Malifaux General

Here's hoping that Bayou Bash comes with minis that are legal War Pig proxies.

Did that with the Undercity game with their boar models.

Also if I have Return Fire on a Convict Gunslinger and get the defense trigger to shoot, does the shot he makes take suits as well and thus allow another shot if I get a mask?

>If I have Return Fire on a Convict Gunslinger and get the defense trigger to shoot, does the shot he makes take suits as well and thus allow another shot if I get a mask?

Unless it says otherwise, I think so.

... Ok, I checked,and the answer is pretty clearly no - you get a damage flip against the attacker, you aren't taking the Collier Pistol shooting Attack action.

>Did that with the Undercity game with their boar models.
What Undercity game?
Or do you mean the Iron Kingdoms?

Read Return Fire upgrade. I'm just wanting to confirm.

... Ok, I checked, and the answer is pretty clearly yes - you take a Sh action, and it doesn't say you .can't. take triggers.

So yes, I think that if an opponent attacks you, and you flip the Crow, you can then attack as many times as you can hit with a Mask.
Which, out of activation, is pretty beasting.
Noice.

But the Law gonna catch you one day, boy.

Only the one extra attack since that one prevents further triggers when it goes off.

Sweet, makes Gunslingers rather scary.

Not while I still have bullets

I have a tounament next Sunday.
On a scale of one to ten, how terrible an idea is playing three Oxfordian Mages (or any) for the first time?

I play Colette and Mei Feng, both mainly thematic, though I do run Howard and Joss when it feels foolish not to.

Good point.

The Union's always got work for willing hands, son. You good with your tools, we got jobs for you. No questions asked.

What's that one model you often struggle to work around when your opponent deploys it?

For me, due to my inexperience, is anything that easily eats up my corpse markers. Asami lately being my bane, sucking down corpses to throw Jorogumos at me.

Either Francisco or Dr Grimsbane.

My regular Guild opponent plays Sonia and Doug, I mostly play thematic Colette with additions.

Grimsbane can be all up in yo business like you wouldn't believe with the posion pushes and ridiculous walk, and that fuck packs a punch that most of my shit can't take.

Francisco just eats and dishes out so much damage in a turn that I struggle to burn him down without committing my whole crew's damage output to doing it - and if you don't kill him, he just fucking heals up and eats a model or two

I find Grimsbane more of an actual spanner in my works, but Francisco is far more irrationally irritating.

Fuck Francisco.

I'm trying to stop leaning on Hank as a terrible crutch to add killing power to my Colette crew.

Can anyone recommend something else with that solid punch?

Joss just gets left behind, even with Prompt.

If you have a grasp of Malifaux, not a bad idea at all. Just make sure you keep them in proximity to each other, and know what upgrades you have on each and position them accordingly.

>No more special sales for Easter and Black Friday
That's too bad. I was kind of hoping that they would put out a new bunny miniature.

Fucking this. It's tough competing with TT brothers, but I am sure that something can be done. Also nudge the Wandering River monks up a bit as well, so there can be a reason to use them over tengu.

I'm sort of OK with certain models being a "usually not optimal" pick, but if it's in a zone where the crews that .should. be taking them - here presumably Shlong's Temple Squad - are still going elsewhere because the thematic synergy is too weak/non-existent, that's a problem.

I wouldn't mind seeing this remedied by having Book 5's 'thing' be thematic crews - take an all-Monk crew, get a free (no cost, no slot) upgrade that lets Shlong and/or Yu hand out Style upgrades to Monks like McCabe does to Minions.

Admittedly I'm not a 10T player, so I don't know how viable that specific example is, but you get the idea.

It would be harder to do with the monks, as none of them have a characteristic (Save Shenlong himself who has Tyrant). For other masters then adding or expanding current options which give you bonuses for having models of a specific characteristic would be fine.

No more pre-orders. You can still get the limited edition models and whatnot during the sales.

Francisco is so much fun to use. As pointed out he is a good bodyguard for Sonnia. Should have came in the box with her instead of Samael IMO.

Well, I'd honestly put the HRMonks up as contender for worst model period.

And honestly, that sounds shit. It'd just reduce build variety. And in general, TT for example runs best if you leave the thematic support behind. If you gave a buff that only applied to when you take Monks, you'd pretty much have to up all of their stats and damage tracks by 2 if you want that to have any viability. Only Yan and Asami are bound to them, and even then Asami doesn't want to hire too many Oni to start with.

I just want Book 5 to give some new master upgrades and some extra models, nothing fancy.

I just want the Tri-Chi to be tournament worthy.

>No more pre-orders.
Did they say why?

The boxes are all theme over power, so swapping Samael for Franc would make no sense, but it's true that I've never seen Samael on the table, whereas I see Frac 8/10 Guild games.

>It'd just reduce build variety.
Not if the balance of 'theme upgrade' is done properly - you'd want it to be closer to the power level of the current optimal builds so that there are lists you can use LRMonks in, not teh ebin pwnz0r making all Monks god-like in efficiency.

I dunno maaan, if Brewmaster gets any better he'll be the N-est NPE in the game, regardless of how difficult or not he is to take apart for a skilled player.

Damn it, forgot my pic.

Brewmaster Vs Doug is a silly, silly match-up.
Apparently last time it was played in my store, they had to borrow counters from TWO adjacent games because they were both playing high model-count crews and then pissing poison all over the board.

>I dunno maaan, if Brewmaster gets any better he'll be the N-est NPE in the game, regardless of how difficult or not he is to take apart for a skilled player.

I mean, couldn't you say that about any strong debuff master?

>>No more pre-orders.
>Did they say why?
Brick and mortar stores did not like them sniping sales from them for most if the year.

Building my Death Marshal Recruiters tonight and I'll start playing Lady J more. Should be fun.

Misstep

gd 1

Well, that's pretty reasonable of them, I guess.
Bastards.

From what others have told me about him, Brewmaster's the most efficiently annoying in terms of sheer number of mdels stuck on -flips rendered hopelessly useless.
Paralyze Pandora is fucking irritating, but at least it's only two or three models for the turn - Brewy sounds like he could gimp most of your crew by turn 3 with a bit of careful work.

>Oxfordian Mages
How do I use them?
Second-row gunline, or further back-field?

General shooting, or try and line up to murder one thing a turn?

The (hopefully built-in) trigger to push 2" per book could be handy to hold objectives from afar too.

How competitive/casual is the population here?

I used to play at least one game a week, no tournaments, but life has crashed in such a way that I only get to play in quarterly tournaments these days.

The podcastosphere is of course slanted tournament-wards, those folks being rabid enough to publish about it, but what about the denizens of Veeky Forums?

It's not a total dichotomy, more of a spectrum. We have weekly game night, we have tournies. I like playing themed crews or just taking 1 master for a month, but I also like prepping for competition and stomping balls.

It's more about the mentality of the player than anything. Tourney players can be good dudes and casuals can be snobby shits.

Second ed seemed to turn down a lot of WAAC tendencies, from what I can tell. With less absurd power imbalances, there's less incentive to run crews that aren't fun.

Never played in a tournament though, I couldn't say.

Really don't like tournaments since I prefer not to rush games and just take the time to have a fun afternoon, but I'm also a fair bit better than my locals and haven't lost a game yet in some two years of playing so I feel I have to at this point.

I go to every tournament I can, even though I can't call myself a super competitive player. Being able to play more games, meet more players, and most importantly, get oodles of free models makes the tournament experience worth it regardless of your playstyle IMO.

I wasn't trying to make any calls about the nature of the players, just the normal game environment.

Unfortunately my area only started running tournaments weeks before I started a new job, so I've basically traded my weekly game night for infrequent weekend 3-rounders.

>Really don't like tournaments since I prefer not to rush games
Sounds like my problem is definitelynot your problem, but I found tournament play was very helpful in tightening up my 'macros' and speeding up decision-making, so I actually enjoy my rare relaxed games more since I can concentrate on the actual work, rather than agonising over how the engine of the crew is ticking over.

Do you use all the models from the starter?

>Still no Sloth FAQ explaining how the fuck he works in regards to choosing an option you are immune to or choosing to gain a condition you already have

>I'm trying to stop filling a role with the best available model in that role.

If you're short on points you could downgrade to Joss, Envy, or even Willie as budget options to deliver damage. Some of the beasts are pretty good, too.

If you can afford Hank, though, just take Hank.

Envy is a good choice because whilst he may not be the best killer, he still provides several other useful abilities that put him into a slightly different role. He's cheaper, ranged, punishes schemes/rewards Collette and his ability to hand out focus helps your other beaters.

Personally i think Willie is for very different shit to Hank and shouldn't be compared.

It's not even about trying to perfect my play, I just like casual afternoons where you have a drink and chat a bit in the meantime. Trying to squeeze in 3-4 games in a day doesn't really work with that.

I actually 'won' the Crossroad Seven as my Divergent Paths participation prize, which is pretty cool, so Envy is an option.

The problem with Hank is that he's a little too fragile under focused attention - playing against Neverborn or McMourning (the two regular opponents that give me most grief) tends to see him melt earlier than I like.
Some of that might be poor impulse control on my part though - he's such a good cruise missile I have difficulty not using him as such.

If Hank's for assassination runs, and Envy is for area denial/ranged beating; what do you use Willie for?
He seems a little trickier.
I really wanted to pick up his Miss Fire Alt, but didn't get my act together at the time and I won't be paying thirty bucks for a single.

A decent McMourning player should never lose more than one model to hank. The ability to ignore armour, transfuse and expunge or just throw a nurse at him means though Douglas will lose some high cards, you aren't going to maintain the spider guy as a threat.

I don't really play Arcanists so i cant help you all that much. I do play Jack Daw and i think Envy is fantastic with that ditch a card to give an ally focus thing, which can really help set up any other "cruise missile" types you may have. That free focus can be very effective against McMourning and/or Neverborn who tend to have a lot of Hard to Wound or Impossible to Wound, so focus can help get you towards a straight flip.

Ultimately the Rail Golem looks impressive to me, the Ice Golem could one shot nearly any model with collettes movement bullshit+ the free focus from envy and the Razorspine Rattler/Slate Ridge Mauler/Sabertooth Cerberus are all very fucking deadly in their own ways. Personally i think the Rattler is the one I'd take with Collette as it can poison things for your performers to abuse and your performers can pull targets up to it where they cant leave without damaging disengaging strikes but cant attack it without getting spooked.

Have you considered just getting Killjoy and flying up malifaux raptors or wind gamin or something to give your opponent a heart attack?

Not sure about all of Veeky Forums, but my group plays pretty casually.

I try to get at least one turn of Furious Casting from each of them; ideally more. I've found the burning and slow triggers far more effective.

Someone with play test files around?

>I've found the burning and slow triggers far more effective.
True - Slow is pretty huge, and the Burning would be really handy for Mei.
I guess I'll just feel it out for a round or two.

No. If there was, they would've announced it long ago. Stop asking.

>have models
>can't paint for shit
>don't wanna ruin beautiful models
>don't wanna take bare models to meet ups
>never play
It's a cruel cycle I'm in

Come at me bro. We are the same.

>How competitive/casual is the population here?
Our group is very casual, at least with this game. We play an even mix of standard / story encounters, and have even been incorporating the campaign rules in a small way. When we're in a competitive mode, almost everybody would rather be playing WMH or Guildball. Malifaux is the "fluff outlet".

M2E is definitely robust enough to handle competitive play, it's just never felt like a good fit to us. The game's biggest strength vs other tabletop skirmishers, IMO, is how tightly (and successfully) it integrates the narrative with the rules - if you skip that, I think you're really missing out on what makes the system special.

YMMV

I just sit here staring at them while I build terrain for days. Literally have enough terrain to fill 3+ boards.

Out of curiosity, what kind of terrain have you built?

I have assembled and covered the holes with greenstuff.

Everything. Most of it doubles for mordheim terrain so lots of open ruins with multiple stories but really anything. Rock outcroppings, crumbling walls with palisades, a destroyed governor estate (centrepiece for my mordheim games), wells, etc.

Recently for Malifaux-specific stuff I'm working on a Bayou terrain; swamps, little walkways, raised cabins. It's a lot easier than mordheim as I don't have to make them open.

Also, is it just me or do very little people make use of levelled terrain? I mean I've watched a heap of bat-reps and almost none have any terrain that seems useful/used for scaling. Maybe I'm set in my old Mordheim ways, as I said I haven't played any games of Malifaux.

Malifaux is pretty different from Mordheim as far as levelled terrain goes. With the AP economy there isn't a huge inclination to climb up onto a building. If you have a sniper that has From the Shadows then you can deploy them on top of one, but otherwise it is avoided.

That's a shame. I love Malifaux don't get me wrong, but sprawling games of mordheim are what really tickle my fancy. Hopefully I can't get my ass around to completing this skirmish game so I can playtest it

Some truth to that, but I think you just have to account for it when you're setting up your board. If a high spot is only really interesting as a "sniping spot", then provide a ladder or stairs to get up there so it's not prohibitive to do so.

If there's a large section of your board that's higher, then the schemes / strategies will often mean everybody is climbing up there regardless.

Hey all. Been out of the game for a couple of years, hopefully you can enlighten me about something. Looking through the most recent book, there's a bunch of 0 cost upgrades in there for seemingly random models, in addition to the new stuff. I get that they fill an upgrade slot, but most of them seem so good for a freebie that I can't see why you would ever NOT take them. What's the deal?

Climable terrain is still 2" for every 1" of Wk though, unless you have flying. It is still harder to get any real height than let's say Infinity where moving up is 1" for 1", or 40K where guys in a squad can automatically move up. You are right about the larger sections though. If a good section of a board is a plateau with a squat marker or whatever on it then it may see people climbing up it.

Patch upgrades (Which sometimes to force you to compromise between taking another upgrade). I think that they know that people don't like things being errata'd all the time, especially as the cards aren't free online or anything.

They're little attempts at buffs for shit models. How effective they are are hit and miss though. Some I still wouldn't take as models period. I honestly prefer the direct nerfs and buffs, not forcing you to clog up your upgrade slots.

Yes, but the rulebook does have that allowance for "doesn't apply to things that are easy to climb up like stairs". At the end of the day it's up to the players (or the TO) to rule whether a given piece is "walk up" or "climb up". Technically ladders are cited as "climb" in the rulebook, but for the reasons cited above we usually treat them as 1" = 1". It is, after all, much easier to climb a ladder than a brick wall or a rock face. We also have most of our high spots accessible by stairs or ramps.

As with most things, if a specific terrain piece is a concern, just discuss it before the game.

That seems like kinda a clunky way to patch a model... more upgrade cards to keep track of, and if I don't have the latest book on hand I'm playing at a disadvantage I didn't even know existed.

Assuming that you'd always take these, right? If you're already bringing the "shit" model anyway, I mean.

I suspect the days of 0 cost patches are over with. Aaron seems to be much more willing to errata balance issues that Justin was.

Gotcha. Related unrelated question - has anybody bothered to compile the electronic model cards into a better format, for reference purposes? Or is it just a "rifle through whichever book pdf you think that model may have been in" kinda deal?

Pure Oni Asami crew?
How bad an idea is this?

Pure Oni might be a bit restrictive, but Yasunori is nuts with her.

Yasinori is nuts. Period. Full stop.

Most Oni don't drop corpse or scrap markers on death, so a bit of a waste. I'd say Yasunori, maybe an Obsidian Oni if you're set on having a lot of scrap fast, and then just general TT stuff. Bettari is too card intensive for the already card intensive Asami, Ama no Zako is too suit intensive (and Ml 5), Jorogumo are Ml 5's and the Yokai are great summons so there's no need to bring them.

Just get general TT support, a beater, a sniper, something schemey and you're full.

Yasunori is fine. Just new, shiny and filling a role TT has been somewhat lacking in.

One guy has done a zip of the Outcast cards, but they are all unlabelled and out of order, and are side-by-side or above-below as they appear in the book rather than a consistent format.

Nonetheless, the guy's done a great service and I salute him.

Side note; I only just realised how filthy Void Wretches are for four stones.

IMO Malifaux models are far from "beautiful." I admit there are surely a couple of eye-catching ones, and the newer ones seem to be getting better...but I don't ever put the care into my Malifaux minis that I do to say my GW ones. Not worth it.

Anyway, to your guys' problem, this is what you do:

Pick your least favorite crew, or some really useless minions/peons (ones you probably wouldn't take too often except in corner cases) and just prime and paint them. Bite the fucking bullet. Follow a YouTube tutorial (even one for a different model works to learn the techniques). You will be surprised how when you get those 3-5 base colors on there and hit them with a wash all of a sudden the model really starts to take on a life of its own. When you begin to practice highlighting and dry-brushing just TAKE YOUR TIME. Can't stress that enough. But I mean feel free to play with base colored and washed dudes because they will look so much better than grey plastic.

In fact if you take time to do a little detail on the bases (again look up tutorials, even for 40k and stuff), your base colored/washed dudes will actually look pretty fucking good, they won't even need much more detail. Although learning to do some conservative dry-brushing with a lighter color on some colors will really make things pop. Everything I have mentioned here is skills any old doofus can easily pick up in one or two tries. I know this because I did, and I too used to be terrified of ruining my minis. And behold, when you have done this to 2-3 trash minions all of a sudden you will have the confidence (and the drive) to attempt to do a much better job on your favorite master or henchman. I swear.

Oh, and it goes without saying but I will say it:

For the love of all that is fucking holy...THIN YOUR PAINTS. This is the absolute key to getting better at painting. Thin them and control the amount of thin paint that is on your brush, you don't want a lot. Yeah you may have to do several layers, but it is much better than a model drenched in blocky, gloopy,thick-ass paint. Rely on your washes for detail, not heavily applied colors.

It's not the best idea, but it'd be functional.
Arguably you could do it with an extra couple of boxes of Yokai and Obsidian Oni.

Obsidian Oni can generate some (not a lot) of the scrap you'll need, but otherwise you're mostly looking to kill or get Ugly Betty's trigger to get those markers out.

So I want to be a real dick and create a 10T crew that just lays down a dead zone in the middle for strats like Extraction, Guard the Stash and Squatter's Rights.

I am thinking a Brewmaster/Sensei Yu drunk bubble, plus Yamaziko to make charging them a bad idea. I also was considering Chiaki to hand out Slow all over the place, or Lust probably fills the same role nicely and can move enemy models around much better... But what's the best way to discourage people from trying to shoot/cast me to death? Or to at least pressure them into engaging me?

Misdirection, Smoke Bombs, using cover, and the like can mitigate ranged attacks.

Oh yeah, I had considered smoke & shadows on Yamaziko, because it's unlimited use, but I actually forgot about Misdirection. What would be a good target to shunt the damage to? Terracotta?

I believe Misdirection makes them the target so you can't negate damage with the terracotta. Shadow Effigy is my go to, usually.

Terracotta becomes the new target so can't prevent the damage I think, but you can put the protection on another model to misdirect onto.

Lold you really claim Malifaux minis are worse than gw ones? With a good proportions and posing? You must be kidding.

While I think that GW figures outdo Malifaux ones when it comes to details per square inch, you are definitely right that Malifaux figures are much better posed, much more finely proportioned, deeper, and generally higher fidelity as afforded to them by their high part count. I guess that guy didn't feel the same way, he must like big shoulder pauldrons.

How playable is a fully human Last Blossom Smoke & Shadows crew?

Misaki, Ototo (10), Yamaziko (7), three Torakage (6) and two Oiran (5).

I don't currently play 10T, so I know relatively little about how to play that, but the Smoke Bombs and teleports sound potentially fun.

Vaguely related, why are High River Monks considered bad?
They don't seem amazing, but the stats are OK, 3 attacks on charge and burning all over the shop.

> GW figures outdo Malifaux ones when it comes to details per square inch
The idea that, for some people, this is the metric for how 'good' a model is, is saddening.

Just about any of GW's main competitors do better on posing and anatomy.
It is a shame that this tends to mean there are few/no multi-part poseable kits though.
Have an angry gorilla.

Ah, I have just seen that the (2) SHadow Stride teleport is Minions only.
That makes slOwtoto far less useful...

Not very playable. Even if you included Jorogumo it wouldn't be viable. One maybe two minions for teleporting about would be fine, but since pretty much all Last Blossom units are kind of bad without outside support so you'll quickly run into trouble.

The High River Monks make you discard an extra card for that attack, and that gives you a whopping 1/2/4 (the burning you can't count on since a lot of schemes require an actual models to make the kill and condition removal exists). They crumble to any even just cheaper minions attacking them due to not having any defensive abilities, which makes their melee only style unplayable. Even at 5 SS they would be utterly outclassed (Komainu, TTB and Terracotta Warriors, etc), and in general they're just very bad even at what they're designed to do.

Don't use the Brewmaster for his drinking bubble. It's a nice bonus if it happens, but your focus should always be on other things. If you use him, the rest of your crew will be chasing down models tagged with Swills and beat them to a pulp in Brew's 12" range, so don't have such a heavy support focus. If you want to make it hard to approach you, have a Yin be there. The - to Wp on any big model allows Brew to do whatever he wants to it, and if he ever gets to obeying something you can obey it into her terrifying.

Besides Brew, Yan Lo is a great bubbler since he can forcefully drag people into his, Lynch because coming anywhere near him or his crew means death, Shen essentially makes a bubble with some 5" to 10" extra threat range, Mei allows you to make whatever area you're standing in immune against casting and shooting while you you spam komainu everywhere. Pretty much all of TT can be pretty good at creating a death zone but it'll always boil down to having some very big hitters clump up.

It's somewhat down to personal preference I think, plus comparing the output of entire companies (esp those with as large a back catalog as GW) in generalities is kind of tough.

I'm definitely not a fan of the "marine pose" GW models that seem to have taken over, but in the past they've done a lot of cool stuff. Some of my favorite minis in my cabinet are GW products.

By the same turn, while I like most of Wyrd's stuff, the newer "Callista Flockhart Scale" models, like Levi's plastic box, really turn me off. They look kinda neat in the renders, but at arm's length all the detail just disappears. The most important angle for a mini to look good at is top down from 3' away, which is something Wyrd seems to forget sometimes. Those types of minis also tend to be prohibitively fragile for gaming.

I absolutely love the new plastics for chunkier stuff - monsters and big dudes, especially. But for a lot of the masters and other human-sized characters, I still find myself using the old metals more often than not.

>Side note; I only just realised how filthy Void Wretches are for four stones.
Void wretches have their place, but I can tell you that (a) there's a lot of competition in Outcasts, and (b) Pure Nothingness is going to give you a lot of headaches if you're not playing them in a Tara crew. Df 2 is not ok.

Playable, but not very good. Smoke & Shadows is minion only.

Yu, Lust, Bros, and Jorogumo are all great with Misaki for the utility they bring, which her crew tends to lack. Joro just hits hard for its cost

I play Dark Eldar...a single Kabalite or Scourge brings me infinitely more joy to paint than my favorite Malifaux mini. It's personal preference broham.

I dunno about that. As I read it Misdirection says that after an attack succeeds against (in this case) Brewmaster, who is already the target since it has succeeded, on a mask he can shunt the effects of the attack to a target within 2"...who for our purposes would be the Terracotta Warrior.

In this situation Terracotta Warrior is the target of "Df (Masks) Misdirection:" not the original Attack Action, as it reads "suffer the effects of the Attack Action instead of this model." Just suffer the effects, not becomes the new target. The attacker would then perform a damage flip or other effect against Terracotta Warrior. The Warrior's ability reads "when this model suffers damage from anything other than an Action that targeted it"...and as we previously read it is suffering the damage from an Attack Action that did not target it "instead" of the original target. The only thing targeting it is Misdirection, which is not in itself causing damage.

I think this is the correct interpretation. I think it is slightly overpowered, yes, and I think that eventually they will errata it. But for now I am pretty sure this means if I park a Warrior 2" from a Leader with Misdirection then for the cost of a mask and single card from my control hand I can prevent that damage as many times as I have those resources.

is correct.

Misdirection targets and causes the Terracotta Warrior to take damage. And in not being an action that targets it, Thousands Strong works perfectly. Seems to be intended to work like this.

This takes up two cards, one of which a suit, and a Terracotta Warrior to stand 2" from your leader though, so it's hardly abusable in any meaningful way.