Recommended Beginner Crews for M2E (update for PullMyFinger Wiki?)

[Hayleyish]

So the Pull My Finger wiki had this nice list of recommended and not so recommended beginner crews but it refers to the old ones (http://pullmyfinger.wikispaces.com/Gathering+Supplies). I've heard the M2E Viktorias mentioned as not being as beginner-friendly as their M1 counterparts so:

Which Wave 1 M2E Masters do you think are particularly good for beginners?

Which do you think are particularly bad for beginners?

(Show your workings please!)

If a consensus emerges I don't mind updating the wiki.

[Phototoxin]

I think the Guild is pretty straightforward with Justice - run around hit stuff. some shooting, nothing too tricksey. Similarly Rasputina is pretty good too. Just blast the snot out of stuff.

[Mike3838]

Honestly, with the upgrade system we have now, I think *every* maser is perfectly viable for beginners.

Some of the complexity has been moved onto the upgrade cards, so a beginner can use just the base stat cards to learn the game just fine, then add in upgrades when they're ready.

In the past we used to have to advise people who had been drawn to particular models or styles (Dreamer, Colette, Kirai, Pandora) that the crews were sometimes considered too complicated for beginners - "Why not try Lady Justice, or Lilith, instead", we used to say.

Now, though, I wouldn't hesitate to advise a new player to just get whichever Master they liked the look of.

Viks are fine by the way. I don't think they're particularly complicated in their un-uograded form

[Adran]

I think there is less need for a "good for beginners" tag. Out of the currently availible M2E crews they are all relatively easily picked up and playable. Control is generally harder to explain than aggro, but if the player wants to be a control player than crews like Brewmaster and Zoraida should cause no problems in Learning (If you're naturally an "aggro" player then the only crew that is going to confuse you is probably Brewmaster, everything else can work).

There might be some masters in Wave 2 that are a more complicted start (Jack for one).

And Summoning masters will still require you to own more models to start. I'm not sure how viable Nicodem, for example, is at the moment if you only have a small collection. The rules are simple enough, but collection size might matter.

[Dracomax]

There is less need for a "good for beginners" tag. A beginner can pick up any crew and learn them well quickly, so long as they get their head around the playstyle. However, I do think there are better crews for learning. Some have a lot of interactions, or fall into a very narrow category of actions. (The Viks and Lady Justice, respectively).

It's why demos usually take one of a small number of crews--you try to find the crews that have a variety of interactions and types of rules, but not so much as to overwhelm anyone.

That being said, Good learning/Demo Crews, IMHO:

Henchmen lead games. Duh. it's what they are there for, and almost every crew is good for this.

It would be easier to tell you which crews aren't good learning/first experience crews, and why.

Ramos: He would be good, but he requires a lot of summoning, and this can get overwhelming when learning the crew.

Lady Justice: her playstyle doesn't offer a lot of variety. as a first master, she is great. as a Master to learn the game, she is limited.

Pandora: The Wp interactions are going to make a lot of players feel unimpressed until they see her in action a few times. she's a bit more difficult to wrap your head around simply because of this.

Brewmaster: learning how the and flips work is diffficult enough for a new player without adding in rules that invert them, and he is so condition oriented that this could get confusing for new players.

Nicodem-has an even worse summoning problem than Ramos. He doesn't summon as much, but he has a much greater variety of things he can summon. He is also a bqck line support master, and that can get confusing all on it's own.

Tara: her crew and her interactions use bury heavily, and rely on card control. these are good things to learn, but when first exposed to the game, they may be too much.

I'd also stay away from teaching with 10T, as they all seem to have odd interactions that complicate the base game more than most other crews. They all have interesting actions, but when you are just learning, it can distort your view of the game.

Honorable mention:

Somer Teeth: He has so many playstyles, and one of them is summoning, which has the same issues as Ramos. He may induce decision paralysis.

Ophelia: relies heavily on upgrades. She functions well without them, but her base card talks about them, so you can't just ignore them.

[Emberlost]

How would you say Mei Feng is for a first master? I'm a new player, and I've just ordered her. Planning on playing her more on the Arcanist side than Ten Thunders, though.

[mythicFOX]

How would you say Mei Feng is for a first master? I'm a new player, and I've just ordered her. Planning on playing her more on the Arcanist side than Ten Thunders, though.

I think she'd be a good intro master. She's a combat master, which makes her a little easier to get to grips with for a new player. She has some good synergies and tricks which should lead you nicely into some of the more advanced options.

[Cornelious1424]

Jady J and Rasputina are my go to M2E demo crews because they both do they're job without much need for tricks, which is why I think they're both solid crews to start with.

[rancor709]

You can learn the game with any master and do just fine. Itend to demo with Lady Justice and Seamus . Your selling Jay short if you think she's one dimensional

[Emberlost]

I think she'd be a good intro master. She's a combat master, which makes her a little easier to get to grips with for a new player. She has some good synergies and tricks which should lead you nicely into some of the more advanced options.

Ah, good. I picked her partly on the basis of thinking her crew and story looked cool, more than a great grasp of the game mechanics. The fact that she can employ models like the rail golem and metal gamin regardless of which faction you're playing her as is nice too.

[Darwin_green]

I remember reading the Guild were kind of annoying since 3 of their masters were kind of counters to the other factions, is this still true in 2nd edition?

[dgraz]

I remember reading the Guild were kind of annoying since 3 of their masters were kind of counters to the other factions, is this still true in 2nd edition?

That was mainly by fluff......Lady J still got trounced by plenty of rezzers, and some of the best counters for Perdita were NB crews like Lilith..........Sonnia's only thing was her counterspell, which was nasty against anyone.....so yeah, they weren't really hard counters to the other factions on the table, just in the fluff.

The fluff part of it is still true......they have some flavor that shows them to be anti-something (Sonnia still has counterspell....and Stalkers still have Dispel Magic.....making Sonnia seem anti-magic), be it is nothing that makes the OP against anything. Closed and Open Beta testing went through great lengths to make sure all of the masters could compete against each other............there are no hard counters anywhere.