Math Mathonwy

Do you have some sort of reference to back up your interpretations? Joediamond quoted the rulebook and his way, indeed, has been how I've been playing it and how I have been explaining it to new players. The Ht of the Aura as simply referring to it's LOS. In other words, an Aura works exactly the same as any other measurement in the game: range and LOS. Makes sense, right? If not, could you cite something to the contrary?

In the interest of clarity, note that the bomb is a Pulse so wouldn't affect the Piglet (unless I'm missing something).

I don't understand - what does it describe if not the length (height) of the cylinder? In a practical example, a model standing on top of Ht 1 terrain creates an Aura. Does it hit the Ht 1 Gremlin that is on ground level?

Are you suggesting that it should work like this: ------------ aaaMaaa aaaMaaa aaaMaaa aaaTaaa GGGGGGG - =no aura A =Aura T= terrain M=model G= Table top Then the aura would be ht 4.

Happiness is a pair of saggy tits: one folded as a pillow, the other a blanket.

Oh aye, I probably could've been clearer in my reply in that I do realize that this is a thought experiment and Joel doesn't actually play that way. We are in agreement. I was trying to say that even as a thought experiment it isn't very enlightening since actual conclusions for real gaming situations are very difficult to draw from it.

Unfortunately no, deck-based probability calculations are pure murder. I simply made a small Java program from scratch. I had done such a thing (making and shuffling the deck, flipping system and performing duels) during the beta testing when people had weird ideas about the effects of and it took about fifteen minutes during a coffee break to add the pruning system to it.

I ran some tests. I drew a hand of 18 cards and then I set the pruning threshold to 7 (meaning pruning away cards lower than seven). Then I shuffled the pruned deck and flipped some duels. I did this ten million times. Pruning a deck for 18 cards vs pruning it with 6 (the usual hand size) gives you an edge on duels that is a bit less than +1 to the relevant stat. Pruning it for a massive 50 cards results in about +3 to the stat.

The Strategies and Schemes work a lot better at 50 stones as well. In 35SS you run out of models to do Strategies and still fight so fighting becomes more important. Also, tabling someone on round three at 50SS is a lot more difficult. Finally, in 35SS Assassinate is really good since often you should be trying to eliminate the enemy Master anyway in such small games while Bodyguard for example is really difficult since you can't afford to be careful with a high cost model. Distract is also more difficult simply because there's fewer enemies to apply the condition to. And Scheme marker Schemes are more difficult since there's fewer models to drop them. And Vendetta is easier because fewer models. And so on. 35SS games can be fun and they can be balanced but Malifaux really is built and balanced on 50SS games. I wish to stress here that Lilith is a very powerful Master and Tangle is a very powerful ability. All in all Lilith has a veritable smorgasbord of options on how she can utilize her abilities and in the hands of a good player she is a very difficult opponent.

That's a pretty cool combo actually. Thankfully Stitched's Reactivate needs to come from an Attack Action or that would've been horrible.

What if, whatever killed it is taking another swing at it due to a Trigger forcing another attack?

That is one of the best Sams I have seen! Very nicely rugged and super characterful. A very definite improvement over the previous one. The model has a certain effeminate quality to it that's somehow a tad weird but you got rid of it completely with this new look. (Here's a link to the previous versions for anyone curious, btw: http://wyrd-games.net/community/topic/86521-scs-new-malifaux-painting-thread-post-switch-to-white/?p=705775

I'm looking for the metal Jackalope for my Marcus crew. I'm located in Finland but it's such a tiny mini that it should be relatively cheap to mail internationally.

I think that it is weird to think that the Master takes care of the Strategy while the crew takes care of the Schemes. There's lots of Masters who make certain Schemes trivial and certain other Schemes nearly impossible for the opponent. In my latest game, McMourning made Plant Explosives utterly trivial and also made Deliver a Message almost impossible for the opponent due to the Plastic Surgery end-of-round push. And since the rest of the Scheme Pool was tricky (Distract in Reckoning - no thanks!) he really limited my opponent's Scheme selection. Similarly, the Strategy affects crew selections tremendously. For example, Depleted are super good for Reconnoiter but they can't really contribute much to most Schemes. The same is true of, e.g., Night Terrors. In this specific example of Reckoning you discount Zoraida since she isn't very killy. This is true but OTOH for Reckoning you will go for an elite crew and Zoraida's Obey is especially useful with an elite crew. Eternal Bad Juju is also really nice in Reckoning since he won't give out points for it and your opponent is trying to kill your Swampfiends so he will have plenty of opportunities to come back. Finally, Voodoo Doll is super lethal but in an easily controllable way so you can easily strive for the Reckoning points with it. So, long story short, I actually think that Zoraida is a good choice for Reckoning as long as your crew has good damage dealers.

Fees cannot be placed on Leaders. Also, when using it against Black Blood models in general, extreme care should be exercised.

Are you supposed to have some sort of a risk to measuring? That you might measure incorrectly and this is somehow an intended thing? That's a really weird thought to me. We have been dropping a spare base if the move is somehow really tricky. Moving back and forth is of course a bad idea since getting the mini back to where it was without a marker of some sort is difficult.

This is how I won my latest match against Lilith. Paralyzing her for two turns really took the wind out of her sails.

35SS leads to weird games. I strongly suggest playing 45-50SS games. In 35 that Tangle is going to to be extra strong, especially if used to Grow.

I'm not sure that the deck shaping technique described is efficient. The extreme version that you described ate up 3AP from your Master and 18SS worth of your own models which is certainly excessive. But if you do it half-baked, it won't have a big effect, which was kinda my point. In order to meaningfully affect your deck distribution, you need to prune quite a lot of cards.

Aye, I actually originally had it in the list but deleted it, since I couldn't think of a good example of a situation where opposing Faction would impact my Master choice against an "ideal" opponent with access to the whole of their faction. If they have a more limited pool of Masters available, then it of course can have a big impact. But do you have any examples of Masters that you wouldn't take (or would prefer) against a specific Faction?

I think that there is a best Master for each Strategy/Scheme pool/terrain combination. I think that Strategy, when considered alone, does not have a single best Master - not necessarily even a group of best Masters.

Believe you me, going chop-chop was definitely my plan going in! But Fuhatsu was unreachable on top of the building, Huggy doesn't give out Reckoning points, and Yin is really, really difficult to take down. So that left only the two Illuminated and Lynch (who also likes to hang back). So getting Reckoning points seemed virtually impossible and meanwhile I knew that I could get six points very easily from the Schemes while my opponent getting six would be almost impossible if he followed his apparent plan of holding back.

You really need to see these in the flesh, then. The FC victim is gigantic except that he has a tiny head (that is from one of the Illuminated, actually). It looks seriously weird in the flesh, from any angle that you can see the victim clearly. The Young LaCroix are absolutely gigantic - especially the one with the gun. I really, really have zero belief in the idea that the gun Young LaCroix is a design choice. She is completely weird. And the box was recalled when someone pointed out that it didn't have enough Young LaCroix in it. So I'm guessing that they got the two added and didn't do QC and ended up with the giants. The piggybacking ones are appropriately sized and look great (and they are the ones that are in the artwork in the original book).

OK, but what happens if it randomizes into Lynch again? Can it do that? Or if it does that, does the action end?

Fuhatsu uses his Sweep and gets the Trigger: " Sweeping Fire: After damaging, immediately take this Action against a different target which was not targeted by this Action during this Activation." He is shooting into an engagement of friendly Lynch and enemy Judge (targeting Judge). He randomizes and hits Lynch, gets the trigger and does damage. What happens with the next shot? Who can he target? Can he randomize into Lynch again?