How many soulstones do Masters need?

[Hagisman]

Recently I played a game with Dashel and found him very stone hungry.

To put into perspective I didn't get a single Ram in my hand above 7 all game, so no summoning without burning a stone for a Ram. First two turns I didn't have any cards higher than a 10, so burn soulstone for either a  or draw two/discard two.

Dashel's crew does have Loot Corpses to turn Corpse markers into soulstones, but I was playing against Hamelin and hadn't any melee who'd be near corpses. Except Guild Hounds and they don't get that ability.

I'm thinking that those in the UK meta are more right about starting the game with a high amount of soulstones. I can definitely see the benefit for Dashel's summoning engine to have at least 8 soulstones. Just in case summoning can't get off.

[theamazingmrg]

I think it varies.  Dashel, as you rightly point out, hinges on getting the right suit in order to trigger his Summon.  Hoffman, on the other hand, is much less contingent on Soulstones because his entire crew can use Power tokens in a similar manner, and pass them to the models that need them, and has Armor for Defence.

 

The deciding factors for the other Guild Masters is probably their need for stones to reduce damage, or draw cards.  But most wouldn't need more than 5.  That's my (completely inexperienced) guess anyway.

[Adran]

The answer is going to depend on the master, and how you plan on playing them.

If you "need" a suit every turn, then you probably want to have 5 stones in the cache to act as those stones. If you have multiple stone users that you expect to get in a fight, you mayt well want stones to keep them alive.

If you have a plan that is likely to involve a lot of triggers (Lady Justice leaping in and doing 7 attacks in a turn) then you will want a lot of stones.

If you aren't that bothered about suits, then you probably don't need many stones.

The larger cache generally comes into its own those games when your hand just doesn't want to play. So you probably wouldn't need that 8 stones every game, but you might need it 1 in 10 games, and you have to decide if the risk of this game being "that" game is worth the extra model or the stones.

[Starrius]

I've ran pandora with 0ss

 

I generally.aim for 4 to 6 as for most of my masters it feels about right 

[Kharnage]

It's hard for me to start with less than 7 stones, honestly. I usually play fairly aggressively and stones are the way to make sure that you don't pay the ultimate price when slinging your Master/Henchmen into the fray. Not right off the bat, anyway. 

[Cursed25]

Most of the time I have 3-4 ss cache! Mostly for dmg prevention and card draw if it's an important turn and I have an awful hand! But as others have said some masters will want way more (summoners, super aggressive ones, etc)

[GameSoHard]

I play a pretty aggressive Dashel with only 2 stones because he picks them up so quickly from either enemy or friendly models deaths/corpse markers. 

Other than summoning I don’t find myself needing the stones that badly as my beaters etc are minions and Queeg isn’t that stone hungry.

It sounds to me more like you drew really poor cards and then lacked card draw. Keeping stones for 2 extra cards a turn is just one way of getting those cards. Do you think you’re misinterpreting lack of cards as lack of stones?

Just my thoughts though, maybe I’m playing Dashel all wrong. 

I’ve played Lucius with 4 stones and wished I had more so will be trying out more like 8 for a couple games this weekend with him. 

[le_wahou]

I did not play with less than 4 stones since many games. If I have models that will use some for trigerrs, I try to have at least 8.

[Beta]

I usually try to have 6 or more stones, since I tend to take several stone users in my crews. For Justice for example I want quite a few stones to get her Leap off and hit the trigger.

[4thstringer]

My favorite double master basse list runs 3 stones.   I don't usually need them with lucius.  I like the 2ss list gamesohard runs with Daschel. Perdita can go either way for me.  I like more stones with lj and Nellie. And Hoff only wants them for cards.

Sonia doesn't need them unless you are getting tricky with some attuned models.

[Regelridderen]

I tend not to stone too much, thinking that if I need to, then it’s because I brought myself in that position. Except for abilities, that are crucial, such as the summoning of the Dreamer etc., aside from that, I go with less than a handful of stones.