Malifaux Factions Episode 1 – The Guild
April 17, 2013 by crew
So you have settled on your faction and you have decided on the strength and courage that comes with being a member of the law of Malifaux. The long arm of the Guild. In this scripture, I’ll be delving into the cogs and gears behind the masters of this fine faction and helping you to settle on the master you’ll be taking to lead your crew through the horrors of the streets of Malifaux. As a play style, the guild like to be able to achieve their goals no matter the cost and to reflect this, the guild practically has an answer for most opposition.
To open this read, let’s first turn to the heavy hitter of the bunch, the blind lady herself, Lady Justice.
The Lady is a fine starter master for beginners as she is very lenient to mistakes and has an easy tactics set to establish. Lady Justice is the head of the Death Marshalls and she operates with them very effectively. A melee master, the Lady augments and buffs her crew to push their melee expertise through the roof while providing a lot of utility when fighting against the Resurrectionists. When played effectively, Justice can cut a literal swathe through the enemy while her crew mop up the remains. Backed up by a moderately effective ranged ability, the crew Lady Justice leads, knows what its good at, and it does it well.
So it stands to reason that if the guild has a master who can be a whirling dervish in combat, they must have a master who can pop the wings off a fly from 500 yards. Therein lies the power of Perdita Ortega and her family of western sharpshooters.
Perdita is the polar opposite to Lady Justice and her crew maintain the same association. The Ortegas like to shoot things, and shoot them in abundance. They have a powerful ability that as a family lets them deliver powerful “Alpha Strikes” during the game which few other masters in the game can combat. Packing some of the finest ranged weapons in the game, as well as some of the craziest models “fluff” wise, if you like to throw bullets and dynamite around the battlefield, the Ortega family is the crew for you.
Now we’ve covered a master of melee and a gunslinger of legend, this time were covering the arcane in the form of the master of immolation, the magic used, Sonnia Criid.
Criid is a powerful wielder of the aether winds and uses her destructive fire magic to put her enemies to shame. An expert at both casting magic and countering it, Sonnia’s crew is very effective at her role on the battlefield. She has the ability to summon new minions during battle from killing her enemies which is always a benefit when you’re running low on lackies to throw into the fray. Although not considered to be an easy master to run for newer players, Sonnia’s learning curve is highly rewarding and can bring a truly awesome power to the battle.
Guns, swords and magic. Sounds pretty good so far right? Anything jumping off the page? Well Hoffman is telling me he needs his introduction now.
Hoffman is a little different from the rest of the Guild’s masters because he doesn’t like to use guns, swords or magic much. Instead he likes to have his friends do all the work for him. His friends I hear you ask? They would be the 15 foot mechanical monsters standing beside him.
Hoffman enjoys constructing and maintaining a crew of robotic killing machines to help him achieve his goals. With a small ranged and melee capability, Hoffman is a utility master who keeps his machines in tune and tinkering while they tear his enemies to pieces. Finally, the newest addition to the Guild is the western horseman himself Lucas McCabe.
Lucas is a hybrid master who likes to sit on the fence between a ranged master and a utility master. On his trusty steed, Lucas is one of the fastest masters, if not the fastest, in the game. Powerful and fast, he leads a crew of ruffians and explorers who like nothing more than walking up behind their enemies for a delicious knife in the back. As a master, McCabe can be an interesting choice as he is a unique model being the only mounted master available thus far. Keeping his enemies locked in place with his trusty net gun then running them down from horseback, Lucas takes much pleasure in a very hit ‘n’ run tactic set.
So that’s it for this instalment, I hope that I’ve given you a good idea as to which master you feel closest too and will suit your playstyle most. Keep an eye out for the next segment which will cover the Resurrectionists faction and their affiliation with raising the dead.
Keep those cards hidden and remember,
Cheat Fate of Lose Your Soul!
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Sweet as a nut, for all to enjoy! 😀
That Logan on horse back looks cool. I’ll go with them
I’ve always had a penchant for close combat meself so that Lady justice has caught my eye.
But then again those Ortega’s could come in quite handy in a tight spot.
Then again a fifteen foot mechanical monster……mmmmm…..choices choices.
Being a HEAVY malifaux player (just not a great Malifaux player :D) I don’t like the guild.
I will say a few things for them but.
If you are starting the game (which I know this is what this article(s) is about) they are perfect, very forgiving (Well sticking to all but Lucas and Hoffman) and perfect to get to grips with Malifaux.
However you will have no friends in Glasgow if you play Ortegas. Everyone and their dog, their dog’s puppies and their puppies’ puppies has them. If you want an idiot proof crew who has very little flaws, destroys all before they get touched (sometimes very literally) then go for them. Now I am being a bit harsh, they are ideal for beginners and you should not feel dirty playing them, they are just a bit too popular (at least up my end of the woods) and very well all round it is a bit unfunny 😀
Lady J is equally as forgiving, her crew has some tricks you can play with and experiment for when you get better, and if things are looking hairy, well you hammer your problems away. Lady J can do a HELL of a lot of damage if the cards and situation is right, and if its slightly off, not as much but you can still kill the odd thing in one hit or 1 round of combat.
Sonnia, well she is the “all rounder” but again, damage dealing can be heavy (and when you get better at the game, her Avatar gives a hell of a bite) If your opponent plays Arcanists (who are mainly spell casters solely or rely heavily on it) then go for her, she will out spell them and gain potential numbers back (or just more) from killing good casters.
Hoffman is… different. Hoffman plays the support role for his crew compared to the very hands on approach of the other Masters. He will take a bit more thinking, but it does allow you to play with synergy with the crew as a whole as a posed to how beginners usually learning how their guild masters can win the fight for them.
Lucas is the newest member of the Guild posse. Lucas plays the ambush role while the rest of his crew get stuck in. Lucas will pull his crew forward (to allow the crew to not was actions) then once they are comfortable, will break off and fire his net gun into the enemy to hamper their guys to allow you to out maneuver with your crew and get the alpha strike.
To finish my ranting (which I hope isn’t repeating too much of whats been said, but it more than likely is since I haven’t read the article) One man is missing. Now I can see why he was left out since he isn’t a master, but I think he shouldn’t be forgotten for beginners.
That man is Lucius. Lucius is a Henchman, which means he has a limited crew selection, has no soulstone cache (per say). Lucius plays like a fleshy Hoffman, in the sense that Lucius plays the support role for Human models than machine ones. He will hang back and “issue commands” to your crew to give them free actions at the cost of Lucius action points (which he should be doing) and he buffs them for the duration of HIS turn.He is also not easy to put down should something go wrong.
With the restricted crew, players learn very quickly what each model can do and how they work with each other. And once you know how to play Lucius comfortably, simply add a master to him (usually Lady J) and you are on your way to getting into the madness that is Malifaux.
Hope this ramble helps, I’m by no means a pro (my win to loss is… well I’ll leave it there…) but I know my Malifaux 😀 Hope I haven’t just badly repeated what was said in the article but this is more a gamers insight than the helping instructional type (which I should have read when I was getting into the game :D)
I have not played Malifaux, yet. But I picked up Lady Justice and crew a few days ago. I am still reading through the 1.5 book. Lady J seems pretty straight forward. I was looking at some of the other starter boxes, like Zoraida. The others seem to be tricky. I want to get the game mechanics down. I will need to play a few games before deciding to either expand on The Guild or switching to another faction.
I haven’t had the chance to play much Malifaux since the last book came out but unless it’s completely changed the game I wouldn’t say any of the Guild crews are particularly cheesy. Having been on the wrong end of the likes of Zoraida/Collodi, the Dreamer, and (pre-nerf) Hamelin, I’d love to play against the Ortegas or Lady J.
I have recently purchased the rules and the Seamus gang and looking forward to playing with them.
I wish this had a larger group following…I know only a handful who play this near me (Warr, uk)
Now that is just the kind of information that this thread needs, gamers insight.
Nice one Whiteyin.
Wow, lengthy comment haha
Nice input, glad to see other people as passionate about the game as i am
Hey people, fist time poster, be gentle.
I’ve had a lot of experience with the Guild, it being my main faction. Whiteyin’s overview is very good, but there is another interesting aspect to consider.
Guild is the faction to play if you like to mix and max your crews. What I mean by that is, they tend to have fewer master dependent units than the other factions, where most masters tend to depend on a specific subset of units to work well. For example, Death Marshals are Lady J’s theme unit, but they really work well in all Guild crews, and so do Witchling stalkers from Sonia’s, or Nino from the Ortegas. This tends to be true of most Guild units.
That means that building a list with them tends to give you a lot more options, but be prepared for severe Pokemonitis when collecting Guild. You gotta get em all. The exception for this is Hoffman, who really wants all constructs to operate.
The main con for playing guild is that while you have by far the most ranged firepower of all the factions, you lack most of the mindcontrolling/terrorising/teleporting shennanigans and interesting abilities other factions get. You DO get movement shennaningans with Lucius and Lucas….and given that Lady J is the most dangerous melee duelist in the game, teleporting her in someone’s face is….nice.
Generally, Guild tends to be all about controlling the battlefield with the threat of your snipers, while you clear your objectives.
thanks drdruckman, nice to hear all sides.
I tried looking at Malifaux as my gaming club was looking into skirmish options, but could never really find any faction or style I identified myself with. Lucius would be the closest, but considering I didn’t like the rest of The Guild much… that didn’t help. It would be interesting to see the actual game mechanics in play.
Now that I have Lady Justice and crew, I need to build them and paint them. I am not the best at either task. I will see how it goes.
@aellan
Keep your eyes peeled on the website
Videos are coming soon!
Malifaux is a good game. Just getting back into it myself as book 3 made the game pretty lifeless in my local area but seems to be picking back up again now. Each faction has a basic master that is easy to learn the game with. Then it goes off into harder to learn ones but it is a very good game
If anyone is looking at Lady J it would also be worth looking at the alternate model for her. It is a very good model and I much prefer it to the starter box version.
Agreed, I replaced my Seamus with the alt as soon as it came out.