Sonnia Who?

[The Mortificator]

I purchased the Sonnia starter box when I first got into the game on account of my like for the Witchling models and the idea of playing a denial-orientated army. Now, some months and a couple dozen games later, I have to say I am not impressed. Sonnia just doesn't seem all that good at what she's supposed to be good at.

She's a slow-moving, fairly low-defense Master with average wounds and decent Ca and Wp. Nothing too distressing there. Her Cbs aren't great, but at least she's average with her sword; it's just unfortunate that the sword itself is somehow less useful than the ones her Witchlings carry. Sure, it shuts down casting, but only if you win the initiative and are willing to throw her out front first despite the threat of violent retaliation. She's Magic Resistant, an ability I've only had come up a few times ever since a lot of spells just do straight Wds. Her ability to ignore LoS to select models doesn't seem all that great either compared to the other Guild Master's LoS-ignored effects.

However, where she shines, or is supposed to shine, is in her denial and spellcasting ability. Both seem lacking to me. Firstly, Advanced Counterspell's range is far too tiny to be useful unless you run your entire crew in a tiny 6" circle, which is not always a good idea. Nullify Magic is also too small as most smart players will make sure to cast outside of it's area and it only lasts until the end of the turn, again requiring you to win initiative and run Sonnia in first. If they're inside the area, can't escape, and you went before them, chances are you've already hit them with the sword anyway. Or tried to at least.

Then comes her spells, three of which she can only cast 1/4th of the time unless she's willing to burn soulstones. I use soulstones pretty aggressively with Sonnia because of Confiscated Lore, but for a Master who only has 4 (not a large amount considering LJ has just as many and seems to be a much more solid Master) and the fact you can't Nullify Magic or cast Inferno, it's rather limited in it's usefulness at times. Add in the fact Flame Wall is limited to one use and Flame Burst has recently been toned down by becoming a ranged spell. I've yet to play with the newst errata, but can speak from experience that Flame Burst is overly-erratic and under-performs quite often. The combat resolution already favors outcomes with one negative damage flip (or more for Hard to Wound models) and it's more often than not you're just tossing out 2 damage rather than anything she couldn't just replicate with her pistol (though her gun is far less accurate, but at least it doesn't use up soulstones). Now that's it's ranged, I'll be surprised to find it even hits more than half the time.

All-in-all, I just find Sonnia to be very disappointing. Every win I've had with her, which have been few, has been a massive struggle involving huge amounts of good fortune or abuse of terrain, while loses seem to come with amazing ease and brutality and usually within the first few turns. I've been having a lot more luck and fun with other Masters, both losing and winning, than I ever did with Sonnia. Just makes me wonder about her design compared to other Masters. I'm not saying she's the worst Master, she isn't, just overall underwhelming.

Just felt the urge to type out this little rant after reading the new errata. I fully acknowledge it as a rant, but it would be nice to hear if anyone else feels similarly or has had some good fortune with Sonnia. I really like the old gal, I do, she just tends to stay in my case more often than not.

[TheOtherMC]

Not that makes me sad, I was hoping to main a Sonnia force with nothing but Guardsmen. (Which Austringers are now!!!) Im still kinda poking my way into the fineer points of the rules, how detrimental is flame burst becoming ranged and how exactly will that affect my witch burning?

[AoM]

Sonnia Criid. and don't you forget it.

Sonnia is my go-to master. She has been since beta testing. Flame Burst is what you use while you're closing. You shouldn't really be needing Confiscated Lore in the same turn as Inferno most of the time. Use your minions to screen her instead.

When she gets into combat, she's not as good as Justice or the Viktorias, but she's certainly no slouch. if you're getting her melee, pick a model that has already activated, and then use Inferno when you're done. the model's not going anywhere, after all.

Flame Wall got a huge boost in the errata. is a big boost there.

Flame Burst has been sick since it started. Sonnia's CA and a nice flip or cheat leaves you in the 6-10 range in most duels, giving you a neutral flip for damage that can be cheated. With Sonnia's high cache, you've got the stones to burn on Confiscated Lore and adding a stone to your duels if you're worried about it anyway. I've always got 8 stones with Sonnia in Scraps, 7 at the minimum.

Also, remember that you have great synergy with Witchling Stalkers. Violation of Magic does at least 1 Dg whenever you successfully cast it. get a weak Witchling into combat. Nuke him with Violation. He dies, triggers his own Immolating Demise, then returns as a brand new Witchling Stalker. Best health plan in all of Malifaux, right there.

Sonnia's melee trigger is pretty damn nice as well. You force discards (1 per :rams), heal a Wd, and draw a new Control Card. Even if you draw something low that you're not using that turn, it's something that you won't have to flip during the rest of that turn, and you won't have to have it in the Fate Deck for the next turn if you keep it in your hand and discard it later.

Tomorrow, I'm bringing Sonnia to a tournament.

Sonnia

Purifying Flame

Witchlings x2

Death Marshal

Nino Ortega

Convict Gunslinger

7 SS, card control, melee and ranged. It's not going to steamroll everything, but it's a list that has every model working to support each other. It can handle the Strategies well, and I can pick Schemes based on what I see.

As with anything, YMMV, but Sonnia is great. She's not the best at anything, but she's damn good at almost everything.

Edited January 15, 2010 by AoM

[WEiRD sKeTCH]

I've always viewed Sonnia Criid as a great toolbox Master.

And a 6" circle of denial on a small table is huge!

Low Df sure, but when you're protected by Flame Walls that are giving you cover...

[AoM]

Aye, she's definitely a Swiss Army Master.

[TheOtherMC]

So why is Flame Burst becoing ranged such a bad thing? Im still not 100% on all the nuances of the rules.

[AoM]

can't cast into melee without the chance of hitting someone else now. and some spells and abilities all you to have increased Df against attacks, or ignore them all together.

[TheOtherMC]

can't cast into melee without the chance of hitting someone else now

Wow that sucks. Not as big a deal as I thought though, I wouldnt be casting that into mellee in fear of the blast template anyway. Dont quite understand the cuddle, I mean rasputina has almost an identical spell and it doesnt seem to be an issue.

[AoM]

Oh, sorry if I made that unclear. you can shoot and cast into melee. when you don't have the icon, you're not making a "ranged strike" so you're not subject to rules that specifically reference ranged strikes.

Didn't mean you can't cast it into melee. just that you now have to follow the rules. Sonnia's Flame Burst used to not have the , and this errata brought it into line with similar spells.

[perplexiti]

I was pleasently surprised when I first played Sonnia, I didn't think Id like her that much as I'm more of a crash n bash kinda player. But I have to say she's probably my fav, of the three guild masters, and I just love those little hooded fullas.

The addition of the ranged attack cuddles the flame burst a bit, but it shouldn't be too hard to work around, and as Angel of Menoth said, once you get close you don't really need it so much anyways.

[agorfein]

I have been playing Sonia for a while now with great success and have won far more games than I have lost. I agree with most everything Angel of Menoth has said. However, from his description I do try to keep her out of melee a bit more than he does. IMHO the key to Sonia is to have her at the right place at the right time to do one or two turns of devastating blast damage.

7-8 soulstones is a must with Sonia as you will be burning them to use confiscated lore and to increase your casting totals so that you can cheat her blast damage up to severe. Don’t be afraid to spend your soulstones. Also, if Sonia is in a decent position, don’t be afraid to channel the first spell against enemies that are hard to wound. You want to get to a neutral damage flip so you can cheat it. Against enemies that are hard to wound or masters, try to kill them with blasts as you target their underlings.

For me, that’s really the key to success. Sonia Criid is the only master I have had inflict 28 damage in one activation, by getting two severe Flame Bursts with three extra enemies in the blast area (take that Razorspine rattler and your silurid friends too!)

I haven’t used her with the errata yet, so I don’t know how much making the blast a ranged attack will hurt her. However, I don’t anticipate it being too bad if your main melee troops are witchlings. If you kill them by accident your target is still taking 5 damage (three from the blast and two from immolation).

Sonia’s advanced counter spell is really useful, particularly if you keep vulnerable but highly effective characters (like Hopkins) near her. That way he can’t be lured away, affected with disabling psychiatric conditions by Pandora, etc. and is pure death to anyone who is not in melee within 10"

Finally, Sonia loves fighting enemies that are “Hard to Kill.” “Hard to Kill” means they always pause just long enough at 1 wound that they can be conveniently turned into more witchlings with “Violation of Magic.”

I hope this helps. I really think Sonia is actually one of the better masters. I just can’t decide whether I like running her or Perdita more...

Edited January 15, 2010 by agorfein

[The Mortificator]

I'm glad to see so many responses. Especially ones so constructive considering my original post was a bit negative. It was late, sue me.

The strengths people have been bringing up are what keeps me trying to play her despite my disillusion with her ability. That and I absolutely love her backstory and that of the Guild in general. However, one thing that's been said a couple times sticks out and bothers me.

The idea that Sonnia needs 8 soulstones to function troubles me. I'm not denying she needs them, but what Master doesn't benefit from a massive pool of stones? Well, aside from Leve that is. I've played in a few games where my opponent has run light to have maximum stones and it really just bogs down the game. With Sonnia, who tends to use them so aggressively, it's not so noticeable, but playing against some other Masters (ex. Perdita, LJ, Lilith, etc.) who don't need them to hit or be effective, 8 soulstones makes them nearly unkillable. I just dislike the idea of forfeiting models because nothing in the game is as useful or effective as just keeping those stones.

If this is the general opinion of Masters and stones, maybe all Masters should have 8 soulstones automatically and get free crew points instead for balance. Or perhaps reduce the maximum soulstone pool. I digress, this really is more about the game itself rather than Sonnia. Please, continue the Sonnia discussion, it's a good read.

[higherbrow]

I just picked up Sonia, as she's one of two Masters I'm really interested (the other being Pandora). I like her because she's capable of dealing amazing damage at range, but is a really nasty piece of work in melee as well. Her Confiscated Lore in combination with her Explosive Burst lets her take down even careful squads at range, and Inferno and Absorb Magic let her hold her own in melee better than most casters (not to mention her ability to lock down opposing masters' casting just by smacking them, making her initiative really important).

I haven't had much success using Violation to get Witchlings, but that's partly because I run Witchlings instead of Death Marshals, making getting them off of my own Witchlings tough.

Her weakness comes in when you let a melee-oriented master into melee with her. I made the mistake of letting McMourning do a double move, Scalpel Slinging, then activate his Fast for a Dissection. It was pretty sad times for me.

[Raintar]

She is anti-casters obviously, but luckily alot masters are casters. She is one of the few masters that can take down some of the top masters in the game with relative ease (Rasputina, Pandora, Nicodem). With that said, she can also take out units pretty well with 5BBB with Explosive Burst which makes it pretty much hit everything.

I think her trouble is that she will need to kill certain things before she gets tied up with them. If she can't cast safely from the sidelines it's pretty much a wrap for her just as any other caster based master. Like if a unit like Joss or a Flesh Construct gets into her she will have some real problems because her effectiveness will be limited.

Another problem with her is spending a soulstone every turn for using confiscated lore. Its also irritating to have to pay a soulstone to so her stuff when other masters are so strong in what they do.

But the best part about her, and using Witchling Stalkers is that the stalkers are strong enough in combat and have Immolating Demise to at least bring them down a notch.

Her weakness comes in when you let a melee-oriented master into melee with her. I made the mistake of letting McMourning do a double move, Scalpel Slinging, then activate his Fast for a Dissection. It was pretty sad times for me.

I especially agree with this, masters like Lilith Justice, Viktoria are strong counters to her and McMourning is just murder on wheels. It makes it bad when they have soulstones and their not spending them on confiscated lore and you are :X.

[AoM]

The idea that Sonnia needs 8 soulstones to function troubles me. I'm not denying she needs them, but what Master doesn't benefit from a massive pool of stones? Well, aside from Leve that is. I've played in a few games where my opponent has run light to have maximum stones and it really just bogs down the game. With Sonnia, who tends to use them so aggressively, it's not so noticeable, but playing against some other Masters (ex. Perdita, LJ, Lilith, etc.) who don't need them to hit or be effective, 8 soulstones makes them nearly unkillable. I just dislike the idea of forfeiting models because nothing in the game is as useful or effective as just keeping those stones.

If this is the general opinion of Masters and stones, maybe all Masters should have 8 soulstones automatically and get free crew points instead for balance. Or perhaps reduce the maximum soulstone pool. I digress, this really is more about the game itself rather than Sonnia. Please, continue the Sonnia discussion, it's a good read.

Like you said, Perdita does not need the stones. If I have 8 stones in a Perdita list, I'm leaving out effective models on purpose. In a 25 stone game, I'm going to run the Ortega family, and sit on my 2 stone cache. if I'm going to 30, I'm switching a few things around, as I don't need 7 stones, and I can probably juggle things to get a list that plays differently.

With Sonnia, I am not burning a stone every turn for Lore, but it's nice to have if I want to. And unless I can guarantee the kill, I'm keep the last 1 or 2 stones for myself in the late game. Preventing damage is huge!

[The Mortificator]

Like you said, Perdita does not need the stones. If I have 8 stones in a Perdita list, I'm leaving out effective models on purpose. In a 25 stone game, I'm going to run the Ortega family, and sit on my 2 stone cache. if I'm going to 30, I'm switching a few things around, as I don't need 7 stones, and I can probably juggle things to get a list that plays differently.

With Sonnia, I am not burning a stone every turn for Lore, but it's nice to have if I want to. And unless I can guarantee the kill, I'm keep the last 1 or 2 stones for myself in the late game. Preventing damage is huge!

My statement isn't meant to be a sweeping generalization of all players, but a handful of people I've played with feel that soulstones are best on a Master before ever buying a single model. Statistically, they're not wrong either and that's what bothers me. Sure, the Ortegas make a mean 25-points, but why not leave out one of the family to give Perdita a nice 7-8 soulstones? At that point value, Perdita became close to unkillable from the games I saw where such a tactic was used. I'm merely stating that I could see a trend of a crew's first 3-6 stones being automatically "spent" on the Master rather than bringing more models to the table.

[WEiRD sKeTCH]

Less models = Not achieving Strategies & Schemes.

That equals a lose in my eyes.

[AoM]

yeah. unkillable =/= auto-win.

I've got a soulstone level I keep in mind when I'm hiring crews for different masters, but that's always a flexible number. If it's 5 stones vs 7, but I can get a more useful model instead of a model that won't do the job as well, I'd rather have fewer stones and better models.

Edited January 18, 2010 by AoM

[The Mortificator]

EDIT: Nevermind. I'm derailing my own thread so I'm not discussing it anymore.

[AoM]

sorry, threads have a habit of going from their original form, to somewhere else, and then somewhere along the way they come back to the original topic.

Now, getting back to Sonnia, you've got to admit that Flame Wall is great for blocking choke points.

[Justin]

My statement isn't meant to be a sweeping generalization of all players, but a handful of people I've played with feel that soulstones are best on a Master before ever buying a single model. Statistically, they're not wrong either and that's what bothers me. Sure, the Ortegas make a mean 25-points, but why not leave out one of the family to give Perdita a nice 7-8 soulstones? At that point value, Perdita became close to unkillable from the games I saw where such a tactic was used. I'm merely stating that I could see a trend of a crew's first 3-6 stones being automatically "spent" on the Master rather than bringing more models to the table.

I agree with this.

Granted, it is situational, obviously you wouldn't do this in the case of reconnoiter, but most anything else a full cache is generally better. And, since you choose your crew after knowing missions, well...

But yeah, a master like Perdita with 8 stones is damn near unkillable. Depending on what you're playing against, of course. I think the problem is damage prevention flips; I still say they should be once per turn. But, whatever.

I also think it would be cool if, instead of soul stone "caches" you had "soul stone caps." So, Sonnia could take 10 soul stones, but Perdita might max at four. Neither one of them, however, would automatically start with any. It's not unbalanced since it would mean less models in her army, but it does mean that masters that are more soul stone dependent (sonnia, mcmorning, etc) would have access to more stones, as opposed to more models, which is, essentially, what a larger cache gives you since it just means you don't need to take less models to get a larger pool.

Edit: whoops, it seems I've added to the derailment. I'm like that tenth guy who runs into a pile up on a foggy highway...

Edited January 18, 2010 by Justin

[CserZ]

I also think it would be cool if, instead of soul stone "caches" you had "soul stone caps." So, Sonnia could take 10 soul stones, but Perdita might max at four.

That's just a great idea!!!:dancing:

[agorfein]

I have to disagree, I think a variable cap is a bad idea. If there is a problem with the cost of soulstones vs. troops, that should be addressed by the rules (like having unspent soulstones only transfer to the cache at a 2-1 ratio or something).

My concern is that the number of soulstones a model possesses is directly related to their ability to survive as the rules are presently written. I would bet on almost any master with eight soulstones against any other master with only four. In the example you give, Sonia Criid would wipe the floor with Perdita with that many extra stones.

The real problem (if you view it as a problem, I'm not sure I do) is that almost any master, given a few soulstones and decent cards, can beat any non-master pretty easily. If a master with three soulstones can easily take out a 9 or 10 soulstone model, why wouldn't you max out the number of soulstones you're allowed?

If you ask me, the masters should be tough. They are the heroes of the story. However, that said, there probably needs to be a pretty thorough re-think of all of the strategies and schemes as they don't seem well balanced. Some are really hard to accomplish (slaughter, for instance, is really difficult in a big game. A player can almost always hide a model somewhere). Others are much easier. Perhaps there should be a starting soulstone bonus or penalty depending on the strategy you draw.

[Justin]

I have to disagree, I think a variable cap is a bad idea. If there is a problem with the cost of soulstones vs. troops, that should be addressed by the rules (like having unspent soulstones only transfer to the cache at a 2-1 ratio or something).

My concern is that the number of soulstones a model possesses is directly related to their ability to survive as the rules are presently written. I would bet on almost any master with eight soulstones against any other master with only four. In the example you give, Sonia Criid would wipe the floor with Perdita with that many extra stones.

The real problem (if you view it as a problem, I'm not sure I do) is that almost any master, given a few soulstones and decent cards, can beat any non-master pretty easily. If a master with three soulstones can easily take out a 9 or 10 soulstone model, why wouldn't you max out the number of soulstones you're allowed?

This is part of the problem I was talking about. With that line of thinking (with a few exceptions as to strategy such as reconnoiter, or maybe opponent) why wouldn't you always max out at 8 soul stones on your master? That's precisely what was being discussed. It makes your master infinitely more valuable than any other model. Which, while I understand from a story perspective, I feel hinders game play. And I think limiting the damage prevention with soul stones to once per turn, would greatly limit this phenomenon.

Edit: I just reread this and I'm worried about it being misinterpreted. Masters should be more powerful than other models. I just don't feel they should be SO much more powerful than other models. Also, in the future having other models that can use soul stones will certainly limit this. But, for the moment, there aren't any.

As to the example I give, assuming Sonnia couldn't use those stones for infinite healing, I don't necessarily think she would wipe the floor with Perdita. For one, soul stones are more inherently necessary to Sonnia who sometimes must burn them to cast her most basic spells, as opposed to Perdita who simply relies on excellent stats. So you're burning more stones to kill models with Sonnia, while Perdita takes things out just fine on her own. Also, without a cache, every soul stone Sonnia has is a soul stone not spent on models.

If you ask me, the masters should be tough. They are the heroes of the story. However, that said, there probably needs to be a pretty thorough re-think of all of the strategies and schemes as they don't seem well balanced. Some are really hard to accomplish (slaughter, for instance, is really difficult in a big game. A player can almost always hide a model somewhere). Others are much easier. Perhaps there should be a starting soulstone bonus or penalty depending on the strategy you draw.

This is an excellent idea. You're right, the strategies aren't always equal, as anyone who has ever attempted to assassinate a Perdita with 8 stones can attest to. And slaughter is almost like two strategies in one.

Edited January 19, 2010 by Justin

[agorfein]

This is part of the problem I was talking about. With that line of thinking (with a few exceptions as to strategy such as reconnoiter, or maybe opponent) why wouldn't you always max out at 8 soul stones on your master? That's precisely what was being discussed. It makes your master infinitely more valuable than any other model. Which, while I understand from a story perspective, I feel hinders game play. And I think limiting the damage prevention with soul stones to once per turn, would greatly limit this phenomenon.

I honestly rarely burn soulstones for damage prevention, on defense I usually find it more efficient to soulstone my defense flip.

I think you are underestimating the power of soulstones. For example, if Sonia soulstones four pistol shots and Perdita has none left to defend herself, Sonia is quite likely to kill her even with her terrible shooting ability (let alone using her flame blast or sword). Given the distribution of cards, a soulstone is worth approximately +6 or +7 on any flip (on average). In addition to greatly increasing the odds of a hit, it is quite likely to enable a player to cheat the damage instead of having to settle for a . This is huge.

If you want people to buy models rather than soulstone cache, the solution is to make adding soulstones to the cache more expensive, so that models become more attractive. That would also have the side benefit of making masters with larger caches (like Sonia) a bit better and those like Perdita, with a smaller cache, a bit worse (or at least make them forgo more combat power in the form of other models if they want to max out their pools). Of course, this might really piss off the Viktoria players.....