Starting Sonnia Criid

[Volaguera]

Hey all!

I've just recently gotten into Malifaux and bought and assembled myself a Sonnia Criid - Witch Hunters starter set. I've read the Sonnia tactica entries on Pull My Finger and in these forums, and noticed that I'm missing a few key pieces.

I've already decided that I'm going to get a Perdita starter set. Nino and Santiago are gold in a Sonnia crew. I can even see a use for Francisco. I've read that bro'ing him up with Santiago is a good thing, since it forces an opposing model to either be hurt at range or hurt in melee; I was thinking having Francisco bro up with Samael might work, too. I thought that if 3 out of 4 Ortegas can work with Sonnia, why not just by Perdita's set and have another master + crew to play with, as well?

I'm also thinking about getting a few other models. I'm looking at Guild hounds. After my first few games, I've realized that a Sonnia crew has low mobility, can often be out-numbered, and I don't like people making use of corpse and scrap counters to make more minions Hounds look pretty fast, and because they are amongst the cheapest models available to Sonnia might allow me to up my model count, and they can bury stuff.

Also, I hear taking a 2 stone totem or a desperate merc and using 'violation of magic' on it after it has been hurt down to 1 health is a nice way to get another witchling stalker.

I was wondering if I could get some advice on some lists for 25 soul-stone games. I don't think 25 is the standard game size (35 seems to be the way to go). But there are quite a few very solid 35 stone lists that I've seen already, and at the moment 25 stone games are what my friends and I are playing (most master starter sets + 1 or 2 extras seem to add to 25 stones). I came up with these lists just tonight.

LIST 1

Sonnia (free)

Samael (8)

Witchling stalker (4)

Witchling stalker (4)

Nino/Santiago (7)

Desperate merc (2)

= 25 stones of models

4 stone cache

LIST 2

Sonnia (free)

Samael (8)

Witchling stalker (4)

Witchling stalker (4)

Witchling stalker (4)

Desperate Merc/Witchling stalker/Francisco/Austringer (2/4/5/5)

= 22/24/25/25 stones of models

7/5/4/4 stone cache

LIST 3

Sonnia (free)

Samael (8)

Witchling stalker (4)

Witchling stalker (4)

Guild hound (3)

Guild hound (3)

Guild hound (3)

= 25 stones of models

5 stone cache (Sonnia's default of 4 + 1 for every 2 guild hounds)

(Maybe grabbing a 2 stone totem or desperate merc instead of the third Guild hound would also be good, it would up her cache to 6 and 'violation of magic' could be used later.)

So any advice for a newb Sonnia player on list building at 25 soul-stones?

(EDIT: I also bought a brutal effigy today. It was the only non-master/henchman, non-avatar Guild model in stock at the friendly local game store. I like the look of the model. I understand that it is 4 points, same as a witchling stalker, and it's both worse and as good, depending on the situation. It's not quite as good at melee or range, though not too shabby either; it seems to have a few nice abilities though ('+1 melee expert', 'a pause for thought' slow, 'critical strike' on it's melee, and '0 invigorate' healing flip). I was thinking of trying it out. At the very least I could 'violation of magic' it into a witchling, or even use it as a proxy witchling or death marshall.)

Edited July 28, 2012 by Volaguera

[Wake of Godzilla]

Hi, I hope your enjoying the game so far!

The guild hounds and the Ortegas are a great choice to start with. I have found I tend to leave Samael in the box, while I really like him he is a little squishy and tends to make for an easy kill for Kill Protege. The same can happen with three guild hounds, as they can be targeted for extermination.

The brutal effigy is a great addition to the crew as I find you rarely run a totem with Sonia.

The other things you may want to consider are Sonia's Avatar and some Guild Austringers. These tend to be solid additions to your crew. Don't forget you need to have a Witchling Model available for Violation of Magic so not starting with all of them on the table is not a bad thing (unless you've already picked up another set).

[Volaguera]

Thanks, I am enjoying the game, it's quite fun!

I've only played a handful of games, all of them at 25 points, and only won 1, but I felt like the crew I took wasn't too bad during that game. It was the first time I ran that crew too, so I suppose I'm heading in the right direction I took:

Sonnia

Sam

Brutal effigy

Guild austringer

Witchling stalker

Witchling stalker

= 25 points, 4 stones

I felt like I was missing was model count, but I managed to pull off a 'violation of magic' to kill an enemy and summon a new witchling. It seems I average about 1 successful 'violation' per game. I've never gone above my original model count due to 'violation', but it helps. I also felt a little light on stones, I had to play Sonnia passive-aggressively, because I knew I couldn't afford to risk having to burn stones for defence, or to just kill cheap minions. I ended up using them all during the last turn or so to get the Ca +1 mask and to make sure Sonnia killed what was left.

Sam I think is great, he's been the one to kill problems like enemy masters/henchmen, or other big models. But so far I think for his points he's a bit too vulnerable and thus can't be played consistently, to the full extent of his points. Needs to be baby-sat and the huge target on his chest doesn't help. I feel his range is also a tiny bit short sometimes, considering how vulnerable he has to make himself so that he can shoot. He spends most of the time just carefully walking up, trying to avoid being killed before he can do his thing, and looking for that perfect shot or shots; but not being able to contribute throughout the entire game kind of hurts.

I also find that I tend to play the brutal effigy less aggressively than I do the witchlings, but I honestly think he's a great addition to the crew because of his triggers and his healing flip.

The austringer is great, a solid almost-sniper piece.

I'm finding that the witchlings tend to have to hang back a bit more than their supposed to, since they are my only true front-line models. They've used their guns more than their shattered blades, and I think they'd do much more damage in melee, especially since if they get killed they get to 'immolating demise'. But with only 2 of them, I haven't been able to take the fight to the enemy.

All in all, I think the crew works well, for what's in it.

Edited August 5, 2012 by Volaguera

[His Fattness]

Be very careful, about running Sonnia with such a small soul stone count. Most turns when she is in range she's going to want to burn one for a tombs to her cast and that leaves you very little for making sure you hit, or keeping here alive if someone gets into melee or firing range with her.

[Clousseau]

I've recently returned to Sonnia and have been running her both with & without avatar.

The comments above about Sam and soulstone count are very valid. I hardly ever use Sam, prefering model count from Witchling Stalkers, Guild Hounds or Austringer, and also rarely start with less than 6SS - she needs them to make the best of her Flame Burst (overkill can be great to blast figures hidden round corners).

[Therril_83]

I also dislike Sam, he's just too squishy for 8ss and his range is too short. Compared to Nino, who's also quite squishy, the Ortega has the benefit of both greater range and a way to check that range before firing.

I don't think I've ever managed to keep Sam alive to fire more than 1 shot in a game. When he's in range to fire, the opponent is in range to charge, or double-walk and lock him in melee, or fire back.

I really like the model and the fluff, but I can't seem to make him work. If only I could replace Rapid Fire with Ranged Expert, I think I could atleast get a few more shots off per game.

I have yet to try him together with the Guardian though, so perhaps I should do that and see if I can get him to destroy things.

which brings me to a model I can highly recommend for a Sonnia crew: the Guardian (unless you face an abundance of stuff that ignores armor). He's great both at protecting her or the more pricy minions, and the fact that if he attacks with his shield he cannot miss (even if he misses he deals damage) makes him great to chip in on models that dare get into your crew.

oh, and I just remembered I need to comment on your interest in dogs. I love my dogs. As you say, they are fast (can run 18" if they activate together), got decent Df and Cb, are really cheap and they can companion master too. They can hunt down wounded models trying to escape, they can take objectives if you keep them together and one of my favourite tricks is to companion with Sonnia and go first, run them up to just outside melee with a group of enemy models, then go with Sonnia and target them with fireballs. Easy to cheat down Df so that you can make sure to get those severes and lay down the blast markers. Sure, you'll lose 5ss of models if you do it on both, but if you kill a key enemy model or a group of them without your opponent being able to cheat his Df or anything, it's well worth it.

[Dracomax]

I can't support at least a pair of dogs enough.

Don't forget, for every pair of dogs, you get an extra SS for your pool. With Sonnia, it makes them very valuable mobile targeting units.

{edit} also, if you lose one, don't hesitate to use the other to target a blast. Insignifigant plus restrictions mean that they can be much more useful at that point as targets rather than as objective grabbers{/edit}

Sam...I've never seen the appeal. I've heard for a while how awesome he is, but the only time I found him to be useful enough to offset his squishyness was one time where we flipped that all open terrain became swamp. Scout was huge there. Overall, though, I usually find Judge to be a better use of stones, being a little easier to survive, and a stone less. With Sonnia, I find that more smaller units or a gaurdian are preferable to either, though. Of course, I don't play super competitive.

[Boscotopia]

Samael is a great damage dealer and movement-trap. You do not need Ortegas. I like to take the Wathcer and the Guild Hounds just to offset his high cost, but Sonnia's box is solid on its own. Samael can make back his SS cost if you know how to play him.

I do prefer, most games, to have my my minions below 6 SS, but if you want to keep the theme, Samael is a solid choice.

Samael (8)

Witchling (4)

Witchling (4)

Witchling (4)

Watcher (3)

6 SS for Sonnia

Samael (8)

Witchling (4)

Witchling (4)

Austringer (5)

Watcher (3)

5 SS

Samael (8)

Witchling (4)

Witchling (4)

2 x Guild Hounds (6)

Watcher (3)

5 SS