I’ve been looking at Guild more, recently. If nothing else, they’re considered to be on the lower end of the totem pole power wise, so at least I won’t be coming in last while playing broken crews. Moreover, if there’s a definitive hole in my swing when it comes to general Malifaux play, it’s in the killing/combat part of the game. I don’t have a good feel for what it takes to kill a particular model in any situation, so I need to practice that. And the Guild are combat focused, so that seems like a good place to start.
Speaking of starting, I thought I would start by looking back to where I started in Malifaux, with Perdita and the Family crew. Her new title, Nephilim Hunter, gives her the ability to summon the low cost Ortega minions. Normally this wouldn’t be something to get excited over, as the Pistoleros are, well, not great. That’s being generous, frankly. The summoning upgrade she attaches gives them a +1 to their duels when they’re within 2” of another family model, which lets them reach the lofty heights of “average”. They’re not good models at all, and like many people in the Malifaux community, I wrote this new Perdita off the first time I saw it. Something stuck with me, though. I’ve always wanted to play the Ortegas. They were the first crew I ever bought. The family of gunslinging monster hunters is very cool thematically, and I wanted to get them back out. So I kept thinking about it, turning it over in my head, until it finally clicked for me.
I was sitting in the bleachers at my step-daughter’s volleyball game, waiting for them to warm up, when I read and saw that they get to add in a suit to their duels also. Huh, so that meant they had built in triggers. That might be cool, so let’s look at the triggers. Which is, of course, when I realized that the triggers on the Pistoleros’ attacks, Grudge, puts out Adversary: Family. Now that was interesting. Some cheap, disposable models to throw adversary at the enemy (or at least force some cheating to create hand pressure). Plus, the Family can be pretty squishy, so adding some more ablative wounds to screen and protect the important ones is a good thing. The summoning upgrades feel like a little bit of a double edged blessing, and I’m going to have to do some fiddling to understand the best way to employ them. They’re unique, so you have to put them in the right places at the right time. Ironically, if you have one whose effect when they come into play (removing scheme markers, ending a condition, etc.) are particularly useful, the smart thing for an opponent to do would be to leave the Pistolero alive so you can’t resummon it. That’s a little bit funky and I’ll have to see it in action before I know if it’s a real problem or just one I’ve made up in my head. And they always have Reckles to get a cheap, Fast model. So there’s potential there. I’m guessing you might get them up to grow into a Monster Hunter maybe once in five games at best, so I won’t be counting on that, but if you can get one their stat lines will be pretty impressive with the built in +1s.
Dita herself shifts gears from killer to leader in this incarnation. The 6” bubble the Ortegas usually want to sit in will have her stationed in the middle to take the most of her Head of the Ortegas ability. Man of the clan have the “Ortega Family Values” trigger on one or more of their attacks, allowing another family member to either draw a card or concentrate. Dita changes this from a choice to getting both bonuses. Moreover, every Ortega has A Por El, which lets you discard a card to let a lower cost Ortega take an action out of turn. If that is a concentrate action and you’re within 6” or Perdita, that’s another card drawn. That’s potentially a lot of card cycling, and I’m very intrigued by that. I think that she’ll spend most of her AP summoning and doing her Trick Shot action to push models, hand out stunned to enemies, and trigger more Family Values. Her gun doesn’t have Critical Strike anymore, so you have just the 2/4/5 damage track of most Ortegas, which isn’t impressive but will do in a pinch. And she’s got a 12” pulse that doesn’t require LoS to hand out shielded, again helping to shore up some of the squishiness. Likely she and Francisco will have Lead Lined Coat (though I’m curious to see if it would be better elsewhere, since she won’t be needing to be in the thick of it) so they’ll be pretty resilient.
I don’t know if it’s actually any good or not, but having a tailored hand and some resilience seems like it would go a long way with this crew. Phiasco and I set up a game and played through turn one, and I drew/cycled about a dozen cards. I already have some parts of it where I think I can do better next time. There may be something there, and I’m tentatively optimistic. I’ll keep you updated with how it goes.
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