Vmag

When the trial rules/puppets were posted a while back I made up temporary puppet cards in powerpoint in order to try out the proposed rule set. I've since updated these puppet cards to the current stats posted on the site. I guess what I'm looking for from the community is a bit of proof-reading. The link for the powerpoint on Google Docs is below, no password req'd. The cards don't look quite right (image is too dark) unless you download the file and open in powerpoint. The cards were designed as squares with the upgrade along the side, the idea being that the card being attached could be placed under the attaching puppets card such that the upgrade info sticks out the bottom of the attaching puppets card. Also, if you desire to print these, I've found that printing them as handouts with 4 cards per page works pretty well. Please let me know if there are any errors! thanks!! https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxrZn1mJFH5KQlpBX05KMFA5NjQ/edit?usp=sharing

Puppets with a Cb of 0 may still attack, they just don't flip any cards to do so (so basically you attack only with cards in your hand instead of flipping).

I meant 'identity crisis' to mean that it doesn't seem to be clear what market share PWs is chasing after; casual wargame, hardcore wargame, boardgame, casual boardgame, etc. This isn't necessarly a bad thing but it does make it a little more difficult to offer up suggestions when we don't really know what the target is. That's why I was saying that if the goal is to gain a larger audience in the more casual boardgamer realm then I can understand some of these changes such as the 'dumbing' down of each puppet. One of the things that gave me an immediate negative twinge for Unstitched was learning that the Puppets listed on the site now are the ONLY Puppets that will be included in the starter set. And I can't help but wonder if maybe this could be part of the issue with bland puppets as well; there are simply more of the same type as opposed to the nice variety in the original starter. I can probably count on one hand with two amputated fingers how many times we've played a game with more than one of the same Puppet (I do not actually have any amputated fingers). I'm not trying to say that the Puppets didn't get more bland, they clearly did, but would it help if there were more variety of similarly bland puppets? Also, are we basing all of our opinions of gameplay on 1 vs 1 games? I haven't seen any reporting back at all for 3-player games... This wouldn't change the flavor of the puppets but it may definitely swing it away from feeling like super Chess.

It seems to me that PWs is still having an identity crisis. sssk's case studies above do a fine job of demonstrating this I think. I've mentioned before that Unstitched seems like PW's-lite. This is all fine and good if that's the purpose and the target audience is the casual boardgamer. The Unstitched version definitely fits that role better than the original I think. But I'm still not quite certain that it is there yet. If you were coming into either version without any previous Malifaux experience or knowledge would the game be as appealing? I know I really connected with the puppet versions of well-known Malifaux characters and it clicked right away why some puppets could do what they could. I'm not sure that this translates very well to those unfamiliar with Malifaux. Aesthetic is a big part of the game (at least for me) and I think a lot of that is lost for those players that have no idea what a Guild Austringer is or why Pokey Viktoria is an entertaining name. As for the blandness, yeah, I agree that the puppets definitely have been simplified and this can lead to bland puppets. I think it also speeds up the game since there is less analysis paralysis, especially for those that would only ever play this as a casual game maybe 2-3 x's a year. The blandness also reduces the perception to the casual player that this game is too complicated to even try. I'm not saying I enjoy the blandness but I think it may be a necessary evil if the purpose of re-releasing PWs is to capture a wider, non-gamer audience. That's a big 'if' too. But I don't know what the purpose of a re-release would be otherwise.

I'd say most of our games range from about 50-70 min but have had at least one go about 3+ hrs. Heck, a few times we've left the game at the start of a new turn and came back to it the next day or later the same day so it's kinda hard to estimate those game lengths. ThePandaDirector has some excellent factors listed above. For us it'd be primarily conversation/smack talk/in-game event description that adds to game length (and a lot of the fun actually). Taking this out of the equation I bet games could drop down to the 40-45min range that sssk mentioned too.

Had a few more games over the weekend (still just 1 on 1 so far though). Move stat- Not really seeing the need for the added characteristic since most puppets still move the standard 2 spaces. It may be just as easy to retain the old system of moving 2 as a base stat then including any move changes under the Abilities of the puppet (i.e. Ronin:Ability:This Puppet may move three spaces during an Animation instead of two). The only real benefit I could see to adding this stat to each puppet card would be if there are already certain Abilities/Actions in the works that are relying on such a stat (maybe something like a Doppleganger that can copy a stat of another puppet). Guild Austringer- Wow, this guy does seriously kick some butt (with Lady J backing him up) and we've only had one in our games so far, I'd hate to face two or three. I think the Combat of 1 does help balance this power out. I was going to suggest a possible hike (like sssk recommended) in AR by 1 or 2 but I think with any other Master or when he is outside of LJ's buff range the AR is fine as-is. The upgrade is really really good too, I'd put it on par with or even better than Seamus's Hide and Seek. Moving without taking an Action resulting in no Exhausted is still a good change I think, this coupled with no more Blocking does make for a more mobile game. Still getting used to the absence of Blocking, just a matter of rethinking moves I believe. Upgrades- It'd still be nice to have access to the opponent's Scrap Heaps in some way other than the immediate action right after tearing up an adjacent Puppet. Would a single Scrap Heap for all players be a little over the top? Attachment Difficulty would apply whether it was your puppet or not but everyone's puppets enter the same Heap and all Puppets can draw from that pool (sorta like stuffing and bits laying all over the floorboards for anyone to pick up).

We've played a few games so far but have pretty well stuck with Justice vs Seamus games(all in-suit puppets with two out-of-suit puppets on each side). Can't really say much about the activation requirements because of our choice in master/puppets, it really didn't seem to be a big hurdle to jump in order to animate puppets each round. We did get to utilize upgrades much more in these games which added some nice spice to the games. The ability to immediately try to attach an upgrade after ripping apart an adjacent enemy puppet was great, however, unless we missed something again, this seems to be the only way to attach enemy upgrades. We liked that the workbenches are no longer needed for attachments in general, but we were thinking that it may be nice to perhaps still be able to stand on an enemy workbench and have access to their scrap heap. The puppets being streamlined (i.e. stripped of abilities/actions) did actually seem to work pretty well. At first I thought that this loss would result in a lot of bland one-dimensional puppets. But really this didn't seem to bother us at all, they all still did basically what they did before just without all the bells and whistles. I never liked referring to Puppet Wars as 'Malifaux-lite' but I can't help but to think that Puppet Wars Unstitched is to Puppet Wars what Puppet Wars is to Malifaux. Change to Aces- I don't think we really had any issues with this change. It was a fun, if somewhat confusing to first-timers, feature in the original rules but the change to a straight 1 and double suit seemed to be just fine for us. They were still used successfully to dodge with from time to time, just not quite as uber-good as they used to be. It may be just the way we play or the puppets we were using but it did seem like it took quite a while for puppets to get torn apart in our games. Not sure if this is a similar experience to others that have played so far. For what its worth though, we did probably have our most epic and fun game of PW with this version. Any game that ends with all puppets torn apart save for Seamus with one stitch and Glowy Claws facing down the Judge and a one stitch Lady Justice is pretty awesome.

Couple of little questions that came up during some of our games: Cherub's Can't Say No to You- could this be used on an Enemy Puppet who is standing on one of their work benches to take a Mine! action and turn that workbench into one of yours? Executioner's Not So Fast- How does this interact with Bete Noir's Under the Bed? Does the Executioner get his attack because she is leaving that space or does returning to the Toybox not count for this? Seamus' Scary Face- does the ace of crows count as two crows for the purpose of playing one crow to prevent one rip? Thanks!

Is the Upgrade side to Bete Noir supposed to be an Action (as printed) or an Ability? Seems like it may have been meant to be an Ability...

Huh, yep, guess we overlooked that in our excitement to try it out!

I see Counters tossed around here and there in the rules but there really doesn't appear to be anything that specifically addresses what they are and how they work in the game. My guess would be that they do not go away at the end of the turn just like the previous edition. The only way it seems to realize this is to read between the lines of step 3 of the turn sequence where it states to end effects (which implies that counters do not end?). May be a good point to clarify for new gamers if Counters are going to continue to be used in this edition. Overall the changes in this edition make me think of Puppet Wars-lite. This isn't a bad thing, just what first springs to mind. Faster puppets, easier to animate, less need of cards for specific puppet actions (since very few have any). I do think the changes to how attaching an upgrade works will be a lot of fun. This was one of those features in the original game rules that caught my attention. Unfortunately our games never seemed to end up with many puppets with any sort of upgrades so this whole feature seemed to disappear for us. Nice to see that it will be a LOT easier to use now. I'm not sure about the new 'choose your own workbench' option at the start of the game. In a quick play-through last night we had Seamus vs Lady Justice (3 pawns each, 1 sidekick, all from suit). Played on the first map, Seamus took the right-most bench, Justice in the middle. Seamus deployed to the top of his bench, Justice to the bottom-right of hers. Justice went first with Judge, Judge walked 2 toward Seamus and got off Pins and Needles with Powerful +1 from being within Rg 2 and LOS of Justice. Seamus tried to dodge both attacks, failed, died before taking a turn. Now I know this was a just-so type of situation and not really what I'm basing my hesitance of the 'choose your workbench' option on, but it did make us go, 'huh'. Maybe adding a choice of workbench that is X number of spaces away from an already selected bench may make this work a little better? I don't really know how to alter the bench selection process, I like the idea, just not sure about the execution. Looking forward to many more play-throughs. Can't wait to see the final product!

You are correct, the Exhausted Puppet does not suffer a rip exactly for the reason you gave.

Nice write-up! Is this the start of a PullMyFinger, Jr.? :1_Happy_Puppet1: I haven't used the Nurse much at all, mostly because it seemed very situational compared to other options available so it's good to see someone else's take from all angles. I think generally I'd agree, CB 0 kinda stinks but then again that means 0 chance for a Black Joker popping up and ruining the attack altogether. Thanks again!