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I didn’t start testing Euripides until towards the end of the closed Beta, so my experience with him is somewhat limited. Nevertheless, I thought I would share what I had learned thus far, and hope it is a helpful launching point for other’s brainstorms, games, and ideas. One note is this is written off of the last beta update, so apologies for any factual errors due to changes that have occurred since (or things that changed that I missed). Why play Savages? Play-style wise they offer a lot of dominating board control with the ice pillars and rough terrain. They are a very interesting crew to use as you have to manage several resources in wounds for The Old Ways, your discard pile, and the ice pillars themselves. Finally...they are giants and that is just awesome. Being a relatively recent addition to the game, the Savage keyword is somewhat limited: Euripides Primordial Magic Thoon Geryon Cyclops Gigant Bultingun Lyssa The Old Ways: It can be a little crazy to get your head around at first, but it is a phenomenally cool ability. It is particularly useful to cycling suited cards to get multiple triggers in a row, but also just for reusing high cards in your deck. A word of caution with using this ability--you don’t need to overuse it. The general goal should be twice per turn per model is plenty. This is due to Frozen Vigor--you heal the one damage from using Old Ways during your activation, and get to use the Shielded to cover for when your opponent attacks you. Ice Pillars: A key feature of the crew, one thing to keep in mind is that they generate cover against shooting attacks, to a maximum of 3” from them (they are Height 4 themselves however). I have 12 pillars, and have found that to be more than plenty. Additionally, destructible terrain requires a model to be within 1” and take an action to remove it, so always bring them up a bit further that 1” from models if possible, so that you waste the most amount of AP. Additionally, there are models in each faction with the ability to remove terrain, they will most certainly be counter-hires and things you need to keep a lookout for in order to neutralize. If your opponent does not bring counter-hires, incorporeal, or flight, they will quickly find themselves at a severe positioning disadvantage. Guild: Riotbreaker, Cornelius Basse Resurrectionist: Molly Neverborn: Poltergeist Arcanist: Willie Brant, Union Miner, Soulstone Miner, Rasputina, Ice Golem Outcast: Mad Dog Brackett, Drache Trooper Gremlins: Lucky Emissary, Pere Ravage, Alphonse, Gluttony Ten Thunders: Obsidian Oni, Sidir Alchibal, Lotus Eater An additional item to be aware of with the crew is movement. The ice pillars are fantastic for blocking choke points, but it is a two way street, they also block off you. And just as they give cover, they also provide your opponent’s models with cover. On top of this, the majority of the theme models are on 50mm bases, which does present difficulty maneuvering across the table. It is particularly important to plan your first turn moves before you deploy otherwise you can jam yourself up. Fortunately the crew itself has numerous abilities that let them manipulate the position of ice pillars and teleport around the table. Keep this in mind as well for the Bultungin--they are Fae in addition to Savages, which means they drop Underbrush markers. These can be great for slowing down your opponent further, and giving you concealment on the approach. However, there is limited access to ignore them within the keyword, so make sure they don’t ultimately get in your way! Frozen Vigor: This is an ability found on a majority of the theme models. It is relatively easy to get use out of, and, as previously mentioned, essentially allows for 2 free uses of The Old Ways a turn. Once during your activation (then you heal one wound) and then a second time after your activation defensively (shielded removes the damage from The Old Ways). It is a key balancing factor for The Old Ways and you should try to leverage it whenever possible. Hard to Kill: A fairly common ability across all the “giant” models, also a fairly straightforward one to understand. Keep in mind to look at healing models when hiring your crew (Serena), or bring models that can self heal (Geryon), in order to keep your guys at 2 wounds or higher. Euripides: The big guy himself is pretty chunky with 14 wounds, however with The Old Ways he has a tendency to burn through them quickly. You really really want to be miserly with using the Old Ways with him, and instead rely on his other abilities, such as... Intuition is a straightforward ability that synergizes well with The Old Ways and makes your activation very efficient with a little forward thinking. Rune Shaped Ice/Frozen Domain are his go to action/trigger, particularly for set up in the early game, it allows you to get out multiple pillars efficiently. Reflected Visage/Shattering Surprise is the best way of moving around the table, and solves a lot of his large base issues. Glacial Shove is great for bottling up enemies and setting Cyclops up later on in the turn. Bowling with Ice Pillars is not something to be underestimated either. It is Stat 6 vs Mv (the TN is based on your duel total), so you should be roughly even or +1 on most models in the game. The important part is that it is a Tactical Action, not an attack. Terrifying? Nope. Incorporeal? Nada. Doesn’t target, so no Manipulative, Serena Countenance, or resist triggers. Distracted? Who cares. With careful positioning, it can also do a surprising amount of damage. This is the ability you save that 13 for, making the Mv duel a TN 19. It is even better if you can get multiple models, multiple times in an activation, and reuse that 13 with Old Ways. At that point you have effectively cost yourself 1 high card, 1 wound, and done 4 damage per model and surrounded them with pillars, restricting movement and retaliation. Blown Back is a nice cherry on top as well. Oh, and then his fist is a mere 3 min damage as well. You know, just in case. Also don’t forget Entomb in Ice! This ability helps a ton with pillar generation and also stops some crews and schemes cold (pun intended). Primordial Magic: A support totem, keep him safe in the back to get that extra card each turn! He has two roles depending on your needs and when you activate him: make a model incorporeal (early turn) and remove enemy scheme markers (late turn). Incorporeal is particularly useful with this crew, as the large bases can be difficult to maneuver across the table and there is little in the way of damage reduction. The counter point is that it can be difficult to use that activation early on in the turn, it really will depend on how susceptible your opponent’s crew is to being jammed up by the ice pillars. He can technically scheme run a bit, but he is terrifyingly squishy. Now for the crew! They broadly fall into general categories to cover various roles (again, new keyword). The henchmen is a bit of a generalist, Geryon is a melee beater, Gigant is ranged, and Cyclops is support. Bultingun are excellent schemers, and Lyssa are a very solid model for only 4ss. Thoon: Shifting Ice is another useful trick to help your own models navigate the table. Most everything he does is relatively middle of the road, with one stand out: Frozen Trophy. For the most part the crew doesn’t have much that ignores defensive abilities (i.e. armor), so instead when you have a difficult to remove problem, you toss it into an ice pillar. The pillar can then be moved back and away from enemy models so that they cannot free their comrade (remember to reference the previous list of models that can remove terrain though!). This is basically the ability that keeps him from sitting on the shelf. Otherwise, just like Euripides, he has Intuition, which can allow him to set up the next few flips. For example, if you see a weak, severe, severe, you can keep them in that order. Then you cheat to hit the next attack, and even on a negative you will still be doing significant damage. This helps to make up for his rather sad damage track for being the expensive model he is. Otherwise, I haven’t gotten much use from Arctic Pull (read: never), and Freeze the Corpse is corner case, but useful when it happens. Geryon: He’s a melee beater! Pretty straightforward guy, and he can also remove pillars to heal himself. The 2” reach is fantastic in M3E, as is the min 3 damage. You should nearly always try to engage at maximum melee range so that your opponent has to waste an AP closing the distance. Chill is a very strong trigger, as it removes an AP from a model as you are damaging it. Shoulder Rush is a way of manipulating ice pillars for benefit, but definitely can feel overly complicated. The key to it is the Focused Attention trigger. Place the ice pillar 6” up from the Geryon Use the 5 of Tomes to get the trigger Push Move the pillar up 6” Old Ways to repeat Frozen Vigor At the end you have Focus +2, have moved 2” further than Walk-Walk, and heal back up from Frozen Vigor. Obviously there will be table and terrain limitations, the best you can do is keep this maneuver in mind when deploying. Focus comes into play in a huge way when it comes to leveraging The Old Ways efficiently. Attack, use Focus Make sure to hit The positive to damage cancels out the normal negative Cheat a Severe Attack again, use The Old Ways to reuse the Severe Enjoy doing 9 damage, at least Heal with Frozen Vigor Inhuman Reflexes is an upgrade well worth considering as Diving Charge can provide a bit of extra damage, but Butterfly Jump can be very dirty when combined with the inability to charge the Geryon. With the above, and diving charge, 10 damage in 2 AP is fairly doable (provided you dodge Terror, and Armor, and Hard to Wound, etc.). Cyclops: An iconic model, and a huge part of the crew. Other than Euripides they are the only other model that can drop an ice pillar on demand. Additionally, they have a strong min 3 damage track (min 3 is a BIG deal in M3E) and Grit for a positive flip. Their biggest impact however may come from Frozen Runes. This ability lets them heal models in a pulse, but even more interestingly they can stagger off an ice pillar. This synergizes significantly with a lot of abilities in the crew. It makes it easier for Euripides to go bowling with ice pillars for example. It is feeds into the positioning control theme of the crew. The other excellent use of Frozen Runes is dropping a scheme marker off of an ice pillar. This neatly side steps a lot of the restrictions on the Interact action, and being able to scheme at range helps the crew with its low maneuverability. Gigant: Cheaper end, ranged savage giant. The arcing shot is important when playing around ice pillars, as it allows them to ignore the cover that their own crew is generating. They can also teleport around the table with Shattering Surprise, but more interestingly perhaps is that they can teleport other models with the Shattering Shove trigger. There are currently no restrictions on friendly models or which ice pillar they can be placed next to, so you can teleport anything you want a significant distance across the table. Much like the Geryon, they benefit greatly from the Focus/Old Ways combination. They can teleport 8”, toss a boulder with focus, toss it again with The Old Ways for 5 damage, a 3 damage blast, then another shot (at least 2 damage). Bear in mind this is rather card and set up intensive, requiring at least a 5 Rams, an ice pillar, and then a severe to cheat in the focused shot (and possibly discarding to ignore cover). The non-teleport effect of Cave Drawings is situationally useful, but most frequently shows up in Corrupted Idols where you can prevent an opponent from interacting with the Idol until they remove the pillar. Bultingun: Were-hyena scheme runners! Just by being on the table they place severe terrain, which adds even more movement control to the crew (see a pattern?). Toss in the Mud is a bit pricey needing a 7, but removing a condition and pushing a model 2” can be quite handy (condition removal does compete with Serena’s healing though). Deadly Pursuit though is a key ability that should not be overlooked on them. The End Phase timing has Resolve Effects occur before Score VP, therefore they can push a free 4” before checking to score. This can allow for surprise moves for schemes such as Hold Up or Outflank. Otherwise, they are just super duper fast too. Weakness wise, they are relatively squishy, so keep them from getting locked down by anything too serious. Lyssa: The Lyssa are they cheap, filler models for the crew. While they don’t appear to be much at first glance, Incorporeal gives them incredible mobility (even through ice pillars) and they are more durable than they cost thanks to combining Incorporeal with Frozen Vigor (and surprisingly good base stats for their cost). A lot of their attacks have a low Stat, making them more reliant on The Old Ways if you want a solid shot at getting something off. Misdirected Rage can be a bit tricky to set up, but any ability that nets you a free action is a very efficient ability to use (you are doubling your AP). Most notably, they have a psuedo-Lure for 4ss, which is a pretty decent bargain. Non-Savage Models Mysterious Emissary: His attacks synergize strongly with the Stagger from the Cyclops making it even easier for him to hit. Then your opponents must work through severe, hazardous terrain AND ice pillars to make any forward progress (and take damage in the meantime). Iggy: He competes a bit with the Primordial Magic to remove scheme markers, but Iggy should be in consideration (even with tax) for every crew. He gets 3 AP with Reckless, and Arson in the right scheme pool means that he can nearly single handedly shut down an opponent. Angel Eyes: Sniper, ignores cover. You play a crew that controls positioning, but needs ranged attacks that ignore cover. She does this. Additionally, she ignores Armor on a trigger. This is useful as a number of models that remove pillars have armor (Riot Breaker, Soul Stone Miner, Lucky Emissary, Drache Trooper). These are all models you should expect to see and want to remove early. You want your opponent to have to waste AP to get around the pillars, these models are too efficient. Doppleganger: Pretty obvious, she can be more of whatever you need. Another Cyclops, another Angel Eyes, another Geryon. Black Blood Shaman: Spam focus. Check. Passive healing aura. Check. Grows up into a Mature Nephilim who happens to fly over Ice Pillars. Check. Puppets/Vasilia: She can speed up the slower Savage models and hands out a lot of Staggered. Possibly too costly a take, but a worthy consideration. Hinamatsu loves being shoved through an Ice Pillar by a Gigant. She can also use Pulling Strings for an additional action, this is most notable on the Cyclops, allowing it to take Frozen Runes twice (no non-free action restriction). Lucius: A fun pick for a second master. He has a sniper rifle as well, so ranged attacks that avoid cover, yay (also Injured!!!). He can also Issue Command to minions, which is everyone except Euripides and Thoon. Given that the Savage models have a lot of min 3 damage tracks, this can be quite the force multiplier. Serena Bowman: She is difficult to drop with Eternal (benefits from a larger hand size) and brings a lot of healing to a crew that spends its wounds for defense. She is another model that should make it into a wide variety of Neverborn crews. She can also offensively place enemy models into perfect position for a nice Frozen Trophy. Upgrades Upgrades are actually very useful on Savage models compared to other crews, as they actually have Minions with a high cost and wound stat. This makes the cost of an upgrade more palatable and allows you to access all 3 abilities. Inhuman Reflexes: Butterfly Jump is VERY strong in this crew, as you can jump out of combat or into cover against ranged. Almost an auto-include for Geryon. Ancient Pact: Card draw is always good, and with 2 copies of this you get a +2 to initiative flips. This is very useful in Corrupted Idols, where you want to be able to control the initiative, but still have some flexibility to cheat the suit. Eldritch Magic: A difficult upgrade to find specific purpose for, I think it will mostly be a counterpick against specific masters/crews once the meta settles and we get more experience. Wong, Ironsides comes to mind perhaps?

Happy Friday Breachers! From all accounts, Gen Con was a busy wonderful time for all who attended, and I’ve heard wonderful stories to come out of the events from the Best Four Days in Gaming! Before I jump into this week’s topic, here’s what @Boomstick had to say about their favorite RPG experiences: As @Boomstick is newer to the wonderful brand of insanity we create as Fatemasters, be sure to welcome them and show them how great this community is! This week, I’m going to talk about the backbone of any campaign you can create as a Fatemaster, and that’s your Fatemaster Characters or NPCs. Fatemaster Characters help with the immersion of your players in the story, and can give the Fated targets to become invested in, through friendship, romance, rivalry, hatred, or more. Creating a strong cast of NPCs is vital to any successful TTB game, and I want to talk tactics for making great NPCs to fill your game with. Fatemaster Character creation suggestions are found in Chapter 9 of the TTB 2e book, and includes the Rank Value chart to help Fatemasters adjust NPC stats accordingly. Additionally, the Bestiary (Chapter 10) is a great way to pick out some NPCs. You can simply adjust the Rank Value as needed, and drop them into your game. This is actually a great way to have stats for that random NPC you named but didn’t expect your party of Fated to latch on to! So if Gums McGee the Gremlin becomes an unexpected darling of the Fated, just grab the stats for Bayou Gremlin, adjust as needed, and then Ol’ Gums can do more than hide behind the bar when tempers flare and a fight breaks out! Another method of making Fatemaster Characters that I’m fond of is creating a base Fated, then assigning a Rank Value to it as needed. Remember, Rank Value is very important, as it determines the NPC’s effectiveness in a given duel. If I’m designing an adventure around a certain NPC, I will write up its backstory in short bullet points to draw inspiration from for my story arch, and to potentially come up with additional side hooks for players. An example of this is when I ran a story arch that was inspired by the movie Snatch. I used some characters already established in the ‘Fauxverse, such as Jacob Samuels, the proprietor of Ringside, but made an up-and -coming pit fighter named Michael Flannigan. This led to about 3 more Fatemaster characters, and gave one Fated a romance subplot and another one a new pursuit option with a great personal arch. The more fleshed out your ‘Fauxverse is, the more your players can poke and explore, enriching their characters’ stories and role-playing experience. So my mail call this week- “What has been your favorite Fatemaster Character, either created by you, or in a TTB book?”

Caedrus, reporting in! Hello All! I had all sorts of plans for this month's painting, but instead, there was a Pale Rider sitting in front of me, that I had recently removed from its paint-stripping adventures. Even though I knew the straps on its flanks were supposed to be leather, I decided to see if I could make them brassy. Sneak peek! So, that was kinda fun! Keep on putting pigment to plastic! Caedrus.

That large model but dont forger its still a 0 inch meler swing on him

August. But those dates are start dates. They are a small company (less than 20 last I checked) and they work 10 hour days 4 days a week. They always get lots of orders. So it may take as long as 2 weeks to get caught up with all the orders. This isn't Amazon we are talking about here. Good news is usually everybody is working the warehouse after gencon to get things out the door asap.

Resurrectionist: Molly can remove pillars. Keep an eye out for her too!

I know I'm theorycrafting a lot 😜. It has a reason tho. I won't be able to play a game in weeks (life is a b***h :P) so I can't afford to get the feeling of the possible masters I'd like by playing them; I'm trying to see if the strats that seem to me as good or strongh are viable or not to make an informed decision about my first master. It's true that playing a few games would be better, but I just can't now :/

Ah, ty. I only found grave spirit who does it after giving it a quick look. Now I want to start dreamer - thanks a lot... 😉

Sorry I have a bad habit of saying double positive when I mean flip 2 take the best. And I mean remove shielded or focused are good offensively

Teddy's all done. Ended up going for more of a dirty look on the base through a combination of accident and design. Think it's a good way to break up all that white but definitely something I could practice more with. Decided to leave the grime and gore off the claws I was having a hard time balancing the red and blue as it was. Definitely something I want to try out in future though. @Caedrus - sweet looking work on the rider. I took the banding to be cloth-of-gold or similar when I first saw it. Think it looks fabulous as is but you could add some spots of corrosion or scratches if you really wanted to sell it as metal.

Thanks. I really like the stippling technique on cloth. It's quite easy (says the steady-handed, well-eyed young man with an expensive brush) and tends to look really good. So glad you noticed the weapon. I painted the studs metallic but it doesn't photo well. For the wooden bit I did what I've started to do on my metallic blades. Light gradient going from one end to the other. Tends to look a lot more interesting than just a monotonely lit paintjob. Started with an initial wetblend and then did a few layers of broken highlights to bring out the shape of the weapon. Unfortunate that he's only been on the table twice and been rather promptly smashed into a bloody pulp both times. But he will have his day! ____ First five minis for the month of August: Sidir Alchibal, from Lucas McCabe Core Box. As seeon on the August painting challenge thread. Wife took the kids out, so I spent the Sunday painting this guy up. Practiced my "white", though I guess it's more of a grey. Whatever, it looks pretty. Picked purple as a secondary colour since I don't feel very comfortable painting it, despite having used it on a fair number of models. Overall though this was a very "comfortable" paintjob, nothing much was new or boundary pushing. Just some safe, familiar techniques and recipes. 4 out of 5 models from Court of Owls faction Talon's Night starter set commission for Batman Miniatures Game. Fifth guy is a really big dude and client wants a different colour scheme so he's still wip. As usual this client will do bases after I'm done with the models. Fun fact: Sidir's white and Owls' main bodysuit are both made with just VMC Dark Sea Blue and white. I've gone nuts for that paint ever since I got it. As for what's to come, I need to do the fifth Owl to finish the above mentioned commission. Another BMG commission has me tackling Batman himself and then there's a Games Workshop themed Chaos contest semi-locally that I'll be participating. Those three should all be done August. On the Wyrd front I just based Saboteurs and primed Komainu. There's a decent chance I'll decide to speed paint one or the other set of minis in the very near future. Saboteurs in particular don't really inspire me so I might just do some quick wash & drybrush job on them and call it done.

I cut up my upgrade cards. They had round faction symbols on the back so I got some 30mm-ish rounds that my group could use for turf war markings as long as there was a true 30mm to place them atop. While I cut some model art out of M2e model cards with a fantasy of decorating terrain with ‘wanted’ posters, that probably won’t happen.

So, jumping immediately into August, I've completed my August pledge in record time! I decided to try my hand at a highly-contrasting OSL style, inspired by one of our own painters, the prolific @SpiralngCadavr; A Google search of spiraling cadaver will take you to his blog. It's an interesting style. It's not quite as intuitive as it might look. I think a lot of the efficacy comes from the background and base. Now, in truth, the image above has had a black background inexpertly photoshopped onto it. It looks like this on a white background: I enjoyed trying out this style. It's not something I would do frequently, but I learned a lot, and it could make for an incredibly atmospheric effect. So, what's up for September? Anyone have any suggestions? Enjoy your painting, and keep putting pigment to plastic! Caedrus.

Hello All! Well, a quick update to let you all know that not only did I complete the Beastman from July, I've already finished August's! This is the July effort. This guy was swiftly painted, with the blade being the most time-intensive. This miniature was painted entirely with GW contrast paints, with the majority being one coat. The pale blue is very weak pigment, and I think the white has to be the most-needing-to-be-shaken paint I've ever used. Ever. I stand by my earlier comments. They do what it says on the box, and they'll be a tool, for when I need to paint something fast. Onto August!

I still have all my 1.5 cards sitting in boxes. >. >

Pledging the Jack Daw crew box this month!

I've recovered from GenCon and have completed building and basing Dreamer's new box and a spidery couple I've had waiting for him, along with Serena... Altogether it'll be 70ss if I can get them all done (unlikely, but I'm motivated to get them on the table. If nothing else, aim high, and if not, next month!)

Hello I had few hours to go after my pledge. I decided to give Rasputina a white robe. The challenge here was to work in a realistic way the shadows because of the high number of folds. I tried to go after this idea layering with airbrushed lighter colours over a black washed primed robe. Here are the results so far. On the front site the internal folds of the robe are till WIP, needing to smooth the black effect of washes: The base is till WIP too. It was worked with airbrush layering and washes. Next I plan to hand brush the floor stone.

The answer to the question "If I perform a multiple models replaced by one model Replace (such as Tangle Together) when none of the original models are activating, how do I determine if the new model can or has Activated?" is currently not specified by the rules. There are about four different possible answers, all different, all extrapolations of the existing rules in different directions with different rationales. The only thing I can suggest is that you discuss it before hiring crews.

Thanks for the positive feedback. Here are some older pictures of Marcus and the beasts: ...and his assistant Miranda ...with a little digital enhancements. Here without magic:

Witchling Thrall: He had some bad times...

I would recommend buying something to start with (McMournings core box?) and playing a few small practice games. You'll find that you have a much better feel for understanding the roles of models in your crew. There are thousands of possible strategy/scheme combinations, and probably 10-20 meaningful variations (plus deployment setups, plus matchup possibilities!) So you really need to get a feel for your crew beyond just theorycrafting. Starting small can help with that, as you'll see what you're missing. As an example, I didn't think much of the 'Terrorize' ability on paper for my crew until I actually played a few games. Now I'd say it is one of the best abilities in the keyword for my crew specifically. The experience of playing gives so much insight into the roles of your crew and what is missing. Another example: when I started Molly with the crew box, I was lacking killing power, so picked up some beaters.

Model A and Model B are damaged at the same time. Model A gets to step 5 of damage timig, and Sammy is allowed to resolve Pretty Illusions, which lets Model A draw a card. Model B now resolves step 5. Sammy is now not able to resolve Pretty Illusions as it has already resolved once this activation.

How often do you know the strats and schemes in advance? Do you make an effort to sort them out ahead of time? With all other games I've ever played we sort the scenario out when we turn up. I feel like this is going to have to be a habit changed for Malifaux. I guess that then lends itself to planning how to achieve each goal with which models on advance of the game?

Now I haven't personally used it but just some easily missed rules. With misaki she can only command it once an activation as she doesn't get past the once an activation on charge. Also for the wanyudo to push 5 I believe it needs to hit. If it missed I don't believe it can push as the push is in the same area as damage. Someone will correct me if I'm wrong. All that said it's stat 6 and targets move and has the ability to create alot of move duels. So I do believe it's good. But it's also fragile against things that can target it at range, def 5 with 7 wounds and no damage reduction means any good shooter can lay some real hurt on it.

Thank you, I've been overlooking Up We Go and Free Loot for delivery!

Well, if you don't mind bluntness, the changes weren't made to benefit you, specifically, as a player. It's basically the gaming equivalent of "We're building a public library/airport, and your house is located on the prime spot for it. The city planners discussed the alternatives, and this is the plan they had the funding for." You've got Illuminated in your list, and from I remember of various discussions, they illustrate part of the problem that was being addressed. Illuminated in M2E were these pretty good, mostly independent models that could sort of just run off in pairs; and they really didn't depend on the rest of the crew for anything in specific. In M3E, they've basically been redesigned so that if you tried to do that without more Honeypot-themed models in the crew, they run out of Brilliance and half their abilities turn off. Because unfortunately, the positive change of "Make keyword models work well with each other" has the less positive requirement of "Keyword models now depend on each other to work well." Which means that the bad news is that your Lilith crew, even if the Honeypot-themed models didn't change faction, no longer works as well as it used to. -- You're expressing that you're feeling salty about the changes. At the risk of sounding like a pompous braggart... I've got pretty good sized Arcanist, Guild, Neverborn and Ten Thunders collections (after the faction changes). For DMH models, I own Collodi, Nicodem ("Sorry for the delay" present from the TTB kickstarter), Lillith, Ryle, and Ramos (bought with Mei Feng to start my Arcanist collection). The only DMH model I don't own is the Electrical Creation, because I refused to buy a model (that I didn't like the physical design of) which was basically summoned to blow up. $11.95 to declare an action. My Outcast leaders went from Misaki and the Viktorias to the Viktorias and about five Henchmen, with what's now a pretty bizarre collection of ex-M2E Mercenary models. I'm also one of the players whose collection is impacted by the Rare limit caps. I've got two fluorescent green Teddy models to match a fluorescent green Pandora box. I converted extra Illuminated out of the purple plastic Lynch box and the TTB figure box. I think I have a dozen of the small mechanical arachnids, ... I'm sure you get the idea. As I wrote above, the downside for a player with an existing collection is that your existing models are now probably designed to work with models that you weren't using them with, if you weren't sticking to "theme". Find an M2E Arcanist player, and if they don't have Howard Langston or Miss Step yet then they're just were probably just waiting for the next holiday sale. Howard Langston w/ Imbued Energies would show up everywhere. Now he works better with his Unionized buddies. --- For the most part, the changes were made to benefit new players, and secondarily provide opportunities for players as they reorganize their existing collections. If you look at each of the factions as a collection of allied keywords, each of the keywords are probably in a better place than they were in 2nd edition. But to get to that better place, you're going to have to be willing to reorganize your collection. Someone wanted to know how the game played, so I got out Spawn Mother, some Sillurids, and Gupps, against a similar sized small crew. "This model does this, it feeds into the thing that that other model with the same keyword does." Yeah, this doesn't change the fact that they built an airport where your house used to be, metaphorically speaking. But they really needed the airport, and it couldn't get built without knocking houses down.

The fact that Incorporeal ignores hazardous terrain aside, a better example would be "a trigger gives you stunned, and Pandora uses Misery to damage you, did the trigger damage you?" The answer is no, because there is an outside effect, not in the words of the trigger, that damaged you, Misery in my example. But there's also no text in Stunning Strike triggers that says the model suffers damage. The Trigger, the words inside of the Trigger text, say that the model can choose to suffer damage. That is pretty straightforwardly suffering damage from a Trigger. A Trigger, that is part of an action. The "Actions or Triggers" verbiage on Black Blood is so that things like the Amalgam "Unmade" defensive triggers, despite not being actions, still provoke Black Blood. Ergo, Incorporeal can reduce damage from attack actions, including the part of their own attack action, the Necrotic Decay Trigger. At which point, he can choose to suffer 2 damage, reduced by 1, to 1 damage actually suffered as per Page 24, which is all he pumps into his damage track as bonus.

I’m fine with it as is. Personally I like when masters have abilities on them that only trigger when they are leading the crew. I think one of McMorning’s abilities, in my opinion, is the best example of such.