Guild vs Arcanists

[Vanor]

Hope this doesn't start a war, but does get some debate going...

I'm new to the game, in fact I don't actually have it yet, but plan on picking some stuff up soon.

I don't like "ugly" models and always play the good guys when I can. From what I've seen so far, Malifaux seems to be a bit like WH 40k, in that there are no real good guys... But based on the models and the "ugly" factor, I'd most likely go with either the Guild or Arcanists.

But I'm not sure which would best suit my play style.

I like to play a more shoot-n-move type group, but don't mind and respect the melee smackdown as well.

I'm guessing from what I've seen both factions offer models that do one or the other, so I could build either a shooty list or a melee list with either faction. Towards that end, I'm thinking of buying two box sets, one melee one ranged for which ever faction I chose...

So I was wondering if I could get any ideas about how both factions play out so I could make a more informed decision.

Does both factions have any sort of AoE? Is one faction better at ranged vs melee? Does one faction have more tricks then the other? Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Oh also what colors are each faction?

[Lucidicide]

Guild are Red. Arcanists are Blue.

Go Guild. Buy Perdita and Sonnia boxes. Perdita and her family are the best ranged group in the game (some would argue that Perdita is the best Master). Sonnia has some nice AoE, and she comes with Samael who is a great ranged fighter and the Witchlings, which are good in melee.

Arcanists don't really do the ranged thing, and they tend to be a little more divided than the Guild (i.e. Guild models all go together fairly well).

Not saying Guild > Arcanists or you'll like them more, but if you like to move and shoot, are talking about AoE, and still like some melee, I just think Guild is the way to go. Both groups have tricks, though admittedly the Arcanists tend to have a less straightforward play style.

[Arcadies]

Here are my thoughts.

Guild is designed to be well rounded with few gimmicks. Each of the three masters has additional powers to counter an enemy faction. Perdita is better against Neverborn. Lady Justice is better against Resurrectionists. Sonnia is better against Arcanists. Again, Guild tends to be more straightforward to play.

Arcanists, on the other hand, are more gimmicky and require a great understanding of the rules and each models abilities. Marcus is pushing the spot for best master in the game. But thats only if you play him at peak strategy. If you're under playing him or if you've gotten thrown off by something, you're going to get wrecked. Ramos is very very weak on his own, but his crews have almost game breaking gimmicks associated with ability combinations. His key is to gear your crew for exactly what strategy, enemy, and terrain you're going to be fighting in. Of the Arcanists, Rasputina is probably the most easy to play. She nukes, nukes, and nukes some more. If there is nothing to nuke she can buff. On top of all that, she can lay down walls just for fun.

To sum up, Guild is the most well rounded and most straightforward to play. Arcanists are individually weak but have many many gimmicks that can potentially place them above other crews if they are used right.

As far as game setting is concerned, there are no 'good guys' in Malifaux... only less bad ones. Lady Justice of the Guild is the least 'bad guy' master there is. She and the other Death Marshals are well liked by the populace. Second up has to be The Ortegas. Led by Perdita, they are Guild sanctioned demon hunters. Though the Ortegas are roughnecks, they keep demons from running rampant and killing civvies. The Arcanists are far from being the good guys. They are more of a loose-knit crime syndicate. Rasputina in specific is definitely one of the bad guys.

Edited June 24, 2010 by Arcadies

[Iamwyrd]

not to disagree with lucidicide, but rasputinas crew has plenty of ranged abilities. They aren't as long ranged as the guilds. But she has the ability to cast her aoe's off of her moleman and quickly nuke the opponent. With rasputina I killed Sonia criid the supposed anti magic caster by turn three. It was just a good game I am not saying that you will have as much luck as I did but raspy is not one to judge. The guild are cool the models are also nice. But the guild remind me of the marines in 40k, they are straight forward and are pretty much op. They are the only crew that are tooled to fight the other factions. I just like raspy because she is like a Russian spell caster chick who is super hot. What's not to want. LOL. But good luck on what ever two crews you pick.

[Q'iq'el]

I was about to post some links to Suehiro Maruo's artworks to prove the OP's notions of beauty and ugliness is absolutely perverted in Malifaux' context, but then I thought about all the kids on these forums.

Bottomline: There's no faction as ugly as the Guild. Ortega's smell, Lady Justice has face so disfigured she has to hide it behind a bandana and you just don't want to know how Sonnia Criid attaches that huge sword to her back.

Comparing to that Rasputina is a beauty pageant queen, but she clearly didn't tell the jury about December's face procuring from her back.

Want true and natural beauty? Only the Neverborn!

Edited June 24, 2010 by Q'iq'el

[Major_Gilbear]

I'd most likely go with either the Guild or Arcanists.

But I'm not sure which would best suit my play style.

I like to play a more shoot-n-move type group, but don't mind and respect the melee smackdown as well.

Top of the move-n-shoot list is Perdita Ortega. Her box is virtually self-contained too (the Enslaved Nephilim Totem is her only other 'fluffy' model that's not in the box). If you come from a WM background, think of her as Caine/ eCaine.

Next up is a toss-up between Sonnia Criid and Lady Justice. Both of these crews have a decent amount of shooting, but also good melee. Sonnia has a spell that lets her put out a huge wall of flame, and Lady Justice is the melee queen of the three.

In addition, each crew above has some traits based on the type of enemy they are geared towards hunting:

Perdita - Neverborn

Sonnia - Arcanists

Lady J - Resurrectionists

Each Master has traits that reflect what they're hunting, and whilst they do get a small bonus against their preferred enemy, it is a modest buff - it doesn't prevent the other player from having a fair chance.

All of these three crews are Guild. The Guild is an authoritarian, selfish and cruel governing body, and seek to control the flow of Soulstones in and from Malifaux in order to remain in power.

The next suitable crew is Rasputina, who is an Arcanist. She is slow, but has access to some very powerful ranged spells that can nuke enemy models. Her other traits include putting down impassible pillars of ice, immobilizing enemy models and proving covering weather for her crew. Again, if you are a WM player, you'll know about Arc Nodes - Rasputina has an ability that allows her to use other models in this way.

The other Arcanist Masters are Ramos and Marcus. Ramos is an Isambard Kingdom Brunel type of character - a supreme engineer and visionary, but physically weak. His strengths are running mechanical units and swarming the enemy with his creations (which he can repair, buff and make more of ingame). Marcus is more of a beast shaman, and can include any beast from any faction in his crew. He is very hard to use well, and heavily relies on which beasts are available to him.

The Arcanist faction is a loose coalition led by Ramos. Ramos is the elected head of the Miners & Steamfitters Union, and wants to overthrow the Guild in order to free the indentured labour they employ. The other Arcanists want the freedom to use Soulstones without the sanction or interference of the Guild and Ramos has talked them into helping his cause. Rasputina helps the Arcanists only because it suits her, but has in fact made a pact with a Neverborn being of great power who calls itself December. Arcanists routinely sabotage and assassinate Guild property and ranking officials, and are regarded as little more than dangerous terrorists by the Guild.

Does both factions have any sort of AoE? Is one faction better at ranged vs melee? Does one faction have more tricks then the other? Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Sonnia Criid and Rasputina have the easiest access to blast templates I reckon.

Oh also what colors are each faction?

Guild is red, Arcanists are blue. The other factions are: Resurrectionists = green, Neverborn = purple and Outcasts = amber.

Also, don't discount the other factions out of hand. I'd start by getting the book and reading the whole thing. This gives you the rules and the fluff. Then read the Wyrd Chronicles (downloadable from this website - check out the main page). This will help you choose the faction and Master that suits you better than any recommendation anyone could give you!

Finally, even if you like them, I would avoid getting either Marcus, Leveticus and S'omer Teeth Jones as your starting Master. They are tricky to use and their starter boxes are poor (or non-existent in the case of Leveticus).

Hope that helps, but if you have any other questions, or want more faction/Master info, just ask!

Edited June 24, 2010 by Major_Gilbear

[Ropetus]

If you want a shooter based crew then the Guild is definitely the correct choice. Almost all the Guild models have some form of a gun and are competitive ranged attackers. Overall they are a straight forward damage based melee and ranged faction, their weaknesses being lower numbers, being a bit fragile and lack of special trick compared to other crews. If you also want AoE effects to go with shooting, then Sonnia Criid and her fire based spells is the way to go.

Arcanists are much less shooty and could be characterized as a polarized faction, meaning every model has a clear role to perform (with Guild pretty much everyone is a generalist). This naturally leads to a more synergy and finesse based gamestyle as all the pieces must be in the right place at the right time. However, they have plenty more tricks in their sleeves and always have plenty of options at their disposal, as well as the potent for magnificent combos.

Want true and natural beauty? Only the Neverborn!

I'm not sure everyone shares your enthusiasm of Zoraida...

-Ropetus

[Q'iq'el]

I'm not sure everyone shares your enthusiasm of Zoraida...

-Ropetus

Even if you don't, you can't deny at least superficial beauty to Lilith or Pandora, the kids are just adorable and even the Mature Nephilim is quite a sexy beast himself.

I doubt the OP is after "internal" beauty anyway, or he wouldn't even think of Guild, so Neverborn are exactly what he asks for, in quite a large part.

Rasputina of course meets the requirements, but her crew is hardly in the same camp.

One crew that was not discussed despite obvious carnal beauty is Viktoria's - both of them, as well as their male and female minions, are definitely very well build and all (well, almost all ) humans.

Last but not least, there's of Course Marcus and Myranda - both beautiful people and you can't really classify their pets as "ugly".

IMHO any of these crews (including Lillith with Nephilim and Pandora with the kids (perhaps except for the Sorrows and Doppelganger ) ) beats Guild and even Tina's Minions hands down in pure sexiness.

[Vanor]

Even if you don't' date=' you can't deny at least superficial beauty to Lilith or Pandora[/quote']

Sure those two look nice, but I don't care for some of the other models in the Neverborn set.

Beauty and Ugly are in the eye of the beholder after all, and in my case the only two factions I really care for as a whole is the Guild and Arcanists.

I was leaning towards Arcanists, but after reading this it sounds like Guild is more my style in terms of game play. I know they're not "good guys" but then again neither are Space Marines really... and that's what I play in Warhammer 40k.

So towards that end I'm putting in an order for the rule book and a Perdita Ortega box set.

Thanks to everyone for their opinions

Edit: Regarding fluff... I read though the 3 Chronicles and have at least a basic understanding of the fluff.

[Lucidicide]

Post some painted pictures up when you're done

[Q'iq'el]

I was leaning towards Arcanists, but after reading this it sounds like Guild is more my style in terms of game play. I know they're not "good guys" but then again neither are Space Marines really... and that's what I play in Warhammer 40k.

Well, if you are fascinated by the sort of holy warrior singularity - the beauty within that Space Marines are supposed to have, then the Guild is definitely nothing like Space Marines.

Edit: Regarding fluff... I read though the 3 Chronicles and have at least a basic understanding of the fluff.

Nevertheless I add my voice in support of the opinion that you perhaps should check out the book before deciding. Without making any spoilers I can tell you the fluff within the book does put a spin on the matters which is not obvious from the Chronicles.

Me too, I started by reading Chronicles and I was somewhat surprised by the direction things evolved to. So if the fluff is really important to you, start by buying the manual, then chose the faction.

[Vanor]

So if the fluff is really important to you' date=' start by buying the manual, then chose the faction.[/quote']

I like fluff, and read all of it I can. But it's most likely 3rd in line of what's important to me.

First is play style

Second is visual appearance

Third is fluff

So even if the Guild aren't very nice guys... They offer the play style I'm looking for, and I like how they look.

[Aldyhide]

Off topic I know, but has anyone noticed that the Ortegas are named after a taco brand?

http://ozbo.com/images/T/00820CF.JPG