Math Mathonwy

More cookies! Good stuff, thank! (I didn't leave out anyone on purpose but I was sure I forgot some as I simply put them there when they crossed my mind)

I like this thread. This is a good thread.

A cookie! (I hate Vik and wish she wasn't in the game - probably Tier 2, though)

As you may know, I'm the highest authority on Malifaux and I have decided to decree the official tier list for GG18 as follows: Tier 1: Nicodem, Sandeep, Collodi Tier 1.5: Nelly, Kirai, Reva, Marcus, Lilith, Hamelin, Zipp, Shenlong Tier 2: Hoffman, Perdita, McCabe, Sonnia, Lady Justice, Resser McMourning, Seamus, Tara, Molly, Ironsides, Rasputina, Ramos, Pandora, Lynch, Titania, Dreamer, Zoraida, Vikkies, Levi, Asami, Somer, Wong, TT Mei Feng Tier 2.5: Guild McMourning, Lucius, Yan Lo, Kaeris, Arcanist Mei Feng, Misaki, Jack Daw, Ulix, Mah Tuckett, Ophelia Tier 3: Colette, Parker, Von Schill, Brewmaster Tier 1 is the top of the heap. Tier 1.5 is really superb ones but that may not yield quite the best possible results if you solo them. Tier 2 is the good stuff and likely the power level I would personally love every Master to be at. Tier 2.5 is good as well but with maybe slightly more situational Masters. Nothing wrong with these. Finally Tier 3 is the ones who might do with a bit of a boost maybe because they are a bit lackluster or because someone else in the faction does their job simply better. Doesn't mean that you can't win with them, however. You may now thank me. ... In all seriousness, this was pulled out of my arse with maybe fifteen minutes worth of pondering and I have taken part in exactly one GG18 tournament and there is absolutely nothing official about any of this in any shape or form. I barely know what I'm talking about. Furthermore, I think that tier lists are very fluid in any case. But they are fun to talk about! And in order to give some food for thought, I posted what I posted. Please share yours or discuss this one or maybe even have a meta discussion about tier lists and their usefulness. Oh, and don't tell anyone, but there were quite a few Masters with whom I oscillated between two tiers for quite a while. For example, I feel that basically all of the dual TT Masters are better in TT than in the other faction but I'm not sure whether this is big enough to warrant another tier except in Mei Feng's case. Oh, and a cookie to anyone who notices the Master I forgot!

I think what you have on her is already good stuff. Just add this (feel free to edit, though) as a last sentence to the first paragraph: "And though she is not usually used for her damage in an Ophelia crew, Burning can be very handy for finishing off potential sucker models when there's Schemes like Frame For Murder or Take One for the Team in the Scheme Pool."

Two years more and you can have her do all your terrain for you. "This terrain looks like a three-year old made it!" "Very astute!" "But... all the glitter really takes me out of the experience!"

A good thread! I would add to Merris that her Burning is great for taking out likely Suckers when Frame for Murder or Take One for the Team is in the pool. This is especially relevant since Ophelia and Franc are so killy and tend to give full points for the Scheme for the opponent. As for Lenny, I would mention that he can Toss Ophelia which is nice and a Young LaCroix who Focus Shoots near Lenny is the stuff of nightmares for the opponent. If they get hit, do they cheat a really high card to avoid potentially massive damage knowing that if they do, you'll just shrug and decide that it was 2SS well spent?

Do Over's "discard for card draw" happens at the start of the Activation so you can't stack the deck for it. Huh? Never realized that Criers are Ht 1. That's weird. But certainly useful!

There's a very delicate balance to terrain. I've seen quite a few tables where Sonnia/Rasputina with double walls would basically autowin. The table Ludvig mentioned from the Stockholm tournament would've been really horrid against a double wall list as you had to commit to an opening and it could then be blocked. Luckily I faced only Ironsides and Nico. The latter took great advantage from the narrow alleys which forced me to bunch up - two corpse explosions kinda lost me the game.

This! That monster hand makes a real difference that is difficult to comprehend without facing it. 15 cards in hand with eight cards pruned is just bonkers and gives a massive, massive advantage. Especially on the first round when people tend to have slightly worse hands than in the later rounds on average. Coupled with the positives to damage it is the thing that makes the list. People look at the Pig's 2/4/6 damage track and think that it won't do 12 damage per Charge when that is actually rather a common thing. Luckily on our tournament tables this list isn't a problem since there's so much clutter that you can't really Push or Charge with the 50mm Pigs...

Yeah, you can place Scheme Markers into impassable terrain. It is something of a loophole I think and we, like Ludvig, avoid doing so but it is a houserule.

There's three 50mm Ht 3 models that the OP said he uses to hide his more vulnerable models if they are threatened. I admit that I am not well-versed in Levi (I think I've faced him all of three times total!) so maybe you could show a step-by-step?

You autokill a Df 7 model into his deployment zone without LOS to it? They have only three Wd but it still seems like a somewhat tall of an order.

I think he might be an infiltrator! Let me escort him back to safety detain him immediately!

That's just hella brilliant!

I think that minis games encompass so much more than just the pure game level that it isn't always so simple. If you love certain minis and have spent a 100 hours painting them, then it might not be trivial to switch from Colette to Sandeep even if that would be the optimal choice from a gaming perspective. Staying with Colette might mean that certain match-ups will be really uphill and "OP" but it might still be justified because of other things. There's also hundreds and hundreds of pages of background lore so I think that that is another worthy consideration. Someone might not enjoy playing the villains so they decide to play the good guys (Gremlins, naturally!). Or they are pig farmers by trade for ten generations and therefore pick up Ulix. Low Wp Pigs however struggle in some match-ups. There are also players who don't have the time to keep up with the game. They have children and busy careers and other hobbies and whatnot. When facing such people I take it as a chance to bring all my less competitive models and build wacky and experimental crews. The games are a lot more fun for me as well when I can play "full on" but with sub-optimal lists and get a tight game. Trouncing an opponent 10-0 is seldom very satisfying. Give me a hard-fought 7-6 victory any day! Heck, even a hard-fought 6-7 defeat is usually more fun. YMMV. Why be rude? You could easily say the same thing but use less loaded language. We are all here because we love Malifaux and try to get enjoyment out of a shared hobby. No need for rudeness!

I really like the basic rules of Malifaux. The deck is naturally fantastic but the whole Interacting and Scheme Markers thing is IMO brilliant. There's a bit of rules clutter (putting out models on fire and other such small rules) and some difficult parts (the timing thing is very complex) but for the most part I think that all the complexity in the basic rules is there for a reason and adds to things. Oh, and elevation rules are simply really bad but that's not game breaking as such. But there's a lot of profiles in Malifaux. I wonder if we've broken 1000? And then all the Upgrades as well. Last weekend I faced a crew with sixteen Upgrades. That's a lot of cards to read through and internalize. And that is the complexity I want to discuss in this thread. I've seen a rising trend in playing solo Master or even wholly fixed lists in tournaments. Usually the reasoning is, that a tournament is a taxing environment and learning something well and piloting that is better than building the optimal list but it having a bunch of stuff that you aren't intimately familiar with. Also, when facing a new Master or even a new build archetype for a Master, the game tends to be really, really difficult compared to facing that Master or archetype for the third time. Even some non-Master models are potent enough to warp the game and a person seeing them for the first time is at a distinct disadvantage. This is anecdotal, but I've heard quite a few people say something to the effect that fourth book was the watershed moment and the time they started to really struggle and fifth book has just been too much. No idea how common this point of view is in the grand scheme of things but, as said, anecdotally I've heard it quite a few times. Do other games suffer of this? I've understood that WM/H is pretty impenetrable for newbies currently but I don't play it myself. GW stuff is definitely very bloated but the game is less combo-intensive? Guild Ball is doubling their number of factions which sounds somewhat crazy. Can Wyrd do anything? Should they do anything? Could 3rd edition somehow solve this? How? Or am I being chicken little and things are totally fine? Is there even a line where a profile bloat might become a problem? Sorry to be all doom and gloom. I'll try to start a positive thread about something to balance out a bit.

Ooh, I hadn't thought about her Black Blood immunity - that is indeed very handy with Molly! And yeah, she is painfully slow - I guess Belles and Doxies are the main ways of speeding her up in a Molly crew. She is sadly too big to ride on a Centauroi in a Horror Molly crew I am, in fact. We had eight people on board for ITC when the tickets went on sale but people have been losing interest during the year and now we're down to three people (including me). Luckily we got two mercs to help us out in rounding out a team so I will be there. Would've been awesome to meet up - perhaps one day, still!

Mud Toss removes Conditions, so maybe the Mud Gamin could do that. Ca 5, TN 12, range 6" maybe. Crows Trigger for giving out Slow. Then maybe a (2)Action to give out Slow in a Pulse. Low Df but quite high wounds and Impossible to Wound. Maybe a Df Trigger for Slow. Wk 4 but with Unimpeded and (0)Action Mud Slide giving them a Push with a TN. A weak Melee Attack but with a Trigger for Poison ("Not in the mouth!") and a Trigger for Slow ("Not in there, either!"). Is that too much Slow? I also like the idea for giving cover to friendlies. A 3" Aura of Soft Cover that lasts until the Gamin's next Activation.

Except @Adranwho uses stuff like Ice Golems with Marcus and does well in tournaments But in all seriousness, I think that, at least in theory, the Strat and Scheme system allows for much more diversity in valid profiles for Malifaux than for most other minis games. And seeing the table before picking your crew as well. For example, if you're expecting Armor, Banjonistas and Lightning Bugs spring to mind. Banjonistas not having on their ranged attack might give them an edge over the Reckless Lighning Bugs on certain tables. Especially if deployment zones are full of Severe and the Banjonista Pushes would allow your crew to clear it.

One meatier model is easier to Push (perhaps even to the no-score zone!) than two little guys especially considering the activation advantage that you get. This is quite significant if you pick, e.g., Mah or Zipp (or just Trixie!) who are very mobile and very good at displacing enemy models. I'm not saying that you're wrong picking more elite models but I think that there are certain advantages to having your eggs in several baskets that might not be apparent straight away. And a shout out to @Dogmantrawho inspired this way of thinking about Ours!

Thank you for heads-up! Looks like Gautraeux Bokor have had their name changed to Gautraeuz Bokor. Weird. The minis look absolutely bonkers, though. I'm not a huge of the massive magic effects but those are certainly interesting minis! Freikorps Engineers look weirdly young and neither has the signature Freikorps mask. Not a fan. Would've preferred a lot grittier look. Charm Warders look great! Really crazy! The only thing I'm not too fond of is how the inside of the pant legs works in the back. But yeah, loving these two!

I would argue that Raphael and Burt are exceptional and their durability is part of their popularity. Sammy has very low wounds so I wouldn't count her as especially durable. Def Stance Piglets are nicely durable, though and Squeel is certainly good. Our healing is indeed top notch. But a clever opponent downs one model at a time which limits the impact of healing. That said, I do agree that our healing is certainly an important thing to remember in conversation such as these. My experience is that Gremlins tend to lose a war of attrition much of the time. Unless I manage to cripple the enemy's damage dealing capability (often while doing damage to my own models in the process), I tend to run out of models at the end of the game. Maybe it's a playstyle thing but this has been my experience.

One thought I had about Ours and GG18 is that since it favours elite crews and tough models, debuffing is more efficient than before. If the enemy crew is only six models, Brewmaster can Swill half of them in a round. Things like Paralyze are also very powerful and Zoraida's card drawing curse is also good when the opponent tends to have models with lots of AP. Any especially juicy debuff options that come to mind?

Certainly very amusing! Probably not very competitive as such, but I like it. And will probably take your opponent by surprise at least