Math Mathonwy

I would also like to note that comparing Bete to Hinamatsu might not be the best way to go about it. I mean, Hinamatsu is quite bonkers and would probably be a strong consideration for inclusion into any crew in the game no matter the faction if it was possible. She is absolute cream of the crop in her role.

I have to say that Silurid with an Upgrade always makes me consider that First Mate would be only one stone more. Disguised is naturally crazy amazing for a Butterfly Jumping Stealth model but still, First Mate is really really good as well. Of course taking tons of Henchmen kinda weakens them due to Stones being less of an advantage when there's so many models that want to use them so maybe that's the deciding factor.

I don't know that you really need all your models to be nodes for Zoraida - I think that having two or three models that do not share keyword with Zoraida still allows you plenty of reach and threat for her. But yeah, in general I agree with @SEV- NB has better Versatiles and OOK models for Zoraida for the most part with just Marker Removal being something that Bayou really excels at on a wholly different level compared to NB (Emissary, Gluttony, Mancha Roja). I also don't consider Ghillie Suit an autotake for Zoraida - depends on the opponent a lot.

They could be made into two distinct Enforcers called Nesty McNestFace (with two less Wounds) and Nesterbestertester (without the Ram baked in)!

Ulix is the only Bayou Master I don't own so I'll let someone else suggest how to get into him but Mah I know well. So the starter for Mah gives you a solid set of models - you will seldom take all three of the Bushwhackers but they are fine Minions and fun to play. Now, I'd say that your next purchase should either be Rooster Riders giving you three very solid damage dealers or Bayou Engineering which gives you three fine Minions and two useful Enforcers. Roosters aren't very durable but hit extremely hard and are super mobile while the Bayou Engineering is more durable but hits less hard and less mobile. For Scheming Mah can get Soulstone Miners from Arcanists. The hickup here is that they come in a box with two Saboteurs that you won't be able to use so it might be an idea to keep your antenna up an old box of just the SS Miners or for someone selling theirs. Finally, there's the Weird Science box which comes with three cheap and weird Minions that are strangely durable and Big Brain Brin who is a very good support Henchman. As for which Pigs are useful with Mah - Gracie is a good fit for both Ulix and Mah and Mah can also make use of The Sow who is in general a solid out of keyword hire in Bayou. But other than those there isn't all that much overlap in my experience. Ulix is quite forcused on Pigs so other than Big Brain Brin (whose card manipulations really help Ulix) he probably isn't taking any of Mah's stuff, either. As for versatiles, our Emissary is a really superb tech piece against Marker heavy crews and both Mah and Ulix can utilize him. Otherwise there isn't anything super important in the Versatiles. Finally, Mah and Ulix have very distinct playstyles and cover each others' weaknesses well so they are a good pair in that regard.

I'm not sure Wong is a strong pick against much of anything But in all seriousness, Emissary kinda turns Shockwaves on their head making them into a potential source of healing in addition to damage and with We Are Legion allowing Cadmus to control how the damage lands Wong seems to me, on paper, to be quite possibly the weakest pick into Cadmus that we have. Unless I'm missing something, that is. My approach would be to try avoiding and outscoring them with Zoraida or Zipp since I really don't see fighting them head on leading anywhere productive. Of course if the Strat and Schemes don't allow for such an approach then I'm not sure what one should do. I believe that @ShinChanscored a win against Nexus by utilizing Gluttony and I can definitely see that as being a strong singular tech piece.

Thank you! And yeah, I actually didn't even paint the eyes but in the pic they somehow look like they have pupils painted - I'll need to check them. The goggles are a good catch - I seem to have messed them up a bit during some stage but should be a really easy fix.

Not sure whether I can offer anything super constructive but I just love how sinister they look. And how they are very different from another yet very cohesive. The smoothness also helps - they are technically super sound. Also really love the subtle use of colour in both to give some visual interest but still retain the look. If there's anything I'm not super fond of it's probably the white one's bowtie which I feel could use some more definition and stronger shadows but that's really minor.

I do like him a lot! One thing I'm kinda on the fence about is that, even though I love the green, it's so very eye catching that it kinda steals the focus of the piece. Especially on the head the eye kinda wonders away from the (lovely!) face to the hat brim. This also goes to the base somewhat. I do like the kinda velvet finish you gave to the coat with the way you applied the highlights. And the shovel is fantastic! (I also absolutely love your Mourners! Damn they are amazing!)

I like them! A classic look that suits them! My favourite is definitely Perdita herself which is good since she's the Master.

Did a test - does it work?

Love the vibrancy of the blues and the reds! As for the photography - check out this video by Squidmar for a very simple style of minis photography: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlkzRE33Lb0

We did a Slow Grow League where your model pool was tied to profile cards so if you picked, say, Moon Shinobi, you could pick all three of them for your force. I can't remember the exact particulars of the league (the number of cards we started with, the size of the games or such) but it was a good way to set up a slow grow league and I could see it codified into a format that could be used for leagues but also for tournaments if one were so inclined. Also, depending on whether you pick the new card(s) before or after knowing the Strat and Schemes and the opponent for the next game it would change the experience quite a bit. Naturally heavily favors "all-comers" type Masters.

Well, they are Syndicate which seems to be a bit like Guild or Arcanists in looks. But yeah, they certainly could've been a bit less generic. I do like the look of the Brawler and Yannic has at least some character to her. It is a bit embarrassing. It's weird that this render was approved. I suppose one could pretend that he is checking how the scope aligns with the barrel or something rather than being actively trying to shoot the gun.

To be fair, Archivist is the most commonly used 9-cost Versatile in the Faction

Yannic and Brawler look great, one rifleman is fine but yeah, the other one is holding the rifle in a really really weird way. Harata looks a bit skinnier that I thought he would but is otherwise fine. The girlpooner is very cool, the guypooner looks somehow imbalanced. And why does the Tidecaller have those pipes attached to his nipples?? Also, his pose from the waist down looks strange. I love the Moorwraiths and Grave Goo looks like Goo so I dunno. Not a huge fan of the concept but it is what it is. Still, this box kinda cements Seekers as the best looking Explorers crew. Really high quality for the whole keyword! Beebe is cool but Calypso looks quite featureless (and tiny but I really hope that's just an effect of the renders). Spelleaters look phenomenal and Archivist is fine - the concept really doesn't lend itself to being spectacular. Still, this is one of those sculpts that might look way better in the flesh than in the render like Von Schtook, for example. Edit: Are they milking a water elemental? Is that a thing? Edit2: "Spring water? Psssh! Mineral water? Bah! Tidecaller milk! Now that's the type of water that a truly discerning Society member drinks when they need to drive later!"

So would this make for a fine starting point for a Toni crew: Toni (5 Pool) Mouse Howard SS Miner x2 Coryphee Duet Arcane Emissary I have a Toni crew from M2e but due to the keyword reshuffling and such my collection of keyword models for her is Toni, Mouse, Captain, Amina, Howard, and one Steamfitter so I had kinda resigned to never playing her again (similar to my Sonnia, LJ, McM, Lilith, Collodi, Nicodem, Ramos, Tara, and probably a couple of other Masters that I'm forgetting...) but now I'm kinda seeing some light at the end of the tunnel.

My undefeated Seamus list at the very tail end of M2e (got my final M2e tournament win with it) was based around the idea that it had no "worthy" targets for the enemy except for Seamus who was decked out in defensive Upgrades to make him unkillable unless I screwed up. The basic version was Seamus (Mad Haberdasher, Do You Know Who I Am, Sinister Reputation), 6 Pool Copycat Killer 4x Rotten Belle Dead Doxy Crooligan Crooked Man Necropunk So a good variety of cheap Minions. Mah is my favourite Master so I dug up a thread about her in M2e and found these four lists: Mah Tucket + 5 Pool - Know The Terrain (1) - Manifest Destiny (1) - Do Over (1) The Little Lass (4) - Lead Lined Apron (0) Francois LaCroix (8) - Stilts (1) Burt Jebsen (8) - Dirty Cheater (1) Gremlin Crier (7) - Dirty Cheater (1) Pere Ravage (6) Bayou Bushwhacker (5) Bayou Bushwhacker (5) --- Mah (Manifest Destiny, Know the Terrain, Liquid Bravery) (7 Pool) Little Lass (Pit Traps) Trixiebelle (A Gun for a Lady) Raphael (Dirty Cheater) Taxidermist (Dirty Cheater) Mech Pork 2 x Slop Hauler --- Mah - dc, manifest destiny, apron Whiskey Golem - Barrell Up Emissary - mah's conflux 2x Swine Cursed 3x Survivor --- Mah Tucket + 4 Pool- Manifest Destiny (1)- Know The Terrain (1)- Out For Blood (2)Mancha Roja (9)- Dirty Cheater (1)Lucky Emissary (10)- Conflux of Bushwhacking (0)Burt Jebsen (8)- Dirty Cheater (1)Gremlin Crier (7)Wrastler (5)Wrastler (5) --- Pretty great variety I would say, and for a random sample no less. Though cheap Minions aren't all that massive in quantity (Mah wasn't really a Minion Master back then).

Of course if the "normal 10/10" choices don't work against Cadmus and you need to resort to 8/10 choices then they effectively could be a 14/10 crew (to continue with the arbitrary numbers).

I think that for it to be an effective illusion someone would need to show the "non-best" models working well against Cadmus and so far that hasn't really happened.

So is it all OOK and Versatiles for Toni (aside from Howard and Captain sometimes)?

I do realize that I said that I wouldn't answer further but that particular article is something I feel quite strongly about and I've seen it bandied about in minis gaming circles quite a bit. So this post isn't meant to further engage with @Maniacal_cacklebut rather trying to raise some view points that IMO should be considered when reading the article linked. Now I realize that you don't specify which parts of the article you find pertinent but I would posit that it's amazingly important to note the vast differences between a card game where an average player owns thousands of cards and a minis game where an average player owns a few dozen minis that they have spent hundreds of hours painting. That's a super fundamental difference that permeates the whole design philosophy behind the games and affects every design decision along the way. And that's without even taking into account my core belief in the fact that the unique nature of Faux allows for niche models to be competitive in various situations. Which kinda ties directly into what @MrPieCheewas saying about the importance of roles and how they can be used to help in making sure that models are relevant. This is a bit like that one Sirlin article that was ultra regularly linked to some years ago which, again, is a great article but where a ton of care should be taken when taking the ideas originating from fighting games and applying them to minis games. Thankfully it has been a while since I've seen it being bandied about as a simple uncriticizable truth.

I admit that I'm having massive difficulty following what you're trying to say here. To me it kinda reads like you're just disagreeing on principle since your examples seem to be of ridiculous extremes like "being good in 1 in 1000 pools" or "buff him to be good in all games and broken against summons". Do you honestly think that I was suggesting something where that "1/1000 pools" thing would be relevant? Or that anyone on this forum wants to see Vincent being good in all games and broken against summons? Malifaux is unique among minis games in the way that it supports niche models and makes them relevant and therefore I feel that it would be possible to have the huge stable of models that it has and still have them all be relevant choices to some situations. Which is why I reject the idea that there's always 20% useless models and it cannot be helped. That said, I won't be answering you further as I can't see this leading anywhere constructive due to our massive differences in our base views of the game. Feel free to have the last word.

I extremely strongly disagree with the idea that a model needs to be good in all pools and matchups for it to be fine. I even more strongly disagree with the notion that buffing models is useless since "one model is always the worst" (and the corollary of nerfing models is useless because "there's always a model that is the strongest and therefore problematic"). I think we're in the territory where it might be wiser just to agree that we disagree since our differences are so extreme here.

Casting in metal would be very difficult but using Instamold and green stuff should be doable. Youtube has tutorials on how to do it.