Viks_Masamune

Sue. Definitely Sue.

Well, she is a dual-faction master, can hire Outcast models, and use Outcast upgrades...so that's pretty 'Outcast'.

Her upgrades are still dual-faction, correct? *Rubs hands gleefully*

Viks got a new movement ability, Parker can ignore Armor. Today was a good day. Although I'm curious to know what Misaki's upgrades were.

While I would also like to see the Viks be a little tougher to bring down, I'm afraid that would almost make them a little too good. I'd be ok with an option that focuses less on them killing stuff, and more with synergy for the rest of the crew, or more movement shenanigans.

I'll just assume that its considered 1 continuous terrain feature then.

You could be right. I took it to mean that you could only be damaged once on the given piece of terrain that you traveled thru. I was under the assumption that you took damage since they are separate HT. I've always understood it to mean that you cannot do: Example-Model is paralyzed, and is lured down a long strand of barbed wire. Model makes one damage flip since he/she is continuously traveling thru said HT. But that you could do: Example-Model walks thru barbed wire, takes a damage flip. Model then walks thru fire, takes another damage flips since its a separate HT feature. It's been a minute since I've played so I very well could be mistaken.

@beergod Thanks, I didn't have the card in front of me so I couldn't remember.

Parker activates and drops Hail of Bullets (back to back) behind enemy model. Once Mad Dog activates he can then rapid fire and use the built in trigger to push the enemy model backwards into HoB. I think Parker has an upgrade that will allow him to "prompt" a model to make a 1AP action, so this might be able to be done on just Parkers activation. It's a simple combo but can work if you pull it off. Mad Dog has a pretty decent damage spread, so if you rapid fire and hit them twice, then thats a minimum 6 damage, plus being pushed thru HoB twice for minimum 4 more.

I'm inclined to agree with @thatlatinspeakingguy. Stalking Bisento has gotten me far further than the disguised upgrade, though the latter upgrade does have some uses. In my own experience, without Bisento, Misaki is more a nuisance than anything. Shes capable of hunting down some scheme runners, or knocking off some previously injured models here and there, but she definitely lacks the knockdown power that alot of the other combat-oriented masters have. Assassinate is too random to reliably count on when it comes to putting down the bigger beasties, and people know to expect it anyway. With Bisento, Recalled Training, and Oath Keeper, Misaki can easily dispatch most models within a turn and since she has a few options to push out of combat already on her card, I find that she is capable of being slippery should I need her to be. I've had minor moments where Disguised has come in handy, but I don't feel its better 90% of the time. Edit-Recalled Training is only for TT faction. When I run her in Outcasts, I usually add Survivalist to make her a little tougher for melee brawling, or Tally Sheet to help fish for Crows.

I have always gravitated more towards Outcasts, but some of these newer models are making me want to branch out a little more. That model render is classy and creepy at the same time, so it might give me an excuse to get the Red Chapel box now. I don't suppose my purchase for a terrain mat on Etsy counts towards the $60? My FLGS does not carry them at this time unfortunately.

This is really cool. I don't practice Tarot, but have always found it interesting.

I would definitely be interested in seeing all the fluff from the rule books condensed into a single, paper back format.

The Viks have the best synergy with the Student and Vanessa, but I've found that you can run a crew without them and still be competitive. I don't own Tara, so I can't really help you there. 9/10 I run the box crew, sans Taelor. I believe that Taelor is a good model; hits hard, good flips against constructs and tyrants, and has great defenses. That being said, she has a terrible walk value, and is usually getting into the fight by no earlier than round 2. While her attacks are good against certain crews, I find her to be situational at best. Since a fully buffed Blood is capable of killing off models quicker and more reliable, I find her to unnecessary most of the time in the Vik crew. The Viks really benefit from some ranged support. I'll second the opinion on Sue, and even Hans has his benefits. Vanessa obviously can heal all the sisters regardless of range or line of sight. Her Arcane staff has a solid attack value, with triggers to draw a card and get blasts. Getting her on the certain line buff's it to a damn near guarantee. One thing that gets overlooked from time to time is that she (as well as the Student) also benefits from Ashes' melee expert when shes in line of sight. While she shouldn't be in melee all that often, it really comes in handy when its applicable. I've always had great luck with Ronin. Can't be charged, Hard to Kill, Defensive Stance without a discard and being fairly quick means I'm getting scheme markers down by turn 2, and you have to waste the AP to get me off that scheme marker. Seppuku is a rather comical action. Let the opponent whittle them down to HTK, on your activation, try and give them a good smack with the Daito, and then commit Sepuku, and collect your cards/soul stones to use on the Viks. The Student is a pretty good model. She can give Fast once a turn to a model in 3 inches, and can use S-in-S as well if the situation dictates it. While I have never used the Malifaux Child, I've heard nothing but great things about him in the crew. That being said, I still find the Student to synergize well, and adds to the fluffiness, if your'e into that too. Hopefully that helps.

In my personal opinion, eh kinda. I believe that the artist holds carte blanche on the final outcome of his or her work. They created it to reflect what they felt at the moment of its inception, and I personally feel that its "wrong" per se, to demand that they change what they do to better fit my particular taste or way of thinking. I personally find the Gremlins faction to be a little too humorous for a gritty, and dark world. To me, it takes away the overall serious tone of the game, and it comes off to me as a comic relief faction. But I have never said to change it, or anything else they have made for that matter. Someone at Wyrd felt that it fit, and added an extra layer to the game. They worked incredibly hard to come up with characters and plot lines for them, and really put their all into making them. Who am I to demand that they replace them? What if they decided, due to my complaints, to not have the Gremlin faction; would it alter the final product that we are looking at here and now? Would a character I love from the Outcasts not have been created or be radically different since they had some over-arch into the Gremlin story, and I asked for them to ditch it? All cheesey movie jokes aside, I am a firm believer in the 'Butterfly effect'. I've always felt that if you force creators to make changes on something that didn't intend to, then it starts to become a vicious cycle where they have to start taking away from what they want to create, in order to make room for the other. And when that creator isn't in the natural flow of personal creativity because we're making demands, then shit gets shoe horned in, and the overall quality starts to slip. I readily accept that I will never love everything that a actor, musician, or creator does. Its a fact. But they're the creative genius, and I am not. They have an overall plan on how their art will come together in the end, how it relates to one another, and a way to make it happen. I do not. I love Wyrd and their products. I love this community. I think we can all agree that Wyrd does an awesome job at doing what they do. So with that being said, I want Wyrd to have complete artistic freedom to carry out their vision of the game, when they feel they're ready to do it, and not because they were forced to. Btw, that was an awesome question. Thanks for asking it, and for giving me a chance to better explain my position.

I'm in a hurry, so I'll respond to your first, although I hope I can respond to @Ludvig soon. (If you're reading this Ludvig, I do want to answer your questions, and give you an answer. Duty calls unfortunately. Please be patient) The article I referenced made no mention of him retracting his statement, granted it could have been an earlier press release. I do not doubt what you said is true, but I'll have to go look myself and get the context. Regardless on if he walked back the comment at a later date or not, he still made the original statement, so obviously some people at Marvel connected the two. And this isn't some junior level writer, or the guy who brings the coffee, nor was this an "off the record" comment where he was just nonchalantly conversing with a fellow worker . Its a Senior Vice President...at a press conference. This guy has the sales figures in front of him on a daily basis, and probably prepared talking points prior to holding a conference. Did he walk it back because he was wrong, or due to fallout? That ultimately remains the question? The art criticism argument is a false equivilence. I never said it was wrong to criticize an artist or their work. Your'e attempting to make the argument that the following are intrinsically linked. The following is purely as an example Art criticism-Dogmantra, I don't find your art style to really speak to me. Not saying its kitsch, but its not my thing. Making demands of the artist-Dogmantra, your art work doesn't fit my style, so I want you to utilize your creativity to target my tastes, instead of what you originally intended. I refer back to my original post on here-If Wyrd wants to include X type of character because they have a pivotal role in a story and X characters race/religion/sexual preferences/creed is central to the plot, then go wild, because it will probably be awesome. But if its just a token character, meant to avoid bad press, or cash in on good press, then it would come across to some folks as pandering. And nice job with the dismissive and patronizing attitude at the end, that takes real talent.

Summoners win games through AP generation and war-via-attrition. As others have said, play your schemes and strats, and don;t get caught up in killing the chaff. Focus on knocking out the those who summon creatures, or when thats not possible, who allow for a much easier time summoning by giving suits, healing, etc. And yes, Taelor can wreck face with summoner crews as Pyre said.

Which is why Anita has stopped lambasting anything and anyone who doesn't agree with her ideas, right? Parody as it may be, she's hardly gotten more humble in her opinions, simply more articulate. And I mention her, not to drag this into a feminism debate, or anything like that, but simply to point out that she has made an entire career out of demanding creators and artist to stop making their own ideas, and instead conform to hers. Just as we have seen with others. Top selling comic books? This year, the New York times dropped comics from its best seller list. Both Marvel and DC have dropped several lines from production because consumers weren't interested in them. Want to take a guess at which ones they were? And yes, Marvel is doing the bullion backstroke with movies, but I'd hasten to point out that the movies adhere to the original characters, not the new ones, and that people of all walks of like enjoy action movies, whether they read comics or not. Marvels own senior vice president of print, sales, and marketing, David Gabriel went on the record in April of this year as saying “What we heard was that people didn’t want any more diversity,” Gabriel told iCv2 after being asked what contributed to changes in customer tastes that led to a drop in sales in October-November. “They didn’t want female characters out there. That’s what we heard, whether we believe that or not.” He also cited economic reasons and Marvel’s release of “too much product” as other possible causes for the downturn in sales. “We saw the sales of any character that was diverse, any character that was new, our female characters, anything that was not a core Marvel character, people were turning their nose up against,” Gabriel added. “That was difficult for us because we had a lot of fresh, new, exciting ideas that we were trying to get out and nothing new really worked.” Gabriel later reached out to iCv2 to clarify his comments, stressing that new heroes Squirrel Girl, Ms. Marvel, The Mighty Thor, Spider-Gwen, Miles Morales, and Moon Girl are indeed popular and “are not going anywhere.” Again, this is not to say that diversity is "bad", or that I hates me sum minorities, but that people don't like having their intelligence insulted. We know what shoehorning is. And yes, I can ignore social stuff, until its given a megaphone and a soapbox. Then it becomes impossible.

(The * were added by me) Modest according to whom? Because we can go in a debate all day about what that definition is to different people. As far as the slippery slope is concerned,head it on over to look at some video game developers and journalists. Heard of Anita "everything is racist, everything is sexist, everything is homophobic, and YOU HAVE TO POINT IT ALL OUT" Sarkessian? That is an actual quote from her. Does that seem modest? Maybe Marvel comics? Hows their bottom line looking after jumping on that bandwagon? Funny; Marvel had demands that they change characters and add more "diversity", and as soon as they did, it tanked. Were those asking for the change comic readers? Or were they more interested in pushing for a social movement? Hey, how about we resser the thread about the one woman who demanded that Malifaux didn't represent enough female characters (ha) and demanded that she be given the title of "Inclusion Czar" or other such nonsense, and threatened Wyrd with legal action. I'm sure she felt that strong arming Nathan into a paid position at Wyrd HQ or suffer the wrath of bad PR was a modest request. Yeah, it is a slippery slope, because you get a small group of individuals who are more interested in the "feelz" department than..ya know...the actual gaming part. And when people say that enough is a enough, make a game and not a social statement, in swoops the "check your privilege" posse to tell them they're nothing but haters and bigots.

I've always believed that those who create "art" in any capacity should be allowed to create it in the fashion they desire, and it should reflect only what the artist wants it to reflect. If people like it, they will naturally gravitate towards it. If its something that doesn't tickle their fancy; they'll find something else. I want Wyrd to do what it does best; and that is create awesome games. If Wyrd feels that a characters sexuality is playing a pivotal role in the story, then by all means, do whatever you feel like. What I don't want Wyrd to become, is a company who starts placing politics,social movements (and their supporters) at the forefront, and put the games (and actual players/ game supporters) on the back burner . I started this hobby to have fun; not begin a demonstration, or call for a movement. There are plenty of other avenues that people can do that with if they choose. I am loyal to Wyrd. I love what they create, and all of my other Miniature games (40K, Sigmar, X-Wing) collect dust while my Malifaux collection grows. But that loyalty only continues as long as its about the games.

I just got my first game with Parker in the other day. He is radically different in play style versus what I typically run. The crew was a lot of fun, but I don;t think my buddy enjoyed the ten minute Parker activations. I did manage to find a couple small-ish combos with him and his crew; nothing too mind blowing, but certainly worth using in certain circumstances. Once I get a firmer grasp on them, I'll probably throw them on here.

While I haven't played Lady J in some time, I did have some luck by running her with the Judge, Scales, and a gunline of 3 riflemen and 2 austringers (if memory serves me correct). I honestly find her to be fairly boring to play. While I appreciate the more kill-y masters (see my name and avatar), I find that she requires little strategy, and lacks a certain charm that others have. YMMV.

The first time I "figured out" how the Slingshot worked, I promptly eliminated about 30 points worth of pigs from my buddies Gremlin crew, with Whirlwind. He is a very good player, and the one that taught me how to play Malifaux, so I felt pretty good about that play. In truth, I think I ended up losing that match due to not doing any schemes, but I still marked it as a victory since I learned how to fully buff Blood via Ashes and then send her to town. I've had the Viks come close to winning games by themselves, but they still pale in comparison to the first time.

I'm going to play devils advocate here for just a moment, so before someone tries to get hostile; chill. I am slightly opposed to this due to the simple fact that it further removes my choice as a consumer on where/when I purchase my products. I appreciate the fact that Wyrd is doing what it can to support the brick and mortar locations; God knows they need all the help they can get in the time we live in. However, I take part in tournaments and leagues when time permits, and I like knowing that I can get a hold of new products early so I can get more practice in with them. My local brick and mortar that I used to go to was very...shall we say liberal, with their "we do custom orders" offers, and there were a couple times when I've asked to get products, and was told "yeah sure!", and then never got them. The store is more geared towards comics and trading card games than they are mini's, and did little to help our Henchman foster a community. Our Henchman grew our mini community, NOT because of the B&M, but in spite of them. I don't feel that I owe any allegiance to a B&M that does little to help our hobby, nor do I believe that my rights as a consumer should be placed lower on the Totem Pole because I'm not spending as much as a business. Now some are probably saying, "you can still get you items, you just have to wait until it comes out so its fair for everyone,". Firstly- nothing is making me purchase it from a B&M. I can still buy it off your web store, I'm just having to wait a little longer now to do so. If it was done to divert money to B&M's, it still has this problem. Secondly- If it was done to bring about a certain level of "fairness" for them, it still hinders my choice as a consumer, and punishes me for how and when I spend my money. Again, I appreciate what you fine folks do for us. I love your product, and the community you've helped foster. But I also believe that I, as a consumer, do get a say in when and how I spend my money. If I've missed something, if this rant completely misses the point, please ignore my dumb ass and do what you guys do. But if I have made at least somewhat of a point, I do ask that you at least consider it.

Thanks Wyrd, I didn't feel like having power or groceries this year anyway. I was secretly hoping the crews would suck so I had an excuse to not buy anything. And of course, Wyrd had to f*ck it up by going and making awesome stuff again. #firstworldproblems