Faction idea

[Terry Bailey Sr]

I was listening to a podcast today. One of the topics they had was "If Wyrd added an 8th faction what should it be?"

This got me thinking to do this they would normally need to add several masters and design models for a crew box for each.

Needing lots of new models. That would be a major undertaking.

 

I had an idea. Several folks call Marcus a faction unto himself. So why not expound on that.

Make a beast faction.  You could design just some new masters that would be just beast faction.

Each master could take any beast just like Marcus. However they would be beast faction only. Marcus

would be dual faction with Arcaninst/Beast Factions. These new masters would come in a box set with

their just their totem at a lower price than a normal crew box. The powers of these masters would compensate for

the fact that they can only take beasts from other factions in some way. This way Wyrd could make an 8th faction

without needing to put out as many new models. However if they wanted to do more models for that faction they could.

It would solve the problem of needing lots of models immediately to start a new faction.  Just perhaps 8 (4 masters, 4 totems).

 

What do you think?

 

Terry Sr.

 

Edit: The name of the podcast I was listening to was Steam Powered Scoundrels.

[dancater]

Let me start by saying that I am 100% happy with the current 7 factions and think that expansion would be more likely to be negative than positive in terms of outcomes.  Still in the spirit of speculation.

On a podcast (I want to say Schemes & Stones episode??) somewhere there is a discussion about how Molemen were originally a much more fully developed native creature to Malifaux but for various reasons that changed.

The Other Side ocean spawn could fit into this, Gibbering Hordes of fish crew beasts.

Obviously you could upgrade Spawn Mother to a full master. 

The new Fae mega hound indicates thoughts towards pack leaders for the various hounds.

Hamelin is almost dual faction beast as potentially Ulix could also be.

Ten Thunders could run a dual faction concept around Foo creatures, dragons and other mythological beasts.

So yeah that has potential.  Question is what "niche" does it fill.

 

I'd easily see the other native Malifaux faction getting more time, so the Fae and progressing Tatiana as a dual faction.

Also in line with the Other Side an African themed tech advanced faction could be possible.

[Ludvig]

As a developer I would hold off on that new faction until I saw which style sold best for ToS so I could mimic it

On the beast faction topic: if you're not releasing new models for it, what is the mechanical benefit of making all beastmasters a faction instead of giving a few current factions a master that can hire beasts regardless of faction? It seems pointless to have a faction without any models exclusive or mutual to it. I would hope any new factions had a more unique feel.

[Rathnard]

Malifaux originally started with 5 factions (Guild, Ressers, Arcanists, Neverborn, Outcasts), and when a sixth (Ten Thunders) was added they got around the model deficit by making most of the new masters & minions dual faction. That let them make enough models for an entire faction whilst ensuring the original 5 didn't miss out. It worked pretty well IMO. 

Conversely, at the dawn of M2E Gremlins were created as a faction the "hard way". Ophelia and So'mer were transplanted straight from Outcasts (requiring the creation of new Outcasts Masters/Minions to replace them) and only Zoraida came along from the original lineup as a dual faction Master. The model/master deficit had to be made up with entirely new entries, although since it was an edition change effectively done over two books that wasn't as big a problem as it could have been. 

 

While I've very little against the Factions as they are, I'm nonetheless a man who likes to embrace change. I'd love to see the existing system shaken up next edition with a new faction or seven. 

If I were in charge (watch out Aaron!), the way I'd add new factions would be to split all of the existing factions in two. There'd be some dual-faction crossover when it makes sense, but otherwise you'd be left with a more contained 4-5 Masters per faction. Arcanists are the easiest in this regard, since the M&SU already feel like a faction within a faction. Outcasts also very achievable, with the humans vs supernatural entities. The rest are harder, but arguably achievable depending on what you do with the back story. 

 

As an aside, I might just use my mod powers to move this to the general Malifaux discussion forum. This isn't realy an arcanist-specific topic, after all. ;)

[Ludvig]

The guild might be splittable depensing on which side they take in the Lucius vs GvnMarley throwdown. It might need a bit more additionalstory than the arcanist split but arcanists wouls probably end up like M&SU and the rest of the bunch so I pnly see one strong faction there even if some could perhaps team up with others, like Marcus and Zoraida being the first two beast masters. The tyrants could be a factipn even if they don't get along since they might want to team up in a loose "enemy of my enemy" kind of deal now that Titania is back in the game.

If there is a desire for new smaller factions I don't think splitting down thr middle is as appealing as creating entirely new allegiances. Hoffman could be M&SU hiring constructs from guild just as easily as the other way around. Would make sense to give him and Ramos similar hiring pools again.

[Bengt]

I like split in two idea as it could focus the factions and give them sharper identities. It would leave some people with some models they couldn't use, but it would be much worse if you went too crazy with moving Masters around.

Neverborn I'd start with the existing triumvirate of Lilith, Pandora, and Zoraida since they are clear allies and perhaps add Titania as she is indigenous and put the more human-ish in the other camp.

Resurrectionists I think the spirit ones (Kirai, Molly, and Yan Lo) would make a good start, no idea who else to add though.

[Ludvig]

9 minutes ago, Bengt said:

I like split in two idea as it could focus the factions and give them sharper identities. It would leave some people with some models they couldn't use, but it would be much worse if you went too crazy with moving Masters around.

Neverborn I'd start with the existing triumvirate of Lilith, Pandora, and Zoraida since they are clear allies and perhaps add Titania as she is indigenous and put the more human-ish in the other camp.

Resurrectionists I think the spirit ones (Kirai, Molly, and Yan Lo) would make a good start, no idea who else to add though.

The problem is that some halves wouldn't feel so sharp and focused since they don't belong together at all. If you kept up the infiltration of keywords it would be really easy to give access to the old thematic models through infiltration mechanics. As an example you could make Lucius belong to pretty much any faction and if he could still always hire any number of mimics and guardsmen I could still use most of the models I bought specifically for him. It's also not only masters that can be dual faction. Today masters are the most common to be dual faction but more or less every model could be made dual faction if you really wanted to have more factions in the game. 

[Ludvig]

You could even make only masters and henchmen be in factions and then make a pool of all the minions and enforcers and your leader told you which keywords you were allowed to hire from. That's more or less how outcasts funtioned in m1e.

I don't see how invalidating half of my bought guild models by splitting the faction would be better than making the masters hire from a pool of models deemed thematic for them.

If you split guild down the middle some of them will loose access to the guardsmen theme. If the masters end up in different factions based on their goals but all have guardsmen as one of their infiltration keyword I can use my guardsmen with any (old) guild master.

[Bengt]

55 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

I don't see how invalidating half of my bought guild models by splitting the faction would be better than making the masters hire from a pool of models deemed thematic for them.

That would only happen if you have lots of models and no masters from one of the new sides. Which I don't think is that common, but I could be wrong.

[bertmac]

Could maybe go with something similar to infinity where sectorials gain bonusses for using only certain models within factions rather than splitting the factions.

[Squirrelich]

I think the problem with any shake up is the rage it could produce. For example, if I were to be currently playing 5 Masters of a Faction and when it got split down the middle 4 got put in one half and 1 in another I'd be a bit sad. I'm all for the idea of a shake up, maybe taking it even farther and doing an examination of "Given the state of things, does this Master still really belong in this Faction?" and swapping some Master's Factions around or gaining/losing duel Faction. But any shake up, big or small, will alienate the unique combination of Masters that someone somewhere has and I would not want to be the one leading the charge for that reason. 

[necroon]

26 minutes ago, bertmac said:

Could maybe go with something similar to infinity where sectorials gain bonusses for using only certain models within factions rather than splitting the factions.

This kind of reminds me of the Special Forces rules from 1.5. Although interesting in concept my recollection was that they were received lukewarm at best (Although I can hardly say my memory of 1.0/1.5 is accurate at this point).

[Ludvig]

15 minutes ago, necroon said:

This kind of reminds me of the Special Forces rules from 1.5. Although interesting in concept my recollection was that they were received lukewarm at best (Although I can hardly say my memory of 1.0/1.5 is accurate at this point).

They were henchmen only and you could only hire a certain amount of models from the theme if you didn't have the hench as far as I recall. That just limits the toys for most lists instead of giving a bonus to some. Could be like warmahordes did but maybe less "spam this model that we have trouble selling for an insane bonus" and more "bring X amount of thematic keyword models for this small bonus".

@Bengt It would still split my collection and I have some masters that I don't fancy playing but just bought cause their hench was needed in abother list. The problem for me would still be that we would likely end up with one sensible half and one random/ragtag one for each faction. I don't see the need to aplit the facion but if it was done I would prefer keyword connections and that a lot of the faction ended up hireable to all the masters that used to hire them often. Each master could even have limited upgrades that allowed different keywords kinda like Levi and Molly currently. The lack of interesting limited upgrades is a thing for me currently, more masters should be like the two avove, Collodi and Dreamer.

[necroon]

I recall that one could also only ever have one special forces type in their crew - hence the parallel. If memory serves, it often does not, the limit was 2 without a SF henchmen and that limit was completely lifted if you had one. 

[Tyrion1337]

Funny, i thought about that topic myself this week. I am totally fine with the current factions. Yet fluff indicates that there might be smaller changes ahead (Sonnia, Von Schill, etc).

IF they were to do a new faction I would like to see a split to the arcanists (albeit playing them myself). M&SU and the "rogue mages" are beginning to drift apart from each other. Let´s keep Arcanists being those rogue mages (Marcus, Rasputina, Kaeris as dual faction, Sandeep(?) ). The new faction could be a pure M&SU base. So Ramos, Ironsides, Mei Feng, Kaeris, Hoffmann as new dual faction.

I am still not sure about Sandeep and Colette in this scenario.

Arcanists could delve deeper into the mage theme, maybe getting some spellbound beasts and elemental themed casters. M&SU could go full mining with even more constructs, soulstone tech und maybe geomancy.

Imho this would fit the current fluff with Raspy´s radicalization and the differences within the Arcanists.

[Franchute]

To complete the m&su faction, you could have a dual faction outcast master called the smugglers 

[Steamtastic Vagabond]

24 minutes ago, Franchute said:

To complete the m&su faction, you could have a dual faction outcast master called the smugglers 

What about an off shoot of the M&SU, specifically the lumberers. We could have a lumberjack master, a henchman that keeps his rage under control, a treant as his totem, and some other loggers as minions.

[Squirrelich]

ok, but the lumberjack needs to be Ht4 and this totem be a big blue ox instead of a treant 

[Franchute]

Of course Sonnia Criid would be part of the rogue mage other subfaction. 

[Steamtastic Vagabond]

10 hours ago, 7thSquirrel said:

ok, but the lumberjack needs to be Ht4 and this totem be a big blue ox instead of a treant 

His name shall be "Lumbering Jack"

[Cedar]

Maybe Tyrant's faction? After Titania's release from prison, Tyrants decided to unite their strengths to kill her (and other opposing forces, such as Guild, Neverborn or Levi) so they wouldn't interrupt their struggle for ultimate power?

[D_acolyte]

If they added a faction I would not like it to be beasts.

I rather see something like a "human" cult to the tyrants or a secret organization to fight the tyrants. I currently use both in my TTB game just so my party can not say well we are off to fight Nephilim lets be prepared for black blood so get your built ready. They do see some of the more normal Malifuax enemies but I also like keeping them on there toes.

[Steamtastic Vagabond]

On 2017-05-05 at 8:52 AM, 7thSquirrel said:

ok, but the lumberjack needs to be Ht4 and this totem be a big blue ox instead of a treant 

Even better idea, the totem could be a wood chipper, it doesn't attack on its own, but if a model is pushed into it...

[The Guild]

It would be hard to come up with a story line for this faction. Are their no humans apart from the masters? Would Marcus's avatar be pure beast? What would Ramos think of Marcus joining a new faction? Would war pigs an other models with the beast key word join the faction? Nevertheless, this is one of the best new faction ideas and I would love to have some tales of malifaux stories about the rise of this new faction.

[BruceStrange]

I think malifaux is missing crazy religious fanatics. Ones that think soulstones are gifts from the creator. People that are killing for Jesus. Good old fashion hypocrites. Riding bicycles or horsedrawn buggies. Odd hairstyles and clothing. Greasy slicked back hair, bible tucked close, vicious herpes. I could get into that.