Math Mathonwy

No idea about the size but as far as distinguishing features go, it has six limbs and rocky protrusions. There is a pic of it floating around somewhere, but unfortunately I couldn't locate it.

Your style of play scares me. You say that you feel sorry for killing Hoffman and now you say that you insert yourself in the game... so you really imagine yourself killing all those people represented by minis in the game? I kinda recommend a therapist at this point. Heh, first of all, when you throw out stuff like "deal with it" and then throw a hissy-fit when someone doesn't just roll on their back you don't sound immensely mature. Just saying. Also note that you were the one who started making ad hominems back in post #48 so I thought that was your preference. Second, nothing wrong with being fifteen, you'll grow out of it and look at your former self in a new light pretty soon, I promise. That has nothing to do with what we were discussing, though. I now realize that these random changes and goal-post shifts are par for the course for you, but pardon me if I'm not exactly going to follow you where ever you decide to randomly take the conversational ball. P.S. I imagine that every time you write something that the board censors, it was the c-word. You know, the one ending with 'lown' that is not allowed here

Aye, change Sybelle to a normal Belle and add in Molly's totem. Molly can summon Sybelle when your lure machine has killed something.

But they want to paint fat, crippled, and ugly men? Are you fifteen or something? Because I refuse to believe than an adult would spew crap like that. ...and this is why you don't vote, right (when you are old enough to do so)? As your vote is an insignificant drop in the ocean of other votes. Whoah, got a citation for all that? Since beauty standards changing over the centuries kinda, you know, disproves the whole "we are nothing but slaves to our genetics"-type of stuff at that level. The unchanging parts of beauty standards have more to do with balance (both sides of the face and body matching the other) and being average (i.e., no abnormalities) than wide hips and a skinny, young look which haven't always been in vogue (and are sorta mutually at odds with one another).

No. It hasn't been in my postings, nor in yours (nor in anyone else's) except for these last two of yours where you plucked it seemingly randomly. Check back a few posts if you don't believe me. Suffice it to say that you're tilting at strawmen here and not addressing the points I've raised, nor answering my question about your previous statements.

@Dolomyte (can't bother quoting as quoting those bold-tags is very time consuming) You seem to have switched the debate to somewhere completely else compared where it started at. The quality of the sculpts was never an issue in this thread and seems to come straight out of the blue and cast your previous comments in a really, really weird light. So I'm not at all sure what good would answering to you further yield. Finally, I made the comment on having played with minis longer than you purely because you suggested that this was not the right hobby for me. Well, also because I felt comfortable in making that claim (insofar as I honestly believe so).

But only in the case of female models? Comparing the minis where there is a female and a male option, the difference tends to be rather astounding. My main point is that Wyrd men have a great amount of fun diversity. I wish that the women had as well. To be fair, Infinity males are all uniformly trim and handsome as well. It kinda goes with the genre, more so than with Fantasy minis. But yeah, I'm not saying that other companies are that much better than Wyrd here. And I do agree with your earlier point about this being something that affects the whole society and every medium. But I feel that there have been advances made and I keep hoping that Wyrd might at the forefront of such a change, perhaps.

You pointed out Abuela who I acknowledged and then two more who aren't ugly in any shape or form. She has a dress with a high waistline. Haven't you ever seen such garments? You think everyone wearing such is fat? Good thing that no one suggested anything even remotely to that effect, then. What the hell, dude? You trolling? I dare say that I've been in this hobby longer than you, played more games than you and painted more minis than. Yes, without knowing anything about you. So yeah, miniature gaming is definitely for me. So you hate Abuela and Zoraida based on their looks? I don't play minis games to be sexually stimulated. I thought no one did. But suddenly I'm not so sure any more, unfortunately.

No no, I should be the one apologizing. In retrospect, I sounded awfully aggressive there. I realize that this has been a very verbose thread and reading everything everyone has written is not a given. Furthermore, since Sybelle is the ugliest woman in Malifaux, adding her to the list seems very tempting. So, to iterate what I said before (and further refining and clarifying the thesis), belles are a bad example of diversity since 'ugly' is an intrinsic characteristic in the concept of zombies. Similarly, Showgirls should be exempted from the discussion as 'beautiful' is a quality associated with cabaret dancers. Now, as for the other female modes, 'beautiful' is not an intrinsic characteristic of a blind-folded sword mistress. Or of hammer wielding worker girl. Or of a homeless rat slave. Now, these can be beautiful and there is nothing wrong with that. But when every one of them is, that's when I would like to see more variety. So, in closing, my apologies for my previous answer to you. And hopefully I clarified my point here.

Two things 1) I wasn't trying to list only fat models but rather models that aren't the epitome of physical perfection (like the female models tend to be). 2) You give reasons why they aren't so. Guess what, those reasons are made up! By the designers who designed the characters. Why couldn't they make a cripple woman? Or a fat woman guard captain? Or whatever unattractive or just less-than-perfect woman minis? Why do only men have these reasons for looking not so good? Heck, even the Obedient Wretch, supposedly homeless as well, is hot as hell. Abuela I had forgotten, yes, she is an example of the diversity I would like to see more of. As for Rusty Alyce and Molly - they are both attractive (well, Molly is a zombie but she could be painted to look attractive). Though your analysis of her is kinda telling of your attitudes. I have twice already commented on this subject. Want me to do it a third time? Edit: wait, this one has a few extra pounds? What the hell? http://www.wyrd-games.net/Display/molly.jpg

But that doesn't, for some reason, extend to the guys? Levi isn't very trim. Neither is Executioner. Or the Guard Captain or the Convict Gunslinger (male version, the female version is very trim). Hamelin the Rat catcher? Santiago? Hoffman? I could go on. On the other side of the coin there's the Guild gals, Vickys, Taelor, Misaki, Ronins, Nurses... I can't believe I have to post these examples, really, but I suppose that the attitudes are so deeply ingrained that people don't notice their biases anymore. So yeah, 'fantasy' seems to extend rather selectively to different genders.

To be fair, Book 2 gave a huge boost to the Neverborn while the boost to the Guild was way more modest. Lucius, the Watcher and Drill Sergeant compared to Lelu and Lilitu, Stitched Together and Coppelius. Oh, and Alps and Nekima. Austringers are a bit too good, though, IMO, with the boosts that they received in book 2. Wouldn't call them broken but I doubt that they are working as intended currently. Still, Neverborn have several tricks that are more evil. Also, the "Guild is broken" claim comes easy mostly since Perdita is such an easy crew to play well compared to almost everything else in the game. So I'm not sure how much stock should be put into the claim.

Heh, yeah, I formulated my query badly. I meant whether the shadow meant the unnatural shadow between the fake breasts or the shadow between the breast and the upper chest. I mean, true balloon fake breasts have a very unnatural looking crease between them as well.

But they all have extremely trim, athletic bodies, all are young and fresh and good looking and so on. Meanwhile the guys come in all shapes and sizes and looks.

To be fair, the industry tends to exaggerate all the women in the same way while exaggerating male sculpts in many different ways. I'm pretty sure that most sculptors work from concept art and most concept artists are told what to draw by the developers. You are of the opinion that there is good variety among the female sculpts wrt body types?

I believe I addressed these. Zombie girls don't really count as I don't think I've ever seen a good-looking zombie girl since they are supposed to be dead and gross. Similarly, but on the other side of the issue, I would argue that Showgirls don't count as they are by definition good-looking and it would be silly to have other sorts of sculpts for cabaree performers, really. It's all the female models between these two extremes being uniformly good-looking in the same way (except Zoraida) that I feel is the crux of the matter. While male sculpts have all sorts of body types (Guard Captain, Executioner, Convict) and mugs ranging from ugly to handsome, all the ladies of Malifaux are beatiful of face and trim of body with big, perky boobs.

IMO the heart of the matter really is that even though there is a huge number of female sculpts in the Malifaux line, they are all white and conform to the most common western beauty standards with just one exception on the beauty front (well, other than the zombies but I'm not sure they count since they are ugly by definition) and two on the whiteness front. Meanwhile, the male sculpts have all sorts of different body shapes and looks ranging from Levi to Nino to Hoffman to Von Schill to Joss. The Desperate Mercs and the Convict Gunslingers put this trend into a sharp focus. I like beautiful women just as much as the next guy. But minis games, though about eye-candy, aren't about that sort of eye-candy every time all the time. At least to me. I enjoy painting an Anna Bogda Pavlova every once in a while to counteract all the Nurses and whatnots. OTOH I understand why Wyrd does this as apparently most male minis gamers simply want the cheesecake and reject the normal looking and less than beautiful female sculpts. This thread is a prime example. A sad state of affairs but I don't begrudge Wyrd for selling what sells.

Nemesis, Alkemy, Eden, Hell Dorado, Anima Tactics, Sphere Wars, Relics, Freebooter's Fate, Infinity... how many have you actually tried? Because it kinda sounds like you have only tried the two big American ones.

"Unbeatable" is a very silly metric for any discussion. I mean, even the original Nico + canines + the old graverobber rules wasn't "unbeatable". But it certainly wasn't a working-as-intended balanced trick that's good for the game. I feel that here we have a similar situation. "Broken" is similarly silly a metric as it seems to mean different things to different people. For some reason, many people consider it to mean "unbeatable" or otherwise things so far beyond wacked that they are almost wholly non-likely to be present. Maybe the Confrontation Meliador + Storm of Light-thingy would suffice but that is so far beyond the pale that I've met such a situation once during my over 20 years of minis playing using dozens of different systems. So we have lots of words that have conditions that will never be met and then people defending unbalanced things by saying that they don't fulfill those ludicrous conditions (as if that would make them fine). Sorry for the rant, it's just rather a frustrating issue.

Does my avatar have the boob shadow? As I'm not sure whether you mean the shadow above the boobs or between them? Furthermore, I'm suddenly very self-conscious of my avatar. I just chose it as I consider it one of my better paint jobs... maybe I should I change it. Dude... seriously? That's just... wow. Now I remembered why I prefer some very specific forums for discussions like these. Urgh.

Maelstrom is reliable but not lightning-fast in their communication. In other words, patience. They sometimes ask you to mail the item back to them (but they'll of course pay the postage) but other times they let you keep it. Not sure what governs which happens but I've had both happen to me as have my friends.

That's one of those bold claims that I doubt greatly. Irresistable is absolutely huge and will shield her very nicely and if the enemy goes through that her DEF doesn't stink and she has access to healing. edit Oh, I'm pretty sure that no one is arguing that the combo is unbeatable or even nearly so. It's merely too powerful and unfun.

The usual sculpting style for 28mm minis is to exaggerate certain features and characteristics. This is why muscular male minis tend to have enormous giant muscles and why females tend to have big boobs and both are unnaturally enhanced in look. And this is what people expect. I mean, someone mentioned Rusty Alice as an example of a small-breasted mini. In real life she would probably have a C-cup at least. Some smaller boobed minis would be nice, though, agreed.

Agreed! We really shouldn't keep this up, otherwise people will start thinking we aren't mortal enemies...

But this is just it - first turn you are safe in the fog. Second turn you are getting, in your theory, both mindless zombies as well as bolster somehow it seems. And even in such a way that you bolster them at the start of the turn and then raise the dead as mindlesses in the latter part of the turn. All in all your theory sounds plausible if you have two Nicodems, otherwise it seems that you are expecting way much of him every turn. And Nicodem is squishy in that the pushing shenanigans that the FILTH crew (I like the all caps, btw, nice touch, Nix ) excels at can get you out of position very easily and they you're in for a world of hurt as he really is squishy when things go wrong.