The Guild Vs. Viktorias

[Ulfarr]

In a discussion with the local gaming group the other night someone bought up that they thought the Guild were not capable of taking a well put together, well played Viktorias crew. A lot of people seemed to agree.

I can't say i've played Viks enough to have a strong opinion either way - but what do you guys think?

[Guardian]

You need to play a bit different when facing viks:

1) alot of cheap models is not the way to go

2) austringers to take out student of conflict early

3) spread out

[Ulfarr]

I'd agree. I've yet to play them with my rifle list but I feel a couple of riflemen could really hurt them.

[Odin1981]

The big thing I have found with guild against vik's is you have to be willing to sacrifice a good 7+ stone minion to the viks so that you can kill sword vik after she pounces. Also havin a decent amount of long range options (I prefer austringers but on the boards most seem to prefer nino to kill student asap and the closest ronin to gun vik) to take apart the support options of the viks (student, johnny cash, ronin, potentially libby if further than 6" away from hulk hogan.

Also if they do take schill it is very important to pull him away from the librarian so that you can burst her down or unless you have quite a bit of companion in your list it is very hard to kill a viktoria due to the heal to full after you attempt to burst one down. I personally feel however a hamelin minion viktoria build is harder to deal with than schill due to him shortening the board 4" plus each models walk. It really puts you on a clock to take him + sword vik down and generally shortens the 36x36" board to a 28x28'' board due to his piper's lure mechanic with the standard vik threat range of 20" makes damn near everything in sword vik kill range after turn 1.

[Adran]

Guild are certainly capable of taking apart a well played Viktoria list.

Regardless of the stratergy being played

The Guild generally only need to hit a viktoria twice to kill one.

Perdita, Enslaved Nephlim (for the obeys) Executioner, Sammual can be enough to kill the Viks. They need to rush forward to kill Sammual, as he can one shot them, but the executioner if used as protection for Sammual Hopkins can kill the Viks. Perdita and the Nephlim can use obeys to gain extra actions from the most appropriate model. Fill the rest of the list with cheap models to gain activation control.

Papa is another model that will cause the Viks huge problems in almost killing the model that kills it. Or Witchlings.

And then you can add in an Austringer to force the Viks to come to you or be pecked to death.

The guild certainly has the tools to defeat the Viks.

[Kadeton]

The nastiest match-up I've played versus the Guild as the Viks was against a proper Hoff-ball. That thing is fairly cruel against a melee-centric crew. The Ronin do rather wreck face against it, though.

Perdita is always solid against everyone, and she's just fine against the Viks. Witchlings and Austringers (and Nino, natch) are your friends.

Lady J vs the Viks is really random. At some point, there will be a situation where Justice and the Viks will be in position to kill each other, and (barring horrible luck) it just comes down to that one Initiative flip.

That's been my experience, anyway.

[NeuroFire]

I've had a lot of trouble against the Viks. I had one Viks player who was in a hurry just table me (including Perdita, yes) by turn three. If they are focused, they can steamroll through a lot of models, even if I spread them out, and Ronin make the Guild's tankiest models a whole lot less tanky. I also don't know any Vik players who don't take a Librarian and a nice cache of Stones to keep them alive long enough for a healing, making it ridiculously hard to take one down early enough to save my crew from annihilation. I literally got to the point where I've started turning down games with anyone I know is a Vik player, because it's so unfun to play against them.

This thread is helpful, though. I'll definitely take Papa against them next time, for the BOOM. I've taken Nino, but unless I can get a lot of Trigger Happy early on, they just charge up to him and wreck his face before I can take one down, and then they can heal to full with the Librarian. Any ranged threat pretty much has that problem. Austringers can hide, at least, but they're not damagey enough to take out anything in one turn unless I get some kind of freakish flip where I'm Critical Striking on Severe, or I get the red joker.

What I'm thinking might really help are the Traps. If I can tie them up before they get to my ranged stuff, I probably can take them apart. McCabe's crew in general might Slow them enough to decrease the threat, and McCabe can take quite a bit of punishment, even against those pesky things that ignore armor. (That also has the advantage of not having to sacrifice Strategy builds for a build that just stands a chance of not getting tabled, since it's a good objective crew as well.)

[Ulfarr]

McCabbage looks like he could certainly help what with his ability to hand out slow like it's going out of fashion. To the same end I wonder if some Wardens might be useful? The range isn't fantastic on the fists though.

[DeusInnomen]

I'm imagining a trio of Guild Riflemen could be helpful here. (I'm usually the Viks player so I'm not used to playing against them, so I'm speculating.) A single well timed Companion activation providing you up to 9 shots at 11" range doing 2-4 damage each is well more than enough to either eat all their soulstones with defense and damage reduction flips, or to take out at LEAST one of the Viks. Having only 7 Wounds and no armor is a real problem for the Viks when they're on the opposite side of a firing squad.

[Boshea]

The nastiest match-up I've played versus the Guild as the Viks was against a proper Hoff-ball. That thing is fairly cruel against a melee-centric crew. The Ronin do rather wreck face against it, though.

Perdita is always solid against everyone, and she's just fine against the Viks. Witchlings and Austringers (and Nino, natch) are your friends.

Lady J vs the Viks is really random. At some point, there will be a situation where Justice and the Viks will be in position to kill each other, and (barring horrible luck) it just comes down to that one Initiative flip.

That's been my experience, anyway.

Initiative and triggers determine a Vik v Lady J showdown. Lady J doesn't need a group of models to get more attacks, and a poorly timed Riposte can ruin your day.

[dgraz]

A single well timed Companion activation providing you up to 9 shots at 11" range doing 2-4 damage each

Could be 14" range. If you're going all in like that with all three, it might be worth losing the overwatch action for the extra range.

[Odin1981]

I've had a lot of trouble against the Viks. I had one Viks player who was in a hurry just table me (including Perdita, yes) by turn three. If they are focused, they can steamroll through a lot of models, even if I spread them out, and Ronin make the Guild's tankiest models a whole lot less tanky. I also don't know any Vik players who don't take a Librarian and a nice cache of Stones to keep them alive long enough for a healing, making it ridiculously hard to take one down early enough to save my crew from annihilation. I literally got to the point where I've started turning down games with anyone I know is a Vik player, because it's so unfun to play against them.

This thread is helpful, though. I'll definitely take Papa against them next time, for the BOOM. I've taken Nino, but unless I can get a lot of Trigger Happy early on, they just charge up to him and wreck his face before I can take one down, and then they can heal to full with the Librarian. Any ranged threat pretty much has that problem. Austringers can hide, at least, but they're not damagey enough to take out anything in one turn unless I get some kind of freakish flip where I'm Critical Striking on Severe, or I get the red joker.

What I'm thinking might really help are the Traps. If I can tie them up before they get to my ranged stuff, I probably can take them apart. McCabe's crew in general might Slow them enough to decrease the threat, and McCabe can take quite a bit of punishment, even against those pesky things that ignore armor. (That also has the advantage of not having to sacrifice Strategy builds for a build that just stands a chance of not getting tabled, since it's a good objective crew as well.)

In reply in regards to your first paragraph: the most important thing unless you are playing hoffman is to not start with a bunched up deployment, kinda like how you would play pre errata dreamer in that you would tops want 2 models within 5" of each other (sword vik bait) and it would probably be better to have a staggered approach to your deployment (front wave models on deployment line, second wave 3" back and such so that they can never hit more than 2 models as you move your battle line up the field). The key thing to do if you can't kill sword vik is to drain there ss's on defense duels rather than to allow them to use ss's offensively on duel totals.

Second paragraph: papa might not be bad but it ultimatley comes down to the viks crew composition. If they run hamelin (minion) you better deploy him away from every thing else in your list and any model with friekorps armor won't give two shlitz about him in regards too damage. I personally prefer santiago over nino due to the reliability of running into masks naturally flipped compared to nino card hogging your hand over the particular suit that a family oriented list requires. I often have the most preferred time taking down sword vik by sending executioner supported by a stalker close by to hope they draw the viks ire. They will hopefully take the bait and pounce taking 2 damage when they kill the stalker (and outside of a crappy hand, and a bj for the to hit flip of a charge he will bite the dust) with the executioner will die but will allow you one swing on a sword vik to try to do 4 damage or 3 and a decap trigger. Granted any vik player worth their salt will ss the slow to die flip for it to miss but if they have expended most of their good cards at this point they might not flip a 10+ higher card and could potentially brick (ss card value of a 1-5) their ss attempt to avoid it (not always likely but is possible just don't count on it). However with this line of play assuming no damage prevention flips where made if you connect with the s2d swing you can kill them in their own activation or at worst do 6/7 wounds to sword vik so that any hit past those two kills sword vik outright.

Unto your third paragraph: Austringers/nino main role in this fight is to do one of two things kill any low wound model trying to scurry away but most importantly kill student asap. With a combat of 7 if you delay their activation turn two till when a viks player has blew their load (hand) it is not difficult if you keep a 9 or 10 in hand to be able to cheat damage in on student killing it in 1 hunting raptor. From then on you hope to get schill away from the libby so you can start pelting her over two turns with the austringer (again high base combat over a pathetic defense of 2-3 forget which off the top of my head) also their moderate profile isn't bad at all I generally try to save any 6 or 7 in hand for cheated in moderate with them. 3 or 4 with crit strike is a nice hit on most sub 7 point models generally 50% or more of their life. Granted though make no mistake the austringer is no heavy hitter but if you do not activate it till later in a turn when an opponents card in hand resources our down it can reliabley inflict 3-4 damage a strike with just a 8 or better flipped on their attack total.

The traps interest me but I do not feel they will affect viks much. Base defense 6 plus use ss I really do not see how they will hit to paralyze a viktoria. i mainly see them as a threat to high cost, high damage, low defense elites that normally seem to come in at defense 4 (1-2 are def 5 but most our def 4 with a couple at def 3). Their is really no reason the trap should hit a vik with the paralyze ability off primed unless they are out of ss's and a depleted hand. I don't think they are bad but I believe their role is not in threatening any ss user outside of potentially one of the casting type low defense masters. You could threaten von schill with them and force ss use to avoid with him so that is another option to bleed them dry out of ss's but generally I would believe with von's mobility he would be able to avoid them. Ronin in the guild matchup suffer from bad walk/charge compared to the range of our guns so they shouldn't often get into are lines but they can be used as a time waster (def 8 ability plus walk) but if they do that it would be better to burn down actual threats instead of a defense 8 hard to kill punching bag. The reason i often focus on/kill the ronin closest to gun vik is to ensure I only have to kill sword vik once. But if they do not keep ronin('s) close to gun vik I generally ignore them till I have dealt with the hitters.

One final note is my preferred list to run dita with threw many games of experiance with her is:

Dita 4 cache, fransico (5), santiago (7), executioner (7), austringer (5), stalker (4), watcher (3) plus totem (2).

Granted I run a low cache but with dita's defense I don't use ss's offensively with her and most of the time in regards to this matchup she will normally go down at some point (generally in turn 3 or 4 unless I kill 2/3 of viks + schill). However the strength of this particular list is that the "power" of this list is dependant on my crew (francisco, santi,exe, and totem combo) to defend against opponents vp, while my "agile" units (dita,watcher,stalker) go get vp.

Edited January 15, 2013 by Odin1981
putting in my list i run so people can see how I'd counter viks.

[DeusInnomen]

Could be 14" range. If you're going all in like that with all three, it might be worth losing the overwatch action for the extra range.

That would be 2 shots each at 14", because the "Combined Arms" ability (or whatever its name correctly is) is an (All) action, so you wouldn't be able to take either of the (0) actions.

[Ulfarr]

If you do the firing squad with the Riflemen, you have to make "pew pew pew" noises. For science.

[dgraz]

That would be 2 shots each at 14", because the "Combined Arms" ability (or whatever its name correctly is) is an (All) action, so you wouldn't be able to take either of the (0) actions.

Oh, right. Don't have the cards in front of me......forgot. Still, 6 shots isn't bad either and not a bad choice if you're not sure of the range. The first guy could do the 14" shot and if you discover you're within the 11" the others could take 3 shots each.

Good for me since I'm horrible with guessing ranges.

[Forar]

My local Vik's player also runs Leveticus, so while there are certainly parallels present, building lists against him without knowing which he'll be playing is a bit of a nightmare.

I've run Perdita against the Viks in the past, but mistakes in positioning and absurd hands full of his trigger cards generally led to that ending poorly. It doesn't help that he's an excellent player (aside from one tie he's currently undefeated, though he does have the fewest games amongst our usual group).

[DeusInnomen]

I've run Perdita against the Viks in the past, but mistakes in positioning and absurd hands full of his trigger cards generally led to that ending poorly. It doesn't help that he's an excellent player (aside from one tie he's currently undefeated, though he does have the fewest games amongst our usual group).

"Absurd Hands Full of Trigger Cards" is my tournament nickname.

(Actually, that's half true. At Adepticon 2012, I had Sword Vik in charging range of Nicodem and 4 Mindless Zombies... and a handful of Masks worth at least 6 each. That was... bloody.)

[NeuroFire]

In reply in regards to your first paragraph: the most important thing unless you are playing hoffman is to not start with a bunched up deployment

I figured that one out pretty quickly, because I'm not a complete moron. They can still steamroll without Whirlwind, as I said. I was spread out and tabled by turn three.

[Makrar]

I have played against the Viks 3 times now with Guild and i have yet to win once. Each time its not even close. The last time with Haemlin was the worse yet.

These games tie for the three most unfun games i've had in Malifaux- Its barely a game and I learn nothing each time. Ive lost to plenty of other crews and yet with those we can have a good time playing.

I have not given up though! Surely i must be doing something wrong so i have issued a challenge to my gaming group, Use any guild crew against Viks in slaughter and win

Hopefully i can see what other people would do and learn something

[Math Mathonwy]

Could you detail your and your opponent's crews, strategies and schemes? And maybe a bit about what happened - not a full battle report but some important turning points?

I mean, Viks are nasty, especially the sword Vik in melee, but them dominating completely for several games sounds like there should be some stuff that could be done to alleviate that.

[Makrar]

Guild Crew - 35 - Scrap

Perdita Ortega

--

3 Pool

Enslaved Nephilim [2ss]

• Executioner
  [7ss]
  
  
• Judge
  [7ss]
  
  
• Santiago Ortega
  [7ss]
  
  
• Witchling Stalker
  [4ss]
  
  
• Witchling Stalker
  [4ss]
  
  
• Watcher
  [3ss]
  
  

Outcasts Crew - 35 - Scrap

Viktoria

--

8 Pool

• 
  
  
• Hamelin, The Ratcatcher
  [9ss]
  
  
• Ronin
  [5ss]
  
  
• Ronin
  [5ss]
  
  
• Terror Tot Nephilim
  [3ss]
  
  
• Desperate Mercenary
  [2ss]
  
  
• Desperate Mercenary
  [2ss]
  
  

I had treasure hunt, he had slaughter

I choose Hold Out (Announced) as my scheme and forfeited the other one for an extra 2 Soulstones, He announced Kill Protegee (the judge) and kept the other one hidden

I deployed my crew a little spread out to stop a few well flipped/cheated masks from wrecking my entire crew. Idea was to slowly walk up to the treasure counter while spread out, Hopefully luring a vik out where i can focus it a bit and hopefully kill it while hopefully making the vik player think twice about charging right in.

Game consisted of basically;

Haemlin obeying a model to either charge or run away and then causing them to be unable to take a action other then walk

Sword vik charged Perdita and missed, then on its melee expert my defense total was 31 and he got 32 which then caused 6 damage!

Santiago died to a desperate merc and the gun vik in 1 turn (He had a clear rapid fired is that all you got shot at the gun vik which caused 2 wounds total). Judge almost died to an obeyed executioner and then spent most the game running to deny him 2 vp. Executioner only made one attack all game due to haemlin and that was his slow to die which missed

My observations was

I vastly vastly underated Haemlin. He was awesome at wasting my all to precious actions - next time i will kill him asap.

I have yet to witness witchlings doing anything impressive - they was a waste of points

The executioner is not worth it against viks Hes to slow, not enough actions for a 7 ss model and will mostly likley not kill a model before dying

Ronin are amazing (im considering hiring some as guild they are that good)

I feel that the Viktorias threat range really cuts down on what little movement i can do

Edited January 17, 2013 by Makrar

[Pox]

The list you are using just plays straight into the viks strengths.

As a long term viks player i would consistently loose to Guild (lack of terrain usually being the killer)

their shooting is BRUTAL and can level the viks down very quickly combined with the combat prowess of Lady J who can toe to toe with the viks and take them down the guild are more then able to do nasty things to the poor viks (in fact it is primarily the reason why I changed to neverborn.)

remember Hamelin needs line of sight to do his shenanigans and is not the quickest model around/poor defence.

Nino is your friend vs the Viks, that and other great shooters easily available to guild.

[Math Mathonwy]

First of all, I agree that Hamelin is an extremely potent minion and should be prioritized.

OK, your list is not something I would've chosen. 8 cache is where it's at. 7 is possible, but aim for 8 if possible. Never change a scheme into cache - you need VPs to win the games and having two schemes and one strategy means that your opponent has to worry about foiling more stuff that you're trying to do thus making things harder for him.

I personally prefer Death Marshalls, Witchling Stalkers and Austringers to most 7SS Guild dudes, though Nino and Santiago are both good choices as well. Oh, and I love a Guardian. The idea here is that Vickys can kill stuff in melee quite easily. However, two Death Marshalls pose a problem. With proper positioning you should end up in a situation where either the opponent's dudes get shot by a DM or they deal with him and then get shot at by his partner. They do an awful lot of damage for 4SS minions, you see.

Finally, though Perdita can certainly win and she is, I feel, the number one Master in Guild, I think that against Vickys LJ and Sonnia are both better. If supported by a Guardian, LJ can match Vickys in melee and Sonnia can limit their movement and blast them to pieces. In the latter case, preferably aim at your own Witchling Stalkers to blast the enemy away, starting with their crew and only then going for the Vicks themselves.

Some ideas, anyway.

---------- Post added at 02:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:05 PM ----------

Oh, one more thing. If the Vicky player is a friend of yours, I suggest talking to him. Ask him to field a bit less powerful list by taking some of the less-used minions like Bishop and Misaki. That should result in a better experience for both in that close games are more fun than one-sided ones and also allow him to use minis that he probably owns but doesn't use much.

I'm a big fan of this sort of thing since it's educational for both and allows for a tight game with both still playing as good as possible since the "handicap" is in the list, so to speak. Alternatively you could try switching forces, which would be even more educational but of course requires a certain amount of trust, in a way.

[LupusFerreus]

There is also the option of killing your own Judge with someone like the Executioner which will a) heal the Executioner's wounds and deny your opponent the Kill Protege VP.

I haven't played Viks so I really can't say, but Lady J only had Df 4 (I think). That always worries me, although I don't play her much.

[Math Mathonwy]

I haven't played Viks so I really can't say, but Lady J only had Df 4 (I think). That always worries me, although I don't play her much.

5, but yeah, you're right that it is a bit low. Her great defensive asset, however, is the Riposte trigger and the ungodly damage she does. With a high cheated mask or a lucky SS flip she turns the defense into an attack. She also has 12 Wd, which is respectable. With a Guardian in tow she is supremely dangerous to try and kill in melee.