End of the Rainbow - Awards time!

It’s the end of 2014, I’m dying to talk about my plans for 2015 but before I do, there’s one more order of business to attend to. It’s time for the Great Rainbow Challenge Award Ceremony! When I started the Rainbow Challenge, this was the article I intended to finish with at the end of the year. The blog post in which I go through all the Masters I played and painted, and pick the ones that for good or bad, stood out from the rest in one way or another. This, of course, is all purely my opinion, so please keep that in mind when I start talking about Masters in terms of “Best” or “Worst”. ;)

Also, I’ve gone through 10 categories here but if there’s something you feel that I missed then by all means, ask in the comments section and I'll answer!

Raspy...coming to an X-wing game near you!

Biggest Surprise – Rasputina

I hated Rasputina for the longest time. From my experiences playing against her she was slow, easy to counter and seemed to have a pretty flat playstyle – just sit up the back and throw ice at the baddies before they engage your crew of mini-Olafs (my daughter’s been watching Frozen a lot lately). So using actually playing a game with her on my side was nothing short of a revelation. She was still slow, but her Armour of December Upgrade allowed her to avoid combat easily, removing what I felt was her biggest weakness. Also, as I said in my blog post on her she makes up for her lack of mobility with board control. The incredible range and reach of her spells gives the opponent few options for keeping out of danger, which limits their movements and gives Raspy a great tool for dealing with more mobile crews. Then there’s her paralyze-related tricks and some great crew support, all of which made her a far more interesting Master than what I ever expected.

Why throw fireballs when you can eat FAIRY FLOSS?!

Honourable mentions for this award go to Sonnia and Perdita. My initial feelings on Sonnia were actually similar to Rasputina – she’s a fragile caster who just throws fireballs and is stuffed once you get in melee with her. Fortunately there’s more depth to her than that and she can even pull some nice punches in melee. Plus summoning Witchling Stalkers is just awesome! 

Probably holds the record for the second largest swing in my opinion of a Master between editions. ;)

As for Perdita, there was a time when I swore I’d never play her, mainly because she came across as pretty flat in the previous edition. Fortunately she’s improved immensely, certainly enough for me to enjoy pushing her around the table!

A bureaucrat's dream...

Biggest Disappointment – Collodi

Previous edition balance issues aside, I always felt Collodi was an interesting Henchman in Malifaux v1.5. In a world of monsters he had little more than a pile of puppets to defend himself, and the ways in which he could turn those puppets into killing machines was pretty cool. In M2E Collodi has basically the same sort of playstyle. But what’s turned me off him is the book keeping. Of the Masters I played this year, nobody else made it such a chore to keep track of conditions, scrap markers, corpse markers, scheme markers, auras, and pulse ranges like Collodi does. It was just a pain to deal with, made all the worse by the feeling that I had to keep my crew bunched up for all the overlapping bonuses (a playstyle that I generally dislike).

Probably one of my more expensive crews. :P

Strongest Master - Dreamer

The little boy with his monstrous friend seems to have it all. Condition removal, push effects, debuffs, obey effects, healing, summoning, there seems to be very few gaps in his playstyle. In my game with him he proved to be a real powerhouse, and that was with me using his non-summoning Restless Dreams upgrade. However the internet seems to have decided that Dreamer’s summoner build (With Dreams of Pain) is the way to go. I’m not experienced enough with Dreamer to dispute that, but I certainly do like the fact that you can switch between the two distinct playstyles at will. 

In any case, Dreamer is damn solid. I’m always reluctant to think of a Master as “the best”, but Dreamer is definitely one that left an impression on me.

One of the few moments in which I thought "hey, Von Schill's not so bad!"

Weakest Master –Von Schill

“Weakest” is probably an unfair term. It’s not right to label Von Schill as a bad Master, because he’s actually pretty viable. But what I don’t like about him is that all he really brings to the table are ways to neutralise your opponents strengths (eg. Burning, poison, Wp-based attacks, straight damage etc). It’s a very reactive way to play, and to be honest I don’t rate it very highly. Sure the odd Friekorps Specialist to clear markers is great, but an entire crew of such models just doesn’t feel that interesting.

To be fair, I really need to give Ms T another run!

Honourable mention for this goes to Tara. With her new upgrades in Crossroads her base crew has definitely improved, but at least from my perspective I still feel like she’s fighting to play how she was designed to (ie. bury stuff, make things fast, unbury stuff etc). Her activation control and ability to get reactivate is great, but that seems to be all she does. So for a good Tara crew you inevitably end up taking Tara, then none of her in-theme models. Of course to be fair this is all based on theory and talking to others – I’ve not played Tara since before Gencon so at some point I really need to give her another go on the table!

I swear, he's gonna be a menace once his boxed set comes out...

Favourite Master (Gameplay) – Jack Daw

For some reason, my daughter Miranda has taken quite a liking to Jack Daw. It all started when I was talking to her about which Faction I could take to Gencon (because you know, 2-year old girls know all about this stuff) – a conversation that ended with her and I shouting “JACK DAW!” at each other for a good ten minutes;

It's all her fault.

As it turned out, playing with Jack Daw was at least as much fun as shouting his name at a small child. His disruptive style is difficult to neutralise (ie. condition removal doesn’t work because they’re upgrades), he can strip cards from your opponent’s hand and he comes with an array of movement tricks that he can use to great effect against both his own models and the opponents crew.

She's not pleased at all about losing this award...

As an Outcast Master he gets access to a great mix of models with their own wacky playstyles, which has been a big appeal for me in my games with the Faction. And on top of that, like most utcast Masters he also has his Tormented – a pile of models from other factions that he can bring in at will. The good old Nurse has been the standout powerhouse with her Take Your Meds spell, but of the ones I tried my favourite might be Papa Loco – the crazy old exploding man that Jack just loves to push around. ;)

In any case, Jack’s proven to be a lot of fun for me. So it’s almost a pity that my time with the Outcasts (and by extension, Jack Daw) comes to a close with the end of this year.

Protip: Buy more Steam Arachnids. 

Least Favourite Master (Gameplay) – Ramos

Generally the Masters that have interested me the least are those with a limited playstyle. The edition change from 1.5 to M2E improved a lot of Masters and added some much needed depth to others, but some kind of just missed their chance for the latter. This year I labelled a few Masters with the “simplistic” tag (ie. not alot of tricks or variety in playstyle), which at least for me dooms them to a style of gameplay that I generally don't enjoy as much as other Masters. Of those however, there could only be one at the bottom, and it wasn't hard to give that dubious honour to Ramos.

While I’ve no problem playing against him, I just don’t like playing with Ramos. All he seems to do is summon spiders. Sure he can do other things but the bit I liked most about him (Detonating said spiders) still requires the tome Ramos would want for his Spider summoning and ultimately, every time I’d do something different I feel like I should be summoning spiders instead.

Perhaps my only LJ crew being undead was a little prophetic?

Easiest crew to figure out – Lady Justice

Love her or loathe her, it doesn’t take long to figure out how Lady Justice is supposed to work in-game. She hits stuff hard, heals herself if needed and possibly boosts her crew with Inspiring Swordplay. The toughest thing about her is that her average Df makes her easy to hit, so some care needs to be taken not to let her get overwhelmed in melee. Other than that, she’s a piece of cake to understand. :P

You've already seen Jack Daw, so here's another picture of Miranda instead...

Hardest crew to figure out – Jack Daw

I was originally going to give this to Leveticus and his crazy bury/waif mechanics but actually, I feel for me, the title belongs to Jack Daw. On the surface, Jack Daw is not overly difficult to figure out. You pass out Tormented, place Curses on the key threats and generally be a pain to your opponents crew while you achieve your own objectives. But there is a lot of depth to Jack Daw that isn’t immediately obvious when you first look at him. It’s hard to explain until you see it in action yourself, but the sheer variety of choice in movement effects and the need to maintain Line of Sight between relevant models with their auras and pulses force you to put a lot of thought into how you play each turn. I’ve played around 8-10 games with Jack Daw in 2014, more than any other Master this year, and I still feel like I’ve barely gotten a grip on the depths of his playstyle. He’s not an easy Master to, well, master, for me that was one of his big appeals for me!

My only regret is that the horse isn't a zebra. 

Favorite Crew (Paint-job) - McCabe

This is a tough one, since there are quite a few crews that I’m really proud of. I’ve always liked my Nightmare Dreamer crew, not to mention Neverdita and probably my favorite non-pink crew; the Mei Feng Cake Crew. If I had to pick a favorite though, I guess it would have to be McCabe and his Adventurers Guild. As a treasure hunter I wanted McCabe and his lackeys to actually look as though they’ve been out in the wilderness, plundering tombs and most importantly, with more than enough gear to do so.

So many backpacks...

The conversions weren’t difficult but I did need to delve through my bits box for the required additions. There’s bits from at least half a dozen kits (all of them Warhammer Fantasy/40k related) and while the basing was my usual “enchanted forest”, I added some plastic diamonds I once collected off the tables at a friend’s wedding. ;) All in all, I was very happy with the end result. They were a fun crew to build but most importantly, they look great on the table top!

Yin is the exception. It's impossible for her NOT to look awesome. 

Least Favourite Crew (Paint Job) – Yan Lo

While there’s some crews I’m proud of and some I’m at least satisfied with, I have to admit that of the crews I’ve painted, there are the odd few where I feel like I missed the mark or at the very least, are really starting to look dated compared with my more recent work. Leveticus is a good example of the latter, mainly because I painted his crew near the end of my “neon pink” phase. And as much as I love my Marcus model, his crew would also fall into the dated category, certainly enough for me to want to rebuy the crew and start again.

It says "soup" but you know what? I really don't care anymore. :(

But the crew I’m probably most disappointed by is Yan Lo. With Yan Lo’s crew I tried going for something different to my usual approach – an old, rusted look with muted greens and browns rather than my usual tendency toward pink or occasionally other bright colours. Technically the crew looks fine, as they certainly should be given the amount of time I putting into them! But the end result just doesn’t pop like I was hoping it would. With hindsight, I feel like I should have just stuck with my usual pink scheme. In fact if I take him up more regularly, I’ll probably buy another crew to repaint. Either that, or find some proxies that are altogether less delicate!

One day, Shlong, one day...

The one that got away - Shenlong

So as you all know, I didn’t get quite as far into my Rainbow Challenge as I’d been hoping. All in all I missed out on playing 9 Masters (including Colette, the only one of those I had a painted crew for). The question then, is which of those nine do I wish I could have had a chance to paint and play in 2014? Well for me there is only one answer, and that’s Shenlong.

At least on paper I quite like Shenlong’s ability to customise his playstyle from turn to turn, not to mention how he supports his crew the most ubiquitous yet underappreciated of actions – Focus and Defensive Stance. I’m also quite partial to the monk archeotype – there’s something about using your own bare hands (or a bo) in a fight when everyone else has swords and guns that’s so incredibly a bad ass. Of the kits that are unreleased, Shenlong’s is the one I’m most looking forward to. In fact once he’s available, I may even put my 2015 plans on hold to get him on the table. :)

I couldn't finish this challenge without one more pic of my Cake crew!

Epilogue

Well, that’s it then. 2014 is done and with it my focus on the Rainbow Challenge. Like I said before I still hope to get around to the crews I missed, but for now it’s time to move on and find another goal to focus on.

So do I feel this Rainbow Challenge was a success? Absolutely. This challenge was never just about getting every Master painted and on the table. To employ an overused cliché, It was much more about the journey. I wanted to give each Master a fair go, put aside preconceived notions, see how they really perform on the table and actually understand how they really work. Most importantly though, I wanted to find Masters with more depth that I’d initially expected them to have. The perfect example of this were those Masters I’d mentioned in the “Most Surprising” Category – Rasputina, Sonnia and Perdita. I’ve never thought much of all three, but having actually played them on the table I’ve found that they’re actually really fun in their own ways. In the same sense there were losers (Collodi, Von Schill, Ramos), but all in all I feel as though this Challenge was a great success!

Pandora deserves a  pic too, because she'll hurt me if I don't at least mention her...

So with the Rainbow Challenge finished with, what’s next? Well I’ll be focussing on just one Faction for 2015, but that’s for my next blog. Stay tuned… ;)

Happy New Year,

Adrian 

Huggy says SMILE!!!

Catchup Week – Guild Lucius

My aim with the Rainbow Challenge this year has been threefold – Play all the masters (going well), Paint lots of crews (falling behind, but not a disaster yet) and keep up to date with this blog. That last part has been….um, a bit of a challenge, made all the worse by my insistence that I write 2000+ words every time I post something up!

At this stage I’ve played no less than 6 Masters for which I haven’t yet written anything for my blog! This simply won’t do, so to recitfy this I thought I’d make this a bit of a Catchup week. For the next 6 days I’m going to post up one article each day for each Master I still need to write about – Lucius, Pandora, Collodi, Lynch, Rasputina and Kaeris! In order to make this feasible I’m restricting myself to no more than one hour of writing per article. First up is Lucius, although I’ve already written a bit on him so I guess this is kind of a cheat day. ;)

 Drill Sergeant Dash, filling in for Lucius in this picture. ;)

The Master

Being a dual faction Master, I had a choice of using Lucius as either Neverborn or Guild. However I’d already tried Lucius as Neverborn in the playtest (well, Guild as well but that was in his very early, near-useless incarnation). With their great array of solid minions to choose from I feel like I know what I’d do with Lucius in Neverborn. So instead I thought I’d take him as Guild and see if I could make him work with his Guardsmen.

My Lucius game was played against regular Kyle who once again chose to use McMourning, this time as a Guild Master. Clearly the good Doctor had some explaining to do about his plastic surgery job on Lucius’s face! On this particular game I’d decided against dragging my massive Breach Bag along and instead went with a reduced selection of models that could fit into my PACK mini carry case. This gave me a more limited selection of models to choose from, but I hoped it was enough to use Lucius without feeling I was handicapping myself.

The Paint Job

I actually painted most of my Lucius crew somewhere off the East coast of Australia, on a Cruise ship! It was my first Guild crew, and arguably the first time I didn’t go too crazy on the pink either. The pink is still there, of course, but mainly as a secondary colour for the trimmings and the like. Since its original inception I’ve added Puppet Lucius as my Scribe proxy and the Guild Riflemen. One Guardsman model I’m missing (badly) is the Warden, whom I just haven’t gotten around to buying yet. Hopefully I’ll have him for Hoffman!

The Game

50SS, Standard Deployment

Strategy: Reckoning

Schemes:
- Murder Protege
- Breakthrough
- Deliver a Message
- Protect Territory
- Line in the Sand

The List

Lucius
- Secret Assets
- Watch your Back
Ryle
Guild Sargent
2x Guild Guard
2x Riflemen
Austringer
Witchling Stalker

For Reckoning, I’d normally take a good complement of heavy-hitters for this but as above, I was sadly restricted to Lucius and the Guardsmen I’d taken with me that night. Lucius himself seems to prefer a crew of minions for him to order around too. Most of the Guilds hitting power seems to come from the enforcers and above however, so it seemed like Guild-Lucius was shit out of luck when it came to this Strategy!

In the end, I went with the heavy hitter I did have, Ryle, followed by a complement of Guardsmen in the shape of the Sargent, 2 Guardsmen and 2 Riflemen to take advantage of Lucius’s minion synergy. Finally there’s the Witchling Stalker and Guild Austringer, because they’re amazing. ;)

The Result

Basically Kyles crew ran at me, while I did my best to shoot them to hell! Kyle threw McMourning into my crew early on, which ensured his death but also brought Killjoy out! Needless to say he made a mess of anyone whom I didn’t manage to pull away with Lucius, and I spent the last part of the game running away and achieving/denying schemes. In the end Kyle managed to get VPs on Reckoning and Deliver a Message, but a surprisingly agile Ryle escaped the clutches of Sebastian to deny Murder Protégé. I edged out the win with VPs for Deliver a Message, Protect Territory and to a lesser extent, Reckoning.

The obligatory table shot - this one's at the end of game

Post-game Thoughts

I could have put a Neverborn Lucius crew together in seconds but Guild Lucius? It turned out to be MUCH more difficult! The problem with Guild is that if you’re taking Guardsmen (and that’s pretty likely with Lucius), it’s difficult to balance your main line of Guardsmen (Guild Guard, Austringer, Riflemen etc) with the great support options you can also take. Captain Dashel and the Guild Sargent , you are presented with this array of great support models for those Guardsmen. Captain Dashel and the Guild Guard Captain are the main ones, but then there’s the Lawyer for Wp duels and Hard to Wound, a Witchling for condition removal, Pistolero for the positive to Df duels, it keeps adding up to the point that you end up with too many support models for a meagre selection of Guardsmen. And god help you if you want to throw in a heavy hitter, like I did with Ryle! Finding that balance was the main challenge when designing my Lucius list and while I think I managed to do that, I went through quite a few iterations to find it.

Speaking of list building, I also toyed with going down the Mimic path, using the Scribe and other mimics like Graves, Tannen the Doppelganger and the Lawyer to synergise with each other and especially the Useless Duplications upgrade. In a less kill-oriented strategy I would have liked to give this a good shot, but I didn’t think this was the game for it.

One day you'll have your time in the sun my pretties...one day...

Lucius himself was definitely fun to play. With Commanding Presence and the triggers from Issue Command, his ability to get multiple actions out of a single AP was phenomenal. In fact that AP efficiency is a big part of why I’ve enjoyed playing him. His Issue Command might not be as flexible as Obey (specifically, you can’t target enemy models) but damn, it lets him do A LOT with his crew! Reinforcements proved invaluable too. Early on it allowed me to get a Rifleman into position to shoot up an exposed enemy Lawyer, and then later on it got him out of Killjoy’s kill-zone to plant scheme markers for Protect Territory.

In this particular game I didn’t find myself with much need for Lucius’s upgrades. Without any Mimics and as a support Master (and without Assassinate), Surprisingly Loyal didn’t seem necessary, and I’m not yet convinced as to the value of the melee attack from Secret Objectives. With the right Schemes I might have taken Legalese, but ultimately I just stuck with Watch your Back and Secret Assets. The crew-wide Accomplice from Watch my Back  felt well worth it, and gave me some good options for chaining model activations together before Kyle could respond. Unfortunately, Secret Assets was pretty mediocre. Without any other (0) actions it’s not as if the Hidden Sniper action is competing with anything else Lucius could do, but at least in this game it never seemed to do all that much. I’d probably still take it in games though – if nothing else I like the idea of Lucius having this extra guy, hidden away just picking off targets with a sniper rifle. :)

Ryle looking dapper, while another bloody Witchling Stalker photobombs him. 

The rest of the crew performed about as well as I’d hoped. Ryle certainly has a nasty punch to him, but I admit I underestimated just how nasty Sebastian’s poison tricks were so in the end he wound up just keeping away from everyone to deny Kill Protégé. The Guild Guard and Guild Sergeant both did okay, even though they ended up as fodder for Killjoy and McMourning but the standouts were the Riflemen! I’ve played against these guys once before, when I saw a pair wipe out Fransisco in one turn and in this game they were definitely my main damage dealers. I quite like that they can keep their Focus conditions from turn to turn and when they do finally let loose, the extra rams they get for critical strike plus the positive damage flips ensure that when they hit, they’ll hit hard. Their weakness in melee means I doubt I’d take more than two (and in this game, I didn’t pair them up either) but they definitely have their role, especially in a Lucius crew with his ability to hand out Focus so easily!

Seriously cool models, these ones. :)

So overall I really enjoyed playing Lucius, which probably isn’t a surprise given how similar his support role is to that of another favourite of mine – Zoraida! For this game I used him in his “Guild Guard” incarnation, but I’d certainly be keen to try him out with Mimics and also in a Brilliance-heavy crew, where he can really abuse the minion status of those Beckoners and Illuminated.  

As usual, I’m happy to field any questions or comments. :)

Until next time,

Adrian

Let's Look for Treasure! Lucas McCabe

The alternative title for this blog post probably could have been “Adventure Time!”, but I figured that was just too cool and modern in geek culture. Better to go with an obscure South Park reference, don my hipster glasses and smugly say “you've probably never heard of it”. Even though, actually, you probably have if you're around 30+. :P

Anyway, in my continuing unofficial “lets play all the Guild” sub-chapter of the Rainbow Challenge, it’s time I pulled out Lucas McCabe! Lucas was one of those Masters I’d never paid much attention to until now. I knew he had some kind of support mechanic and the idea that he handed out his upgrades as a part of that seemed pretty cool. So is he good? Yeah probably, but it’d certainly be nice to see that for myself!

The Paint Job

When I first heard of the Guild in Malifaux, the first thing that came to my mind were the old Dungeons and Dragons Guilds that tended to pop up in cities – the Thieves Guild, Mages Guild and of course, the economically improbable Adventurers Guild. “Relic Hunter” is pretty much just a synonym for Adventurer so for me, it was clear that my McCabe needed to look like he was ready to explore dungeons, fight monsters and of course, carry all his Phat Lewt around!

And how does one emphasise this adventuring aspect? Why, you load them up with backpacks, weapons and especially non-descript pouches. You need a lot of those. Having a bits box from my Games Workshop days definitely helped in that regard. Most of my bits came from various Space Marine, Kroot and Bretonnian men at arms sets, and I supplemented that with some pewter backpacks from Secret Weapon Miniatures. The final element, the diamonds on each base, were acquired at a wedding where these things were spread over each table. Seeing an opportunity I “borrowed” some for my own ends, and they proved perfect for representing all that the treasure McCabe tended to chase after. Finally, Mounted McCabe got a hat to cover up his ridiculous haircut. Credit to the sculptor and all for designing an excellent set of models, but that one head is just terrible. ;)

There's a ridiculous number of "lets look at their backs!" pics today. It seemed like a good idea at the time...

In the end, I was really happy with how my McCabe crew turned out. All the extra gear adds a lot of character to the models, and I was excited enough about my chance to use those plastic diamonds that I got these guys based in very short order too!

The Game

45SS, Corner Deployment

Strategy: Reconnoiter

Schemes:
- Entourage
- Plant Explosives
- Bodyguard
- Breakthrough
- Line in the Sand

Lucas and his crew for the day. The crossover in basing styles within some of my crews is starting to get obvious... ;)

The List

Luca McCabe
- Badge of Speed
- Elixir of Life
Sidir
- Promises
Luna
2x Wastrels
2x Guild Hounds
Austringer
Witchling Stalker

Much like Sonnia, I pretty much went with just the starter box plus some Guild staples. The Guild Hounds were for Reconnoiter but work well with Luna regardless, and the Austringer and Witchling Stalker are just plain good. For upgrades I went with Badge of Speed and Elixir of Life. Reactivate from the Badge seemed too good not to take, and I decided on the Elixir to help boost the crew’s resilience. Also Promises seemed too good not to take. A positive flip to upgrade-holders for all Ml and Wp duels? How could anyone say no?!

The Schemes I chose were Breakthrough and Bodyguard (Sidir). I figured the Hounds and Luna could handle the scheme marker placement required for Breakthrough, while Bodyguard felt achievable considering McCabe’s Elixir of Life and Sidir’s own innate healing.

John's crew. Standing in for the Poltergiest is a Primordial Magic on a 50mm marker.  

Opponent’s List

Pandora
- The Box Opens
- Cry For Me
Barbaros
- Fears Given Form
Poltergeist
Doppelganger
2x Sorrows
Insidious Madness

John’s been experimenting with what I initially thought was a very unusual list. After all, why use Barbaros when Bishop can do the same (push effects) and offer some Wp synergy too? As it turns out, Barbie’s Challenge action (being a Wp duel with a sizable Aura), is a fair bit more potent in a Pandy list than I’d assumed!

Other than that, John freely admitted that he took a list that wasn’t going to do well with the strategy. Pandora really isn’t a Reconnoiter kind of girl, and it wasn’t helped by John foregoing some cheap, mobile minions like Terror Tots in order to just use what he’d been experimenting with.

For Schemes, John chose Plant Explosives and Bodyguard (Doppelganger).

End of Turn 1 - John mostly beelines for the centre while I spread out a little.

Result

In Turn 1 Luna and the Hounds advanced up the left flank, matched by the Insidious Madness and a Sorrow. The rest of our respective crews advanced toward the centre and within close support of each other. McCabe used his Badge of Speed to give the Austringer reactivate, who took a few wounds off the Insidious Madness. In turn 2 Barbaros advanced into the centre and put up his Challenge Aura. This would have made it very difficult to target anyone else in his crew but Barbie, if it wasn’t for the fact that the Wastrels and Sidir both ignored the Wp duel with Ruthless!

McCabe and Sidir finally get stuck in.

As the game continued, I was able to take out the Insidious Madness and Sorrow on the flank with the Hounds and Austringer, while the last Sorrow died from a charge by Sidir and a few attacks from McCabe. The Poltergiest’s Distraction was effectively negated by Sidir’s Promises upgrade and while Pandora managed to “kill” McCabe’s horse, not much else died over the course of the game. The Witchling Stalker removed the Pity Condition from my own models on one or two occasions and along with my Wastrels, Hounds and Austringer, claimed enough table quarters for full Reconnoiter VPs. The Hounds easily ran around the rear to achieve Breakthough and despite Barbaros’s best efforts, Sidir finished the game on enough wounds to claim 3VP for Bodyguard, for 10VP total. IIRC John scored 4VP total, 3 for Bodyguard on the Doppelganger and 1 for Plant explosives.

End of game - you can see the hounds happily spewing out scheme markers up the back. 

Post-game Thoughts

John’s decision to advance most of his crew into the centre of the board (and thus be unable to claim VPs for Reconnoiter) pretty much eliminated any chance of him winning the game. However it did allow us to get a good idea of how our respective crews worked so regardless of the end result, it was an interesting exercise. I don’t want to say too much about John’s crew, being a McCabe blog and all, but I was definitely impressed with the power of Barbie in a Pandora crew! Unfortunately it didn’t work out well for John, but I’ll get into that later…

It always feels wrong putting both McCabes in the same shot... they're supposed to be the same person!

So after playing him in this game, McCabe comes across as a guy that does a bit of everything. He’s tough (In the Thick of it, plus his mounted/dismounted aspects) has some damage potential (Sabre), crew support (“Take This!”), enemy debuffs (slow/paralysed from his Melee/shooting attacks) and mobility (He’s on a horse!). In fact, it seems that he’s a bit of a Jack of all Trades, the Guild version if Marcus, if you will.

Unsurprisingly, McCabe’s upgrades allow him to enhance certain facets of this playstyle. Glowing Sabre and Barbs both directly improve his damage output, Strangemetal Shirt gives him some armour and both the Elixir of Life and Badge of Speed gives him some tactical actions to help out his crew. At the moment I’m a particular fan of the Badge. After all, who doesn’t like reactivating a minion...so long as said minion is worth 1AP and a ram from McCabe, of course! 

But McCabe’s most prominent aspect of his playstyle is undoubtably his crew support or more specifically, his ability to lend out his upgrades to the rest of his crew with his “Take This!” (0) action. With the exception of Barbs, all his upgrades grant a different bonus to non-Masters and in most cases, it’s well worth handing them out once he’s done using them in his own activation. I won’t go too far into what they each do (you can all read, right? ;) ), but it was definitely a tough choice picking which ones to take.

I think the Badge of Speed is the least useful to hand out – Nimble is less useful thanks to the 4” push you already get from “Take This” (which I completely forgot about this game!), although being able to Reactivate minions makes this well worth the cost anyway.

The Elixir of Life and Strangemetal Shirt both grant resilience-type buffs so they seem to compete with each other for a slot. While an Armour +1 Aura from the shirt is almost always better than getting Regenerate on a single model, the Unimpeded Aura from the Elixir of Life does make it a little more flexible.

I didn’t use the Glowing Sabre this game and to be honest, I regretted not taking it. One of the things I noticed with McCabe’s crew (or at least the one I took) is that it really lacked some good killing power. Adding some more damage dealers would have been one way to fix that, but the Glowing Sabre is actually a really good way of doing the same for much cheaper. A lot of models won’t care much for the melee attack it grants but other models, especially the Wastrels (see below), will find it to be amazing. It also lets you do some cheeky stuff like adding melee power to models your opponent might not expect, like an Austringer or Thunder Archer stuck in melee. And it’s even better if you also reactivate them with the Badge of Speed!

Holy crap - WHY DIDN"T I PAINT MINE LIKE A ZEBRA?! This is ArdentBadger's work, so full credit goes to him! :)

As it turns out, and through no deliberate planning of my own, McCabe’s crew seems to be VERY well equipped to deal with the Wp-based attacks that tend to be so prevalent with Pandora! In fact, I’d even go so far as saying that he may be the go-to guy for facing Neverborn. McCabe’s Black Sheep (ie. Sidir and Wastrels) have Ruthless, which is excellent in itself against Wp-based defences like Terrifying. And then there’s Promises. Good god, this is an amazing upgrade! I’ll admit I forgot about the positive to Ml attacks a lot of the time but the positive to Wp flips for models carrying an upgrade (including the model carrying Promises) made this fantastic for protecting the rest of the crew against Pandora’s attacks, especially when the Poltergeist got into range!

Speaking of Promises, this is actually a very good reason to hand out at least a few of McCabe’s upgrades whenever he can. Even if the target model won’t gain any real benefit from the upgrade itself, the positive flips from Promises offers a really great boost to those models. Interestingly, Promises also gives you a reason to take upgrades on as many of your enforcers and Henchmen as you can afford. It kind of runs counter to McCabe’s fondness for minions though (or at least minions he can reactivate with the Badge of Speed). So as with all things, it’s a balancing act of deciding whether to go with an elite crew to benefit from Promises, a minion horde to take advantage of Badge of Speed, or a mix of both.

Finally, while we’re still on McCabe, I want to talk about his Mobility. At the beginning of this game I was actually tempted to go with Entourage as one of my schemes. With 3x 7” walks on his horse, a (0) Dismount action and two more 5” Walks as Dismounted McCabe he has a reach of 31”, assuming he doesn’t also use Desperate Gamble to Reactivate ad sacrifice himself at the end of turn! So while he’s pretty fast when he wants to be, I think his supportive tricks mean that he’s better off sticking close to his crew, where he’s better able to buff them and add some damage output of his own. Maybe in the late game he could run off and achieve some objectives, but generally I think he's better off hanging with his crew.

Yes, Luna's carrying a pigeon. ;)

I actually feel like Sidir’s main strength was the fact that he’s a Black Sheep and can thus carry the awesome Promises Upgrade. Other than that he seems to function as a resilient, bodyguard-type Henchman – a role that’s enhanced by his By Your Side upgrade (which I didn't try in this game). His ranged and melee attack actions were both okay, but they were never anything to write home about. His Machine gun in particular felt a little underwhelming, purely because it doesn't have a way of ignoring/negating cover. I definitely liked Laugh off though – Being able to ignore enemy push of movement effects was handy against Barbaros, and I think it's stronger in practice than a lot of people might assume.

In my game, the best I can say about Sidir is that he didn't die, and that he got good use out of Promises. I didn't use him as a Bodyguard-type model though so perhaps in the future I might try and play him more to that strength.

.Sidir got the coolest backpack, yet I have no idea where it came from. :P

Luna is a champion, no doubt about it! In this game I ran him with a pair of Guild hounds, making for a very fast flanking force that could take on other isolated elements and at least in this game, help fulfill Reconnoiter and place scheme markers for Breakthrough. Mind you, running him out with a pack of his own denied me the chance to take advantage of Hunting Dog (For McCabe to shoot models he’s engaged with) and Warning Bark (which could help a Guild Hound, sure, but would be better on a more costly crew member). If it wasn't Reconnoiter I think that “close support” aspect of Luna would have proved much more useful, but it’s nice to know that he can switch between the two styles of play. 

Like many others, I originally wanted to paint the Wastrels as droogs  from A Clockwork Orange... 

I’ve heard people speak poorly of Wastrels, and in a sense I can see where they are coming from.  They aren’t particularly tough and don’t have a high damage output. So despite being only 4SS, they look like the kind of model that won’t do much before eventually dying once something half decent gives them a dirty look. That said, I found that they have A LOT of hidden versatility, to the point that I’d argue they’re support models who add far more to a crew than their stat card might suggest.

I mentioned Ruthless, before and the “cheap” Defensive +1 from Swagger combines well with their low cost to make them half-decent objective grabbers. Bravado, however, is amazing. With an upgrade attached, Bravado effectively allows them to discard and draw a new card with every duel-related action they take, which makes them particularly good at bolstering your control hand while still shooting and stabbing your opponent. Cast-offs is a spell I didn't use, but I think in this game I underestimated it. So long as it’s carrying an upgrade, at worst it’s the equivalent of three actions for 2 AP. You get to cycle a low card (with Bravado), gain a boosted attack, heal or movement effect (depending on the trigger) and the chance to heal another model. I've yet to understand why moving upgrades around with Castoffs would be worth while - maybe to throw the upgrade back toward McCabe before triggering Petrified Feather for some objective-related movement? Still, at least it's an option.

In terms of damage potential, they seem better at range than in melee but with Bravado, it’s not so hard to discard a low mask and get their triggers off. They are, however, the perfect target for McCabe’s Glowing Sabre upgrade. With Bravado they can discard a Ram for +1Dg from critical strike, bringing the damage spread up to 3/5/6 before adding any suits that are flipped/cheated in the duel! The other upgrades also help them out in the resilience and mobility department and again, with Bravado they are good targets for such upgrades. This is especially true if you’re after the Aura effect from the Elixir of Life or Strangemetal shirt, since they’re cheap enough to waste AP getting in the ideal position to help your crew with such effects.

In this game I took two Wastrels, and I think that’s a good number. You only have so many upgrades to pass onto them and in any case, you still need soulstones for something that’s a little further up the damage-scale.

...but Gentlemen Adventurers just fit better with the theme. 

Guild Hounds currently feel like a near auto-include for the Reconnoiter Strategy. 3SS minions that are actually quite fast is tough to pass up, and they served me very well in this game. Between them and Luna I was able to take the table quarters I needed and easily fulfil breakthough while the rest of Pandy’s crew was otherwise occupied. Had John taken Terror Tots or Silurid, I’m pretty confident that between the Hounds, Luna and the Austringer, I would have been able to take care of them before they caused too much trouble.

Surely I’ve talked about the Witchling Stalker and Austringer enough, right?! ;) The fact that I’ve now taken at least one of each in almost every Guild crew I’ve played should be evidence enough of their incredible utility. While I wouldn’t say they’re overpowered, what they offer to your crew definitely makes them difficult not to use!

Witchlings. Just do it. 

Final Impressions

So after giving him a run, is McCabe the sort of Master I enjoy playing? Well let’s look at the facts;

1. I really enjoyed building/painting his crew,
2. I compared McCabe favourably with Marcus – a Master I loved in the previous edition,
3. McCabe has access to a push effect to move his own models around,
4. McCabe lets me use Witchling Stalkers, who are rapidly becoming my favourite minion in the game,
5. … and perhaps most tellingly, I’ve written more than 3000 words on my experience with him!

Actually, about the only thing he doesn’t have is the ability to push enemy models around, but no matter. The fact is, McCabe was a great Master to play. His upgrade-support mechanic was a lot of fun to use and his flexible playstyle gave me plenty of options for McCabe himself.

That said, the one thing I felt was really missing from McCabe’s crew was some genuine killing power. The Wastrels and Sidir never seemed that damaging and while McCabe has the potential to put out some hurt, I think he needs his Barbs and/or Glowing Sabre upgrade if he’s going to play the damage game. In future games then, I think I’ll be making room for a few models who can reliably deal some good damage. That, and I’ll be taking that Glowing Sabre upgrade! ;)

I’ve barely said a word about using McCabe with the 10-Thunders, although I can’t imagine he’d be a bad option. Much like his fellow Guild Masters he has very little “specific” synergy (ie. abilities/actions that only work with certain models or model types, like Nightmares or Constructs), except for what he can do with Wastrels (who are 10-T anyway). So he should be just as happy working with the likes of Illuminated, Thunder Archers, Torakage and whatever else. As a side note, if the Samurai keep their 0SS cost upgrades in the current beta, then they’ll actually combine quite well with the Promises Upgrade too!

Till next time,

Adrian

Torching and Blading - Sonnia Cridd

Holy crap. This is already more than 3000 words and I haven’t even finished. So let’s make this intro short, shall we? ;)

                                     

Hey look, it’s Sonnia Cridd! She finally got some cool models to go with her extra cool Witchling Stalkers, so with what is rapidly turning into me just playing all the Guild Masters one after the other, I thought I’d give her a whirl for the Rainbow Challenge. This game was against Kyle. Poor Kyle, who’s rapidly becoming my most regular opponent! Much like our Lady Justice game Kyle went for McMourning, this time as a Resurrectionist.

The Paint Job   

      

While I always loved the Witchling Stalker models, I never liked the metal sculpts for Sonnia and Samael. Sonnia’s hair just never seemed to work in both her incarnations, not to mention her proportions just seemed a little off. As for Samael, my feelings were well echoed by the nickname a friend of mine gave him – Captain High-Pants.

Some proper basing will come later...maybe even this year if I'm lucky. ;)

With the new plastic models I finally, finally had some sculpts for her crew I could get excited about! Of course I always feel a little wrong building a crew without a theme of some kind, and Sonnia was no exception. This time, it was fairy floss (aka. Cotton Candy or Candy Floss for anyone outside Australia). I have no specific reason why I went with fairy floss, only that it’s wackier than fire, and that’s all it needed to be! Anyway, the fairy floss itself was made with cotton wool glued to a paper clip and dyed with a magenta ink. The cotton wool actually became pretty solid once the ink dried so from there, it was just a matter of trimming it into shape with a scalpel blade and drybrushing it with pink and then white.

The Advice

So my impression before this game was that Sonnia has become a living artillery piece. Basically use Witchling Stalkers to put Burning onto enemy models, whom I then nuke with Sonnia and Samael. Sounds simple enough, right? ;) Along with knowing she was relatively fragile, that’s about all I knew about Sonnia before going into this game.

That said, there’s a lot of commentary out there on M2E Sonnia. A trawl of the Wyrd threads brought up quite a few discussions, and I even managed to find a blog too;

http://wyrd-games.net/community/topic/97835-sonia-the-35-ss-challenge/

http://wyrd-games.net/community/topic/99591-sonnia-really-take-a-freicorps-specialist/

http://wyrd-games.net/community/topic/99385-sonnia-crew-suggestions/

http://wyrd-games.net/community/topic/99240-witchling-production-line/

http://wyrd-games.net/community/topic/92808-some-thoughts-on-the-new-sonnia/

http://wyrd-games.net/community/topic/98217-sonnia-upgrades/

http://midwestmalifaux.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/i-want-to-set-that-guy-on-fire-but-i.html

Today's terrain setup for the game. I deployed in the bottom left. 

The Game

45SS, Standard Deployment

Strategy: Reconnoiter

Schemes:
- Distract
- Protect Territory
- Murder Protege
- Take Prisoner
- Line in the Sand

Recon with Guild vs the traditionally summon-heavy Ressers. Needless to say, I’d need to take advantage of my crew’s killing power to keep the crew’s numbers in check and ensure I keep scoring points.

Mmm. Delicious Candy...

The List

Sonnia Cridd
- Reincarnation
- The Mask
Samael Hopkins
Purifying Flame
3x Witchling Stalkers
Austringer
2x Guild Hounds

So short story – stick with the starter box plus Guild Hounds to help with Reconnoiter and the Austringer for the threat range and mobility tricks he offers. Despite Sonnia’s relative fragility there was no Assassinate scheme on the table, so I figured I was safe to take the other upgrade I really wanted to try – Reincarnation. I agonised over whether to take Disrupt Magic for some anti-magic, but in the end I went for The Mask, since it gave me the chance to counter some of the high attrition models Ressers tend to take with some consistent burning damage from turn to turn.

For schemes, I selected Take Prisoner (Izamu) and Distract. While I thought I could eventually bring down McMourning or Izamu, I didn’t like my chances of doing both. So Izamu became the guy I was going to either ignore or feed fodder for the rest of the game, while Distract has always been a good choice against any crew who’d want to get stuck into melee.

Opponent’s List

McMourning (Resurrectionist)
- Spare Parts
- Evidence Tampering
- Plastic Surgery
Sebastian
- Those are not ours!
- Transfusion
Izamu
- Decaying Aura
Zombie Chihuahua
Nurse
Canine Remains
Necropunk

Another match against Kyle’s McMourning crew and despite being Resser, it was actually fairly similar to his Guild crew I faced in our previous game (in which I was playing Lady Justice). Basically the Peacekeeper became Izamu, while the Witchling Stalker and Austringer became a Necropunk and Canine remains to better support the more mobile/summoning playstyle Kyle was going for.

For schemes, Kyle chose Distract and Murder Protégé on Samael (announced).

Result

Turn 1 was the usual positioning adventures, with me advancing most of my crew (aside from Samael, who I needed to try and keep safe) while McMourning hung back, not wanting to expose his crew early. I activated Sonnia last and not wanting to make the same mistake I made last game, Sonnia went straight for the Nurse, damaging but not killing her with a Flame Burst. Kyle also summoned a Canine Remains with a corpse dug up by his own canine.

Turn 2 was the turning point for the game – Kyle advanced his Canines after using the Nurse to give Hallucinogens (Ml attacks only) to Sonnia. I put the Purifying Flame into melee with the Necropunk, finished off the Nurse with an Austringer and I failed to hit a Canine remains with a pistol shot from a Witchling. The rest of Kyle’s crew advanced cautiously behind cover and the canines, while Samael continued to hold back to avoid getting hunted down by McMourning. Once I’d run out of other activations I used dispel Magic from a Witchling to remove Hallucinogens from Sonnia (Kyle had forgotten I could do this!), who then proceeded to move into within 10” of the Necropunk, then take both the ‘Punk and the Canine Remains to 1 wound with Burning counters. At the end of the turn both models died, and I dropped two Soulstones to turn them into Witchling Stalkers, bringing my total from 3 to 5!

At the end of Turn 2 my numbers ensured that Kyle only claimed one table quarter while I claimed three. This pattern continued for the rest of the game, thanks in no small part to the Guild hounds camping out in Kyle’s deployment zone.

In Turn 3 we both started distracting each other’s models, with me targeting Izamu and McMourning while Kyle targeted Witchling Stalkers and Sonnia. Unfortunately between one of the Distracted Stalkers dieing and Sonnia getting pushed out of melee by an Austringer to (2) remove the distract, Kyle only managed 1 VP from the scheme. McMourning moved in to start putting damage onto Sonnia in melee and summon a Guild Autopsy, while the Purifying Flame responded by double-walking into melee with McMourning to prevent him using any Soulstones with Dampening Field. Sonnia herself cast Cheruffe’s Shackle onto McMourning and started swinging away with her Runed Blade, drawing 1-2 cards and healing 1-2 damage with each swing. I lost one Witchling to some Sebastian-powered poison, but not before killing a Zombie Chihuahua and damaging the dogs with his explosive demise.

 McMourning comes within 2 wds of killing Sonnia...

In turn 4 Kyle once again won initative (just as he did in every other turn this game!), and came within a hair’s breadth of killing Sonnia. Two Transfusions gave Sonnia Poison 8, but he failed to cast Expunge (flipping the black Joker) so after a Scapel Sling attack, Sonnia only barely survived! I quickly responded by dispelling the poison 8 with a Witchling Stalker, and then between Sonnia, 3 Witchlings and the Purifying Flame I dealt enough damage to kill McMourning in response. In fact to add insult to injury, I even summoned a third Witchling Stalker off McMourning’s corpse! After that it was mostly cleanup, with the Guild Autopsy and Sebastian finished off by my Witchlings. In turn 5 Izamu moved up through a forest and finally put a hit onto Samael, taking him below half wounds with one swing! Samael moved into his own melee range with Izamu and Defensive Stanced, at which point the game ended. With that, I scored the full 10 VP for Reconnoiter, Distract and Take Prisoner, while Kyle managed 1VP for Distract.

...only to fall to a pile of Shattered Rune Blade attacks and join their ranks as a Witchling Stalker!

Post-game Thoughts

After the game, Kyle admitted that despite having enough corpse counters, he never had the crows on hand to summon as many models as he was hoping to. Overall he managed to bring out two Canines and a Guild Autopsy, which actually matched my summoning of three Witchling Stalkers! I was pretty wary of the number of corpses nearby McMourning, but fortunately he never reached the required 4 within 6” to summon a Rogue Necromancy.

McMourning was also pretty unlucky to have not killed Sonnia in turn 4, having flipped a Black Joker on his Expunge. That said, by that point Sonnia had done her damage, and even without her I’d scored enough VPs to secure the win and had enough Witchling stalkers around to kill off McMourning (or at least tie him up).

A face for radio?

So as to the girl herself, how did Sonnia fare? Well for the first few turns she did exactly what I expected her to – her crew concentrated on placing burning counters on whoever they could while Sonnia used her Flame Burst and Reincarnation to kill, then summon Witchling Stalkers out of the burning models. In a sense, Sonnia’s blast-heavy playstyle (especially with Pyrokinesis) also added to the mind games. Not wanting to get burnt up by multiple blasts from Flameburst Kyle played very cautiously for the first few turns. He hugged cover, made liberal use of defensive stance and kept the more valuble elements of his crew (McMourning, Izamu, Sebastian) further back than he perhaps should have. So the incredible threat range from Flame Burst definitely had more of an effect that it might look like on the card. In fact the best way to get around it is to get Sonnia into melee, which brings us to the second half of the game…

Once Sonnia got into melee I was actually expecting her usefulness to more or less end. Maybe I could take someone with me with her Inferno spell but other than that, her abilities in melee seemed pretty limited. To an extent that was true – there’s no way she could have taken on McMourning herself and when it came down to it, it was three Witchlings and a Dampening Field from the Purifying Flame that killed McMourning. Her Runed Greatsword was the big surprise though – Ml 5 is nothing to write home about but her Absorb Magic trigger (ie. Draw a card and heal a wound for every Ram in the duel total) proved to be fantastic. With a few swings of her sword she kept herself alive longer than she should have and it helped bolster my hand when I needed it most. The option is there to push her out of melee altogether with a Deliver Orders action from the Austringer (which I did do, if only to remove her Distract condition), but the chance for some card draw and healing means that getting Sonnia out of melee isn’t the only viable option I had.

Confiscated Lore is one of Sonnia’s saving graces when it comes to improving her resilience, but it’s very reliant on winning the initiative flip on those critical turns. I would have loved to use the +2 Df when she was facing off against McMourning, but unfortunately Kyle won initiative every turn so when those critical moments came, McMourning was activating before Sonnia did anyway! Not only that, but I found myself preferring to activate Sonnia later in the turn, once the Witchlings had put out some burning counters. Not to mention that it also prevents you casting Inferno, which is definitely an option if you’re thinking she might die anyway. So while the defensive potential is there, I’m not sure I’d find myself using it all that often in practice. Instead, getting +2 Ca from Confiscated Lore is just obsene. Just. Obsene.

Speaking of Confiscated Lore, the fact that I wanted to use that almost every turn actually made me consider my control hand at the beginning of each turn in a different light. Normally if I have 2-3 low cards I’ll burn a soulstone to draw extras. But with Sonnia those low cards are just fodder for my Confiscated Lore. Add to that any 3+ Tomes for the Witchlings Stalker’s Dispel Magic, and I could wind up with half a hand of low cards and still want to keep them. If the rest of my hand isn’t that great either I’ll still burn a soulstone, but in this game I certainly felt less pressure to do that. It’s probably a very good thing, considering the soulstones I saved went toward summoning Witchling stalkers and keeping Sonnia alive!

Moving on to upgrades, Reincarnation was unsurprisingly a favourite. I really enjoyed being able to summon Witchling Stalkers and while there were a few hoops to jump through, I didn’t find it to be too difficult in this game and the return was well worth the investment. It’s also one of those upgrades that will work regardless of whether Sonnia’s in melee. At a distance she can throw her fire balls about and summon Witchlings herself, but in melee she’s still got the WItchling Stalkers to achieve that job, plus she’s drawing plenty of cards from her Absorb Magic Trigger to fuel the summoning. The only negative to Reincarnation is that it prevents Sonnia from taking Badge of Office. Not only is Sonnia one of the most fragile Masters in the Guild, but her threat range and damage output effectively puts a huge “kill me” target on her head. So more than anyone else, Sonnia really wants that Badge of Office. I don’t’ really have an answer to which is the better choice, even if Assassinate happens to be one of the schemes. Reincarnation felt so useful, it’s pretty hard to justify dropping it.

As it turns out, The Mask was not quite as amazing as I hoped it would be. In this game I only got it off on one model (McMourning), but he died to massed Witchlings before it really came into play. So while I still think it’s handy, it’s certainly not necessary for Sonnia. By contrast, I really missed having access to Sonnia’s various anti-magic tricks, specifically Disrupt Magic and Counterspell Aura. With it’s negative flip to Ca actions for everyone close to a Witchling Stalker (basically most of Sonnia’s crew), Disrupt Magic seems like the better deal. But Counterspell Aura can just shut down a lot of Ca-based attacks that have a suit on their TN. Lure especially becomes impossible on a non-soulstone user. The Grounded Magic half of Counterspell Aura seems a little flat though - why cast that when I could burn something with another Flame Burst? Still, as a 1SS upgrade I still think it’s worth throwing in. Disrupt Magic though – I do wish I’d found the points for a Disrupt Magic!

I passed on Cheruffe’s Imprint this game partly because I didn’t rate the usefulness of Flame Wall, and partly because I figured the Purifying Flame gave me a Dampening Aura if I really needed it. However after the game, I’m starting to see how it might be useful in letting Sonnia switch to a slightly more support and melee-oriented playstyle. I don’t mean melee in the sense that you’re going to charge her in like she was Lady Justice, but in that it makes her much trickier to take on in melee. The Soulstone prevention from Dampening is already a great debuff (as I discovered with the Purifying Flame, below), but the Flame Wall itself can help disrupt charge lanes and prevent enemy models from getting too close to Sonnia (or any objectives, of course!). It also means that Sonnia is going to ge useful whether she activates early or late. Activate early, and she places Flame Pillars for disruption and uses Confiscated Lore to boost her resilience. Activate late, and she boosts her Ca with Confiscated Lore and lets loose on any burning models with her Flameburst. So as an upgrade, Cheruffe’s Imprint actually makes her a lot more flexible than it might otherwise seem!

As the game closes, a wounded Samael takes Izamu prisoner...somehow.

As the announced target for Murder Protégé, Samael took a back seat during most of the game. He took one or two pot shots at a Burning Canine Remains and rapid-fired at a Guild Autopsy engaged with a Witchling. But through either defensive stance or poor luck, he failed to do much damage. His brief run-in with Izamu did emphasise just how fragile he is for a 9SS henchman and looking at his offensive stats, he definitely fits the role of a glass cannon. He’s got some great damage output with Rapid Fire and his Huntin’ Tools (especially if they’re Burning), but unlike Judge, you don’t want him on your front lines.

I’ll admit I did think about taking Samael’s upgrade, Witch Hunt, for some extra Burning, but to be honest I feel like he needs some extra resilience rather than more offensive power. So if I was to take anything for him, (aside from Disrupt Magic) I’d probably go with a Leadlined Coat.

The Purifying Flame was a model I almost forced myself to take, but I’m very glad I did! Being a Peon made it immune to Distract (an advantage I hadn’t seriously considered until now!) and the ability to hand out Burning +1, while small, synergised well with Sonnia. But the real gem was its Dampening Aura to prevent enemy soulstone use within 3”. This alone proved to be a massive pain for McMourning, and made him that much easier to take on with my crew. Sonnia can do the same with her Cherufe’s Imprint upgrade and if I was struggling for SS I might consider using that instead. But Dampening definitely seems to be what makes the Purifying Flame worth taking.

I don't really talk about Guild Hounds today but seriously, they're solid gold for Reconnoiter!

Honestly, haven't I talked about Witchling Stalkers enough?! ;) Once again, Dispel Magic was invaluble in keeping the Poison and Take Your Meds effects off Sonnia and once again, their punching power in melee proved to be the undoing for much of Kyle’s crew. The only difference is that in this game, I took three (well, six after I summoned three with Reincarnation) and with Sonnia's pro-burning playstyle they went from a second line support minion to my front line fighters. After all, if they die then they're just spreading more burning around, which is exactly what Sonnia wants!

From memory, I believe the Austringer used his raptor attack for just one activation, against the Nurse. Other than that he was using Deliver Orders every chance he got to push my models into better positions or simply force interacts to achieve Distract.  If I’m being honest I probably didn’t need the Austringer for his shooting. He doesn’t add any Burning to the crew and Sonnia’s potentially LoS and cover-ignoring fire balls might give you all the threat range you need. Deliver orders is just that good though, especially for getting Sonnia out of melee as I mentioned above. Mind you, if I’m mainly taking the Austringer for Deliver Orders, perhaps there’s another option that could replace him? Nothing comes to mind, but I’ll probably keep an eye out for alternatives.

If or when I pull out Sonnia again, there are definitely a few more models I’d like to try with her. The Witchling Handler is definitely one, for obvious reasons, but I think the Brutal Effigy has a lot of potential for complementing Sonnia with his (0) Fear not the Sword action, which both helps heal her in melee and potentially gives her more cards to draw. Fire Gamin and Iggy are the other ones. I have the models but without her Avatar, I’ve never given them much thought in a Sonnia crew. So that will eventually have to change! Finally, there’s the Freikorps Specialist. There’s been plenty of discussion on using him in a Sonnia crew already,

Sorry, she's a little upset I didn't use her in the game. 

Final Impressions – The Master who Dies.

Going into this game, I initially expected Sonnia Cridd to be a little flat in her playstyle: Basically put burning on stuff with Witchlings, Flame them to death with Sonnia, rinse and repeat. However much to my delight, there was some hidden depth to her playstyle that I hadn’t actually seen until I saw her in action on the table. She still has the potential to be the living artillery piece I expected her to be, but her fragility, combined with all the anti-magic and some neat melee-oriented tricks opens up a whole new aspect to her. She’s a fragile Master with a massive target on her head, so you have to play cautiously with her. But then again, she’s got some neat ways to punish opposing models for getting close to her, even if she dies in the process!

At this stage I’m kind of thinking of Sonnia as the “Master Who Will Die”. Sure, you might be able to play cautiously enough to keep her around for the game (which isn’t a bad thing). But against a good player, her threat level is high enough that I’d expect her to end up in melee, and then dead by the end of the game. So the question, then, is how much of your opponents crew can she take with her? This gets into a whole other level of metagame here, where your opponent is trying to avoid losing too much to Sonnia’s Inferno pulse while still having enough models engaged to kill her.

Anyway, it’s late and I’m dangerously close to just posting useless ramblings about Sonnia (well, MORE useless ramblings!). ;) Suffice to say, I REALLY enjoyed using Sonnia in this game. Her playstyle was a big surprise for me and I feel like I’ve only just started plumbing the depths of what she can do. For a Master I thought might be a little simplistic on the table top, I have to say I’m impressed. J

Till next time,

Adrian