe's parting gift - sweet one makes your default totem worth playing it by summoning it over and over for free. Second part is more important: your fellow witch hunters within 12 and los can chain activate. And here we go. Push Sonnia for 12 with hearthbain then blast everything within los, push sam than let him unleash his righteous fury on enemy, pull thrall with handler then chain activate him to completly wreck anything around. This stuff is VERY good. 

-No more masks - makes Sonnia third best melee master in the game.  2/3/5(b)+ burning1+ push this model up to 2+ Heal1-3 wounds+ draw 1-3 cards. If you know enemy will try to tie Sonnia in melee- this is a great choise. Otherwise this is more of a meme-tier than a serious one.

3rd 
Models and support

-Francisco is the best way to make your Sonnia healthier and generaly is autoinclude.
-Malifaux Child is close to autoinclude, granting Sonnia second wall.

-Loco is nice buffer(+ dmg on Sonnia is GREAT) + generates some good damage when focused. Be afraid of his on-death effect. 
-Hearthbane can attack Sonnia to push her then teleport, then push again. Ouch but this can kinda fixes her mobility.No inbuilt suits, so card hungry af.
-Sue +Sonnia with counterspell aura is a death to any heavy casting army. They are done. He can also give some burning to the guys near him.
-Effigy is generaly good on any damaging master. And for 4 ss this one is very, very tough.
-Emissar is good, giving that sweet burning+1 to enemy without los, but I rarely can see place in my lists for his 10ss ass. He is not witch hunter also, so no chain activation to Sonnia/Sam via parting gift.
-Queeg is not tested, but i see him as Hearthbane alternative. He is a henchman for less ss, has lesser damage can not push Sonnia as far as Hearthbane, but can push her without any additional cards/suits.

4th 
Remember the weaknesses 4 wk, 4 df, 12 hp.
She is slow and VERY squishy. Franc is absolutely needed and u need a way to speed her up.There are a problem that can not be solved easily for her: she is card hungry af. Effigy can help just a little, pair of debts are ok way to go, but outside of this- your hand is screwed. You always will have 0-2 cards. Suck it.

Thats all my fellow Sonnia player, now you can purge enemies with flame. Good luck with this)

 

[Tris]

4 hours ago, FinalForm said:

-No more masks - makes Sonnia third best melee master in the game. 3/5/6 + healing+ push+ blast if you are lucky. If you know enemy will try to tie Sonnia in melee- this is a great choise. Otherwise this is more of a meme-tier than a serious one.

 

How do you get to 3/5/6 on her melee?

[Ludvig]

12 minutes ago, Tris said:

How do you get to 3/5/6 on her melee?

By counting the burning as raw damage probably. I don't agree since you can't get the burning to tick on activation like McMourning and.poison so the model xouls survive to strike back and then have it removed.

[Tris]

6 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

By counting the burning as raw damage probably. I don't agree since you can't get the burning to tick on activation like McMourning and.poison so the model xouls survive to strike back and then have it removed.

But even then, her damage track is 2/3/5, plus 1 burning, so at least the medium damage seems off  

[FinalForm]

15 hours ago, Tris said:

But even then, her damage track is 2/3/5, plus 1 burning, so at least the medium damage seems off  

Sry, my bad) 
Anyway the attack itself deals 2/3/5(b)+ burning1+ push this model up to 2+ Heal1-3 wounds+ draw 1-3 cards
There are LJ and Misaki, who can generate more value from single attack. All other masters in most cases do far worse, then this.

[Ludvig]

2 hours ago, FinalForm said:

Sry, my bad) 
Anyway the attack itself deals 2/3/5(b)+ burning1+ push this model up to 2+ Heal1-3 wounds+ draw 1-3 cards
There are LJ and Misaki, who can generate more value from single attack. All other masters in most cases do far worse, then this.

The Viks usually do min 5 ignoring almost any reduction or protection concievable. McCabe has decent damage because it ignores defences but even he is usually not considered a melee master but rather a support master.

In my definition of a melee master you kind of need to have a good way of getting there and survive being in melee. Doing a few points of damage that doesn't ignore defenses doesn't make you a melee monster. Card draw is more of a support ability in my opinion and to me a "melee master" is a master that deals a lot of damage in melee, might be a question of definitions.

Since Sonnia also needs to discard two cards to get some of her boosts you're not drawing that many cards, it's more like cycling the first two you draw.

[FinalForm]

2 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

The Viks usually do min 5 ignoring almost any reduction or protection concievable. 

In my definition of a melee master you kind of need to have a good way of getting there and survive being in melee. Doing a few points of damage that doesn't ignore defenses doesn't make you a melee monster. Card draw is more of a support ability in my opinion and to me a "melee master" is a master that deals a lot of damage in melee, might be a question of definitions.

I'm not including Viks here as Vik of blood is a henchmen and Vick of Ashes rarely seen killing somebody.

Mah Tucket is a great example of Melee master and she does worse then melee Sonnia. As listed Sonnia has 2 problems - sustain and mobility, this problems can be solved with support models listed in third part of my post) Once again, I still think that Sonnia is so-so melee master, but she has this option.

[Ludvig]

4 minutes ago, FinalForm said:

I'm not including Viks here as Vik of blood is a henchmen and Vick of Ashes rarely seen killing somebody.

You have a strange way of looking at it. Vik of blood is a henchman included in the cost of ashes so if we are comparing masters we have to compare her with her freebie model included. Ashes is balanced around having blood. If you want to go that route we can compare Sonnia without her attacks and take away an ability or two because you just removed half of what makes Vik into a master. It's the same with Lynch, Dreamer and Levi. You can't compare those models without all their abilities.

[FinalForm]

7 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

You have a strange way of looking at it. Vik of blood is a henchman included in the cost of ashes so if we are comparing masters we have to compare her with her freebie model included. Ashes is balanced around having blood. If you want to go that route we can compare Sonnia without her attacks and take away an ability or two because you just removed half of what makes Vik into a master. It's the same with Lynch, Dreamer and Levi. You can't compare those models without all their abilities.

Once again I know that Viktoria of Blood is ultimate killing machine.
But good attacks on Hungering darkness Does not make Lynch top Melee master, ok.  So we are talking about Viks. Viktoria of Ashes is a support master with pretty good damage track, while Viktoria of blood is a powerfull glass cannon henchmen.
Let's move on)

[Ludvig]

@FinalForm We can agree to disagree on that.

 

On the topic in general:

If one is going hardcore competitive I'm not sure no more masks makes the cut as far as upgrades are concerned. If they engage Sonnia is it really worth it to drop two cards and attack once to push and get those cards back compared to using another model to push Sonnia or kill thr opponent before boosting another stat and blasting with her Ca? It might be sometimes but I'm not too fond of giving up the upgrade slot. I think a lot of the alpha beaters often seen attacking Sonnia will not care too much but against cheap annoyances like raptors it could be nice.

If Cherufe's parting gift actually allows Sonnia to be second in a companion I would probably prefer pushing with heartsbane and blasting with Ca. If Sonnia can't companion off it you could still use it to tie things up after Sonnia goes. Traditionally her power builds have been pretty light on witch hunters and just used the faction allstars, it would be neat to see her thematic crew more.

[The Governor-General]

No more masks is a fun gimmick to make Reincarnation work.  Sonnia is not a melee master,  period.  If she's engaged (and pumping her melee) she's a Df4 model with no defensive tech.  If she's engaged, that's what enfrentate a mi is for.

And you absolutely have to consider both Viks together.  Their entire design is based on them being taken together (Ash is not a 1 cache master without Blood).  Ash's abilities cannot be considered in a bubble.  That said, if your opponents never get stuck in with Ash, and use her solely as a support master... they are wasting some of the hardest hitting melee AP in the game.

[Tris]

So, what upgrades is Sonnia then using in your builds?

I usually don't find I max out on slots with her specific upgrades in general.

[The Governor-General]

I generally take Counterspell Aura, and Cherufe's Imprint, and I like Cherufe's Parting Gift for a strong third upgrade.  A lot of people used Disrupt Magic, but I tend to throw that on a Handler if I'm going heavy with Stalkers.

[Bucket Monkey]

I'm the same.  Usually Imprint and Counterspell and nothing in the third slot so I'll usually put no more masks in the 3rd.  I don't want to get rid of the child which rules out parting gift.

With her melee you have to remember dampening from imprint, if they don't have armour (or an equivalent) they won't be preventing any of the damage, so with any damage flip buff she can efficiently put things down with her top end damage, and the burning helps with frame for murder.

[DeadManTalking]

So just theoryfauxing, but what do you guys think of this? 

50 SS Guild Crew
Sonnia Criid + 6 Pool
 - Cherufe's Imprint (1)
 - Counterspell Aura (1)
Malifaux Child (3)
Dr. Grimwell (9)
 - Research Grant (1)
Francisco Ortega (8)
 - Wade In (1)
 - Hermanos de Armas (1)
Witchling Handler (8)
Witchling Stalker (5)
Witchling Stalker (5)
Brutal Effigy (4)

 (exported from CrewFaux)

I know watchers are good with her, but it was between a watcher and the effigy and I thought the effigy brought more to the table.

[Bucket Monkey]

Looks fairly solid.  I’d try and fit disrupt magic in as you’ve got so many Witch Hunters.

id say play it by the board with regard to the watcher, if there’s a good vantage point in your deployment zone, go with the watcher, it can just (2) action all game and help keep Sonnia more protected.  

Personally I’d want something more melee/range balanced instead of grimwell, to make the most of the handler handing out burning,though it totally depends on strats, schemes, the board and the opposing faction if you need to keep back at max range.  unless you get lucky I don’t tend to take him unless I’ve got a way to give him pos damage flips or extra ap for focus as min 2, not even ignoring armour isn’t great especially on a 10ss (with upgrade) model, Phiona or the executioner would be better in that regard, damage wise and cheaper.  You could take a pathfinder, it gives you traps to play with and they’re great for Sonnia to blast off, as you can almost guarantee yourself the severe (with cards in hand)to guarantee 3 damage and burning to pretty much anything you want within 8”

[4thstringer]

On 10/29/2017 at 4:24 AM, Ludvig said:

 

If Cherufe's parting gift actually allows Sonnia to be second in a companion I would probably prefer pushing with heartsbane and blasting with Ca. If Sonnia can't companion off it you could still use it to tie things up after Sonnia goes. 

Is there something I am missing about CPG that wouldn't allow her to be that second?

[Ludvig]

3 hours ago, 4thstringer said:

Is there something I am missing about CPG that wouldn't allow her to be that second?

The ability to companion is on Sonnia, not granted to every witch hunter in play. So when the ability says "another witch hunter within 12" (or something like that) it's not clear if it's another than the one that activated and within 12" of the acivated model or another model than Sonnia within 12" of her.

[DeadManTalking]

Is a Witchling Thrall a good addition to Sonnia? I dont have any experience with them, but at 8 stones I hesitate adding them to any list. I had the same issue with Rougarou when playing Neverborn.

[Ludvig]

6 hours ago, ConfuciuSay said:

Is a Witchling Thrall a good addition to Sonnia? I dont have any experience with them, but at 8 stones I hesitate adding them to any list. I had the same issue with Rougarou when playing Neverborn.

They're 9 stones actually...

They shut down casts if you have the with hunter upgrade and they hit hard and are decently survivable. They have less synergy with Sonnia than Lucius or McCabe but not sure they are bad for her. They kind of compete with other expensive beaters though. Why just them and rougarou? There are plenty of models that are expensive but worth it, the peacekeeper is 11ss, Yasinoriis 13 I think yet people take it in every list.