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Hi,

I've just started malifaux and picked up the guild's judgement crew. I'm hoping to get my wife playing the game so I'm looking to get an opposing crew. I'm after something which is easy to use and is plastic, so far I've got my eye on seamus, arcanists and sonnia crid sets.

Seamus is a very straightforward crew in my opinion: Seamus and his totem deal strong damage; the Belles and Sybelle are strong support; everything is notably tough for its cost.

About the only thing that I find isn't fun is Seamus vs. Justice involves two very tough but (outside of masters) not particularly offensive crews.

Also, Justice will probably get outclassed, mostly because there's very little reason to have three (pretty expensive) death marshals, outside of theme: if you replace 2 DMs with 2-3 Guild Guards, I'd say that would be a fun match... also, not a fan of her totem. I guess I don't think she's got a very good starter crew...

Is seamus a shooty or close combat crew?

I think the scales are rubbish too, though I've only played two games so it wouldn't be right to judge.

I really like the death marshals!

I'd say pretty middle of the road: half the crew only does damage in melee, but the whole crew has ranged abilities (some of which are pretty long ranged) and Seamus and his totem have very strong guns. The general feel, though, is that the crew ultimately is strongest within around 8" of their opponents.

If you like death marshals, Tara is a good crew to look at- she does some kind of heinous things with them.

If you're looking for opposed crews for newbies against Guild's Judgement box, my opinion is to give them something with similar WP stats.

I'm a newb myself and I just did my first real game a few days ago. It was a henchman game with Judge/Death Marshals versus Ototo/Torakage (Ten Thunders). Since it was a demo with only 4 models and no upgrades I found it very frustrating to go against the guild with their pine boxes, being that they have a WP 6 and Ototo has WP 4. He'd just cheat in a 13 and there wasn't anything I could do for a turn. The Torakage are not good for damage dealing so without Ototo it's an uphill battle.

I know that once you are at Master levels there is much more you can do to alleviate WP issues for any crew, such as Misaki with upgrades. However, if you're like me and only using small games to learn the system then Misaki's crew may have a tougher learning curve. 3 Torakage are not really what you'd want against a crew with Death Marshals and the judge for henchman starter box games.

Again, although I've played Miniature games for a decade and a half, I'm still a newb to Malifaux which is a completely different game. I've only played one game. Take my opinion with a grain of salt.

DMs' main strength is their coffins- otherwise they're just a very expensive but only slightly better version of Guild Guards. It doesn't make a ton of sense to engineer games where their main strength is weak since normally they aren't spammed outside of starter sets. However...

Your Henchman made a poor choice, either by design (trying to show off non-killy abilities) or chance (if those were the crews you picked, etc.). Ototo is the only Henchman (and one of the only Henchmen or Enforcers) with WP below 5. Also, that was a cheesy move, regardless, since you were a new player. Torakage also aren't very good other than high defensive stats. In general, it looks like that game was stacked against you pretty hard.

Haha it kinda was, but it wasn't like a "Henchman" game in the official sense, just using henchman as leaders. I currently own the Guild's Judgement, Hired Swords, Ten Thunders and metal Perdita boxes. Both of us hadn't played before and my hired swords/Perdita boxes weren't built yet. I knew it was an uphill game for me, but since I was the one introducing the game to him it would have not been nice to have given him the Torakage/Ototo.

Plus it's always a great motivator for new players to join a game when they win their first one lol.

On topic: essentially remember to keep WP in mind against three DMs, since it can be really annoying to be kept in a box all game.

Oh, that was totally clear on re-reading that... thanks, Wyrd, for making those terms the same, though

Re: topic, well, the Seamus crew also has a lot of WP shenanigans. Either way, particularly in second edition, WP isn't just a situational defensive stat but one you always need to be aware of as it comes up at least half as often as regular DF (so I definitely agree with the importance of decent WP).

I've personally never had amazing success with the boxes, but also was used to the old rules where their check to keep guys in the box were off 5 rather than 6, which is a pretty huge difference.

Yes it is! Cheating a 13 makes it hard to beat...

Yeah, I think I'll be making room for a second zombie DM for my regular Tara crew now.