OP or player error?: Guild vs. Neverborn

[Amateur Contender]

Hey y'all. quick question. I have a very small meta (3 players, including myself). One plays Ressers, one plays Neverborn, and I play Guild. We're having a problem where the Neverborn player consistently feels that my Guild crews are pretty OP, especially the shooting ones. I play Perdi, Lady J, Basse, and have started on Nellie. So my question is this: do you Neverborn players feel that the Guild is a problem for you all? If so, how can we equalize the playing field? If not, is there something my player can be doing that he's probably not doing? He plays Titania and Nekima. Any suggestions will be greatly welcomed as I want everyone in my meta to enjoy playing the game.

[theamazingmrg]

I've only played 4 games .  2 against Sandeep (obviously not Neverborn, but it still counts for my experiences playing Guild), one against Dreamer, one against Zoraida. I played Sonnia for all four.  Nothing about the Guild stuff felt overpowered, and I had trouble dealing with anything Neverborn. 

 

Which Master(s) has you Neverborn player tried?  Because as far as I can tell, there's a reasonable amount of Terrifying or Stealth across Neverborn, both of which can limit Guild shooting quite a bit. 

[Wenshai]

As a titania crew he can use his concealment markers to put the guild player on negatives, on the neph crew side he should simply hide directly behind things to avoid being seen, unless you guys are placing the terrain favourably in the guilds hands.

 

Recommend new masters though. Collodi might hurt guild a bit with armour +2 and an inbuilt obey into his rg 10 attack.

[Kharnage]

As a Nekima player who relishes the chance to play into shooting crews, I'm happy to try and help and encourage my fellow Neverborn. Mostly though, I'm surprised he's having the trouble he is. From a strictly Nephilim perspective, here's what I'd say.

Your greatest goal fighting a crew that can deal damage at a distance, is to mitigate the damage they deal. This sounds obvious, so I'll break down what I mean. 
Your tools of mitigation, are Flight, engagement, and terrain on the board, maintaining full speed through and then into the enemy. Fighting guild means they probably put Sharpshooter upgrade on one if not two models, but that doesn't mean everyone's got it, and for those that don't, cover and concealment is your friend. You ignore the terrain while moving, but take advantage of it when you can. With sufficient amounts of Fly With Me, you're going to be able to close the distance just fine, so don't be afraid to play a little back, behind buildings and the like, until you're ready to engage. Even with ignoring cover, concealment, and Friendly Fire, they still can't ignore no LoS. Use that as well, when you can.

Next, if you aren't bringing Inhuman Reflexes on Nekima every single game, you're missing out. Use this to maximize the AP loss of a shooting crew. Even with crews like Basse who can "shoot in a melee", they have Gunfighter, which only gives them 1 inch reach. Use your 2 inch reach to nullify their damage. Even if Basse throws up dust, and Caught in Quicksand's you, he's blown a master's AP to deal 1/2/3 damage and injured +1. With Butterfly Jump, you can jump back into his face after the Quicksand is done, likely avoiding the Dust Cloud, and causing him to waste more AP doing nothing because Nekima's stiff-arming him. Matures are also quite capable of this strategy, and can even have Basse or the rest of his crew shoot into Combat Finesse in melee (since it becomes a ) to waste AP by just not being able to cheat to hit in the first place. Nephilim live and die by engagement range shenanigans, abuse it to the highest order.

Finally, just, get to 'em and kill 'em. None of the guild's shooting crews are particularly tanky, and with AP robbing tactics, you can use your bought time to hack their little models to death while you tie up the big ones. Attrition tactics for Nephilim is fine, given that we bleed on them AND we regen, so the longer you can make the melee go, the better. 

Exceptions to the general rule; the counter-beaters. Jonathan Reichart is a prime example. Beat his ass into the floor as fast as you can, while trying to generally adhere to the rules above. I understand that he's Disguised, but you can Shove-Aside mask trigger some other sod to get to him without loss of AP on both Nekima and Matures, and eventually, once the splash party begins, even with his Grit, there's not much to be done to stop his untimely demise. You just have to have enough stones to survive going gung-ho. I usually run 7-10 stones on my Nephilim crews to keep Nekima healthy and with suits. 
Hope this helps!
 

[Amateur Contender]

8 minutes ago, theamazingmrg said:

Nothing about the Guild stuff felt overpowered,

This is my sentiment exactly. I feel that the only reason they may feel powerful is because they're easier to control as they're pretty straight forward. On the other hand, because they're so straight forward they are also easier to predict and counter. Looking at list, it's easy to see why people generally rank the Guild as a mid-powered faction.

[Amateur Contender]

2 minutes ago, Wenshai said:

As a titania crew he can use his concealment markers to put the guild player on negatives, on the neph crew side he should simply hide directly behind things to avoid being seen, unless you guys are placing the terrain favourably in the guilds hands.

 

Recommend new masters though. Collodi might hurt guild a bit with armour +2 and an inbuilt obey into his rg 10 attack.

Thanks for the suggestion! That armor +2 should really help with longevity.

[theamazingmrg]

8 minutes ago, 11Anthonyc said:

This is my sentiment exactly. I feel that the only reason they may feel powerful is because they're easier to control as they're pretty straight forward. On the other hand, because they're so straight forward they are also easier to predict and counter. Looking at list, it's easy to see why people generally rank the Guild as a mid-powered faction.

I really like my Guild stuff and what they're theoretically capable of, but they definitely aren't too strong!

[Amateur Contender]

1 minute ago, Kharnage said:

Hope this helps!

Boy, does it! I'm just gonna copy and paste what you said and send it to my player in an e-mail.

I honestly believe that, as an experienced Guild player, I have an advantage in being to play my crews the way they were intended to be played. But the Neverborn seem to have a less forgivable learning curve. I know he'll find this extremely helpful. 

[Morgan Vening]

One thing to consider when comparing ranged crews to melee crews, is terrain coverage.

And it's the one thing hardest to properly judge. Packing a table with obscuring terrain is gonna annoy the shooters. Sticking a single tree in the middle of the table is gonna annoy the hitters.

And the hardest thing to define. 1/3 coverage is all well and good, but I've seen a crapload of variation with that as the one criteria. Lots of movement affecting bog/barbed wire favours shooting. Lots of impassable buildings favor flight/incorporeal.  It's hard to get the balance right.

 

[Amateur Contender]

Just now, Morgan Vening said:

It's hard to get the balance right.

Ain't that the truth. It's especially hard to build a table without bias when both parties pretty much know what the other is going to play. 

[Amateur Contender]

Admittedly, I'll say that they did make playing ranged easier with regards to cover and shooting into melee. Non-ranged crews had a clear, and fair, advantage in 2E when hard cover gave ranged models - to attack AND damage. Now it's just - to damage for the attacker and +1 defense for the defender. And shooting into melee actually bore weight when randomization was a thing. Though the mechanic was a bit clunky and I hated having to flip four cards, randomization rewarded melee crews for rushing through the firing line to get into the faces of those who would hide behind the barrel of a gun.

[Gnomezilla]

35 minutes ago, Wenshai said:

As a titania crew he can use his concealment markers to put the guild player on negatives, on the neph crew side he should simply hide directly behind things to avoid being seen, unless you guys are placing the terrain favourably in the guilds hands.

 

Recommend new masters though. Collodi might hurt guild a bit with armour +2 and an inbuilt obey into his rg 10 attack.

I would be leery about relying on armor into Guild. Three out of eight masters have some way to cope with the problem: those aren’t good odds. Sonnia is perhaps the most vexing of counters to Collodi, with a ranged, blasting, armor ignoring innate (if she brought the Expert Marksman upgrade, and she will bring the upgrade) attack.

 

Guild doesn’t have as many answers to bypassing those underbrush markers. They can buy ignoring-concealment upgrades, limit two. They have a Blow It to Hell model in the riotbreaker, limit three, not yet seen one hired outside of Hoffman. They have very little flight and incorporeal, and fewer but still not many place effects (look for Ride with Me and I’ve Got Your Back, and see the limits on engaged/unengaged targets). Guild is pretty good at resisting being moved into said markers, so they aren’t as good offensively, but as defense they are probably full-powered.

 

@11Anthonyc what does a Titania vs. Basse table start looking like at turn’s end, anyway, with all the markers?

[Amateur Contender]

12 minutes ago, Gnomezilla said:

11Anthonyc what does a Titania vs. Basse table start looking like at turn’s end, anyway, with all the markers?

GLORIOUS CHAOS

Edited June 11, 2019 by 11Anthonyc
inserting a glorious adjective

[Amateur Contender]

13 minutes ago, Gnomezilla said:

Guild doesn’t have as many answers to bypassing those underbrush markers.

Basse seems like the perfect Guild answer to Titania, as a lot of his crew can ignore severe terrain and/or concealment. The pathfinders ignore concealment, Austringers throw angry eagles at you that ignore practically everything, and I think everyone has Favorable Terrain. If I played Titania, he'd probably be the only Guild master that I would hate seeing on the table.

[AngelRogue]

Blow it to Hell doesn't help against Underbrush markers. They are not destructible. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

I'll second the terrain. It's a hugely important part of the game, and if you're skimping, it hugely favours the ranged crews.

[santaclaws01]

2 hours ago, Gnomezilla said:

They have a Blow It to Hell model in the riotbreaker, limit three, not yet seen one hired outside of Hoffman.

Eurpides is the master who hates seeing them, not Titania.