Math Mathonwy

"He did what?!" McMourning was furious. "He called him a mangy mutt," Sebastian said. "No one calls my Chihuahua a mutt! There will be blood. There will be a reckoning. I will blow them to bits. I know just the guy who is super good with explosives! Call him immediately." "Papa Loco? A great choice!" "Papa-who? I meant the Judge. Call him!" A Reckoning against Ten Thunders Lynch with ALitS, Plant Explosives, Bodyguard, Distract, and Deliver a Message in the pool. I really don't like Distract in Reckoning, Deliver a Message can be tricky against Lynch who likes to keep his distance and ALitS is always a lot to do - especially with an elite crew suitable for a Reckoning. So I took Plant Explosives (very nice with McM) and Bodyguard on Sebastian. My list was McMourning with Badge of Office, On the Clock and Plastic Surgery this time Sebastian with Lead Lined Coat Francisco with Wade In The Judge Two Nurses Zombie Chihuahua 6 pool Three Henchmen, two Nurses and a dog. Against me was arrayed Lynch with Wanna See a Trick and Sunrise Huggy with Recalled Training and Addict Fuhatsu with Recalled Training Two Illuminated Yin with Favor of the Dragon (the +1 Wp -thingy that allows you to discard Scheme markers) 7 pool He deployed Fuhatsu on a rooftop and the rest of the models behind the house. I deployed to the other end. At the center was a house and another one on my flank at his side of the board. Then there was lots of other terrain that didn't affect anything. First turn. He activates an Illuminated, moves and drops a Scheme marker. I'm wondering what on earth. I pump McMourning with four Poison. He activates Yin, moves and drops a Scheme marker. I'm flabbergasted. I move with Judge and push the activated Nurse. He activates the other Illuminated, moves and drops a Scheme marker. What??? OK, these are there to discourage me from coming over since he has Plant Explosives? What am I to do? I move up, he climbs Fuhatsu to get a commanding view of the battlefield, Lynch does some cards manipulation and drop a Scheme marker. Second turn, he goes Defensive Stance mostly, dropping a few counters. I move up but keep away from Fuhatsu's range. I don't want to get into range to do anything since Fuhatsu and Lynch can blow me to bits and Illuminated are frigging scary! And there's LOS blocks to hide behind except from the Fuhatsu at his Ht 5 perch. Third turn, he wins inititiave, does the same and I do the same. The models stare at one another. Huggy and one Illuminated are behind the central house now having pooped Scheme Markers behind them. The other Illuminated is at the far side of the battlefield at the center line. Could he have taken ALiTS?!? Fourth turn, the same mostly but Lynch and Yin also come behind the central house. I give The Judge El Mayor. Once only Huggy is left, I move up with The Judge. Huggy moves twice to engage the Judge. McMourning charges Huggy, hits it three times but damage prevention means that Huggy takes only damage and four Poison. McMourning Injects The Judge who moves up and plants Explosives for three VP from the Illuminated, Lynch and Yin (and maybe Fuhatsu as well - he was on a Ht 4 rooftop - can ground level explosives reach him? Not that it mattered). We both reveal Bodyguard (me on Sebastian, him on Yin) and McMourning pushes away due to Plastic Surgery. Fifth turn Huggy charges the Judge, Envelops him for five (prevented two damage (at :-fate:-fate:he flips only severes and moderates)) and Drains him (two damage but prevented both). Judge Focuses, Soulstones for a Ram and cheat an eleven of Rams to hit an Illuminated for eight damage. Fuhatsu sweeps at the Judge but randomizes to Lynch and flips a Black Joker. Lynch plays some kind of card games until Judge is at HtK threshold while Poisoned. Yin and Sebastian cross the center lines. Others shuffle. Game ends. 6-3 to me. He had Deliver a Message as his second Scheme but didn't realize how impossible it is against Plastic Surgery McMourning. And his tactic meant that I was super reluctant to engage, especially as I knew that, if needed, I could give Uppers to Francisco, push him with the Judge, move 14" and finally get Injected by McMourning for a grand total of 26" inches of movement with a Scheme Marker at the end. But I didn't need to go to that extreme, 15" from the Judge was enough. OK. That was, by far, the weirdest Malifaux game I have ever played. A Reckoning game where two models died. "Well, that should learn them to disrespect my chihuahua! Say, I wonder what happened to the Judge after I injected him and there was the explosion?"

*Looks at the card* I'm a bit flabbergasted. Yes, you are of course right. I have no idea what I've been thinking o_O

A neat trick with Cassandra is to Understudy the Protection on a Metal Gamin thus freeing the little guy up to protecting someone else.

One of the challenges of rating Summoning against other Master styles is that Summmoning is so easy to quantify. If all your Master does is summon 60SS worth of Spiders that is very easy to calculate and seems utterly excessive (110 SS vs 50 SS!). But you don't summon them on the first turn, so if you count up the extra Spider AP summoned, that is different. Then, if you take a killy Master, you can calculate how many enemy AP were denied by killing models. If you take a buffing Master, how much better your models become? How much more SS should they have costed since they are now taking extra action, getting to flips, healing up or whatever. If you have a debuffing Master, how much less should your opponent's models have costed? If a model is Paralyzed and Distracted the whole game, how many SS should it have costed? If you have a mobile Master that nets you Scheme VP, how do you take that into account in the 50SS vs 110SS numbers? So yeah, Summoning is easy to quatify in a rough way and therefore may seem excessive (and indeed often is in small games) but that doesn't mean that it dominates other styles in any way.

(Heck, my forum handle compels me to comment)Yes, it is very complicated but it can be abstracted to a pretty good approximation rather easily still. It will likely be off a couple of percentage units but that still gives you good enough an estimate to form decisions. Csonti did take these into account. These don't have a very big effect unless I'm missing something huge. This is the big one, agreed. A is approximately +2 to a stat if your stats are somewhat close to another to begin with (i.e., not Ml7 vs Df3). Without cheating, naturally.

Aye, this is how I would've ruled it as well. Thank you for the confirmation, everyone!

Lucius, Governor General's right hand man is a Neverborn infiltrator trying to destroy humanity (or whatever). For sure doesn't have the Guild's interests in mind in the long run. Sonnia, the leader of the Witch Hunters, has kinda gone rogue. McCabe is a Ten Thunders infiltrator, whatever his formal position in the Guild may be. McMourning is a Resser infiltrator (well, as much as Ressers can be seen having infiltrators). Perdita is essentially independent. Lady Justice is closer to a force of nature than to doing Governor General's bidding. That leaves Hoffman, who is kinda naive enough to be considered the sole Guild Master doing stuff for the Guild. And these are the upper echelons, so essentially the ones that the GG should be trusting the most (well, McGuys excepted).

There is a definite sense of urgency to the game nowadays with the turn limit and the Strategies and Schemes. Dallying is not encouraged and you can lose if you spend too much time killing the enemy and too little time achieving VP. It does still take more than an hour but, then again, so do most skirmish games (Eden being an exception and Infinity can vary wildly but is quicker than Malifaux; Malifaux is more on par with Hell Dorado, Carnevale, Alkemy and such). Also, at first games are going to take time while you're not familiar with your or your opponent's models. The balance is a lot better this time around. A lot better.

I think that Wave 2 seems to have slightly better balance than Wave 1. Wave 1 had a couple of too powerful/too weak things (some which got errata, some which got repairing Upgrades) and all in all the power level fluctuated a bit more (Low River Monks or Oirans vs Rotten Belles or Francois LaCroix) but I don't think that there is any actual power creep. All in all I think that Malifaux is remarkably balanced and one of the most balanced minis games I've played (out of two dozen or so).

If we aren't allowed to complain about non-life threatening stuff, this place is going to be a lot quieter I liked the suggestion someone had of converting the kneeling Samurai into a Fuhatsu proxy In the latter case, it is doubly important to voice our opinion if we don't like it, I think! This one was started by a new player making an observation and asking a question. We can't expect everyone to know which issues are repeating and which are not.

Note that Catalyst is an always on ability and not a Trigger (and Regeneration as well). Not sure whether it makes a difference here, mind.

I think that you are being a bit too literal about the abilities and their effects. For example, Night Falls probably doesn't mean that a Nigh Terror causes the sun to go down but rather that it creates a cloud of darkness. If it spends more time doing it, the darkness gets darker (it obviously isn't pitch darkness at first since it only lowers the range as opposed to messing with LOS. Imagining a source emitting darkness is a bit tricky since such a thing is obviously outside the experience sphere of any of us, naturally. Similarly, Vent Steam is a magical effect so the Steam is likely magical as well. If it was mundane steam, it would just count as cover but it affects all Ca actions, not just the ones with the icon. Using more magic makes the Steam thicker and more impenetrable.

Faction style is generally about winning Attrition. Resser models are, in general, pretty durable and you usually can summon more of them into the fray. Ressers have extremely good support pieces and some very nice beatsticks but shooting is something that is a bit lacking. Nico is the king of summoning and buffing up his own models. His summon options are extremely varied and thus he can find the right tool for any job as needed.

Can you give an example of a situation where it seems thematically wrong?

Fixed that for you. Sadly enough.

Dude, I'm a bit of a giant and I don't come anywhere near that kneeling Samurai! Pic courtesy of Gmort's excellent unboxing series: http://gmortschaotica.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/unboxing-malifaux-samurai.html Also, if it was just the man but it is his equipment that is also over-sized. I would have zero problem with the big death marshall if his chains, his coffin, and his gun weren't over-sized as well.

If a model with Regeneration has Poison while within the Aura of a model with Catalyst, does the Poison damage happen before Regeneration? The reason for doubt here comes from the word "immediately" on Catalyst. Does it impose an exception to the usual timing of Abilities that happen at the beginning of an Activation? Or is this an example of reading too much into a wording choice? For reference: Regeneration +1: When this model Activates it heals 1 damage. Catalyst: Other models with the Poison Condition which begin their Activation within 8 of one or more models with this Ability immediately suffer 1 damage from the Poison Condition and then lower their Poison Condition value by 1.

McMourning is also nasty against Arcanists. Precise and Poison ignore Armor. Precise Austringers make those high-Armor, low-wound count Arcanist Constructs cry viscous, oily tears.

Howabout something like this: http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh287/Joekarame/arcworldewoodfiend1_zps90861c0f.jpg As for the durability, the base adds quite a bit but yeah, care must be taken in transport, for sure!

That's a bit of a non sequitur. Myyrä's point was that when something increases the damage done by an attack, it does affect, e.g., blast damage. So the same would apply when something reduces the damage done by an attack. Being applied by an aura has nothing to do with anything.

You're forgetting the Flesh Construct victim, the Wendigo victim, the Young LaCroix with the gun, the Young LaCroix mooning, and so on and so forth. I can sorta believe your explanation for Brass Arachnid or the Skeeters (they are simply a bad design that would've been impossible to do in their proper size so they blew them up - fitting on a base be damned) but not for most of the models that are grossly out of scale. BUT, Wyrd is aware of the QC issues regarding scale and have said that they'll be paying more attention to that in the future (and also make the piece count lower in the kits).

I wish to note here that I have never seen Myyrä and the Devil in the same place at the same time. I'm pretty sure you can draw your own conclusions from this.

The McMourning heal-thing wasn't resolved, then (Lelu is a new example but still no mention of whether the ruling holds for Abilities as it does for Triggers).

Well, I think that there was a number of mitigating circumstances to that one: 1) The brawled was suffering from a giant hangover 2) He had also got a concussion 3) Lass was hitting him on the head 4) He didn't take the situation seriously and didn't want to hurt the Lass/though she was a delirium 5) (and most importantly) the whole story was rather humorous and probably not all that strictly canonical That said, I do agree that the difference between the named characters and the mooks is very striking in Malifaux stories and sometimes kinda strains credibility. OTOH Malifaux does do something to your Fate, so it might be the Breach.

We don't have a rules thread, we have a rules forum http://wyrd-games.net/community/forum/54-malifaux-rules-discussion/ As for you specific question, damage coming from Poison doesn't care about armor and Catalyst says that the extra damage is also Poison, so no, Armor doesn't help. Note that SS prevention works and in Catalyst's case, you only need to prevent one point of damage and then the two extra won't happen at all.