One Master to rule them all

[Beta]

Hello fellow Guild followers!

I am in desperate need of some help from you. The new edition is running, the german nationals are coming up...and it just doesn't click for me with Guild.
In M2E I've played Perdita, Lucius, Nellie and a bit of LadyJ (in that order) and I had a lot of fun. In the new edition everything feels kind of bland.
It feels like we only have One-Trick-Ponys, very situational Masters or Masters who can easily be countered (and that very hard). Other factions have so much stuff going on and some Masters are like Swiss Army Knives.

For the beginning of this edition I wanted to focus on one Master until I feel really comfortable and then add the next Master.
My problem now is that I just can't find the right thing for me. Most of the days I am thinking about switching factions (which would be sad, because Guild is, together with Bayou, not really present in my local meta...and the factions I would switch too are way too overrepresented)

 

So...if you could only choose 1 Master and a pool of models to be as versatile as possible...which one would you choose and why?
Which models from the kexword and which OOK models would you put in the pool and why?

I'm not searching for prebuild lists...just some input to build myself a basis from where I can start.
Unreleased models should be included if necessary.

Every bit of input is appreciated! Thanks.

[Dark Reaper]

Lucius box

Grimwell

Doppleganger

Riflemen/Pathfinder/something that shoots and can be copied by the mimics

Pale Rider

Alan Reid and False Witnesses when they become available

Investigators

Maybe Changelings

 

I honestly think that pool of models should be able to let you compete in every available strat and scheme pool and has a nice amount of flexibility. It also means that you aren't completely destroyed by counter-picks, which is the case with a few of our other masters.

[Cursed25]

Sonnia with all her keyword except quellers

pale rider

guild steward

 

you will surely get counter with anti-condition stuff but you can put enough dmg to destroy every thing in one turn so not that bad!

Sanctionned spellcasters are good scheme runners

Thralls are very good beaters

Samael is a good shooter flanker

Sonnia is terrifying!

[4thstringer]

I love guild, but maybe it's not the faction for you. It is more straight forward in my experience.  

That being said, Nellie's box plus the rider and Dade or phiona get pretty interesting in my opinion.

[Xekros]

Not particularly helpful, here, but the more I look, the more it seems that guild are really meant to be played as the faction, as each master does fewer things, but does them very well. For example, Sonnia is the best blaster in the game, and much less affected by condi cleanse than people think, whereas Perdita is one of the best shooters, and can literally one shot many minions, especially schemers. That said, both of those options are pretty hard countered by Stealth, but they each have a solid melee piece to throw at those problems.

The only thing I hear consistently is the Pale Rider: great mobility, good offense early, great offense late, decent survivability, but mobile enough to not be in the wrong place, and can cart your other pieces about so they can save their actions for Flaneburst (for example).

There is a lot of "kill first, ask questions while killing" going on, but that's kind of always been their schtick.

I guess my advice would be one of Sonnia, Perdita, or Lady J. The first if your opponents tend to bring a lot of grouped models, the second if they like to spread out, and the third if they like to summon, bury, or are ressers.

Are there issues with this design? Sure, but it seems more like a faction thing than a particular weakness of masters.

[Cronex13]

Something to be said here is that taking keyword too seriously WILL be the end of you, particularly in Guild. We HAVE to mix our resources to have the highest kind of play.

Allow me to give an example.

Say you need a beater. Someone to just kill things. Lots of options... Basically any Guild Henchmen can do the trick (society of superfriends). However, let's look at Witchling Thralls. 2/4/6 damage track. Looks good. Built in Ram for crit strike. Looks pretty great! You take it in a Sonnia crew and people are gonna be able to shoot into combat without worry of friendly fire, but cover and concealment still negate most shooting unless the enemy has burning.

However, if you take him in a Lucius crew, things change. All of a sudden, since he is a minion, Lucius is issuing command to him, thus giving him a 3rd EXCELLENT attack. Maybe the Jury is casting Obey on him. Or maybe you bring Perdita or Hoffman, who can analyze weakness! Now this monster has a huge damage spread AND ignore armor/shielded.

This is just an example, but hopefully it demonstrates how it could be applied to a variety of situations and models. I can appreciate how focusing on just one model or master will help you understand them and help you realize what you're missing, but mixing the right models is key to success.

I hope this helped!

[Qracy]

Sorry dude, maybe your general thesis isn't wrong, but in my opinion the effort in your example is a little bit too big for just one beater to hit hard:

I have seen a Thrall die very fast several times. If you build your crew around a combination where you focus on one model, which is rather easy to kill (DF 5 / WP 5, HtW, 8 HP), it is too easy to counter and you are in the middle of the game come clean.

You have to invest 34 SS to only three models (Perdita 16, Jury 9 and Thrall 9), only 16 SS left in a Lucius crew. If the enemy kills the Thrall, there is nothing of your synergy left between those models, because Lucius cannot use Issure Command (only Minion, Mimic or Elite) on Perdita or the Jury and the Jury cannot obey Lucius or Perdita (Obey is non-Master).

[Cronex13]

You're absolutely right - there is risk and that's lot of eggs in a basket for a specific trick, but if it works and you kill 3 or 4 models over the course of a single turn or maybe 2, then the game is basically already over.

That said, again, you're absolutely right, this is awefully risky to do. It's the background thesis that's important though, overlapping our most powerful across keywords for devastating effect

[GameSoHard]

On 9/6/2019 at 6:06 AM, Cronex13 said:

Something to be said here is that taking keyword too seriously WILL be the end of you, particularly in Guild. We HAVE to mix our resources to have the highest kind of play.

Allow me to give an example.

Say you need a beater. Someone to just kill things. Lots of options... Basically any Guild Henchmen can do the trick (society of superfriends). However, let's look at Witchling Thralls. 2/4/6 damage track. Looks good. Built in Ram for crit strike. Looks pretty great! You take it in a Sonnia crew and people are gonna be able to shoot into combat without worry of friendly fire, but cover and concealment still negate most shooting unless the enemy has burning.

However, if you take him in a Lucius crew, things change. All of a sudden, since he is a minion, Lucius is issuing command to him, thus giving him a 3rd EXCELLENT attack. Maybe the Jury is casting Obey on him. Or maybe you bring Perdita or Hoffman, who can analyze weakness! Now this monster has a huge damage spread AND ignore armor/shielded.

This is just an example, but hopefully it demonstrates how it could be applied to a variety of situations and models. I can appreciate how focusing on just one model or master will help you understand them and help you realize what you're missing, but mixing the right models is key to success.

I hope this helped!

Why would you take the Jury for obeys when you can just hire (in keyword) changelings to copy Lucius’ Issue Command...

...and Agent 46 has analyse weakness.

While I agree Guild can benefit from out of keyword your example above shows the complete opposite.

[Cronex13]

Great idea! Haven't looked at changelings in a HOT minute, but that's a much better way to do that than my obey example, thank you for sharing.

Thanks for the heads up about agent 46, sure beats trying to hire Perdita

[Cronex13]

But yeah, it's the theory that's important there, even if my implimentation was... Flawed. 

Similar combos from other factions have left my crews absolutely devasted

[Beta]

5 hours ago, GameSoHard said:

Why would you take the Jury for obeys when you can just hire (in keyword) changelings to copy Lucius’ Issue Command...

Jury can Obey enemy models.

[GameSoHard]

1 minute ago, Beta said:

Jury can Obey enemy models.

Yeah fair point although in this example it was used to obey the thrall.

if you’re looking to obey an enemy model then lawyers can also do that (albeit without some of the Jury’s other benefits), again in keyword. 

[Qracy]

...and Lawyers have better synergies with the rest of the crew

[Cronex13]

GamesoHard is right, the point in this particular scenario was to use on a friendly.

The changeling doesn't need a high card or a suite, just a 7 of anything, making it the best way of going about the idea there.

Lawyers and obey are a bit of a rough spot for me. On the one hand, Tools for the Job CAN give you the suite you need, and is good for getting a card back in hand, but I'm still not sure it's worth the effort. However, I enjoy his aura.

Matter of fact, I love the fact that basically every Lucius model in guild has some sort of debuffs aura they put out. The Scribe, Lucius, Lawyers, False Witnesses and Investigators ALL punish you for doing stuff, and it can be a MAJOR drain on an opponent. Unfortunately, if they have a beater (say, a jorugumo or two with Flicker from Asami and the McCabe sword upgrade attached to them, which is where the inspiration from my original idea came from) then no amount of debuffs in the world will save you

[Regelridderen]

On 8/18/2019 at 9:14 PM, Beta said:

So...if you could only choose 1 Master and a pool of models to be as versatile as possible...which one would you choose and why?

I’d go for the Master, that makes you want to paint the most - even if others play it.

Then don’t bother about winning every fight, but try your darndest to do so. You will inevitably expand your collection anyway at some point, when you’ve actually have enough experience to regularly win games. But until then, you might as well play with the models you like the most.

-

Another thing that might happen, as you start playing is, that you learn to appreciate other aspects and tactics of the game, and so learn what is the ‘right’ choice for you, when it comes to playstyle.

Me I’ve got 4 Guild crews, 3 Ressurs and 2 Neverborn, and despite me loving the looks of all of them, it is the neverborn that see the brunt of the action.