Guild v Colette

[Cadilon]

Another thread swerved into this discussion, so upon suggestion I thought I'd collect your thoughts about Guild v Colette.

First, let me say I am finding Colette tough to go up against, but I don't find her over powered or broken. If thats your contribution to this discussion, I respectfully ask that you start your own thread on that topic. I do find that her movement tricks and certain spells are difficult to counter. Disappearing Act in particular plays havoc against Hoffman crews. I can think of nothing more demoralizing than having a fully healed model just taken out of the game with one spell. I realize its hard to cast and needs some luck, but it still sucks. And its not like its impossible. I've had both Lucius and a Guardian taken out that way in one game.

I think I have the basics. I try to take Sonnia against her when I can for the Dispel. I target everything I can before going after Colette. And I try to take down the Coryphée Duet quickly. Anyone have additional suggestions for handling Colette?

[mpangelu]

Another thing to consider for Sonia is that if I'm not mistaken, Colette has a high cb that allows Sonia to target her without LoS. I'd stay away from some things that have repeat triggers (such as Nino or Santiago with Trigger Happy) due to her shennanigans at switching models could make you lose the shots.

Colette is a unusual master, with many many tricks. It's really hard of thinking of good models to utilize. Lots of models who can disrupt the magic train so that limits some of her effectiveness.

[Jonas Albrecht]

Colette simply plays a different game than other masters. She has some hitters, but mostly, to play against Colette is to play against someone who controls the board.

[Mantis840]

For collette I use two guild models I hardly ever use: The witchling handler and the executioner. I try to get both/either of these models into melee with Colette. The tactic I use for this is both models make it harder for her blinding flash trigger, then its pretty easy to beat her down. Also I use Lady J a majority of the time anyhow, so having her on the opposite side of the table makes quite an interesting decision for the collette player.

[Odin1981]

Ok here goes the way I see the matchup.

First and foremost the single most important thing to understand in my eyes is figuring out what colette does and the role she plays in this matchup. To me first and foremost colette is a resource attrition master. Some might disagree and it could be mainly their particular playstyle with her but anyways here goes my take on her.

The reason I say she is a resource attrition master is that she can do something that only 1 other master can do reliably in the game (hamelin) and that is make resources to outlast the opponents stuff. She can take a aggresive approach due to generating ss's to keep the big 3 alive and take out what threatens them to outlast the opponents ss uusuage in that she really comes to play with more ss than whatever her starting cache says she has.

She does this by pitching cards to make more ss's via some ability that off the top of my head i forget atm. That right their is her biggest strength of hers but also is her biggest weakness at the same time. She is very resource dependant (I would also throw in initative dependant)) as well depending on where she leaves the other big 2 at the end of each expiring turn as well.

She also loves to see any model that costs 8ss or more against her via mannequin replacement so often it is against your best interests to play really expensive stuff against her (as a guild player the only model above 7ss I would take against her would potentially be samuel hopkins but that is it and even then I would lean on not taking him but I can see what he does and why you might take him).

The other big thing is against colette you have to be methodical at the beggining of the game in your approach against her. It is against your best intersts to rush forward with reckless abandon on turn 1. Any objective grabber you take should be towards the rear with gear in regards to your models don't send them off and running to do stuff right away until you can exhibit some board control to keep them alive. One of the first things I do when I play colette is first 1-2 turns take out any of these models cause the generally are fast moving and can outpace the rest of your forces. This forces my opponent to give models misassigned roles in regards to what they would really like to be doing (example being slow combat oriented model then being forced to go on objective duty ie executioner.

Also the big thing with her like pre errata dreamer is that you cannot be spread out piecemeal but at the same time you cannot be grossly bunched up (via cassies pop in drop in conjunction with duet companioning with her spreading out - to duels via combat trigger or a combo with performer spell than cassie blasting of breath fire. You have to find the happy medium of distance spread for you models (off the top of my head I would suggest placement that would only ever give cassie two models to hit with breath fire only on a severe damage flip to initial target. Or if you are really good with distance spotting try to wave your approach to the middle of the board and keep stuff greater than 5" but less than 6" away from each other (I know some people might be like wtf how can I figure this out well im a carpenter so im good at distance judging but if you play on terraclips boards every individual square is 6'' by 6'' or you can invest in those blue 6" long measures that are 4" on 1 side, 6" on another 1' at the tip, and 2" at the other end and spend time looking at the 6" side to get use to how long it is so you can judge where you need to be) I forgot the name of it but ill be back to this thread tommorow and I'll remember the product name of it.

The main thing that in a guild versus colette matchup why I think it is very close to a 50/50 matchup if both sides know what they are doing is the guild more so than any other faction as a whole slew of pitch 2 resource or die abilities in conjunction with witchling stalkers having crow combat trigger you must discard 1 when hit (I believe sammy does as well) so the guild more so than any other faction can attack colettes need of resources (cards or ss's) than any other present faction. If colette is resource strapped she cannot be aggresive in the I go and kill your dudes sense she has to save them for defense I need model X to stay alive sense and become reactive versus proactive.

Well I'm off to go play a few games but I'll return and reply to anyone and answer any questions if need be also.

Edited July 18, 2012 by Odin1981

[Cadilon]

Good insight. Thanks!

[Odin1981]

Good insight. Thanks!

1 thing worth noting with what is currently released/out with guild I personally would never run hoffman against her atm. The only 2 masters we have that I even feel would warrant consideration against her would be sonya or dita (though i admit she has ways of killing them both currently atm) however book 4 is inc so that might skew either match up wise when it hits depending on what is in them either faction wise on how the matchup wise.

Edited July 18, 2012 by Odin1981

[Shut Up]

in all honesty, dita is just plain good, but colettte has ways of dealing with her crew, low wound low df (for their ss cost) minions are exactly what colette will want to fight, with SS use she can reliably do 5wounds with a spell and when you factor a coryphee duet kiting around taking 2-4 wounds per hit off things it spells trouble for the guild player, sonnia however is a different matter, that counterspell makes hurting her very difficult, and while you can mke her pitch cards till the spell goes through (as Odin rightly said colette is very much about resource management, yours and your enemies) that means than she is dictating what spells work and more importantly when, which make sdoing any meaningful damage to her very difficult for colette (and barring marcus arcanists in general, oh and avatar ramos... god i hate that guy) and the coryphee wont go near her coourtosey of didasemble.

also witchling stalkers straig up shut down colette's damage output, the 3 big damage spells in the crew all have 2/3/5 damage arcs, which means the ability to cheat is quite important, which is difficult when your casting flips are on even with soulstones

definitely second odin on the point of: under no circumstances take hoffman! it is far too easy to stick his taxi in a bag, drop it at the other end of the board at the end of the turn and watch hoffman limp back towards the fight, also discharge soulstone + mask trigger = free 2/3/5 ignore armour spells targeting df (not the strong point of hoffmans constructs)

the disapearing act shennannigans are equaly valid on guardians (for this I tend to use doves).

playing competetive games against colette with guild I have found success with sonia and justice (advance as a blob and take the crew to pieces piece by piece, using justice to deter the coryphee). playing using colette against guiild I have struggled mainly against sonia, allthough i did have one game I lost horribly to hoffman, a colette-hoffman vs sonia-hoffman brawl at the uk GT, sonia in a hoffman tank is amazing, as is nino.

oh and make the manaquinne your first target, it is an amazing utility piece

[Toonook]

Nino can be good against her, as she needs to throw away cards to create soulstones. I personally fear Sonnia the most of all the guild when using colette, that dispell, the witchling stalkers anti magic field and her being able to cast at Colette without LoS is so damn annoying!

[Odin1981]

Maybe its just the meta I play in or maybe its cause I run guild as well as colette but everytime I run up against nino I smile because my opponent assuming a 35ss game is gonna be playing my 35 against their 28 on the second turn. The amount of wounds nino has fits just right for the duet to kill themselves after you set up movement first turn to take him down on second turn (fast ap walk/sword dance say 3wds - trigger or push your perogative, 1st general swing 3 more plus last action blinding/ or melee for death).

I know you could make him difficult to get to but if you have to mass models around him but still leave firing lanes open colette player will just avoid his threat area till they have to go get him.

To me I would lean towards sonnia being best against her but if they forgoe the damage spells at sonnia or models within 3" of hger she is very easy to bash down with duet and cassie but I admit the spells for the most part our shut down which is why I think she is the best to take against her with what we currently have.

---------- Post added at 12:57 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:44 AM ----------

On a side note against dita or lilith (a supposed bad matchup for colette lol whatever on that) I generally will take them down with duet getting a hit on them for - duels and then magicians duel them down. Lilith is easier to due to no immune to influence so you can just straight up paralize her with blinding straight up without double booking first successful swing to remove dita's immune away but when either her or dita is ca 5 (4 for lilith) with a - having potenially 4-5 ap of magicians duels usually will bring them down or put them on ss empty.

[NeuroFire]

The Executioner is great against Colette, because she can't use Blinding Flash against him. Death Marshals can also be good, just because they have Intractable, rendering Disappearing Act useless; the Exorcist also brings a few benefits to the table when dealing with Coryphée, since they're non-living. Colette is Ca 7, so Sonnia can target her without LOS, and Avatar Sonnia's Pyre Manipulation is one of the best ways I've found for reliably damaging the Duet. (Sonnia also has her Disassemble trigger, which might not kill the Duet but it can at least drain cards/soulstones.) Witchlings are fantastic with their blades forcing discards in order to cast anything and their ability to dispel Blonde Act or Southern Charm (Perdita's Spellbreaker is the best way to do this, of course, but I like to have Sonnia.)

Not to say I never have trouble against Colette, but there are a lot of Guild models that counter some of the crew's more powerful abilities. I generally have more trouble against an armor-heavy crew like Ramos, or a blender like the Viks.

Edited July 21, 2012 by NeuroFire

[Cadilon]

The Executioner is great against Colette, because she can't use Blinding Flash against him. Death Marshals can also be good, just because they have Intractable, rendering Disappearing Act useless;

Good point! I've only looked at that card a ja-gillion times and never made that connection. Won't my next Colette opponent be surprised?!

[The Godlyness]

Executioner is slow. If the collette player leaves themselves to be hit by him the shame on them lol.

[NeuroFire]

Executioner is slow. If the collette player leaves themselves to be hit by him the shame on them lol.

Executioner can be Obeyed by an Abuela or Hamlin, buried and moved about by a Death Marshal, or called from the deployment zone by Lucius. There are plenty of ways to get him in Collette's grill.

[Odin1981]

The Executioner is great against Colette, because she can't use Blinding Flash against him. Death Marshals can also be good, just because they have Intractable, rendering Disappearing Act useless; the Exorcist also brings a few benefits to the table when dealing with Coryphée, since they're non-living. Colette is Ca 7, so Sonnia can target her without LOS, and Avatar Sonnia's Pyre Manipulation is one of the best ways I've found for reliably damaging the Duet. (Sonnia also has her Disassemble trigger, which might not kill the Duet but it can at least drain cards/soulstones.) Witchlings are fantastic with their blades forcing discards in order to cast anything and their ability to dispel Blonde Act or Southern Charm (Perdita's Spellbreaker is the best way to do this, of course, but I like to have Sonnia.)

Not to say I never have trouble against Colette, but there are a lot of Guild models that counter some of the crew's more powerful abilities. I generally have more trouble against an armor-heavy crew like Ramos, or a blender like the Viks.

With the dreamer having been erratta'd and not very popular atm due to this Many crews will begin to see a resurgence of vikkies or dita in competitive circles due to him essentially forcing players not to run them anywhere near as much due to poor matchup dynamics with pre-eratta'd dreamer.

It is a lot more viable now in competitive circles to break either of those masters/crews out with him made a lot more tolerable. He can still do what he has always done (dreamer) but atmost he can do 2 swoop jumps and then he is then out of daydreams.

On the actual topic of models to take against colette the executioner is probably the main model I always set up a early mannequin off the board for but if the guild player only has one obey he isn't that much of a threat however against a dita player with potentially 3 obeys in a turn he is usually my first priority.

[pixelante]

My advice is to ignore Colette and focus on killing her crew, her slow to die means that your biggest hit is negated by a heal flip. Then she will hammer her attacker with a discharge soulstone that might give her another SS anyway or turn him into a mannequin. But as tough as Colette is she is not very fast once you get rid of her Showgirls.