Malifaux General: Speculation edition

I remember that Von Schill got a nice one that lets him obey his guys to shoot. It comes with a + flip to the shots, and if anything dies you get a stone. Misaki (In the playtest at least) got an upgrade that lets her put the blasts from rolling thunder anywhere on the board, though I imagine that it may have changed since the playtest.

Von shill ordering trappers to shoot sounds amazing

Welp, while I appreciate the upgrades for old Masters, it looks like they are committing to power creep with an eye to a reset in two or so years.

The Lady J rush, for example, just became immediately game-winning if you get it off.

Hopefully they use it to balance the less-popular Masters (not just super-boost everyone).

Are there any fun ways for Levi to break this?

I really think that Lady Justice deserves what she got. She has always been one of the more unassuming Guild masters, with even Lucius becoming pretty good in her absence. I do agree that buffing the overall weak masters is what they should do though. Asami for instance isn't getting any new Oni or models that are really going to help her out in Broken Promises, but the upgrades that she is getting really have the opportunity to make her on par with the other summoners in the game, rather than just being a strictly worse choice.

Power creep is something that I can see somewhat, as they are trying to sell people new models after all. It was even worse with let's say Confrontation, where you had straight up better versions of older models come out. They were able to fix things with Age of Ragnarok, but that iteration had its own problems. I can't see Wyrd doing a refresh however unless they release a completely new edition, which would be pointless as the core game is pretty solid as it is IMO. Malifaux is in a better state than Warmahordes and Guild Ball at least.

Doubtful - Df2 is just appalling, and he's expensive.
He rarely sees play with Rasputina, and as far as I know flat doesn't see any with other Masters.
Though seeing he's a Construct, I wonder if Mei Feng could safely cart him up the board.

What does Levi do for Constructs?

Yeah, it was a bit of a knee-jerk reaction.

Swordfighter is a good, powerful ability, letting her deal decent damage and then lock down a big chunk of a crew, and improving her already beefy scalpel potential.
It is expensive in AP/cards though, and at what I guess (with little experience) is a good cost/benefit point.

I just hope they are careful with what comes out - selective about who gets big bumps in potential and who gets a couple of interesting tricks.

For Asami, for instance, I would hope that tehy help her utility angle, rather than just make it easier to summon.
She's often played locally as a bit of a missile boat, almost independent of what the rest of the hired crew is up to, so if they just make it easier to sprout Yokai I will be disappointed.

>For Asami, for instance, I would hope that tehy help her utility angle, rather than just make it easier to summon.
I agree with you there. General versatility and support options would make her nice. I have thoroughly enjoyed using heavenly design to teleport her near a bunch of scheme markers, and then just eating them to deny my opponent their scheme. Things like that can make her more handy.

He can hire any non gremlin construct so I was wondering if there was some cross faction synergy.
Only thing I could think of us use Rusty alice or monkey paw to give him reactivate. Or use a metal gamin to give him Def 6

I'd be very interested in hearing what's going on with Colette, if leakAnon is still about.

I've found it surprising just how much not being able to get a second Prompt off on the same target occasionally has negatively affected how versatile she is.
I always found a large part of her power being just how reactive she could be, whereas now you still need to plan as thoroughly as you would any other Master, and she's arguably less effective at Prompting than Lucius is at Commanding, and it falls short of an Obey.

Obviously triple-Prompt Howard is noobstrat, I'm not sorry that's gone.

I do wonder if the people saying that she's a shit-tier Master just don't realise she does things other than summong, and does them very well.

So he has no Construct buffs or anything like that?

Then definitely no, there are better places to spend that 10ss, especially in Outcasts.

Shit, you might as well get Howard if you were going to the Arcanists.

Maybe you could use an outcast model or some other construct to remove the insignificant condition from anything that is tossed?

I figured as much but I wanted to see if I was missing something. At least that's one less box I need to get
Johan is all I can think of

So do we have more Upgrade info?

Is there somewhere we can look at it?

Did any resser stuff get leaked?

>tfw you love everything about malifaux except the system, which you find to be incredibly clunky compared to other systems currently out

Sigh

The system itself is pretty solid though. If you mean the individual models and the many varied rules that they operate by, then that is another manner.

Well, it's a few things

>all those cards in front of you during a game
>the models, while pretty much amazing across the board, have some serious overhang issues that I've never heard the company acknowledge as something they'd fix
>you've gotta bring everything you own to a game. Other games have you bring a list, usually two for a tourney. Malifaux deciding not to go along with something like this drives me up the wall.

I'd like to think it's these three things that prevent me from dropping WMH, Infinity, and 40k and just going fully malifaux.

Hey do you know what upgrades Shenlong and McCabe are getting?

The models overhanging their bases has become less of an issue in recent time, it's not as bad as you think though, because the minimum range for melee is 1", so there's plenty of room to position your models. Obviously there are stupid exceptions like skeeters and the brass arachnid with should really be on 50mm bases.

You don't HAVE to bring everything you own to a game, I usually just bring 2 masters that complement each other and a handful of options. Some masters can do a fixed crew and bring 2-3 extra models and have everything they need to cover most schemes, Marcus for example. If you do choose to bring a whole faction with you to a game, it's no more than bring a small 40k army, I can fit my entire Resser faction (easily the one with the most models) in a 2 case KR bag.

All of the cards can get clunky for sure, I'll give you that. They are a necessary evil though. To be fair, I prefer it to 40k because when I want to check a model's stats or rules I don't have to flip through a book trying to find the right page.

You should probably just give Malifaux a go anyway, these aren't big issues desu.

wow this game still gets updated? that's pretty cool. i remember playin the banditos when it first came out.

Glad to see another Malifaux thread on Veeky Forums, there hasn't been one for a few weeks.

who's the guy on the cover?

I would love a sumarui or ronin themed crew

Once a year the game gets a big update, as well as FAQ/Errata every 6 months.

Ototo, he's park of the MIsaki set.

The overhang issue isn't even a rules thing though, and doesn't pop up with the newer models. It is far better than WMH in that sense. The cards are just there for reference, I don't see how it is different from having to look at the rules for models in other games especially others that have stat cards like WMH. The ad hoc list building in tournaments is hardly an issue when you aren't going to be changing your crews too wildly, and you are told the schemes and strats beforehand. I went 2-1 at the last tournament I went to and I didn't change my list at all through the course of the event. Sure, 1st edition was clunky. But in its current state the only real issue comes down to individual models.

exactly this, any good TO will put the strats and schemes in the players pack, then all you need to do is build core lists and tailor them before each game if it's really necessary

thats sculpt isn't nearly as cool XD

A full crew is like 8 models though. That is less than any of the games that you mentioned, so even transporting two entire sets isn't that hard. Hell, I don't even know how you can call Malifaux clunky logistically or mechanically compared to 40K which mandates much more in the way of logistics and rules.

The one in the illustration will probably become and alt model, kind of like Francisco and Bishop got similar alts with similar poses.

>The one in the illustration will probably become and alt model,
God I hope so - the art looks utterly badass, the current model looks like an Animaniacs still.

Sup Malifaux thread, I am looking to branch out from GW games so I have put a message in Infinity, Warmachine and now Malifaux to decide which game to go with.

Any advice on how to start Malifaux for someone who only found out about it's existence less than half an hour ago.

It's pretty hard to get into comparatively, but this is coming from a newbie who only had three matches to name to his belt.

This is a double edged sword, as tougher rules also means that it's more skill intensive. Sometimes (or even quite often) it's better to follow the mission objectives rather than kill the opponent (it's even possible to win with 0 models on the board.

As a beginner, settle for one faction that you like the look of, since models can be used by all masters of a faction.

wyrd-games.net/malifaux-factions/

To add to this, start with a master box that appeals to you, they at least give an idea of how to use them, though you will need to expand to really figure out the finer points.

The core rules for Malifaux are free, Wyrd's website should have a link for them if you want to check it out.

Best way to start the game is to pick a master and pick up their crew box and a fate deck, this should be enough for you to learn the game mechanics in a small game, once you've played a few games you should have an idea of what you are looking for to expand your crew to 50ss, (50 soulstones is the level of points the game is mostly played at, soulstones being model points value.)

Other small things you will need are a tape measure, whiteboard marker, sleeves for your cards (Standard/MTG sized) and 10 or so 30mm markers for use during game play (You can make these from cardboard)

Wyrd's website has plenty of informaton to help you choose which master you would like to play. If you have a specific playstyle or theme you are interested in post a reply and I'll try and point you towards a similar master/

Looking to get into Malifaux, is the starter set worth it or should I just find a faction I like and look around their units?

Outcasts seem the most interesting to me from an initial read.

Eh, its nice (especially since it comes with 2 decks and tape measures) and a great way to learn playing, but you probably won't use them much with Outcasts. What Masters are you looking into?

Mostly going by what looks coolest I'd say Viktorias, Parker, Misaki and Tara all seem the most interesting.

Von Shill provides a solid backdrop and is, I believe, relatively easy to learn the game with, but all of the masters you mentioned (apart from perhaps Tara, but she ain't too bad) are relatively straight forward (which is what you wat, as a beginner, Malifaux is difficult enough as is).

This link can give you a good idea of what Master boxes combine well.

schemesandstones.wordpress.com/2016/08/27/building-on-a-budget-outcasts/

Oh yeah, check used mini lot deals too. Sometimes you can pick up great value there.

A bit of a run down on these masters..

Viks - Hit fast and hard, glass cannon master. They either shred the other crew or get shredded, win big or lose big. High risk/reward.

Parker - Cycles through his upgrades during the game so he has the right tool for the job, crew focuses on shooting and scheme marker manipulation.

Misaki - human guided missile, will usually dive in to the other crew, kill a few key pieces before being killed herself. Very good at assassinating targets.

Tara - the only master in the game that can activate twice in a turn. Effectively picks up her beater models then dumps them in the middle of the enemy crew, then proceeds to run objectives while the other crew is dealing with them. Able to give her models extra actions and take them from the other crew. She takes a little finesse to play but can be brutally efficient in the hands of a competent player.

Does Carlos Vasquez play better out of Colette or Kaeris?

Coming in as a new player I'm tossing up between a mechanical outcast or a creepy neverborn. Can anyone give me a quick explanation of how each would work on the tabletop?

I think overall, Arcanists do the mechanical better, what with Ramos and Mei Feng being built around constructs. Hoffman in Guild is also a consideration.

So is this game like warmachine in as much as you choose a warcaster/master and build your force around that?

And who chose those pictures in general? As a veteran of the game, if I can't pick who of the pictures are supposed to be, something might be wrong.
I'd guess random redhead is Sonnia, black haired woman is.....some neverborn thing? but the might be the other way just as easily.

I wish that the games were just faster.

Heck, more varied objectives for henchman hardcore would maybe solve that issue.

See if you have a local community (go to local FLGS, or look up "[city name] malifaux" on google and facebook.

Read up a touch on the fluff, rules, models, see if it grabs you. If yes, try to find someone to ask for a game of henchman hardcore - small game that should take less than 60 minutes.

Competetive crew selection isn't a thing as much as the rules make it- don't face jerks who counter pick newbies too hard, play lists for fun.

Some masters want synergy more than others. But I just like to play fluff and make my crew work together, when I play Zoraida it's just a bunch of models I want to take running with a witch who makes them better.

The objectives of the particular game hugely influence these things. But I've played enough to more accurately spot when I picked wrong in hindsight than to be able to give advice on how to build well for the objectives.

More so you pick a master that can run a crew to achieve your objectives, some masters are better are some strategies and schemes than others.

Redhead is most likely Lilith, blakc hair girl is Perdita (You can see her hat), this means every faction is repped on the cover.

Putting Lenny on the front cover was probably a poor choice, unless he ends up crucial to the story. Would have been better to put Somer on the cover.

>another limited upgrade
Oh goodie.

Also for Misaki doesn't sound particularly good. Even if it can be done all across the field, if it only triggers from Rolling Thunder it means giving up a + to your attack and damage, meaning you'll have to focus to do a whopping 2 or 3 damage across the field.

Any idea on what they're doing for the Brewmaster? I swear to god, if Wyrd is going to give poison another go I will flip my shit. It's never worked, it's not going to work, can they please for the love of god just give him an actual buff rather than constantly adding to the already never used part of his playstyle.

With Lady J's upgrade being so good I imagined the other weaker masters also getting some big buffs. The Misaki bit worries me.

Mechanical Outcasts would typically be Leviticus with Pariah of Iron. He and the constructs will often be doing their own thing, but you can sacrifice the constructs for your own benefit occasionally. That and you will want to use the scrap markers your constructs drop in order to make abominations, which can be pretty fucking mean once you have a decent amount running around.

Creepy Neverborn can be a lot of things. I suppose that Pandora would make the most sense as she is all about WP duels. You generally try to get your opponent into your WP duel bubbles while damaging and debuffing them. You really have a lot of options for that, with even non woes like Barbaros and the Autumn Knights helping you force duels.

>Lenny
My guess is that he's going to have a major change in the fluff. To set up a future attempt to nerf Somer.

I don't really see how a nerf to Somer would be anything that is reflected in the fluff. They would probably just errata something as they have been. The changes which The Dreamer and Colette got didn't correlate with any of the fluff.

Bump

...

>Tara
From what I know of her, she seems to have a pretty high skill floor and ceiling.
It might be worth learning to play the game 'normally' before playing it with her.
I know two players at my FLGS struggled with her for months before givingup, because they couldn't find a satisfying, fun, effective way to play her.

The Viks and Misaki give you nice direct playstyles, and Parker does too with a little more shenanigans.

Can confirm, Tara was my first master when I started in October. I still don't have a proper hang of her

>Heck, more varied objectives for henchman hardcore would maybe solve that issue.

So just add the schemes back in as normal.

There will be some that are nearly impossible, so you won't pick them, but otherwise I don't see it being a huge problem.

Or just play at 35ss - I feel like the game still goes fine at that level.

One face per faction.
I think the only odd one is Panora/Lillith.
She looks more like Pandora to me, but the apparent attitude doesn't really fit her character - it's a more Lilith-y expression.

>if Wyrd is going to give poison another go I will flip my shit
Get ready to flip your shit, son.
They are stubbornly committed to making it work, so I will be amazed if at least one of the new cards isn't a ".now. poison's totally viable u guise" Upgrade.

I fucking new they would do new master upgrades!

It's really the only way to go,doubly so with so many of the new Masters overshadowing the older ones, and the community settling back into whinging about Master Tiers surprisingly quickly.

I would personally say a mid level skill floor, she takes a little more to learn than the average master, but not a whole lot. She just does a lot of things and still has a bit of a stigma from before she received changes. Even a new player will get good value out of her if they use her effectively as a scheme runner, arguably her core use or to drop a beater on the other crew.

I can see her being tricky for new players that just don't know how to run schemes though, learning how and when to run schemes was the biggest hurdle for me when I started the game because it's so different to every other tabletop game I've played.

Running schemes is where her core crew shines, void wretches and Tara her self are fantastic scheme runners.

Necessary for the came's health in my opinion as a lot of wave 1 masters are being totally overshadowed by wave 4 masters.

Now that Reva is a thing I can't actually think of any reason to ever take Seamus again, previously he was only competing with McMourning in crew selection for me, and now it's McMourning competing with Reva.

And then there's Gremlin master Balance, Somer, Wong and Zipp really outshine the others currently, hopefully wave 5 will bring Mah, Brewmaster and Ophelia up a notch so whenever I play one of them I don't feel like I'm shooting myself in the foot.

I'm curious to see what Levi, Hamelin, and Jack get. They don't really need a power boost, so it'd be a good opportunity to push them into different playstyles.

How would you guys say that the oldest Malifaux plastic miniatures compare to the newest ones? Did they get a lot better, or are they generally sculpted to the same standard?

Still plenty of necessarily small pieces to piss us off.

hahah current Malifaux is so bloated its unreal

The core system is fine. It's just the actual models that are the issue.

Get ready to be disappointed, that's all i'm saying

Which flavour of disappointment, gremlin or resser?

>Necessary for the came's health in my opinion

Yup, absolutely.
It's not simply W4>W1 though.

There's a lot of the top tournament podcasters - Twavis Reyforth and co. for example - that reckon that Sandeep renders Colette irrelevant, and as you note Reva outclasses Seamus in virtually every way.
All the 10T locals at my FLGS say they only plan non-Shlong/McCabe for the flavour as there is virtually nothing those two can't do at least as well as any other Master.
Somer, followed by Wong and Zipp, render the entire rest of that faction irrelevant.
I've seen the opinion bandied about a lot that there's no need to play anything other than Nellie or Sonia(/Perdita) as Guild, though I feel like McMourning is still very good.

The game needs a re-levelling to at least bring the specialists up to a point that they are better at their specialisms than the current Faction dominators.
I'm just not sure that's possible, given how the current tops are designed.

Do Ressers have anything like that? Like do Reva, Nico, and Kirai basically beat out the rest of the faction? Reva aside people seem far more split in their rankings of the faction's masters.

Nah, it's pretty much Reva, Kirai and Nico. Then you have McMourning and Molly and at the bottom are Yan, Tara and Seamus.

For Guild - Nellie/Sonnia/Perdita>McCabe>McMourning/Hoffman/Lady J (Lucius I don't know post errata, probably still at the bottom)

Arcanists - Sandeep>Marcus/Ramos/Colette>Rasputina>>>Mei Feng/Kaeris/Ironsides

Neverborn - Lilith/Dreamer/Collodi>Pandora/Lynch/Titania>Zoraida/Lucius(?)

Outcast - Hamelin/Leveticus/Jack>Parker/Viktorias>Misaki/Tara/Von Schill

Gremlins - Som'er/Zipp/Wong>Ulix>Mah/Ophelia/Zoraida>>>Brewmaster

And for TT - McCabe/Shen>Lynch/Asami>Mei/Yan/Misaki/Brewwie.

>Neverborn - Lilith/Dreamer/Collodi>Pandora/Lynch/Titania>Zoraida/Lucius(?)
sounds about right, though I'd probably put lilith on the lower end of NB top. Man though Zoraida got so much worse from 1,5

How would one go about making Hoff effective? I'm thinking of starting a crew but making them all Construct seems like a trap.

Oh, models in the tiers are more in what order I thought of them rather than strength.

What general tiers would you guys rate the masters?

T1
Sandeep
T1.5
Nellie, Dreamer, Lilith, Hamelin, Leveticus, Som'er, Wong, Ramos, Marcus, Sonnia, Perdita, Reva, Kirai, Nico
T2
McCabe, Colette, Collodi, Pandora, Lynch, Titania, Jack, Parker, Viktoria, Zipp, Ulix, Shenlong, Molly, McMourning(Resser)
T3
McMourning(Guild), Hoffman, Lady J, Lucius(Guild), Mei Feng, Ironsides, Zoraida, Misaki, Tara, Von Schill, Ophelia, Mah
T4
Kaeris, Yan Lo(TT), Brewmaster(TT), Lucius(NvB)
T5
Yan Lo (Resser), Brewmaster (Gremlins)

>It's not simply W4>W1 though.

Certainly, but W4 is definitely a big part of it. A lot of the new masters are great specialists, but also good generalists - they can do just a little too much, too well.

>I'm just not sure that's possible, given how the current tops are designed.

I really don't know how they can keep the game in check without going to M3e at this point. Granted, a lot of the less optimal masters are still great and absolutely playable at a competitive level, but power creep is certainly becoming an issue.

I wonder what we'll see in the July errata? I'm predicting that Wyrd starts changing a few more things as they begin to shape the game for M3e in 1.5 - 2 years time (just a prediction).

>I wonder what we'll see in the July errata?
Hoping for two things: a wind gamin cuddle and a limitation on stuffed piglet spam.

Why specifically for the TT vs Resser Yan Lo placements?

Izamu and Yin are annoying, but accompany them with constant pushes and fast (and a RT on Izamu) and you can get much more out of Yan Lo's constant repositioning.
Also, Yan Lo is not particularly good anyways, but TT listbuilding can generally be done by simply assembling a decent crew and attaching a master to it, moreso than Resser or Gremlins. Make sure one or two models of your crew are Ancestors and voila, you have a TT list with a Yan Lo-y twist.

Really hoping for a stuffed piglet change, stuffed piglet spam is the lamest thing to face.

Kind of torn whether I want to go Outcasts for Jack/Levi/Hamelin/Parker, or Ressers for basically everyone but Seamus but particularly Molly/Nico/Kirai/Yan Lo. Given how many Resser models three of my Outcasts choices can run it's more like "which do I start first" rather than A or B, but...

I hardly think that it is anything bad. We haven't quite reached the 19 c(m)aster per faction threshold, and Wyrd has been petty adamant about not adding in new factions, as opposed to adding a new one in every year like PP. I suppose that I should be preemptively buying Guild Ball models regardless of the current state.

What draws you to Guild Ball? Just as a discussion topic. I've played a few games and found it moderately entertaining but not all that engaging. Model balance feels real off and from what I've heard errata nerfs are overbearing. Also may be a meta thing but the community seems insufferable.

Oh no, I think that it is overrated as well. It has some nice models though. I am just saying that if Malifaux gets as bad as WMH it would be a good candidate to switch to.

Anyone have a decent generalist list for Hamelin?

Isnt it ironic gw realised they needed a blanket rebalance before wyrd?
Even v1 suffered with "new model" syndrome; newer models outpaced older stuff and some things were not worth using.. im looking at all the Monks!

TT at least is a pretty poor example for that. Their general usefulness goes Book 2>4=1>3. Each batch has had some lesser models and most have some nice things in them. If anything, models like the TTB are just so useful that newer models struggle to even get near. Even with the upcoming wave 5 the 5 SS models are situational alternatives at best.

I'm not super sure since i don't play Hoffman, but I'm guessing the idea is to pick models that have some kind of synergy with your constructs, especially the out of faction arcanist ones. I believe Dashel can give + flips to Wardens, which are a great model and the guardian's ability to hand out defensive whilst swinging with MI7 makes him valuable to protect any dangerous model.

An executioner, witchling thrall, papa loco or something like that can quickly become a pain in the ass with a guardian protecting them.

I started ressur and moved into outcasts, then from those two into thunders.
I think you should get Molly and Kirai. Molly can play with spirits and so can Kirai, making them have a lot of good crossover. Pick up The Hanged, Jaakana Ubume and maybe The Drowned to put yourself in a wonderful position to use Jack Daw, whilst all of these spirits will be helfpul to your two spirit users. Molly comes with Crooligans, which can also be used by Hamelin later on.
Then you can either get other useful spirits (Datsu Bae, Shikome, Goryo and finally Gaki would be my order of purchase but it doesn't matter) or look to some of the many other useful ressur models. Nicodem, Seamus and McMourning all have super useful boxes and will team up with those models well, plus Yan Lo comes with Chiaki, who is a pretty sweet model. If you do get Shikome, your Shikome+Onryo will let you do a scary McMourning kill focused crew with poison. When you decide to transition to outcast (which can be at any point in this process really) its best to get Jack Daw first, then if you got a lot of those other ressur models already pick up Leviticus+maybe Ashes and Dust or if you did not get Hamelin plus Brotherhood of The Rat. Pick up Dead Outlaws next to transition to Parker, whilst Killjoy, Johan and maybe Sue are just some generally pretty sweet outcast models.

Doing the reverse transition is a bit harder because without practicing Jack/Levi/Parker/Hamelin are all a bit harder to learn the game with. If you do want to throw yourself in the deep end, I'd say go for Hamelin/Brotherhood of The Rat + Ashes and Dust and Johan, then expand into any outcast master you please. If you can play Hamelin and not have your opponent fall asleep you can play anything.