Ophelia or am i Wong?

[rcas92]

Hi all,

looking to buy my first box for Malifuax today however had very little exposure to.it so far. I'm not overly sure on my preferred play style as yet however I like ranged so my situation is as follows:

 

2 choices.. Ophelia or Wong. (I believe Ophelia is a better place to start however I prefer the aesthetics of Wongs Box) 

also, does having both allow me to form a decent crew at a later date or do they not pair well? 

 

any advice for a new player please!  

[green-n-dumb]

Take Wong box + Burt Jebsen and you will be satisfied a lot.
If your budget allows - take Swinecursed, Old Crancky & Sammy.

Ophelia box imo not the strongest atm and containts only two good models - Francoise and Raphael.

And imo Wong box much more suits for gg18.

[Clement]

Ophelia's box certainly costs more points to run, so if you goal is to get 50ss worth of models asap, Ophelia is certainly the model to do it.  She got a LOT of love in the new upgrades that were released, so almost everything in her box has a use.  Rami is the weakest model in there, everyone else has things to do (heck, even the much maligned Young LaCroix are now good for helping Ophelia throw trash everywhere, and can scheme run in a pinch via that same trash)

If you prefer Wong's box for aesthetics though, just run with it and start there.  Wong is plenty competitive.

As to the two playing together, both boxes are pretty ambivalent about each other.  Wong is always happen to have a few more beaters to try and hold the line for him to lob shots at, while Ophelia's kin would like to have the lightning bugs around for more damage, but want other things (slop haulers) to help fix enemy defense and heal them up (they tend to reckless every turn so will have a "slow leak" problem).

The way they end up playing also couldn't be more different.  Wong will be doing scheme manipulation directly, and lobs a large number of low damage shots "into the melee" hoping to clip as much stuff as possible.   Ophelia works in the exact opposite direction, she's pushing and placing her crew around along with surgically striking at enemy models with selective charging to clear up whatever Franc can't handle.

[Clement]

Something that occurs to me, you might want to take a look at Wyrd Chronicles 37.  The "building on a Budget - Gremlins" article has good purchasing advice that's also 3rd edition compatible (at time of writing).