Math Mathonwy

Oh aye, on TT side they are kinda the bread and butter of Brewy being sorta his only "own" models if he doesn't want to pay the upgrade tax. But on the Gremlin the situation is reversed.

I've been wondering about the Fermented Monks. On paper they seem fantastic but the upgrade needed for them costs 2SS and the ability that it comes with, though situationally very powerful, is... situational. So the tax for using Fermented Monks is actually very high. Are they really that good?

That was a really unexpected view point.

I agree but then again lots of people started the first edition with Colette and I think that Brewmaster is a lot easier to get the hang of. Besides, as you kinda allude to, beginners might come to the game without 'bad habits' such as concentrating on killing. Brewmaster works very well if you remember to focus on achieving the Schemes and Strategies They are likely one SS too expensive but that isn't a huge deal. They were cuddled rather radically in the latter stages of the open beta (they used to have 4" melee reach, which kinda defined them) and likely got out a bit half-baked as a result. They aren't bad but indeed maybe not quite worth the 6SS especially as Gremlins have some extremely good models in the 5SS bracket as well as in the 7SS bracket. "available in the game" more like Have you found Lenny good with Brewie? To me it seems that his crews don't usually need the +Ram all that much. Well, I'd say that comparing Shinobi and the Preformer is rather difficult

Another one into the pot: Eden Can I afford it? The most affordable minis game, most likely. 100 points is the official game size (the game uses Mission cards that are balanced for 100 points) and a starter comes with 100 points. This means 3-6 minis per side. And changing one mini can have a really big effect on how your force plays. Do I like the miniatures? Ayup! They are fantastic and extremely varied. Good quality pewter, though some minis are rather delicate and can be difficult to put together (especially the bigger ones). Is the game fun? It's extremely fun. The game is very tactical even down to the actual melee level (you can affect the location of your hit). It features asymmetrical objectives, a brilliant resource allocation mechanism (or several in the case of some factions), tactical cards with interesting effects, a very cool initiative system and so on and so forth. It is extremely well designed with an emphasis on what makes for an interesting game as opposed to what makes for a good simulation. The rules are available for free and are relatively short (and also included in all the starters - the hardcover rulebook mostly adds fluff and gorgeous art). Do other people play? Maybe not yet, but it's super easy to demo and the extremely low mini count makes it a very easy sell. Also, a single match takes only about an hour and is played on a 2'x2' table with not too much scenery (less than Malifaux) so it works extremely nicely as a secondary game. And tournaments allow for five games easy. I'm very excited about M2E currently and have been playing it a lot lately but Eden is a close second and in some ways I consider its design more elegant. I think that they complement one another really nicely while still working for the same crowd (people looking for interesting design on a small scale). An amazing game.

Poor E.T.A. - can't anymore keep straight all the guys he has taken to school with his Belles

Ah, you send PMs? I hadn't realized. That's cool then.

The problem for me is that you deal with it by closing the thread and that is explicitly not an outcome I want therefore reporting is about the last thing I would want to do. And this isn't in any way a criticism of how you moderate, just the logical consequence of my personal preferences and the moderating style here. I wish to stress that people who have different preferences (as there are several people who actively wish for thread closure in more controversial topics) act differently and that is entirely valid. That said, I will refrain in the future from commenting other people's style.

This is just the sort of posting that lead to the closing of the previous thread. If you have no interest in discussing this, then please let the rest of us.

Let me just say that I really like your in-depth posts, Sharpobjects!

She really does! Sexy but in good taste and looks really painful.

I'm guessing that the idea is simply to mess up your opponent's schemes and strategy with the Lures and then use the relatively fast and relatively durable Belles to do the schemes and strategy. But you do bring up a very good point, I think. Have you Chicago-people noticed any particular strategy or a combination of schemes that makes the Bellespam cringe or has it been a kind of a one-stop solution?

Thank you so much for testing this and for the write-up. Though the result remains inconclusive I really appreciate the effort you guys put into this!

Thank you, Sharpobjects, for the comprehensive and very informative post! It was a very nice read And it's great to hear that you tried a game with a lot more terrain. Out of interest, do you have severe terrain? Not saying that it is the answer or anything (I can see Lures taking advantage of such, in fact), just wondering. I know that we didn't use much of "non-cover providing yet severe" terrain until lately but it really changed the feel of the game. Could you elaborate a bit on what the Belle list does? I don't expect a blow-by-blow account, but if you could describe in broad strokes how the Perdita game went for example, I believe that would be very educational. Edit: Also thanks to E.T.A. Hoffman - a very interesting read! Edit2: oh, and also thanks to Mythicfox for allowing this thread to prosper as well as for taking the time to test playing against the list on Vassal - much appreciated!

I do like the Slow they can deal out, btw. In a best case scenario it can mean that some melee model is stuck just walking inefficiently for a turn or denies the use of Flurry or similar and at least it halves the efficiency of a model for a turn (unless they have more than two AP, naturally). It can have a really big impact in many cases but it seems to be forgotten quite often.

The previous discussion got a bit out of hand and was closed but I was hoping that we could have a calm thread about things since I think that there was quite a bit left to discuss. If we could keep all the "l2p" -stuff and all in all dismissiveness to a minimum and respect one another's experiences. Hopefully opening a new thread isn't against the rules. My sincerest apologies if this isn't deemed kosher. Another thing worth pointing out from the beginning is that Justin said that Rotten Belles won't be errataed in the foreseeable future. So this thread isn't about that. Therefore calling Ca8 OP is probably not very productive and hoping for a cuddle is futile at this point. Now, I have a lot of respect for the Chicago guys. It's a big pool of players and they have a healthy scene that has been going on for a long time. Now, the previous thread did point out that in the pictures that were shown from a tournament, there wasn't all that much terrain and it was posited that this would be a key reason why Rotten Belles seem to rule Chicago while other areas with equally active scenes haven't encountered problems. I didn't really see a Chicago answer to these claims - could you try using twice as much terrain as normal in a weekly game and see if that makes a difference or not? Also, have you found long range crews more powerful across the spectrum or is it just Belles? What happened in the Vassal game? Mythicfox and csonti (I think, sorry if I misremember) were going to have a Vassal game where csonti would go with six Rotten Belles. How did it go? One thing left open from the previous thread was a description of what the Chicago Rotten Belles actually do. Many people who didn't believe in the power of the list offered that Rotten Belles can only Lure and, on the surface, that doesn't seem like it would win games on its own. But again I wish to stress that we are talking about a big, active group whose play experience seems to differ strongly from the experiences elsewhere. Is it really simply the amount of terrain? Or is it that they have clued in into a style of play that really favours Rotten Belles? Have you tried 6-belle lists in other places and how did they do? Finally, please remember mutual respect. The people on the other end of the Internet (and there's people there - not just goofy names and avatars) are likely as intelligent and as experienced as you are yet their experiences may differ. And let's remember that we are a welcoming community brough together through the love of this game.

First of all, nakedness does not mean objectification. Often the classic barbarian king is wearing less clothes than the hapless concubines at his feet yet the former isn't objectified while the latter are. It's about empowerment and whether the woman is a subject or an object in the depiction, essentially. Or the male, but men are actually rather seldom objectified. Second, I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with Lilith. I consider the pose somewhat awkward and kinda catwalk-style weird but I don't think that it is horrid. But I could see the argument that she is being depicted in a weird stance due to her gender (like I said, a male mini doing what she's doing would look extremely weird). Finally, I wish to stress that I don't think that Malifaux is especially sexist. There are some minis that go for the cheap exploitative angle (Viks and Ronins, for example) but there are many strong female depictions as well and all in all Malifaux is good about including women. There are certainly loads of minis ranges that are worse.

A dude doing whatever it is that Lilith is doing would look... weird. Now, whether that counts as objectification is open for debate but a reasonable argument could be put forward that Lilith's depiction is sexist. I might not agree with that assertion but it wouldn't be silly to make such an assertion. Now, sexism is an endemic and a systemic problem. "Tramp stamp" -style language is a part of it, certainly (the whole Madonna-whore dichotomy where you divide women into prudes and sluts). Now, I'm not saying that dgraz is evil for using said language. I wouldn't label him a sexist, either - merely as a part of a sexist society (as are we all, mind) perpetuating the mores of said society. This isn't evil but it is something that we shouldn't engage in in the hopes of eventually changing the society.

There is a very strong argument that depictions of violence aren't real while depictions of sexism in a way are. There is a lot of background sexism and objectification of women (an insane amount, actually) that permeates our society and adding to it is not a good idea as it reinforces the underlying attitudes. Meanwhile seeing violence doesn't cause violence in normal people. Now, I'm sure that the natural reaction you'll have after reading that passage is to throw in a pithy comment and argue against and that's OK. I'm not really trying to convince or educate you. I'm just saying that there is a strong, non-insane argument that you could boil down to "violence = fine, sexism = bad". Whether you buy it, I really don't care, but if you're interested there's a lot of literature that has been written on the subject.

Well, GW games have hardly any females so there's that. I mean, what few they have are often cringe-worthy, but you can easily go through three rounds in a tournament without seeing a single female mini. Also for games which are less sexual - well, there's about a thousand historical games which are far less sexual. Or Mech games. Or Ship games. Or space ship games. Not saying that eliminating females is a good thing, mind, just that there's lots of games that do so and are therefore kinda objectively less sexual.

I don't get it - what's wrong with the usual kin? Rami is good in that though his min damage sucks, he is a big psychological threat with that long range of his and excellent in finishing targets. Raphael - OK, here Burt is kinda just better. Which is a bit of a shame, really. But Raphael isn't bad - maybe you could argue that he is one SS too expensive at max - he won't lose you games. I just won a game against a really tough Lynch player with (50SS) Ophelia (Cache 7) - Dirty Cheater - Liquid Bravery Young LaCroix Francois - Dirty Cheater - Stilts Raphael Rami Slop Hauler Slop Hauler Bayou Gremlin Bayou Gremlin Bayou Gremlin I find the Bayous excellent in upping the activation count as well as in doing stuff like Distraction, Cursed Object and whatnot. Well worth it for two or three, IME. I also like a high cache for Ophelia since she is death incarnate when going for Rams. Once I got into position I killed two models per turn with her.

It was stated several times that Lure has a 95% chance of success. How was this calculated? I don't, unfortunately, currently have access to my custom system for accurately calculating the probabilities in Malifaux (and really can't be arsed to code one again) but doing some quick and dirty calculations I'm getting a 75% success rate against Wp 5. Give or take three percentage points max, I'd say. Now, I realize that cheating skews this and if you cheat a 12 you will win (and, let's face, 11 is enough in far majority of the cases) but surely that doesn't turn a 75% chance to a 95%? Especially if you're Luring like crazy with six belles (you simply can't cheat that much).

A Taxidermist with Ml7 and an inbuilt positive flip to damage trigger is also rather nasty (too bad the Taxidermist is so fragile). Which upgrade do you guys usually give to Little Lass, btw?

Remember that there is often a mini shown on the side of the package which isn't visible in these pics (Cherub and Copycat were such at least).

I like all of them. The Moon Shinobi look like they should make for interesting sculpts and all the Bayou Gremlins look good. Though I must note that the way they have been placed over the background is a bit lazy Raphael and Fingers especially.