Best to start with a Master or Faction?

[FootPrints]

Hi everyone, new to the forum and game. Picked up a rule book and have done some scouting. My question - Is it a better idea to find the Master that calls to you or the Faction? I think in the rules, you pick faction before specific Master. I am getting into the game and have a couple people I'd like to summon along with me, but before I start the explanation/recruiting I'd like to have an idea on this particular aspect. Sorry if this has been covered, in the v1.5 rules it just looks like the factions are loosely cohesive in theme and that seems to run against having the same faction fighting one another. Although nobody really looks like they get along, so this is where the question comes up.

I ramble. So for starting players do you go Faction or Master first?

And is there fighting with in each Faction's Masters?

Thank you for all the help in advance. Really looking forward to diving in!

[Boshea]

Focusing on a Master is usually the easiest way to get into a game, but focusing on a faction makes expanding easier. There are exceptions to this though. Most everything you get for Marcus or Kirai won't be used by the rest of their factions for example due to their deeper hiring pools.

As for fighting within factions, there is definitely some animosity between some masters. Resurrections are mostly a ragtag group of misfits with their own agendas and a love of raising the dead. Rasputina doesn't get along with the rest of the Arcanist. Dreamer similarly doesn't interact with the book 1 Neverborn masters very much and follows his own agenda.

[ooshawn]

this is all personal opinion ...your fine with any faction, except the arcanists. They are probably the weakest faction in my opinion. Collette is by far their best performer and is amazing at everything. although its a really good begginer faction if you can pick the models up secondhand. I would tell you to play by faction because, that's how tournaments are run .Iif you buy box sets of masters in the same faciton, there tends to be alot of overlap and you can use all your models and will save quite a bit of money if you can get a good discount on the box sets. The best deal for your money is buying all the box sets of a faction and then buying models that you really want that don't come in box sets.

[LupusFerreus]

I'd say all the book 1 masters have decent synergy with each other. For Guild you can take one master and the minions from another box. Resurrectionist allow either summoning or good use of taking models from the other boxes. I don't know much about the other factions so I can't comment but others can chime in here.

What I'm saying is, you can easily get away with buying a few starter boxes and a) learn which master you like whilst also having diverse crew selection and progress with that master/faction from there.

[LordZombie]

I always recommend looking at the faction you like. With the except of the Outcast, who are like factions within themselves, you can always use the stuff from one box set with masters in another box set.

[Adran]

I personally would recomend picking the master you want as a priority. There is no requirement to have more than 1 master in the faction you want to play, (but it does give you more options).

As others have said, some Factions play well with themselves (Guild and neverborn) others have more specialist pools (Outcasts and Arcanists) with fewer model overlaps.

In terms of the game you do pick your faction before you know your mission, and after you know the mission you pick master and crew. There are some masters that struggle with some missions (Rasputina and anything that requires her to cross the half way line for example) but they can do them. If you only have the one master then you have to use them for all missions (certainly not a bad thing when learning) which might lower your win ratio. Mind you, you wil probably do better using a master you know well, that the "best" master for the mission that you don't know well.

Each master has their own agendas even within the factions, and its quite beliveable that they would have scraps against each other for various reasons, and fully expected in the rules.

For example, whilst the guild is all part of the law, its quite belivable that Justice wants to get the Ressurections spell book to destroy it, when Sonnia wants to get it to learn from it. And the other factions are even looser in agenda.

[Soul Puppet]

My question - Is it a better idea to find the Master that calls to you or the Faction? I think in the rules, you pick faction before specific Master.

Firstly, welcome to this awesome game!

Personally, I started playing around 2 years ago and I didn't even look at the rules or background before picking anything, I just went straight for the models I liked the look of... so my first Master was Kirai. As has been mentioned, she has little synergy with the other Ressers so that's not always a consideration.

Maybe you should be thinking about what draws you in to the game in the first place. Is it aesthetics or play style? Broad scope of model choice or limited but specialized? My advice is go with your preferences and you'll never look back.

[Claymore65]

Like others have said, it depends on how you want to expand. For example, if you are interested in the more than one of the Guild Masters, than focus on the faction. Getting the Sonnia box set will allow you to use most of those models with any other Guild master. This is all well and good if you like the other masters in the faction. If you don't, however, you should still pick the master you are most interested in. You only truly have to stick with one faction in a tournament setting, so for casual games you can switch it up more or less as much as you want. So if, for example, you really like Ramos but none of the other Arcanists, you should still choose Ramos as your first master. If you ask me, the most important thing is to grab a master you find interesting, cool and fun and focus on expanding your forces later. If you are trying to gear up for tournaments, then focus on a faction as you can switch the master and crew depending on your strategy/scheme/opponent's strategy/opponent's faction/on a whim as long as you in the same faction. Choose the master you find most interesting, and then expand later. If you find one faction has all of your favorite masters, choose that one. If you want to stay with one faction at first but plan on dabbling later, the Ten Thunders may be the faction to choose. Almost all of their leaders are dual faction, meaning many of their units can be used by either faction. For example, Mei Feng is both an Arcanist and Ten Thunders, and there is a lot of unit overlap between the two factions.

[notmikehill]

@ooshawn

Have you played against a Rail Golem yet? Or Kaeris with a Rail Golem? They're pretty horrifying.

[ooshawn]

I haven't actually. Though if i was actually playing a competative game I would just pull out any of my neverborn and steamroll them ; D I try not to ever do that though. I'm actually a arcanisy at heart and live that faction. I just wish they were all as intuitive as the showgirls, but they are far from it