new player with questions

[dannydb]

hi all- general new player post 

 

so been playing warhammer fantasy and 40k for over 15 years and after getting miffed with the treatment of the gamers on the whole (40k being a massive game of rock paper scissors/money=win, fantasy no longer existing- AoS isn't fantasy) and although i liked the 9th age to begin with, 1.3 has been a bit of a let down so looking into other games and malifaux has been my game of choice!

 

I've only played 2 games so far playing just kill each other (the guy teachin me to play thought that was best way considering thats what warhammer games are) (one absolute bloodbath of a mcmorning mirror where the only thing left on the board bottom of turn was the enemy mcmorning and one game of Kirai vs Von Schill where I although i got a nice start (caught my opponent off guard slingshotting the armour in to to his face) the game quickly went south from there (spent too many resources trying to save the armour when Von Schill and Hannah went to town on the poor guy) 

 

I've picked up 4 gangs already (Mcmorning, Kirai, kaeris and Ironsides) with my eye on a couple of other gangs despite the fact I've still got to paint what I've got!

 

so anyway question

 

1.  Are the models all that hard to put together? I've been putting models together for a while but malifax seems to be the hardest!- some of the bonding areas are tiny, yet to thin to pin and some of the models seem overly complex (putting Gaki together almost killed me) considering how unhelpful the diagrams online are (nothing is numbered and the parts are so similar looking some of the time) I've completed an entire box of ogers in the time it took me to put together 2 Gaki 
2. so I've always used GW paint however just wondering if there is something better out there paint wise? not a great painter at all so prob just be 2/3 layers (base coat, colour and maybe a wash) so don't need to go to town but just wondering what other people use
3. Battle reports, I'm a big fan of online battle reports youtube (once bitten is my current go to for 9th age stuff) and just wondered if there is anything out there for malifaux anyone could recommend

 

think thats everyone really enjoying the hobby so far. well buildin 100s of lists and the games part of the hobby not so much the building and repairs 

[Bengt]

There is quite a large variation in difficulty, on one hand you have Witchling Stalkers one piece models and the two player starter models that are just a few pieces. On the other you have various insect things with lots of legs, like Skeeters (both iron and normal) and Large Arachnids. I use plastic glue with a thin metal spout (Revel Contacta Professional to be precise) and have never felt the need to pin Wyrd models. You'll want to keep an eye on @GMort, he does unboxings that are quite helpful for assembly: http://gmortschaotica.blogspot.se/p/unboxing-malifaux.html

I use Vallejo paints and prefer to have eye dropper bottles, but I understand that GWs current paints are perfectly good (if perhaps a bit expensive). I stopped using GW when they introduced the hilariously bad screwlid pots so have no current personal experience.

Some people do video battle reports and posts them in the battle report section of this forum, but I'm not very fond of video reports myself so I don't know how they stack up.

[Ludvig]

Malifaux is generqlly a lot more fiddly than 40k aince they aren't as heroic.and thick in scale. I don't think you've picked any of the really bad ones, have a look at gmorts unboxing of austringers, Yan Lo or Abuela Ortega to see some of the worst offenders.

I prefer Vallejo paints to GW but that is mostly because GW have bottles that seem intentionally designed to make your paint dry. I switched brands during the screw on lids about 10 years ago. If you still have the good old GW bottles from the 90s I don't think you'll gain much from switching.

Can't help you with videos I'm afraid, I prefer reading myself.

[Greebo]

Welcome to Malifaux!

I myself don't have a lot of issues with the Wyrd models. Yes, the parts are tiny and sometimes it's not that easy to find out where they go, but once built the quality of the models pays for the issues while building. My preferred tactic while building is checking gmorts and the build instructions and then build areas of the model one after another. I first cut out and clean all the parts needed for an area, then dryfit and then glue. That way building takes some time but it's not that annoying. 

Considering paints I just changed my paints from GW to Scale75 around christmas. Using a wet palette instead of painting straight out of the pot (with sometimes half-dried-up paints) has greatly improved my skills. I don't hate Citadel Paints but I've started to hate their pots.

For battle reports check the forums (http://themostexcellentandawesomeforumever-wyrd.com/forum/55-battle-reports/) there are some video reports and several of them are watchworthy. I haven't watched one for a long time but I remember having a lot of fun with some of them.

[H4ml3t]

1. Model Master Liquid Cement for Plastic made assembly far easier for me. I highly recommend it.

Malifaux model assembly is still harder/more time consuming than some other models but they look great and I love the ruleset/community so it's easily worth the extra time IMO.

3. Guerilla Miniatures Games does great Malifaux battle reports on YouTube.

[iamfanboy]

Yes, Malifaux are some of the hardest models you will ever find to put together.

I think it's a balance because they're some of the most beautiful minis I've painted in the last 25 years. The good comes with the bad.

One thing I do:

PUT THEM TOGETHER ON THE SPRUE. Never, EVER cut off every piece and THEN try to assemble; instead, cut off the ONE piece that you're going to glue and glue it to a matching bit while that's still on the sprue. I mean, that's a given from old model building days, but GW people will often come into it with the habit of cutting everything off and then putting things together that way.

Keeping the model on the sprue for as long as possible gives you a solid foundation to hold onto as you manipulate the pieces. I swear, the nightmare of Abuela Ortega would not have been nearly as hard if the guy hadn't clipped everything off first, and I put together the Austringers (bad offenders in everyone's opinion) in half an hour without any true difficulty.

It's just... be methodical.

As far as paints go... the most important thing is a primer base coat. GW paints are fine, I have plenty of them from years back and I love the old, OLD hexagonal bottles and still use them for various colors - it shows my age when I can hold up a paint pot and say, "I bought this in 1999, didn't I?"

[Ludvig]

Everything goes together in exactly one way so only ever remove and clean the pieces you are fitting right now, sometimes that is three or four pieces that impact each other. Store them on the padding from a master box with good contrast and dry fit so you know how it goes together, then glue.

[Bengt]

2 hours ago, iamfanboy said:

PUT THEM TOGETHER ON THE SPRUE. Never, EVER cut off every piece and THEN try to assemble; instead, cut off the ONE piece that you're going to glue and glue it to a matching bit while that's still on the sprue. I mean, that's a given from old model building days, but GW people will often come into it with the habit of cutting everything off and then putting things together that way.

Keeping the model on the sprue for as long as possible gives you a solid foundation to hold onto as you manipulate the pieces. I swear, the nightmare of Abuela Ortega would not have been nearly as hard if the guy hadn't clipped everything off first, and I put together the Austringers (bad offenders in everyone's opinion) in half an hour without any true difficulty.

This is the worst assembly advice I've ever heard. The restricted access from the big ass sprue would make it infinitely harder just to clean of the mold lines, not to mention aligning the pieces. 

[BionicRope64]

I was about to come on here and ask roughly the same questions @dannydb. Nice to know I'm not the only person worried about assembling.

I have been doing a lot of Warmachine stuff recently I've had good success with Gorilla glue, but they don't do a small point so that could be hard for Wyrd miniatures.

I will say if you can get it you can get little hobby clips on a base ( I don't know what they're actually called). That can help hold stuff in place. 

[iamfanboy]

14 minutes ago, Bengt said:

This is the worst assembly advice I've ever heard. The restricted access from the big ass sprue would make it infinitely harder just to clean of the mold lines, not to mention aligning the pieces. 

One clips as much of the sprue out of the way as possible before beginning assembly, and once the assembled piece is big enough to interfere one removes it from the sprue and continue adding to the piece.

I haven't noticed any kind of serious mold lines on Malifaux minis - they tend to be faint and easily cleaned up once you get the miniature together. It's a very nice hard plastic. The only time I've had to clean a mold line before assembly is when it crossed a contact point on a Sorrow and a Daydream - and even then, the slight bump would have only created a fill hole easily made up for by some greenstuff.

I mean... half an hour for Guild Austringers? That's a pretty solid record. Okay, more like 35-40 minutes, it was one episode of Re:Creators and half an episode of Danmachi Oratoria, but the bastards are notorious and my method meant that the hard parts (the raptors' feet) simply slotted on one at a time and didn't get lost. It helps that a friend got me a hobby hot knife, it's wonderful for those small bits because they tend to cling to the knife instead of flying across the room like the back half of Sammy's voodoo doll head, but even without that it still works.

Maybe I should take a picture of these Taxidermists to show what I mean.

The vital components are:

Tweezers

GEL Superglue or model liquid cement

clippers

sharp knife (X-acto's are recommended, but I like breakaway boxcutter blades because the blades invariably dull, even X-acto's)

The directions. Because they don't package them with the minis.

[Nikodemus]

1 hour ago, BionicRope64 said:

I have been doing a lot of Warmachine stuff recently I've had good success with Gorilla glue, but they don't do a small point so that could be hard for Wyrd miniatures.

If I'm not using glue that comes with a needle applicator of some sort, what I like to do is squirt a bit of glue on my palette (nowhere near where I like to stick my brushes) and then use something thin to apply it. Usually a needle or pinning rod, whatever I have lying around.

[-Loki-]

I clip everything off the sprue for the model I'm working on. Which is an important distinction.

The kits post 1.5e have every model in its own little frame. So I'll pick one model to build, load up the instructions on my PC, clip the pieces off for that model only, clean mold lines and sprue connection points and set about building that model. I find sprue connection points more important than mold lines to pay attention to. I'll always miss mold lines and have to clean more after priming, which seems to annoyingly highlight any you missed. But sprue connection points are often on flat surfaces where parts join together or along joining edges. This is very clever from a design point of view, because you've got less risk of needing to clean a point in the middle of a bunch of detail, but if you don't make sure to clean them properly, parts won't join together correctly.

[dannydb]

Yes one of the upsides is all of the models do come together in one bit of the sprew, so what i have tended to do it clip the sprew of the model i want away from the rest and then put it to one side while assembling the model I'm working on.

 

However doing it this way means I'm tending to do one model at a time, where as with GW models it tended to be I'd just batch produce stuff so things could dry a bit to be more stable 

 

yes having glue with a thin end is a much needed thing!! did have some GW glue lying around when i was building some stuff recently and the 'needle' decided to drop in to the glue making it almost impossible to use. prob not doing GW any favors here am I constantly bad talking their products.

 

so moving off modeling and on to rules stuff how easy is it to pick up the scheme's part of the game, my gaming group is about to start looking in to that side of the game rather than the mass brawl we are used to so just wondering how hard is it to pick up objective based stuff rather than kill everything plan 

[Bengt]

9 hours ago, iamfanboy said:

I haven't noticed any kind of serious mold lines on Malifaux minis - they tend to be faint and easily cleaned up once you get the miniature together.

I can't stand any mold lines, and while they are generally not huge on Wyrd models and not always that easy to see on the bare plastic they are very noticeable once painted. And gluing to models together before removing them again restricts access.

Half an hour to assemble a model says absolutely nothing without having a close look at the finished model. I tend to be slow and methodical myself and have never seen model assembly as some kind of race.  I also fill any gaps as soon as a sub-assembly is complete, so that adds quite a lot of time (I tend to parallel several models though). Wyrd is very hit and miss when it comes to gaps, some models have them cleverly hidden along natural joints on the model while others have canyons straight across fine details!

For tools I would recommend getting a 100 pack of #11 blades, never hesitate to get a new sharp blade.

[Angelshard]

I recently switched myself and I'd say the jump from kill' em all to schemes is quite easy.

You usually end up killing quite a lot here too. The main difference is that the kills are more focused and revolve around removing models that are preventing you from scoring or trying to score themselves.

 

[Butch]

If you're familir with the GW paints stick to them. If you're into more sophisticated painting techniques you should change. I paint with Vallejo Model Color and Scale 75. But why change a winning team?

[Nikodemus]

@Butch

How/why are GW paints worse when it comes to more sophisticated painting techniques?

[solkan]

2 minutes ago, Nikodemus said:

@Butch

How/why are GW paints worse when it comes to more sophisticated painting techniques?

What I've been told is that GW's paint has a quicker drying liquid component.  That makes it easier to use if you're just putting down layers, but if you wanted to do two brush blending you end up with shorter working times.

[iamfanboy]

10 hours ago, Bengt said:

I can't stand any mold lines, and while they are generally not huge on Wyrd models and not always that easy to see on the bare plastic they are very noticeable once painted. And gluing to models together before removing them again restricts access.

Half an hour to assemble a model says absolutely nothing without having a close look at the finished model. I tend to be slow and methodical myself and have never seen model assembly as some kind of race.  I also fill any gaps as soon as a sub-assembly is complete, so that adds quite a lot of time (I tend to parallel several models though). Wyrd is very hit and miss when it comes to gaps, some models have them cleverly hidden along natural joints on the model while others have canyons straight across fine details!

For tools I would recommend getting a 100 pack of #11 blades, never hesitate to get a new sharp blade.

Hey, I only paint to tabletop standards and I can't stand mold lines either - though I personally tend to clean and fill before basecoating, that gives me time to look over a model and decide how I want it painted. Sometimes a while can pass between assembly and painting, ya know?

[Butch]

23 hours ago, Nikodemus said:

@Butch

How/why are GW paints worse when it comes to more sophisticated painting techniques?

You cannot thin them down as other Paints. So if you want to achieve very smooth blendings you may not be able to thin them down enough. They will fall apart (?) with too much water. Same is with Vallejo Game Color due to the high pigmentation. The VGC are much worse than the GW-paints in my expreience. They're not bad, but better for other techniques.

So if anybody wants to buy new colors I recomment other than GW or VGC. If you already have paints I recomment to stick to what you've got and you've experience with until you reach a point where you may want to change something.

At the moment I'm painting a lot of Zombies for Project Z. For this the GW paints are ideal: basecolor, wash (Army Painter strongtone) and highlights.

 

Edit: this is my experience and some infos I have from Roman Lappat's beginner workshop. I have no idea about the chemics.

[iamfanboy]

For the most part, I use Ceramcoat. Yes, those big $1 bottles that you can buy at any craft store. You can thin them down, mix them, play with them, and they're cheap enough that you can experiment with them.

However, for metallics I earnestly recommend buying the expensive stuff: GW, I've heard good things about PP's paint line, Vallejo. I've yet to find a decent metallic in a craft store aisle.

[Ergonomic Cat]

On 5/6/2017 at 9:01 AM, H4ml3t said:

3. Guerilla Miniatures Games does great Malifaux battle reports on YouTube.

I love GMG games, so much so that I'll watch videos for games I don't play.

Be warned that Ash (the host) plays like most of us do - occasional rules gaffes and forgotten triggers and the like.  But he has really pretty models and boards and is a lot of fun.

[tmod]

Perhaps the biggest issue with Citadel paints are the combination of poor bottles, high prices and low volume in each bottle. In other words you pay a lot more for less, and it's more likely to dry out earlier. Also other ranges can offer "more" when mixing different ranges.

Citadel tends to be very highly saturated, which may or may not be what you are looking for. But using only Citadel gives you little choice. Army Painter is a lot cheaper, and is very high quality paints with better bottles. They tend to be similarly saturated as Citadel. Vallejo Game Colour has a similar type of saturated colours, but is supposed to be more wear resistant. Other Vallejo ranges are more realistic, and especially shades and highlights benefit hugely from some of the options here (Deck Tan/Offwhite for warm/cool highlights, etc). Formula P3 supposedly uses liquid dyes instead of pigments, and this is supposed to make them more flexible when thinning. Not noticed much difference, but good quality paints with some really useful tones. Not really used Reaper paints, but they've got a great reputation. There are others as well, such as Scale75, but those are the most common.

I'd suggest trying out different stuff, but no reason to bin your Citadel stuff. Simply replace them with better/cheaper stuff as they run out, and get specific colours from different ranges as you need them. No reason to buy Citadel, but neither to avoid them, and sticking to a single brand will just limit your palette.

But more importantly, make sure you get good additives! A good matte medium (Vallejo or artist's brands), a glaze medium (Vallejo is great!), flow improver and extender/slow-dry is as essential as water if you want to make glazes, transitions, washes, etc. I would also consider a wet palette (I mostly just use a ceramic tile, but everytime I get out my wet palette I promise myself to never go back), and definitely buy some premium brushes and a brush soap. I use mostly W&N series 7 size 0, 1 and 2 for finer work, but cheaper brushes for basecoating and similar. I've used medium quality brushes in the past, including cheaper sable brushes, but the series 7 was a revelation. They are insanely expensive, so I have to look online, but definitely worth it (my size 1 cost about $40 in an artist's store!). The brush soap is a cheap way to protect the investment in proper brushes...

[dannydb]

update!!

basically decided that i'm going to stick with arcanists and concentrate on them rather than splitting across multiple fractions so have a bigger model pool- so got ironsides and  kaeris core crew made up with a few additions (gunsmiths, union minors) and will have a large collection of more boxes coming in next month when I get my yearly bonus. however one of the things i'm a bit confused about is one of the gangs I'm doing is Mei Feng as my construct master (as we already have a ramos player so i'm keeping away- though picking up ramos's box for joss/howard) 

So can I take the emissary of fate with mei feng's upgrade if I declare arcanists as my fraction?

[H4ml3t]

9 minutes ago, dannydb said:

 

So can I take the emissary of fate with mei feng's upgrade if I declare arcanists as my fraction?

Yes.