Budget Players: Guild

[GremlinDaycare]

I work with a lot of families at the school I work at. A lot of them do leagues and collecting and a few have started to ask about whats good competition wise and what is not worth buying competition wise.

Some of these parents only want to buy bare bones to do these leagues and competitions with their kids. SO HERE IS MY QUESTION, if I am advising a budget player that is only buying needs in a keyword, what is not worth the money? 

[eddy]

Family keyword needs only 1 box extra

Elite and Death marshals have 2 boxes but can be played with starter + 1 extra

Sonnia needs + 2 boxes + versatiles

Bess will need 2 boxes extra

Dont go Dashel as he us summoner and need 3 extra boxes

Hoffman is worst if you want get full keyword needs like 5 boxes extra

 

[Adran]

I'm going to answer in general terms.

Firstly I'm going to say that this is all my opinion. I've spent a while playing malifaux, but haven't had as much experience with M3 as I'd like. Other people will disagree with me. I'm a big fan of building a fresh list for each game rather than trying to build 1 list to do everything, so my natural style goes against your intent (and I might not be the best adviser because of this). I also like using models that a lot of other people think are bad, and have managed to get decent results, so I generally don't believe the internet on whats worthless. People play the game in several different ways, and just because something works for me it doesn't mean it will work for you, and vise versa. Also things like the local meta make a large difference to what is good and what isn't, do the places they want to go to events play allowing the hiring of a second master? Or the use of Dead Mans Hand models?

The difference in crew power levels is probably less than the difference in players capabilities, so most/all  keywords can win events in the hands of a good player.

Masters that summon are probably the most expensive to start, as you will often need more than 50ss worth of crew to play  a 50 ss game. This will include Dashel,, Kirai, Von Stotck, Sandeep, Dreamer, Asami, Sommer and Ulix, and you might want to be wary about Sonnia, Jacob Lynch and Nekima. That's not to say that they can't be run on a budget, but they will notice playing with just a crew box more than most masters. If you get to the point you are buying 3-4 boxes beyond your crew anyway, this starts to become less of an issue.

Most master boxes come with a set of 3 minions. Its rare that you will want to hire all 3 if you have the options to hire other models. So from that point of view there is a little competitive wastage in most crew boxes to start with. 

You can win with a single keyword, but lots of people will look to expand to  second keyword in time, and so versatile boxes can make that jump cheaper.