My Guild crew - advice welcome

[mr pokey]

Hi there, I'm new to Malifaux (only 2 learning games under my belt) and am currently building up a Guild crew.

I bought the Lucius box set because I liked the look of the models. In my head I thought running this elite guardsmen style force with a bunch of attack dogs would be awesome, but then reading the rules, and finding out Lucius is a henchman, and not a 'proper' master, Ive been forced to re-think my crew building plans...

In my first 2 games I got totally stomped. One big element of this is that I was trying to protect Lucius, when in reality, he should probably be leading the charge. I have played against a Seamus crew, and a Lillith crew, and both times I suffered badly for having living models. I'm still wrapping my head around the rules and strategies, but I think its clear that I need to expand my model selection outside of the Lucius crew box.

I settled on the Ortegas as my next box to pick up. I like the gunslinger feel to them, I think Perdita and Lucius will mesh well together in 35ss games, and using Lucius's re-enforcements power to teleport papa loco where I want him, and then sacrifice him, sounds pretty good to me!

I will be updating with my battle reports, and painting progress etc here. So if you have any suggestions for my on what to add to my crew, or what works well with Lucius let me know. I know a lot of people say to bring austringers with Lucius, but last time I tried they were not an option in the crew creator. Can you bring them if he is acting as master? or does Perdita have to come along as well?

anyway, looking forward to getting some more games in next week, Ill let you all know how they go and ask for advice on how not to get stomped so badly. :-P

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

So welcome.

Ok lucius is good but is better support than frontline.

Perdita and lucius don't mesh as well as any of the other three masters. Your example of papa and reinforcments is a bad strategy. Why? Can't do it in one activation, allowing for your opponent to react.

Perdita is great stand alone but does better with family for possible companion shennigans. Lucius does gteat full guardsman. Lady j and sonia have less crew synergy and so work great with guardsman crews. Biggest reason is Perdita has a low cache, and so 10 point support model is frankly too much, or a way i look at 12 for her compared to 10 for Sonia and lady j.

Austringers are great and are guardsman so you can take in lucius lead crew.

Edited February 18, 2012 by Mr. Bigglesworth

[Alex]

I just picked up Lucius myself (along with the Lady called Justice) so I am learning to use him as well. I too am learning the joy of the Loco Missile and Justice In Your Face. Lucie should have no trouble taking up to two Guild Austringers as they are Guardsman models with no unusual hiring restrictions of their own apart from Rare 2. They are pretty fantastic. And yeah, I may end up picking up the Ortega box set as well, since I definitely need Nino (to provide covering fire for Lady J or Guild Guard Captain) and Papa Loco for aforesaid Loco Missile. Will also be picking up more Guild Hounds as out-activating the opponent is great for Lucius!

Let me know how it goes and what you learn!

Edited February 18, 2012 by Alex

[Hugor]

Also just started Lucius. Have played three games thus far. Really enjoy the models, the rules and objectives make the game more enjoyable than many of the other games I play, but do think it is going to take a few more games to really get a handle of how to best organize my animation to best achieve the strategy and to really grasp the rules. That seems to be a big part of playing Lucius. It also, at least in my experience, seems to be important to keep him, the guild guard, and the guild guard captain together, as opposed to my intro game with lady justice and her death Marshall's, who I could really spread out to do several things. Are others finding that as well?

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

Dogs are great gor extra activations in a Lucius lead crew, but in a henchman position his cost makes so you hit average with dogs.

Lucius does have a zone of control he likes his crew ib, but doesnt mean they cant operate out it independently. Also lucius's zone does require him to activate early in the turn to give buffs.

Papa middle with lucius doesn't work against a crafty opponent. The reason it works with ortegas is obeys and companion. An activation before boom allows your opponent to bait and switch on you. Once your opponent sees it they should adapt to it.

Edited February 18, 2012 by Mr. Bigglesworth

[Manlapas]

So welcome.

Ok lucius is good but is better support than frontline.

Not sure what you mean by this. Lucius has good defensive tools in Highest Authority and Governor's Authority. With Advanced Training, Lucius has an 8 Cb, which is nothing to sneeze at. True, Lucius has a low Df, but you should be keeping a guardsman of some kind right by him for Issue Command or Ruthless Leadership. +2 Df from Secret Service results in a very respectable 6.

Last, but certainly not least, Lucius is Terrifying, which does nothing if he's hiding in back.

I guess what I'm confused by is that in the games I've played, Lucius is not at all hampered by being in the front of my crew, and not particularly aided by being in the back. It's counter-intuitive certainly, putting that scrawny clerk up front, but he does a good job up there!

[nilus]

It should be noted that Henchman were balanced in a way that they can lead a crew but they are by know means as powerful as a Master. They are meant to be a challenge to play.

For a new player I generally discourage them.

That being said Lucius is the stronger of them, so he isn't terrible. You might consider using her with Lady Justice as I here they synergies nicely. You can use him to get LJ across the board quick and into your enemies face.

[rancor709]

Henchman are a challenge when they lead a crew and make a lot of book 1 masters incredible strong when used with them. Henchman balancing as Nilus said was so that they didn't play like masters, but could lead a crew, I find them best suited as presently constructed to be augmenting book 1 masters, von schill and molly do wonders for my Ressers. And Lucius super speeds up crews from book 1, He and Lady J tend to work best together from what I've seen against me.

Lucius basically makes her crew and her move up the board rapidly get into the thick of things while austringers rapid fire bird drops. Lucius is a pain and a sweet looking model to play against. For new players I agree again with my Nilus, henchman can be a first crew but they are an uphill battle to play and learn with compared to actual masters. However I often recommend henchman as an early expansion for your forces, so no harm in buying them so long as you recognize they are a challenge by themselves and bloody awesome when combined with a master.

[Hugor]

Ya, I was starting to assume as much, but want to get a few more games in with Lucius as a master just to see what I can do with just him, although I do have lady J and Hoffman's boxes on order and have been debating using my lady j and executioner puppet as proxies in up coming games just to see how that will work whilei wait for and then build and paint those boxes.

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

@ manlapas. You make valid points but you are using more theory. He is not your vanguard and his crew can be tough up front. Also his crew excels at range, and deals with mel fairly well. Think of it this way decent shooting means non ranged crews get pegged more and have to waste resources to engage. Cb 6 melee doesn't mean use the for melee.

His neg flip great but do focus striked or channel and it means nothing. He has a low wound line and a low cache for slow to die heals.

Def 6 means turtle and susceptible to blast.

Cb 6 with a crap melee weapon, great def trigger, but i dont feel his ap is worth him engaging first.

Terrifying is ok, only works on maybe 50% of models and is a simple duel. Helpful but not reliable.

Edited February 18, 2012 by Mr. Bigglesworth

[mr pokey]

Thanks for all the advice!

I got 2 more games under my belt last week. (I dont get to game nearly as often as I would like) and learned a lot more about how my crew, and the game works.

One of my biggest misconceptions coming from a warhammer 40k background was that this is a war game, and its really not. Some of the schemes and strategies require that you try and kill models, but most of them require you achieve other objectives while trying not to get killed in the process (from my guild point of view anyway...) So now that I am not trying to do an anihilation style strategy the whole time I had a lot more fun with the game and was a lot more successful with the models I had.

I decided to stick with 20 soul stone games while I still try to wrap my head around the rules, and I took Lucius, the guild guard captain, Ryle, and 2 dogs.

I tended to take the bodyguard schemes for Lucius, and the schemes that required me to keep the enemy out of my deployment zone. I won the first game, and lost the second.

I have found the dogs to be super helpful in activating objective markers. I may look into getting some more dogs to add to the crew if the right strategy came up.

The guild guard captain is pretty awesome and durable but is probably more of a support character as his short shooting range is really frustrating. He is an awesome character to re-activate though by having Lucius saccrafice a wounded dog. once he has some guild guard at his side I'm sure I'll figure out how to use him more efficiently.

Ryle is realy 50/50 to me. On one hand he is amazing because he ignores all the will power shinanigans. on the other side, he does not benifit from Lucius's support abilities at all. I generally used him to walk to an objective, and stand there with a look of "You want it? come get it." look on his face. which generally worked. Ryle never died. I like the idea of running lucius, or the captain right behind Ryle, as they both walk slow, and letting Ryle run 4" further every turn.

Lucius is absolutely a support character, and Ive found he needs all his soul stones to deffend himself. Might just be the crews I was facing, but Lucius had to make a ton of willpower checks, and He was not good at passing them without using stones. He is however a very tricky guy, and is far more dangerous as a support to other models than he is himself. I'm still getting to know him, and while I think there's a lot of masters out there way easier to use, and are possibly more effective, he is starting to grow on me.

Going to try and get a few of my guys painted and get some more games in soon. I'll post pics of the crew once I've made some progress.

many people have suggested that I take Austringers with Lucius. Whats the strategy of using these two together?

thanks,

[mr pokey]

Playing with the crew creator. Has anyone ever taken, or heard of someone taking Lucius with 13 guild hounds in a 35ss game? It sounds like fun to me but a little expensive unless I proxy them.

[von Clausewitz]

Playing with the crew creator. Has anyone ever taken, or heard of someone taking Lucius with 13 guild hounds in a 35ss game? It sounds like fun to me but a little expensive unless I proxy them.

People have been throwing around this idea since the dogs came out, but I have yet to hear of anyone actually doing it. It's a bit of a waste to take more than 8 hounds since Lucius' max soulstone pool is 4.