Malifaux General

New book soonish! Get hype for master updates!

Current FAQ here, last updated at end of March.
wyrd-games.net/malifaux-faq-errata

Does anyone want to discuss campaign games? Got an upcoming one soon and I'm not sure whether to take a Ressur, Outcast or Ohaguro Bettari/Ama No Zako (my only two thunders choices) as my leader.

Oh nevermind, forgot Toshiro is a Henchman. I have him too.

So are Will o the Wisps' tactical action to use other Neverborn's (2) tactical actions only there for Zoraida? Not much reason for one to use Flurry and there's not a whole lot of (2) tactical actions in faction.

Pretty much.
And from internet mutterings, it's pretty damn powerful with Z.

Toshiro is probably a great idea, survivability-wise.
Does the summoning work as normal, or do you have to earn that?
Or buy you summons with Scrip too?
Either way, pulling ablative models out of thin air is always handy.

Ugly Betty turning off Df Triggers could be huge if you spec hard into damage output though, especially if you have several Arcanists about.

Summoning works as normal, summons do not get added to your campaign crew and don't cost anything, they are just there for that one game.

From what I've seen all the bullshit Will O' The Wisps can do with Zoraida is only mildly more annoying than Zoraida's regular Hem. Its not like Zoraida was going to accomplish much with her AP anyway. They can also do stuff with Spawn Mother i think? Havent seen that.

>Its not like Zoraida was going to accomplish much with her AP anyway.

That's two extra Obeys or Bewitches per turn.
That accomplishes something.

Obeys are shittier than fast because of the restrictions + having to flip a certain TN. Though they can sometimes be a useful paralyze i guess combined with terror.
Never seen Bewitch accomplish much.

>Summoning works as normal, summons do not get added to your campaign crew and don't cost anything, they are just there for that one game.

If you are playing with the hideout rules, one of them has an upgrade that gives you a chance to keep summoned models, iirc

Neat. Well so far I'm thinking Toshiro could be a smart idea, using Yokai and Akaname to place corpse and scheme markers for his little focus bubble and taking a Katanaka Sniper to shoot up any enemy scheme runners. Shame i cant think of much way to hand out poison to my own crew in this list, since Akaname and Yokai would benefit from it.

They are very resource-intensive to do what they do, and they do it about as well as a model half their price.

This is only really relevant for higher-level play though - I wouldn't let that put you off, especially during the learning stages.

There are loads of pan-asiatic model lines out there to find a good Yu replacement.
I absolutely agree that he's one of the lamest models, sculpt and pose, across the whole Malifaux line.

As another poster said, Yu and Shlong are built for each other - Shlong works by attaching and discarding kung fu style as Upgrades, and Yu [with his Promising Disciple upgrade] can pick up any Upgrade that Shlong drops.

Looking to get one of my buddies into skirmish wargames with Malifaux. He's expressed interest in the rules set and the aesthetic of the game. I believe he's looking to start with either neverborn or resurrectionists. Of course I can't let him start alone even though I'm hobby backlogged and am looking at gremlins, cause gremlins.

Any advice for completely new players to malifaux?

Metal or plastic Freikorps? For painting purposes, I mean.
I'm probably not gonna play ever since there's no scene and my charisma is zero.

Is Aeslin easier to build than she looks? That's a lot of tiny parts.

Don't just start with a crew box, though some crew boxes are balanced against each other you usually want a few more models each. There is a two player starter set but its not super great and its guild vs neverborn, no gremlins. Remember you need poker decks to play.

Gremlins are a little harder to play, but should be very rewarding. If you've played other wargames you should be fine. If you want Brewmaster, maybe get him as your second master as he can be a little frustrating to play against for a brand new player, but after a few games your buddy should be ready. Whatever you decide to play in Gremlins, consider getting slop haulers. They are the best healer in the game and a great addition to any gremlin crew.

Good ressur starters include pretty much everyone but Tara (she is more of an outcast and difficult to play) or Yan Lo (needs his ancestor models to shine) and Neverborn probably the best ones for new players are Lillith, Titania, Zoraida and Pandora. Lucius is more guild to start with and you need to print out errata'd stat cards for him unless you get lucky and your box of him is very new. Dreamer and Collodi need some support models and Lynch is just a tad more complicated than the others, but still totally viable to start with.

My friend who built her said she was less horrible than expected, but still not great.
Metal schill looks okay but the rest of the metals aren't as good as the plastics.

Metal. You dont have to glue the fukken tiny plastic hoses to their weapons and junk.

>starter set
I'd say the Starter Set is probably unnecessary - the point'sbeen made before that it's better thought of as a Demo Set, as few of the models are all that likely to see extensiveuse in normal play.
The models are easier to build than the average though, and you get cards and measuring tapes and the mini-rulebook (which is just rules, far more convenient than the full books).

Since you're looking at Gremlins, the box won't do you much good, so you might as well get crew boxes and start very small - the Henchman Hardcore format has few enough models to track easily and work on rules.

P.s. Fuck Burt Jebsen.

Consider Ten Thunder Brothers.

They are hilariously good for their stone cost, and have huge utility as well as serious staying power and respectable killing power.

And they cool as fuck.

So how does everyone base their models? I'm debating how I would plan to go about it. Do I give everyone a unique base (having them possibly be mismatched together in a crew, which would sort of drive me nuts)? Or do I give each faction it's own base design (boring, since I want to give McMourning characters the lab floor base)?

I've thought about the possibility of trying interchangeable bases using magnets, but I imagine I'd be in for a world of pain with those.

What new book wat are you trippin about man ?

They have asked for playtesters for a new malifaux book coming out later this year on their forums. No name yet and few people have leaked stuff because of NDAs etc.

I think basing doesn't matter that much. When it does matter, its because of a unique base that is all fancy and special to that character, the rest of the time no matter how "good" it is matching bases just come off as trying to meet some "obligation" to base. Besides even if the bases match they wont actually match the terrain you are on.

I play Arcanists and I started with a generic badlands sand+sparse grass bases, now I vary them according to master, so Raspy gets some ice on that grass, Kaeris charred spots, Colette has wooden stage floor with holes here and there showing similarly colored earth, Misaki/MS&U get random track pieces or railway junk, Marcus gets more vegetation.

If I grab the somer starter and the puppet starter for my buddy would that be a good pair to learn the game with?

How much more difficult would it be to ramp those up to 50 stone lists?

I have no idea if those two would be balanced against each other. To grow them though i would reccomend the Lucky Effigy (he can be used by either of you, little blue puppet guy in a hat, NOT the giant wheel) Slop Haulers, The Pigapult and then any of Wong, Ulix, Mah Tucket, Ophelia or Zipp. For Neverborn Collodi can have a little bit of difficulty finding good crossover with other masters, but will enjoy Teddy and Widow Weaver, then will be pretty much okay with most of the other master's boxes. Collodi is a little bit focused on using "Puppet" models which are his box, all "Effigy" models which there is one of for each faction and he can hire all of despite faction restrictions, Bunraku and Stitched Together. Because Bunraku are dual Ten Thunders/Neverborn and Stitched Together pair well with both Jakob Lynch and Collodi, Jakob Lynch can be an excellent choice after Collodi. So can The Dreamer, who will make great use of Widow Weaver and Teddy.

Actually in addition to my other post which masters look cool to you guys? I can answer questions you might have about other masters instead of just somer and collodi.

I'm looking at transitioning into Ulix and going whole hog while I think my friend would be interested in the dreamer because he's so damn cool.

Well Collodi and the Dreamer both LOVE Widow Weaver. My brother started with the Dreamer, it is well and truly possible if you want to do it. Anyway Widow Weaver turns scrap into those little dolls from Collodi's box and also into teddy, whilst making the enemy have no willpower. Teddy murders fucking everything and is good in literally every single neverborn master. There is another model that pairs with Teddy called Baby Kade, but hes hard to use and i dont understand him because the neverborn players i know dont use him.

For transitioning to Ulix from somer, get slop haulers, piglets, pigapult then Ulix after somer. Somer can help you practice for pigs because i believe he can summon/support piglets from memory.

>I'm looking at transitioning into Ulix
So, you're a transgremlin?

Much like I base my Showgirls on (stage) floorboards, and Mei's gang on a coal-field with a bit of flame/magma for special folks, and I have a couple of big resin clockwork'n'metal bases for Howard and Joss (my only Ramos box models).

The mismatched bases within a crew are a little annoying, but as misery here notes, it probably won't match the table terrain anyway.
I also tend to play pretty thematic, so most of my models in any given crew are similarly based.

Collodi (the puppet master) is apparently pretty difficult to learn with, as he's entirely model interactions in bubbles, meaning you have to have the correct models in the correct places to get anywhere near the best useage out of him.
It'll teach him good fundamentals, but it might be a bit of a drag for the first handful of games.

On the upside, his box is fucking cool looking.

What are those weird wooden things in the back?

Transpigging if you would

So how many bayou gremlins and piglets am I looking at owning if I play these two masters. Also can I play most missions semi competitively with these two masters?

To my understanding they are considered sort of the mid-meh tier gremlin masters. Other than old Lucius though nobody is unplayably bad even competitively and they have been taking steps to improve weaker masters over the last year or so meaning playing an underdog isn't a bad idea. Malifaux "tiers" are relatively close to each other and because of its objective based focus and random objectives (you build crew after determining objectives) there are always times when one master will outshine the others within their faction. Som'er for example is a god in reconnoiter.

As for Piglets, no clue. One box should be okay at least to start with. Som'ers box has four bayou gremlins, which is great to start with but if you plan on using Somer to summon you will want a second box of them (they can be bought seperately from the somer box as a box of four), which will bring you up to a whopping eight. Eight SHOULD be enough but i've heard of people who have ten or even twelve of the fucking things.

The old metal Waldgeists, I assume.

Ithink what youget in t he box should do, then get the Creative Taxidermy story encounter box for extra fun and piglets.

Is that box a better value then just getting piglets?

Totally different - it's two Taxidermists, six Exploding Piglets and a booklet of fluff, scenarios and a Through The Breach one-shot. £30.

Piglets is three Piglets for £12-13.

Alright I don't know anything about what the taxidermists do, is there a list builder somewhere like infinity army?

Have a list for 50 stone collodi? I might just go all out so he's set up.

There aren't any live online crew builders that I know of, but the CrewFaux app is spoken of with high regard.
You can also get at ByTheTree dot net's crew builder, which is really good, through archive dot org.

PullMyFinger, the Malifaux wiki, is great for all your "what does this do" needs.

Gremlin Taxidermists are very hard to kill, and summon (alongside other shenanigans with) Exploding Piglets.
A friend ran one against me recently and caused no end of grief for me, as their melee attack has a trigger to drop Corpse markers, and they summon Exploding Pigs off Corpse markers.

I'm afraid not.
PullMyFinger or the Wyrd forums or the Schemes & Stones podcast episode about him should have recommendations though.

The Guilders program is functioning exactly as planned - I got one from a tournament last week, and they just added a bunch of stuff to the Guilder store, and now I'm tempted to go pinging around the country to collect stacks of them.

Bastards.

>
>Well Collodi and the Dreamer both LOVE Widow Weaver. My brother started with the Dreamer, it is well and truly possible if you want to do it. Anyway Widow Weaver turns scrap into those little dolls from Collodi's box and also into teddy, whilst making the enemy have no willpower. Teddy murders fucking everything and is good in literally every single neverborn master. There is another model that pairs with Teddy called Baby Kade, but hes hard to use and i dont understand him because the neverborn players i know dont use him.
>For transitioning to Ulix from somer, get slop haulers, piglets, pigapult then Ulix after somer. Somer can help you practice for pigs because i believe he can summon/support piglets from memory.
Add Pandora to the Widow Weaver is cool crew.

You mean you get a hard -1 wp just because you see this web?

Same deal I'm finding out with Titania who's hench can do .... Stuff, but having no specific upgrades to suit her beyond the generic NB stuff is just dumb. You know what's cool? Neg Wp webs making sure enemies are always being summoned in front or titania so she can chow down.

The metal waldgeists are dogs though, not tree people.

Neverborn Henchmen and Enforcers are essentially some of the best in the game. Coppelius, Barbaros, Nekima, Widow Weaver, Teddy. Its difficult to find comparable things in other factions. In my opinion they pay for it by having all their minions and peons have shit tier defenses though. Seriously besides Illuminated which are seven stones their stuff is really squishy. I guess depleted aren't but they aren't the best tarpit and they do nothing outside of tarpitting.

I've got a ton of them because all my friends just pile them on me. There's actually one under my desk right now i dropped two months ago and have been too lazy to pick up. Sometimes i stare at it wondering when they will put something on the store i actually want and i will retrieve it from its resting place.

Sadly the Miss models don't appeal to me at all and i don't play Arcanists so Sokolov is worthless. I am sort of tempted to pick up the classic Misaki though, since the regular Misaki model is in an action pose and i hate action poses.

Somer and Hamelin look far better in their old sculpts, and I agree that the big action poses aren't always the best.
I got the Rasputina sculpt in a Mystery box, and that's another that's better than the current version.
Wouldn't complain if Colette's old sculpt got added either.

I think both Misakis are great models though.

I'm thinking I want Miss Fire, the Willie riding a penny farthing.
Problem is, I want Willy for my Mei, but Miss Fire for Colette.
Miss Step wouldn't fit with Colette anyway, so I'm happy to leave Howard in rotation there.

Apparently they're going to be more active in adding stuff to the store from now on, but if you're drowning in Guilders that badly you could always 'sponsor' a noob tournament/ game day at your local.

> (You)
>Neverborn Henchmen and Enforcers are essentially some of the best in the game. Coppelius, Barbaros, Nekima, Widow Weaver, Teddy. Its difficult to find comparable things in other factions. In my opinion they pay for it by having all their minions and peons have shit tier defenses though. Seriously besides Illuminated which are seven stones their stuff is really squishy. I guess depleted aren't but they aren't the best tarpit and they do nothing outside of tarpitting.
You should check out Titanias minions. I think all of them should be above Illuminated especially with them having hard to wound built in.

Also, I remember the day Barbaros went from worst hench to one of the top best for neverborn.

So has anyone been apart of a through the breach game that they joined on Veeky Forums?

Yeah, the wisps can spit out and hatch eggs. It can be really useful for interference and the like.

Also is OP being a faggot as per usual and not posting links.

My issue is that online clients don't work very well for a card focused game. So no, and most of my Malifaux buddies are busy with Deathwatch and Shadowrun right now.

That sucks

If you are looking at gremlins, go for Som'er or Ophelia first.

Som'er has a lot of options, and can be a little overwhelming at first, but once you get him down, he is probably the best gremlins master.

Ophelia is a shooty model who can do anything the big three gremlins (Zipp, Som'er, and Wong) can do but worse. So she is pretty beginner friendly and comes with Francois LaCroix, who is amazing.

Zipp and Wong are really strong as well. Wong has a lot of AoE damage and makes another member of your crew pretty tough with his "magical" abillity. Zipp and his crew are really mobile, so you can get a lot of schemes dropped. Although Zipp has the insignificant abillity meaning he can't drop them himself.

Ulix is good if you like pigs, but the wild boar are terrible models so you will want to pick up some piglets, a warpig, and the sow to get a competent crew together.

Zoraida is weird to use for gremlins, and her box comes with only her and her totem as gremlins models, the rest being neverborn. She uses a lot of dudes from other crews as well, so I would say pick her up after you have a decent collection of models if at all. She focuses on using obey and hex in gremlin crews to get others to do what she wants, it helps a lot to have at least 1 will o wisp on her crew as well and even a nurse from the ressers. She has a really big model range as she can hire below 4wp, living models as mercenaries.

Brewmaster is fun, but not great. A lot of gremlins players say he is better as 10thunders, and a lot of 10 thunders players say he is better gremlins. I play him gremlins, mainly because I don't want to buy a bunch of models for another faction. His main gimmick is supposed to be poison, but it is a little too slow to really work well, so normally you just focus on using hangover to get enemies to build up swill. Fingers is a nice tank though.

Finally we have Mah, who is not worth getting unless you really like her sculpt. She is the worst.

Why are Wild Boars terrible models?

Terrible may be a little much on second thought, although I still don't think I will use them. I am not sure if I would put them on the Bayou Bushwhacker level of bad, but I probably wouldn't consider them for any crew I play, even Pig man Ulix.

For non Ulix crews they offer nothing at all, they will die too quick to just throw them out to just let them loose and charge everything the enemy has, which would be why I would take a war pig.

Onto Ulix and the boar.
They have 8 wounds which is nice but their defense is pretty average, their walk and charge are the same as piglets, but they don't have pig charge which makes charge a 1 action. Their damage spread is decent as well, being 2/4/6, but being pigs they don't have dumb luck

You also can't summon them like piglets as well as you can't summon piglets from them like you can, Major, Gracie, The Sow, and plain old War Pigs. And that is what Ulix wants to do, summon things. Also Ulix's obey, which is where the on the edge ability is likely meant to come in, is from Ulix's melee range, you are never going to use it because Ulix doesn't want to be in melee range with an enemy.
You could argue you are going to dump them out close to the enemy spawn with From the Shadows, but really they are going to just be gunned down quick.

Basically you just have better options. They aren't unplayable or anything, they just aren't good.

Also if you plan on getting Ulix, play a few games with them anyway. After playing them yourself you may decide that my opinion on them is stupid and that they are plenty strong.

Fair enough I was thinking of maybe using Swine-Cursed in their place whenever they finally drop.

It sucks that they were pushed back, and that they removed a sculpt. I plan on using them to get some more magical into my Wong crew.

I pray to god that they didn't remove Mohawk sculpt

These are the 2 they kept.
I was kind of bummed because I liked the running sculpt.

I felt like the running one was kind of odd since he looked like he was trying to do some sort of slam or had just done one. Still I think they're good beaters for 7ss that are pretty neat additions to any crew.

I assumed he was running on all fours kind of like a monkey or something.

And yeah I think running at least one to add a little more power to a crew will be nice! I don't think they will be Bert or Trixe level, but I think they will definitely get played.

our local henchmen cant get in beta test for new book, cuz he already in Other side. And now thinking that book will be more interesting than other side

What? Was he bad in 1.5? In 2e he has always been amazing for his challenge aura. Fuckin Barbaros + Widow + Pandora is a nightmare.

Mah isn't terrible and her box is still worth getting because Bushwhackers are decent and Trixie is amazing.

Now, the internet just took a bit to figure him out. Early on common internet "wisdom" was that he was rubbish, same with guild McMourning and others.

Mah is the worst master Gremlins have. I ran out of room to go into her box. She isn't terrible, she is just the worst gremlin master. I don't regret getting the box, because Mah and the Little lass were fin to paint, but Trixie is the only model that is really good, and it is REALLY good. If you want to play Mah though, which if you like the cut of her job, then go for it, you get 2.5 models worth playing as the Little Lass, while cute, is pretty situational.

Also the Bushwhackers are bad man.
Any gremlin that lacks reckless is really a gimped model, they do get an extra attack, but at the cost of 2 wounds and another model missing SH sttack, it doesn't work for MI or CA attacks either. "Get off my land" is also a crummy version of "From the Shadows" because it only moves you up 8 inches and requires you to discard a card! The frying pan is okay, but gremlins have better models for melee, heck even the moon shinobi are better for melee.

There is just no reason to take them. 1 extra soul stone will get you Bert, Frank, Sammy, or Rami. I could trade 1 for 2 bayou gremlins. Heck for the same cost I could take Pere, Merris, or a rooster rider, who even after the nerf seems preferable.

There is an infinite amount of better options than a bushwhacker, dude.

Alright, so if Som'er is a good starting point for gremlins, who are the solid starting points for other factions?

>
>Guild
Lady Justice
Perdita
>Arcanist
Ramos
>Neverborn
Lilith
>Outcast
Von Schill
>TT
Mcabe

I'm thinking about getting into Malifaux. Looking at the models and making a totally uninformed decision with no knowledge of the rules, I'm thinking of starting with the Arcanists, specifically Kaeris.

How awful an idea is this?

I still haven't. I have a feeling going Neverborn was a terrible choice when I can't wrap my head around their many shenanigans. Prolly should've went with Freikorps or viktorias.

Kaeris isn't that hot (heh) but you won't necessarily need anything from another master's box to start or anything. Ramos is probably the best Arcanist master to start with, especially as his stuff is very useful with other masters, including Kaeris.

Forgot Ressers
>Ressers
Nicodem

Nah, you need the entire faction for Nico. Seamus is a better starting point.

> (You)
>What? Was he bad in 1.5? In 2e he has always been amazing for his challenge aura. Fuckin Barbaros + Widow + Pandora is a nightmare.
No no. He began 2.0 as a suck model but errata made him awesome.

his original taunt ability was something like if an enemy Attacks they had to flip or attack him instead. After the errata of an enemy tried to do ANYTHING that is not targeting Barbados, then they had to throw his duel or fail.

If they tried to interact with your master and your Barbados us within 8 of the model doing the interact, Wp 14. If an enemy tries to buff a fellow enemy and they made the failure not to stay outside of 8 inches of Barbados, throw a duel or it fails.

In summary, Barbados is a lovely pain in the ass. You find out how annoying a huge base + 8 inches can lock out a big part of the board.

Is it Mah that has the Chorse stuff?
Because that looks like it could be pretty damn powerful.

Can confirm, Barbaros' Challenge is a huge pain in the neck for area-denial shit.

It does tend to mean you have to go and melt him, and he will melt, but it eats a lot of AP and cards.

I'm tempted to buy the alt Barbaros this Easter sale. Having picked up Titania people have been upselling me on him and I'm not that interested in Lilith (she's not bad, but I dislike how she looks).

>alt Barbaros
He does look pretty damn tasty.

Does your local lot have a problem with non-Wyrd miniatures?

I have Hasslefree Miniatures' Blanche as my Lilith (if I ever actually get around to switching into NVB).

Locals wouldn't care as long as I made it clear. But I go to Bugeater and some other bigger places and they care. Though I can just not play Lilith.

>Pic related: Hasslefree Blanche

What do you play at the moment?

I'm mostly Arcanist, but I find myself more interested in moving into 10T than expanding my Arcanist set.

Titania, Jakob, and Zoraida plus some extras is what I own. So far these three have helped maintaining viability at local stuff, but I know some builds can really hamper me like high armor. Been thinking of moving into Pandora for Wp duel damage shenanigans.

I would get Barbados especially in scheme middle
>
>I'm tempted to buy the alt Barbaros this Easter sale. Having picked up Titania people have been upselling me on him and I'm not that interested in Lilith (she's not bad, but I dislike how she looks).

That's is one of the best things about Malifaux and one of the toughest things to get your head around about the game: some models are just standalone good and even better when they bring something to the table.

I'm a middle heavy strategy or scheme marker heavy anything (like Titania *wink wink*) consider Barbados with Crash and Malifaux Provides upgrades. You got regen and a push that can auto give slow if the models slam against terrain. Plus the push doesn't get them out of Challenge range.

One note about Provides is that it is any scheme marker, not just yours. So it's point denial in some cases

Actually it's either crash or challe. So never mind!

I really liked this game but my local scene died, only player left is this hyperactive ADHD autist and he's singlehandedly made me want to stop playing.

If I buy the ramos box, a box of spiders, and a mech rider is that enough to get to 50 stones? Also do I need to buy anything other then the boxes? Extra cards or whatever?

That stuff will be more than enough to start you off with. With the spiders it's worth mentioning that you can (should) magnetize them so that you can freely switch between sizes as the situation calls for it and not have to have painted double the spiders you'll ever need.

Is it too many spiders then? I know that master can really crank them out.

>only player left...singlehandedly made me want to stop
That's a bummer.
I was going to suggest trying to get others to play, but I guess it would be hard not to also introduce them to That Guy and immediately turn them off.