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New master concepts?


graeme27uk

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I'm certain their will be at some point. However in a podcast interview over the summer Eric J had mentioned that they were happy with the amount of masters currently in the game and that in expanding the game further they would most likely do it in the short term through the release of additional Henchmen, rather than masters.

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As a podcaster, I love wild speculation. It give me great questions to ask people like EricJ about during interviews.

Who then displays a staggering talent at giving the merest hints of whats to come that leave us really enthusiastic but totally ignorant of what'll happen?

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  • 1 month later...

I would think they would create more Avatars for each Master and probably for Henchmen too.

Book 3 specifies that you have to announce if you "bought" the avatar but you are not required to announce which one. This made me re-read that rule since there's only 1 avatar per master (currently) so this made me think that they'll release other avatars for each master.

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I would think they would create more Avatars for each Master and probably for Henchmen too.

Book 3 specifies that you have to announce if you "bought" the avatar but you are not required to announce which one. This made me re-read that rule since there's only 1 avatar per master (currently) so this made me think that they'll release other avatars for each master.

I agree with this completely, however people miss that currently in a brawl where you have 2 masters, both with useful avatars for the strategy, and declare you only have one it does make the opponent think

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For Arcanists, how about a Miner Boss? Foreman or such....

For Neverborn - a monster-gribbly boss - like a LARGE master as all the masters (non-avatar) so far are of similar size.

For Ressurrectionists - someone dealing with poisons or such... an alchemist? Or how about an actual undead master - a lich or such

For Guild - a businessman person - non-combat, but lots of buffs, etc

For Outcasts - monster-hunters / bounty-hunter gang

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For rezzers (or maybe neverborn), I've been thinking....

The music, Danse macabre, has a story (indeed an old French poem) behind it of a fiddler whose skill can make skeletons burst out of their graves and be forced to dance to his tunes....with a malifaux twist there could be some excellent fluff their for a master or henchman to be built around.

Ta,

Joel

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Less expanding more work on the rules plz.

I'm a big fan of Malifaux myself and I'm not going anywhere, but I've heard just recently from my only local store owner that he won't handle anything but starter boxes and that the community has essentially dwindled, because people were not able to keep up with the rules.

What makes the game for us fans, and the competitive players, the fact you need to learn it all, understand the opponent crew as well as your own to win, kills the game for casual gamers.

There is a deep need for a review of the entire ruleset (the book is actually decent, the Special Rules on the cards are a mess though) which would allow people to get a basic grasp of the opponent crew after looking at its cards for 5-10 minutes, without a ton of prior experience. Otherwise we will simply starve ourselves of the new players.

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The complexity of the game is one of the greater appeals to me honestly, but I can see where it can be frustrating to someone who is relatively new. Though to be honest if you cannot put in time to learn a game even in a friendly environment especially one with low start up costs.. it just isn't going to go anywhere.

As far as only carrying box sets.. well most store owners have to compete with online retailers especially since only GW some what "bans" the selling of their products online. When it comes to skirmish games especially in a game where so many models are limited or unique its hard to justify carrying the whole line.

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As a new comer to the game I would not like to see an overhaul of the rules. They aren't really that complex in their basic sense. The concepts of the duel is relatively simple. What is complex is the interaction between different models, but then finding interesting combinations that make opponents think is a strength of the game, not a weakness.

Simplifying games in my experience generally leads to losing some of the fun from the game. Yes it may be easier to get into first off but in the long run it doesn't have much staying power as it gets dull.

More diversity is what is needed. More choice for players.

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The problem is not with basic ruleset.

The problem is with every new mini released adding a complete new set of the rules to remember. And you can't really check them or learn them beforehand:

1. There's just no time to read the cards before the game, especially to read, ask about everything and mull it over.

2. There's no book with current and accurate set of rules and there will never be one as the rules will have to be updated on the go (not a complain per se, but even the cards do not contain most current rules for some models).

3. There is a multitude of rules which do virtually the same thing (or are very close to doing the same thing), but come with different name.

All this leads to a situation, where you can hope to learn only the internet lists. Unless you play several times a week in a large community, you are never going to see most of the masters and thus never learn how they play. It's all good and fine where the game succeeded, but it works against Malifaux where the communities are smaller and the game still needs to be pushed.

I understand why Wyrd wants a very tight release schedule. I just think they should streamline all the rules on the model cards and get rid of unnecessary duplicates. It would also help if some standard effects (teleportations, heals etc.) got their common special rules and the rules on the card simply refered to those only then introducing any irregularities - that would give opponent a good idea how the Talent or Spell works without having to read through all the small print...

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vanilla-fying all of the special rules is what made me dump all of my PP stuff. Please do not streamline any special abilities......special abilities that do "almost" the same thing should stay "almost" the same thing.

+1 million to this statement. Keep the names unique and story driven. I don't care if they do the same thing or almost the same thing.

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vanilla-fying all of the special rules is what made me dump all of my PP stuff. Please do not streamline any special abilities......special abilities that do "almost" the same thing should stay "almost" the same thing.

And where would Warmachine be if they didn't go with the review of the entire ruleset? Can you seriously say the game would be still growing and gaining new players or would it simply choke itself?

The concept is great. I myself switched to Malifaux being my first and main miniature game thanks to it. But there is a breaking point - being a more casual player I might have reached it earlier...

And no, streamlining rules, if made smart, doesn't need to dumb the game down or take variety out of it. Transposition and Illusionist are the same effect in essence, just applied differently. The former is self-evident as to what it does, the later requires explanation.

Not only the later requires explanation by the controlling player, but the explanation is inevitably followed by incredulous "and she doesn't need LoS to do that?". So now, depending on the level of mistrust of your opponent, you need to take out the Rules Manual and show the opponent how Actions don't need LoS unless they need a target. You may need a copy of forum ruling for that too (Thank you Evernote!).

This has nothing to do with game being complex. It has everything to do with Special rules being non-intuitive and requiring a comprehensive review.

The way I see it, there could be a generic "switch" effect and both rules could reference it, establishing different conditions for execution. They'd be still different, but at the same time the players facing Colette or Lilith the first time would immediately know she can "switch" models by merely glancing at the rule, without reading all the fine print.

Same could be done, another example, for Headshot, Slit Jugular and other similar effects. Why not have an "Instant kill" generic effect (which allows the victim to get away at the cost of two cards or SS) and then reference it in all these different Triggers, while modifying the conditions and introducing small exceptions to differentiate the things a bit?

The ideal situation would be where looking through the cards of your opponent for a couple of minutes would give you decent understanding of what his crew can do, even though you play it for the first time and never had it explained to you. This is entirely impossible right now, unless you are a very experienced player - simply because the Special Rules do not have any common denominator.

This isn't a matter of mere taste. This is a real barrier for the game's growth - it simply has to tidy up and the rules need to catch up with the crazy tempo of new releases. All I'm saying it is better to do it now, while we don't have new masters, factions and avatars, than do it when even the dedicated players get overwhelmed and the community starts thinking the game might have jumped the shark.

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I'm certain the end of times are nearing, because one of the fabled signs of the end times has occurred,... I... agree... with Q.

Especially on the making abilities fair and unified across the board. Why do Rotten Belles have Shambling for example, when it does exactly the same thing as Scout. It would be much cleaner and easier to deal with rules explanations. It isn't even as if you couldn't do something like:

Shambling: This model has the Scout characteristic.

Another one that really drives me crazy are the variety of instant death effects like Headshot and Slit Jugular and how some of them do dmg + the death effect and some do Dmg or the Death effect. It's always very annoying to have to try to remember which ones do which. Unifying it would make games much easier and smoother to play.

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