Malifaux General. Forgetting schemes edition

If you really want to monkey wrench people, I'm going to recommend Jack Daw.

His whole schtick is nickel and dime denial. Lots of little pushes and soft disruption that your opponent can ignore for just a few cards, which all add up to leaving them just shy of the resources they needed to accomplish their objectives. If you want your opponent to let important flips come down to luck because they're out of cards or end the turn with a model one or two inches away from scoring, Daw is your guy.

Plus if you ever want to graduate to playing full on fun police you've got Hamelin in the same faction, or you can look at Parker, Schill, or the Viks if you want a more traditionally fighty master in your pool too.

Is there some wiki for fluff? Something like lexicanum for wh. I know about 1d4chan, but maybe there is something else.
Or just fluff in "distilled" form? Not in the form of a novel.

That's a good question actually...
I think that besides the intro bits, most of the fluff pieces focus on a small hanful of characters, there aren't many big meta-coverage bits of writing.
I'd be interested if someone does find something though.

Also:
Free RPG day loot!

Anyone get anything fun?

My store had two red transparent Witchling Stalkers and a DayGlo pink Malifaux Child, plus the Penny Dreadful.
I didn't get any, I was already inescapably booked when I found out about it. Feels bad man.

Vaguely related:
I don't understand the DayGlo pink.
Green, yes, orange less so but still fine.
Pink, there's basically never a reason to part-paint it like there is with every other flavour of their coloured plastics, so you either leave it totally bare, or paint all the way over it anyway.

Goodbye

That's some interesting advice.
I did look at Jack Daw for a bit but there was something that just seemed missing.

I was looking for something that lets me screw up some (not all) enemy efforts at the last minute without breaking a sweat or inciting the player to violence.

I've heard Hamelin is unbalanced, so I'd rather not play him, plus the background leaves me cold.

But on the other hand, I'm interested in Zoraida, and a lot of what I've read tells me she's a pain too.

I've messaged the local games club (I'm new in town) to see who plays Malifaux locally. Hopefully there's a half-dozen or so.

If not Jack, Brewmaster would be your best bets. Brewmaster is about as fun to play against as you make him. You can choose to drain their hand for 5 cards a turn making them rely on luck, give 2-4 models one or more -'s to make it nearly impossible to succeed on anything with those key models, or in general just tie some of them up near you as they keep have to cheat in higher and higher to be able to do anything. How wide a blanket of denial you want to throw up is up to you. That's sort of the issue with all denial masters though, they're all various stages of annoying to play against because in general, people like following their plans as they appeared in their head.

Also, Hamelin isn't particularly unbalanced. Just a bit dull to play against.

Brewmaster it is then. Thanks for the input!

Fluff Q: is McMourning not getting caught for his Resser activities plausible or is it just silly now that he keeps getting away with things?

People know, but Lucius and others are protecting him for Reasons.

>That's the issue with denial masters, people like following their plans as they appeared in their head.
This is a very good summary of why .most. denial Masters are irritating but not to the point you don't enjoy the game.

It's a mix of Sebastian being covering his tracks and Lucius deliberately looking the other way.

I'd definitely argue that Hamlin is unbalanced.

Because of so many free activations, basically the entire crew gets to act without you having a chance to react. Iirc, you can get 8 activations out of 4 points worth of models. You either have enough pulses and blasts to deal with the swarm or you don't.

The main reason he's unfun to play again it's that his turn will take twice as long as yours, and with the stairs amounts of activations, half of it is just watching someone else play a game.

It's decently plausible. It's a setting where you can get away with a fair bit as long as you are not open about it. Cameras are rare, people wouldn't generally listen to accusations about a guild employee being a necromancer etc.

On that topic, I like how Necromancy is an insidious, active force. You don't have to be an evil person who deliberately sets out to raise the dead, you can be a child who unfortunately starts to hear the whispers.

>I'd definitely argue that Hamlin is unbalanced.
I fully agree with all your points, for the same reasons - silly combos that should require costly set-up, he can pull off without interference.
Meanwhile, he generally maintains his own ability to interrupt yours since he can choose to activate more relevant models.
The one thing you forgot is the Hollow Upgrade, which switches off the blasts you needs to clear Rats.
The game is not balanced around that sort of control.

Aside from that, it's usually a visually lame crew.

Are there good ways to deal with him?
Assuming everyone is playing properly and you don't know he's coming, how do you deal?

I have tried chucking big-base, long-reach models at his front line to use the Rats to jam him up as well as me, but that just means I burn all my cards keeping that jammer alive for at most two turns, while the tide slowly laps around them.
An expensive, only somewhat effective play.

There is functionally no way of killing your way ahead of the activation control unless you have two or more Snipers and a better hand than Hamelin - the Rat-cycling lynchpins are too easy to hide, and even with LoS and Range, easy to avoid catching Moderate/Severes.
Even mathematically, in the ideal, it's a brutal struggle to pop the key models before they activate, or in one activation, and then they Sacrifice anyway and render all teh work irrelevant.

Relatively unrelated to Malifaux, but im currently working on an Ogre necromancer NPC who, while certainly ruthless, is a comparatively "helpful" denizen of the setting (most things just try to kill you, Australia stereotype style).

Do you think there's a place for necromancy simply as a means to an end?

There's certainly room for Necromancy other than "live and serve, or die and serve" style. One pseudo-example is Sylvania under Vlad's rule in Warhammer Fantasy Battle, human and undead militia protecting the borders and whatnot.

desu I like his crew's aesthetic but I'd like to see it expanded. Get some bugs in there, don't stop at the Winged Plague.

To Be Honest's acronym gets autocorrected to desu? The more you know.

I like that part of the setting too. You don't need a reason for necromancers to be a constant threat. No one's teaching then underground, they just show up randomly sometimes.

I really enjoyed the Resurrectionist's Ball story.
>Hollow Upgrade,
It's just blasts right?
Pulse damage from punk zombies and stuff like pull my finger might work.

Hamlin's not unbeatable, it's just like you're suddenly playing a different game.

I've always wanted to play Nico against him, and just smash walls of zombies and rats together. As much as I love playing Gremlins, ressers is like a siren's call

So we talked about what matters are the last fun to play, and play against.

What masters are the most fun to play against?

>Get some bugs in there, don't stop at the Winged Plague.
That could actually be a decent idea, yeah.
There's a surprising lack of insectile monsters in Malifaux...

>Hollow Upgrade is just Blasts
Nope - Friendly models within Aura 5" immune to Damage from Pulse, Aura and Blasts.
And he's a Ht2 dog, so they get that full Aura.
It's actually slightly more bullshit than I'd thought.
At least it's a (0) action, so Hamelin needs him to activate early-ish in the turn to put it up.

It does let him hire Hounds out of faction though, which probably has bullshit potential.

I'd say probably some of the less powerful beaters, and the less irritating supports.

I like playing Hoffman because his crews are so weird and the games are so swingy.
Lilith and Titania because the board can change in weird unexpected ways int he space of two or three activations.
Mei Feng is fun for the pant-shitting activation where she slams into the crew, and it's five or ten minutes of high-stakes decision making about what you let someone take the hit, and how you balance her AP-repetition versus your own hand use for C-c-c-c-combo Breakers.

>Nope - Friendly models within Aura 5" immune to Damage from Pulse, Aura and Blasts.
Damn, that is Rough. Hamlin's worse than I thought.

I kind of like playing against Gremlins. Everything is zany and squishy. And they do half the damage to themselves.

But you've got to put stuff down before it explodes or heals back up

I got translucent Bete Noire and a translucent Mindless Zombie. They only had Ressurectionist models for some reason. I also picked up VAM, which as a hardcover book was a surprisingly nice grab for Free RPG day. I could not bring myself to give a shit about Earthly Desires.

I agree with you when it comes to the DayGlo models. Even then you can just get fluorescent paint, mix in DayGlo powder, and you can go without having to use the DayGlo plastics.

Hownew.ru

Neat. I hadn't heard of it too today.

Are Oxfordian Mages still considered bad these days? When I look at them they look like they offer a lot of accurate ranged attacks and control but I see/hear a lot of negativity about them online.

Their 0 SS upgrade that they got in Ripples of Fate makes them a really good choice. I always bring them with Sandeep.

With their free upgrades and Sandeep existing they've found new life. Still an awkward module to run, they're not for every game.

What exactly IS Jack Daw, do we know? It seems he was part of some ritual to shut the breach the first time? But now he's paralleling the Burning Man.

I still don't see how the Mages are so terrible that they deserve multiple patches while the Monks of High River get fuck all. I'd get a prepatch Mage over a Monk in a heartbeat.

He is the dude that Zoraida used to close the breach the first time around. He got a ton of magic injected into him, hence his insane ghost running around and driving other people crazy. The burning man was also a patsy used by Zoraida, only this time to close the hole in the aether left by the event. He got even more magic injected into him, and as a result he is even crazier and capable to spreading craziness than Jack Daw.

Sorry, I don't quite understand. What is it that Zoraida got out of the Burning Man? She sealed a hole made by a breach? the Governor's ritual?

The Event opened a big hole in the aether which all the masters used to get their avatar forms. Zoraida decided to close it with the governor so the Tyrants couldn't use it to ascend.

>Monks of High River
>inB4 fifty post argument

I've only started using them recently, because I only recently found proxies I like - hate the cartoon fireballs.
They are good, but need both a decent firing lane (which necessarily must be pretty wide) through both terrain and crew, and also need a strat or other set-up which herds the opponent into said lane, otherwise they just end up shooting into cover all game and achieving little.

When they work though, they lay out really solid damage, and can be used to rocket models across the board for a measley 1 Damage (with Armour) - using three mages, two shots (one normal, one with the +B) can shove a model 10-14" up the board.
I tried to Joss bomb Titania with it, which is how I know the positioning can work really well.
Turns out that so can Titania's, but that's a different story.

Ah, thanks

That's what I've seen. Its 15ss that probably won't die, but often doesn't do that much in return.

What are your proxies?

They can hand out Slow - with Furious Casting, you can force Slow onto most models whether the opponent wants to let you or not, or eat their whole hand/cache.

In Extraction, Guard the Stash, sometimes in Interference, the pushes are great - and that goes bothways.
no-one expects the Mage to steal a table quarter, but then they shove two models across teh line and you nail the point.

They ignore Armour, which is solid against other Arcanists, Hoffman and a couple of others.

They can hand out Burning, which is great for Frame, and synergies.

Aaaand with Colette, she can give the +flips to Ca, meaning they can Furious Cast into cover without penalites, or even better hit with all three of their shots.

2/3/4 isn't exciting, but 6/9/12 on a target with Burning+1, Slow, and six inches back up the field is pretty good.

Pic related is one of my proxies.
Saw a guy on here using them, and Hasslefree are pretty good.

Gotta say, Zipp looks like a fun crew but assembling Iron Skeeters looks heartbreaking.

>Proxy
Can you post a picture of yours? I want to see how people paint them.

". What you will run into more often in Ressers is what I call the Paradox of Hand utility. Essentially you will often find that when you play ressers it is often harder to land your offensive abilities than when you play other factions. The situation, at least as I have experienced it, is that your defenses are often so terrible, it often isn't worth it to cheat your defense up, as you are still going to get hit. The problem is if you don't cheat your defenses up, then you aren't draining your opponent's better cards from their hands, leaving them free to use them to offset your attacks. So learning when and how to drain good cards from your opponent's hand, even knowing your model is still ultimately going to be hit anyway, is one of the harder skills to learn when playing Ressers. Otherwise it can often feel like you opponent is hitting model after model after model, and you only hit occasionally."

What do you guys think about this quote?

I played my first game today, it was a small game we played with henchmen rather then masters and 25ss but i'll admit it was a ton of fun! I love me some Huggy already!

Randomly: any thoughts on Tara's new toy in the Wave 5 beta?

Remember Barrows is a fucking manlet. His wanted poster says he's 5' 11"

They're just unconventional masters, they aren't unbeatable.

Brewmaster = stay the fuck away from his bubble or push him away.

Hamelin = Kill the fucking rats before they turn in to rat kings, not rocket science.

I don't know about them, but I just put the normal skeeters together and they're a pain.
>, they aren't unbeatable
Unfun ≠ unbeatable

They are adding so many manlets to this game. Just look at the new masters. Zipp is like 5'6", and Parker is about is bad. The alt Joss is especially egregious. You can see why you can't hire him and regular Joss in the same crew, because it would erode Alexi's self confidence.

...

>tfw you play Hamelin, Brewmaster, Kirai and Reva because you like to crush dreams.

That actually looks easier than the skeeters I just did.

What do So'mer lists tend to look like nowadays? Lenny got nerfed, right?

I never said that they aren't unbeatable.

please read properly

Still the same. Lenny just means that Somer himself doesn't get the Ram buff, it's still awesome as fuck for every other gremlins.

Ah, so that's why Ophelia has shriveled up and died then.

>Lenny got nerfed, right?
Just bought the Somer box. Nerfed how?

He doesn't add rams to the duel totals of models nearby anymore.

Don't fucking lie you worthless piece of fucking shit.
He doesn't add Auto ram results to leader models anymore.

Damn. That's a pretty huge nerf.

I could see changing it to non-master Gremlins, or even changing it to minions only. But dumping it completely seems harsh.

Ah. That seems more sensible. Somer having a 4/4b/8bb all the time sort of showed up other ranged masters. Seamus's flintlock especially.

I guess Somer can still do that but, it takes a couple cards at least.

Shriveled more anyways. She sort of always suffered from being a less versatile version of So'mer.

Maybe Somer is just too good.

Seriously, is there anything he can't do? He fucks with hands, he operates with bayou two card easily, he summons.

Yeah. He's pretty much a boss. He summons, does crew support, can read someone's hand and is a beater to top it all off. With loudest squeal he's even got built in sneaky movement shenanigans.

He definitely deserves the biggest hat in the bayou.

I'm glad I got the metal model though, the plastic one is terrible.

I hope you mean the blunderbuss shooting one. because the original sculpt is pure ass.

Naw. I definitely prefer the original. The blunderbuss it's okay. The ridiculous ice skating Somer is bad.

Come to think of it, I think I've got some snow flock. I might have to model him skating on ice.

I don't have a camera at the moment, sorry.

There are three poses of that model, so one of each.

It's two pretty basic schemes:
Bestial Brown cloak and Tentacle Pink dress, gloss black boots and gloves, Balthasar Gold metals, Elf Flesh skin, white hair.
Washed all over with Seraphim Sepia and re-lighted.

The other one is Sotek Green and a GW nearly-Navy Blue, gloss black leathers again, Skull White skin, washed all over with blue.
That one doubles as a Silent One when I need it, hence the blues.

Pic Related is a Lilith standby, for if/when I get my tiny Neverborn contingent playable.
Again, mine's painted similarly.

Match: Saxophone. It's a trombone. Fucking Captcha.

That's why everything has H2W and or H2K and/or a billion fucking Wds.
You drain the opponent's hand by tempting them to push up from ---flip to -flip, because otherwise they are almost guaranteed nothing but chip damage for the full three turns of combat.
The low Moderates are for occasionally bumping over their low successes.
And you save the Severes and high Moderates for landing attacks you need to land, or summons.

They aren't an offensive faction, they are an area-control one.

I say this as someone who plays against them though - the one saving grace of Joss, the slow-ass chunk of ass, is that he will output 6 Damage every turn, which is usually two or four points more than the rest of the crew against Ressurs.

It's not rocket science, but it's not easy or a particularly useful trade if you haven't taken a very long threat range damage dealer, unless your opponent is trash.

They need to stop trying to side-fix Somer and just sort out his card.

He is shootier than Ophelia and one of the best summoners and among the best card-drawers in the game.
You can't keep balancing the faction around Somer, because then he's the only relevant Master.

It is non-Master, the other guy is full of shit.

Do you use custom scheme markers, bases with something on them (items, weapon, etc) or just empty bases?

I mostly use empty bases. I think I'm going to do custom corpse markers using headstones.

The problem, is since most markers are height 0, there's not a lot you can put on them and still have other models for on top.
Somer's summoning I'm that great. It's not very resource intensive, which is the best you can say for it. I pretty much never summon past turn one, because I've got better things to do with master Ap.

His shooting probably should be toned down though. Maybe replace thinking luck with something like the slug trigger on shot guns or downgraded to normal dumb luck.

Wow, just read up on So'mer. He really does it all, doesn't he?

I just use plastic circles with faction logos etched on them. I can't really put anything substantial on top of the marker as models need to be able to stand on top of it.

Any insight into why Ressers apparently have less tourney representation than other factions? Is it as simple as "it's a summoning faction, you have to buy a lotta shit"?

Advice on how to expand a Dreamer crew? I'm thinking Stitched Together, Insidious Madnesses, Doppelganger, and Widow Weaver are immediate buys. Teddy, Lelu, and Lilitu are maybes. I absolutely adore the fluff and rules of the Bandersnatch but I've never heard anyone talk about its actual effectiveness.

I think it's mostly that. All of their masters are pretty solid.

It might also have to do with multi master point pool tournaments being harder in them, because a lot of the matters want themed crews.

Getting into Ressers, putting together a strategy for purchasing, painting, and playing.

Phase 1: Seamus + McMourning boxes (Faction staples in crews, straightforward Masters)

Phase 2: Nicodem + Molly boxes (More staples, getting into Summoner playstyle)

Phase 3: Kirai + Yan Lo boxes (More personalized crews, getting into Spirit theme)

Phase 4: Reva + Tara boxes (Very personalized crews, Reva is real strong, Tara is the odd one out)

High Priority/Interest:
Archie
Datsue Ba
Toshiro
University of Transmortis box
Carrion Emissary
Izamu the Armor
Rafkin
Yin the Penangalan
Dead Doxies
The Drowned
Goryo
Guild Autopsies
The Hanged
Necropunk
Night Terrors
Shikome
Mindless Zombie

Lower Priority/Interest:
Anna Lovelace
Graveyard Spirit
Bete Noire
Forgotten Marshal
Hayreddin
Rogue Necromancy
Carrion Effigy
Dragur
Gaki

Not Interested:
Dead Rider
Jaakuna Ubume
Sloth
Crooked Men

Any thoughts to contribute?

Seems pretty ambitious.

I might pick a single master and try them out first, picking up more stuff to add to thier crew until you've got enough overlap to segue into another crew/master.

Grabbing some of the book one boxes is a good idea, since they have the most overlap.

where can i get similar buildings?

Not him, but check out black Maria and bad mojo.

That building is from 4ground

Phase 1: Seamus + McM + Necropunks
Phase 2: Nico + Molly + Mindless Zombies + Drowned
Phase 3: Kirai + Yan Lo + Datsue Ba + Izamu
Phase 4: Reva + Tara + Yin + Toshiro

Additional Summons (highest priority if you're mostly playing Nico/Kirai/Molly)
Shikome, Goryo, Night Terrors
University of Transmortis, Guild Autopsies

High Priority (after the Emissary, order depends on your favorite masters)
The Hanged
Carrion Emissary
Dead Doxies
Archie
Rafkin
Scion of the Void
Death Marshals

Necropunks are basically a faction staple, and some masters really just ought to have certain boxes. You're just not going to play Nico without Mindless Zombies or Yan Lo with zero ancestors.

I have themed bases for my two main crews - theatre stage boards for Showgirls and coal for the construct-y ones.

>Somer's summoning isn't that great.
No, it itself isn't incredible, but the fact that it is so cheap, the summons can be healed so easily, and he switches so goddamn well into a damage-dealer, is just a pain in the arse.
Basically >Wow, just read up on So'mer. He really does it all, doesn't he?

Maybe also there's traditionally been a slightly snotty attitude about running out of time to finish a game at tournaments - an undercurrent of "if you can't play a summoner fast enough to finish Turn 5 in 120 minutes every time, don't".
At least in the UK.

4ground are good, PlastCraft are decent (if a little pricey).

As the other guy said, it seems a little balls-deep for the sake of it.

You're not going to get most of that on the table for a year, and even then unless you are playing daily you won't learn to use most of it properly.

What do you play at the moment?
Is there a more natural transition you could do, like 10T to Yan Lo/Kirai?

Thanks for the responses. Since it seems I've given the wrong impression, I'm not buying all of it in rapid succession. I was just trying to put together a gameplan; i.e., I'll start by playing Seamus and/or McMourning for awhile and expand their hires.

>Not Interested: Jaakuna Ubume

She's really decent with Kirai into holding points strats when you have healing in the crew - the big aura and damage output is a pain in the dick.

Especially on Guard the Stash, if you can get her in position to Lure people off a marker, or force them to stand in her aura, she does owrk.

Ah, well in that case I'd not bother really trying to plan in that way.
Play your two main crews, cover the gaps in capabilities, and expand into models you liek the look of.

But I can understand the appeal of theory-crafting your progression in the mean time.

The Emissaries didn't get Wave 4 Master-specific upgrades, right? Any indication they're coming? Not that they really need the buff.

Nope. They aren't getting upgrades in Wave 5 either. At least, that is what I have been told by people doing the playtests. It compensates for the general powerlevel of the Wave 4 masters I suppose.

No, none Wave 4, noneexpectedWave 5, as far as I know.
Giving them more time to settle, as they are mostly pretty strong.