Day 11: Sonnia Criid, Unmasked

 This is the worst model in Malifaux. Physically that is. It is proper awful. I both understand and support starter boxes coming with preassembled minis, it helps get things going and played with straight out the box. But even within the confines of the Otherside Starter box this is a bad mini. The Guild Mages and Gatling gunners are absolutely fine, no idea about the rezzer side as I traded for mine but they look fine. It’s just this Sonnia2 model that is utterly ass. It is a sculpt that both lacks detail and is too busy. I did not enjoy painting this model in anyway shape or form but it is done to a standard that I just don’t want to put anymore effort into.  So there we are, all done. Eleven days and the Witch Hunter Keyword is table ready, no more grey shame for me.

Onto the card. I prefer her stats to her original. Df5,Wp6 & Mv5 is much better. Retaining Arcane Shield2 also good. See? I’m being positive!

Channelled Flame, hooray for pos flips, a different way to ignore concealment? Nice. This tells me I want my folks to be on fire. Ok, bit more synergy with the Witchling Handler? Don’t mind that, I like the Handler after all. Bit more synergy with the totem and it’s pulse, that’s nice too. So straight off the bat this is telling me that I want friendlies on fire so that we can remove it as a resource. Gotcha.

Charred soul? More soulstones good, more incentive for people to be on fire. I like that it doesn’t specify friendly or enemy especially. Cheruffe cares not who it is that burns. Presumably.

Enraged by the mage: this feels very significant (write that down). This feels like one of those abilities that the card hangs on. With the witchlings Df trigger pushing them towards the model that damaged them, the Quellers push (and ofc Sonnias own) this feels very significant and immediately makes me want to hire Thralls as they have the best melee action in Jeyword, but it is also well worth remembering the Witching Handler themselves here. That sword is very useful and has some very tasty triggers. 8” aura though means this Sonnia is going to have to be much nearer than her predecessor, so once more will probably need a coat.

Wall of Flame is lovely, if only for telling your local Kirai player that his ghosts have to pay attention to terrain now. 

Flameburst.  On paper this is the same attack as her other version.  Stat 6. 2b/3b/5bb and burning +1 to anybody damage by it. Where it varies wildly is the triggers. The built in Tome now allows you to drop 50mm Hazardous Pyre Marers (burning +1) which the enemy will treat as always count as severe terrain and cannot ignore the hazardous aspect thanks to Wall of Flame. I must stress to myself that this is an option.  You do not HAVE to drop these markers.  If you do however they no longer count as blast markers, which I utterly despise as this both impacts your ability to dmg multiple models at once but also how you drop the markers as they must all go into base to base contact with the target.  Currently I hate this.  I am going to play and experiment with this ability but I fully intend to keep hating it. The ram trigger for more blasts is just straight up not there for some reason. Boo. 

Burn them Out, now this is good and I feel something for I will reach more for than Flameburst on certain strategies and the ability to move my opponents models, or mine for that matter, in and out of scoring positions positions flat out wins games.  Having more VP than your opponent means you win, every time. VP are overpowered, nerf VP. This comes at the cost of setting them on fire.  I am fine with being on fire, I can strip it off for Pos flips, I'm fine with you being on fire.  Because then you're on fire.  Also all 3 triggers are useful.  Love that for me.

Confiscated Lore is one hell of a drug! Seriously now, that's just a top tier ability that gets the people going.  I would like it as a fast action, I really would, but I recognise I might be being greedy.  Having that Tome built in would be sweet though.  This is a great way to start your activation with Sonnia, get an idea of what your opponent can defend against and then move on from there.  It will be a rare activation where this doesn't get used every time I think.

Lastly on the Pyre is a very very useful fast action that can cough out mulitple Pyre markers both for damage and board control and at a surprisingly long range. 

So here's the thing about SSM (Sonnia Sans Mask), all of these abilities individually look absolutely fine in a vaccum.  There's some board control, hand manipulation, card draw, soulstone generation, positional control and all of those are good things, great things in fact.  Currently however it just feels a bit confused and lacks focus. Now a lot of that could well be me.  I have always done better with highly specialised Masters executing their game plan. I always struggle with highly versatile Masters that can change of the fly (my struggles with McCabe in M2E are documented on this very blog, and my struggles with M3E McCabe are on my youtube channel! Note to self, stop playing McCabe you are proper shit with him).  I suspect SSM is the better Sonnia due to this very fact.  Whether I can unlock her of course, is another matter. 

So there we have it! a Keyword painted in 11 days with plenty of Witch Hunter Month left over.  So what happens now? Why Versatile and OOK models of course!  Starting with the Pale Rider and Rocketeer (who is secretly a Witch Hunter model)

Seriously.  It's an awful model.