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An Odd Thing Noticed During Assembly


Bakunin

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So I received my Vanessa box today, and I noticed something (other than my swearing once I got to the hand and ponytail). Her (1) Ancestral Blade is :melee2, but it's tiny! The ronins' daitos are bigger than that wee thing. Guess the sculptor and writers didn't talk that through, eh?

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While there is some consistency with knives/claws getting :melee1 and polearms/whips getting 3/4, whether a model gets 1 or 2 with a medium weapon feels pretty arbitrary. And sometimes it's about balance, i.e. one of the changes to make Union Miners a little better was to increase their :meleerange from 1 to 2.

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It shouldn't.

A 5'-6' person with a fist, spanner, hammer or dagger can strike you from 3' away (height 2 striking 1" melee) this includes the extension of their arm a body lean and possibly a short step when you think about clearing bases.

The same person handling a sword or other "hand weapon" could strike you at 6'+.

A poleweapon etc allowing them to hit you at 9'+.

This makes sense until a pistol or rifle can only hit at 36'-42'.

So it comes down to game balance otherwise range crews would completely dominate, hence guns changing warfare.

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3 minutes ago, Vorschlag said:

It shouldn't.

A 5'-6' person with a fist, spanner, hammer or dagger can strike you from 3' away (height 2 striking 1" melee) this includes the extension of their arm a body lean and possibly a short step when you think about clearing bases.

The same person handling a sword or other "hand weapon" could strike you at 6'+.

A poleweapon etc allowing them to hit you at 9'+.

This makes sense until a pistol or rifle can only hit at 36'-42'.

So it comes down to game balance otherwise range crews would completely dominate, hence guns changing warfare.

I think that, actually, that's a realistic distance for a pistol shot on the move given the effective tech level.

Guild Rifleman ranges would only be reasonable if they were using muskets, but if you take the focused shots from Trappers or Hans representing the time taken to aim rather than take a snap shot, it's not completely unreasonable for their ranges either.  19th Century weapons were not the most accurate, particularly when subjected to the harsh conditions Malifaux is famous for.

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Yeah, I'm used to models and their rules not always matching up perfectly; this just struck me more since Malifaux allows melee at longer distances than other games. I remember another minis game where it seemed the sculptors and rules writers never spoke; models would be sculpted with weapons they didn't have among other things.

Maybe she just sticks the blade to the end of her staff?

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8 hours ago, Swordkitten said:

I think that, actually, that's a realistic distance for a pistol shot on the move given the effective tech level.

Remember that Malifaux is based in the early 20th century if that were metres rather than feet it might be slightly more realistic, also rifles were an advancement to muskets and muskets had better range than that.

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I think Johanna is one of the worst offenders when it comes to model vs range. Relic Hammers in general is kind of short to be range 3, but regular plastic Johan has a huge one, and plastic Taelor does a decent job at selling the reach with her pose. But Johanna has a teensy weensy little hammer!

Some inconsistent models are the December Acolytes. Their ranged weapon is a "Harpoon Gun" which has a trigger to drag the target closer. Two of the sculpts has a launcher with a huge projectile that you can buy trails a rope (how it gets launched with any kind of force is still a mystery though :)), but the third one just has a tiny crossbow mounted on the back of her hand.

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Hmm, I've always thought the range thing as "how far this model can engange" instead of "how long this weapon is". Real combat isn't static. Maybe the melee range can be thought as "how big of an area this model can effectively fight in". For example, in badminton one has pretty much one optimal spot to be in (and after hitting the shuttle returning to that spot), but it doesn't mean the racket can reach everywhere on the field.

Kinda half-assed logic, but whatever :D

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