redben

After a read-through of the rulebook I played my first game of Malifaux down at the local games club today. I played the Legion of Sorrows taking on Rasputina, both straight out the starter boxes. We kept things to one scheme and no strategies to keep things simple. He got Claim Jump and I got Treasure Hunt which meant we immediately began to converge our forces onto the centre of the table. The terrain feature chosen for the Claim Jump was a partially ruined building which blocked a lot of LoS and meant the first two turns didn't see too much happening as neither force could really see each other. With Pandora being relatively slow moving she found herself out of the action a bit longer than everything else. Come the third turn, Rasputina unleashed her spells and took out two Woes. A Gamin took the treasure, my opponent figuring it was important to keep me from it. Candy and Kade took care of the Gamin and did a bit of damage to the other constructs. Pandora caught up and began forcing WP checks. Cade took on a Gamin and the Golem in combat and was more than holding his own before Rasputina dropped a devastating December's Curse. Come the end of the battle ony Rasputina and the Golem remained, both of which were on the terrain feature and thus the day was won by the Decembrists. A couple of questions coming out of it. Is casting a ranged spell into a melee combat subject to the same rules for firing into combat with a regular ranged attack? As long as she is successful in doing it, can Pandora use Pacify/Incite repeatedly until she runs out of enemy models or just twice? Can a model cast the same spell more than once per activation?

Some of the masters and minions in the rulebook have the font of a particular stat coloured to their faction colour rather than the usual black. Is there any game mechanic to this?

EASTERN ----------- Alabama-Phenix City/WhiskyJakk New York - Rochester - Travis Syxx New York - Rochester - ZombiEd New York - Albany- Gunwitch, LMBB, Kloudfire, MoonFever Kentucky - Lexington - mozart Ohio-Cincinnati - WyvernX86, jgemrich Ohio-Columbus-Cacuin Ohio-Columbus-Grammaton Cleric Ohio-Columbus-IceRaptor Ohio-Kettering - Dv8guy, WyvernX86, jgemrich Maryland-Baltimore-Tenebræ Maryland-Fredneck/MoCo - Angel of Menoth Maryland-Fredneck - Unwieldysquig Maryland-Frederick - Sarr Maryland-Kensington/Rockville_Scorpio West Virginia-Martinsburg (Eastern Panhandle)- The Lemondrop Dan Northern Virginia - Angus Khan, St. Anger, Thalaric New York City/Brooklyn - CaptMorgan Florida - Orlando - TheBugKing Florida-Tampa-Dr.Mercury Michigan - Detroit (East Side) - StormHalo Michigan - Detroit (west side) - Nerdelemental, Magno, Capcap Michigan - Jackson - Leb14, Mbowsher76, Bacon_Sizzler Maine - Portland - Thrall_Love Massachusetts - Boston/Worcestor - McNs Conneticut - Stamford - Maddokrox Connecticut - Hartford area - tberry7403 Connecticut - Woodbury - Jestor Georgia - Atlanta - Zee Pennsylvania - Pittsburgh, Legions Hobbies & Games - abbysdad Virginia - VA Beach, Chesapeake, Newport News - Sobek Central ****** Illinois - Chigago and Burbs - Nilus, WEiRD sKeTCH, Jokerohki, PolishSausage, Reaper Indiana - Terre Haute/Bloomington - Pavic Indiana - Indianapolis - Sryth, Totengraber, revmidni Wisconsin - Madison - Gargathor Wisconsin- Appleton--Smoke Wisconsin - Milwaukee - schuwa Kansas - Wichita - Gregdorf Mississippi - Jackson - shakespear Missouri - Union/St. Louis/St. Charles - MEdwards, Snakeking, Brasidas, Pensfan, Thetang22 (on occasion) Nebraska - Grand Island - Thetang22 Minnesota - Twin Cities (Roseville) - CaffeineBoy Texas-Plano/Rowlett - knightdrake Mountain ******* Utah - Layton - Grimwolf Utah - SLC - Napar Colorado - Longmont - Gobbo Colorado - Fort Collins - Endgame Colorado - Aurora - greyseerco Colorado - Lakewood-WombatCowboy Western ******* California - Bay Area/San Jose - Orius, Kealios, Royal, Hannibal, vxghost California (Southern) - Keltheos Nevada - Las Vegas - HighSerraphim (+2 others not on this forum) Oregon - Tigard - CrazyBones Oregon - Hillsboro/Portland - The Keebler Oregon - Portland SE - Peterdita Washington - Vancouver/Portland - Goblyn13 Washington - Olympia - blkdymnd Washington - Seattle/Edmonds - fildrigar, Danicia, and one other Abroad (use Country) ****** Canada -------------------------- Eastern ******* QC - Montreal - Xenon_Wulf ON - Thunder Bay - Fireymonkeyboy ON - Cambridge - B1gn4sty Western ******* BC - Vancouver/Richmond - Draykin Alberta - Calgary - Breten Germany -------------------------- Sachsen - Leipzig - Nimor Hamburg- Hamburg- Peanut Hamburg - Hamburg - Seppocalypse Niedersachsen - Braunschweig - Gottkaiser Netherlands -------------------------- Gelderland - Arnhem - illustrange/Melvin Groningen - Groningen - Malebolgia/Marijn Groningen - Groningen - TheWill2/William Ireland -------------------------- Dublin - Dublin - lauth81 U.K ------------------------- North East ********* Newcastle/Durham - redben Midlands ******* Warwickshire/West Midlands - n0signal Scotland ******* Glasgow - DangerousBeans Glasgow - Mechaace South ***** West Sussex - Midhurst - elysium64 Oxfordshire/Wiltshire - Carterton/Swindon - katadder Hampshire - Clanfield - FCWookiee Australia -------------------------- Queensland - Brisbane - Dr D Spain -------------------------- Andalucia ******** Cordoba - Caronte Sweden -------------------------- Katrineholm - Katrineholm - sjostrand Poland -------------------------- Warsaw - Warsaw - Gru6y Malaysia -------------------------- KL/Selangor - Shinobi

I check each new thread by UK players on the introductions forum.

Finally got my book and minis, painted up the Decembrists today. Just need to get some opponents now.

I'm too am in the North East. I'm awaiting the arrival of my stuff so colour me jealous. Whereabouts are you based?

Thank you very much

Once upon a time there was a little god who lived on the shores of a lake at the foot of a hill near a waterfall. The little god was happy living on his own but also loved to have visitors come and stay. The little gods favourite guests were the dragons. The first dragon to visit the little god was the white dragon; he brought stories of the tundra and showed the little god how to sculpt from marble, glass and wood. When it came time for the white dragon to leave the little god was sad and thanked him for his company. The white dragon placed some gold pieces into an empty jar as payment for the little gods’ hospitality and told him that if the little god had enjoyed his company then he should invite his brother the green dragon to come and stay, but on no circumstances should the little god invite his brother the rainbow dragon. The white dragon told the little god that the rainbow dragon was lazy and irresponsible and would not make a good house guest. So the little god invited the green dragon to be his house guest. The green dragon brought tales of the forest and showed the little god how to play the pipes, the drum and the flute. When it came time for the green dragon to leave the little god was sad and thanked him for his company. The green dragon placed some gold pieces into an empty jar as payment for the little gods’ hospitality and told him that if the little god had enjoyed his company then he should invite his brother the blue dragon to come and stay, but on no circumstances should the little god invite his brother the rainbow dragon. The green dragon told the little god that the rainbow dragon was lazy and irresponsible and would not make a good house guest. So the little god invited the blue dragon to be his house guest. The blue dragon told him the legends of the seas and showed the little god how to dance in time to music. When it came time for the blue dragon to leave the little god was sad and thanked him for his company. The blue dragon placed some gold pieces into an empty jar as payment for the little gods’ hospitality and told him that if the little god had enjoyed his company then he should invite his brother the black dragon to come and stay, but on no circumstances should the little god invite his brother the rainbow dragon. The blue dragon told the little god that the rainbow dragon was lazy and irresponsible and would not make a good house guest. So the little god invited the black dragon to be his house guest. The black dragon told him the myths of the mighty mountains and showed the little god how to make jewellery from precious stones and metals. When it came time for the black dragon to leave the little god was sad and thanked him for his company. The black dragon placed some gold pieces into an empty jar as payment for the little gods’ hospitality and told him that the little god had now invited all the dragons on the earth to come and stay except for his brother the rainbow dragon. The black dragon told the little god that he should not invite the rainbow dragon to come and stay with him as he was lazy and irresponsible and would not make a good house guest. Months went by and every day the little god thought of how wonderful it had been to have the white dragon, the green dragon, the blue dragon and the black dragon come and visit him. He missed the dragons terribly but always followed their advice and did not invite the rainbow dragon to come and visit him. One day, while the little god was in his garden, the rainbow dragon arrived unexpectedly. ‘Little god,’ said the rainbow dragon, ‘I have heard you that have had my brothers come and stay with you and knew that as surely as night follows day that I would be the next to invited. So I have decided to rescue you from the bother of issuing a formal invitation and I have brought myself to you.’ The little god was concerned and unsure of what to say. Each of the rainbow dragons’ brothers had warned him against having the rainbow dragon visit him but the little god could not turn a visitor away. Anyway, he thought to himself, the rainbow dragon cannot be as bad as his brothers portray him, each of the other dragons was such wonderful company and I miss them so much, I am sure the rainbow dragon will be a wonderful house guest. So the little god invited the rainbow dragon to stay. It did not take long for the little god to realise that the rainbow dragons’ brothers had told him the truth. The rainbow dragon brought him no stories and taught him no skills; instead he lay around all day and insisted the little god wait on his every whim. The little god was unhappy with his new house guest but being a good host he could not ask him to leave. Instead the little god decided to wait out the month that laws of hospitality decreed the rainbow dragon would stay. The month came and went but the rainbow dragon did not leave. He instead became lazier and more demanding. The little god was forced to neglect his other responsibilities to wait on the rainbow dragon. A second month went by and still the rainbow dragon did not leave. The little god began to drop hints as to the departure date of the rainbow dragon, as much as good manners would allow, but if the rainbow dragon understood them he ignored them. Another month passed and the little god began to despair that his unwelcome house guest would never leave. He woke early one morning and went to visit his friend the waterfall for some advice. ‘Why do you not just ask the rainbow dragon to leave if he is so terrible a guest?’ asked the waterfall. ‘I cannot do that,’ said the little god, ‘lest I gain a reputation as a poor host and no-one will then come visit me.’ ‘Well then,’ said the waterfall, ‘you must trick the rainbow dragon into leaving your home of his own accord.’ ‘I am a simple soul,’ said the little god ‘and fear that such subterfuge is beyond me.’ ‘Fortunately for you,’ said the waterfall ‘I am of such an element that is expert in subterfuge and can aid you with your problem. Every new moon, the human travels past your house and up the hill to pray to the sky and ask him to be favourable to his crops. Each month the sky requests a tribute from the human but because the human has no possessions and the sky will not be favourable to his crops the human has nothing to give it. If you want to remove the rainbow dragon as your house guest then this is what you must do.’ The waterfall proceeded to detail the plan to little god who went home and waited for the day of the next new moon. When the morning came the little god told the rainbow that he had to leave for a day on some business he could no longer put off. He told the rainbow dragon he had prepared enough food for the rainbow dragon to eat whilst he was away and had also set a hammock in the rainbow dragons’ favourite spot in the garden for him to relax on. ‘I have only one request of you while I am gone’ said the little god. ‘Name it.’ Said the rainbow dragon, ‘you have been such a wonderful host that I could not deny you.’ ‘After each of your brothers left me they placed some gold coins in a jar in gratitude for their time here. The jar is now full and I fear that someone may try and steal it when I am gone.’ ‘Have no fear little god,’ said the rainbow dragon, ‘I swear I will never take my eyes from it the whole time you are gone.’ The little god thanked the rainbow dragon and left on his journey. The rainbow dragon ate the breakfast the little god had left for him and went into the garden to lay in his hammock, taking the jar of gold pieces with him so they would always remain in his sight. Eventually the rainbow dragon fell asleep as the little god knew he would for the rainbow dragon was lazy and irresponsible. The new moon replaced the sun in the sky and the human came past the little gods’ house on his way to petition the sky. The human saw the rainbow dragon sleeping in the hammock and saw the jar of gold pieces next to him. The human quietly entered the garden and took the jar. The human climbed to the top of the hill and said, ‘Sky, each new moon I visit you and beseech you to be favourable to my crops but each time you send me away and tell me not to bother you until I have sufficient tribute. This time I have brought you a jar of gold pieces, will you not now look favourably upon me?’ ‘That is indeed sufficient tribute,’ said the sky to the human, ‘what you must do is spilt the jar of gold pieces in half and give one half to the sunshine so that he may shine on your crops when you need it and one half to the rain so she may water your crops when you need it.’ The human did as he was instructed by the sky, splitting the jar in two and giving one half to the sunshine and one half to the rain. The next day the little god returned and saw the rainbow dragon asleep on the hammock and the jar of gold pieces missing from the garden. He smiled to himself before waking the rainbow dragon and asking what had happened to the jar. ‘Oh no,’ said the rainbow dragon ‘I must have fallen asleep and some rogue has stolen it. I swore I would protect your jar and have not done so. Instead I vow I will never stop searching until I find the miscreant who stole your jar and return it to you.’ The rainbow dragon left the home of the little god and went to the waterfall. ‘Waterfall, you must have seen who took the jar? Tell me so I can return it to our friend the little god and make right the wrong I have given him.’ ‘Yes I did see who took it,’ said the waterfall ‘it was the human and he gave half to the sunshine and half to the rain. You will never see the jar whole again lest the sunshine and the rain come out together.’ ‘Even if it takes me until the circle of time comes round to this point again I will not rest until I have recovered the jar of gold pieces for the little god.’ Said the rainbow dragon and true to his word, each time the sunshine and the rain come out together the rainbow dragon is there to meet them but each time they are gone before he can recover it and that is why the legends say that if any man may reach the head of the rainbow dragon before the sunshine and the rain are gone he may have the opportunity to best them and take the gold for himself.

I arrived in Vienna on the morning of the 26th after a pleasant and uneventful train journey from Paris. The crisp and clear autumn air I had recalled from my University days had begun to be replaced by a smog more familiar to me from my home in London. After arriving at my hotel and unpacking, I wasted no time in visiting Jacob in his laboratory. The excited tone of his last letter had infected my mood like a miasmic vapour and I could not wait to hear his news. Upon knocking on the door to the laboratory, I was somewhat taken aback by a curious eruption of sound from the other side, but this was as nothing compared to the sight that greeted me once the entranceway was opened and the source of the cacophony revealed. A remarkable meckanikal device, no more than three feet in height, stood counter to me in the doorway. It was in the shape of a humanoid and made primarily from copper and brass. The device swivelled a half-turn on what would be its waist and motioned for me to follow it into the laboratory. ‘How do you like my automaton, Lord ____?’ asked Jacob of me as I walked into his workshop. I confessed to an open-mouthed astonishment not known by me since the scullery maid permit me to see her bosom in my fifteenth year. ‘Jacob, this device is astonishing. It far exceeds anything I had expected.’ ‘The automaton is not what I asked you here to see. Whilst it has its uses, its lack of intelligence makes it extremely limited in scope and it also requires a high degree of maintenance, the water tank that produces the steam that drives its pistons and also cools its exterior needs to be refilled every twenty minutes for it to remain operable. At this point, the device is little more than an elaborate door opener with which to entertain guests.’ Jacob took me into an upstairs room, windowless and dimly lit by a candle situated on a small table in the corner. The room also contained a bed and a chair as well as man who was standing to attention to greet us. The man looked to be in his late thirties, whilst he was clean shaven and dressed smartly, I guessed from his posture and some scars on his face that this was not his natural state. ‘Lord ____, this is Kaspar.’ Jacob turned to the man and spoke to him in German. I admit with some embarrassment that my German has grown somewhat rusty since I resided here and did not know what was said but I assume that Jacob had instructed the man to greet me, as he immediately walked forward with his head slightly bowed and his hand outstretched. I took the hand with due decorum and no little distraction. The sounds that had assailed me earlier from the other side of the front entrance were now replicated as the man stepped towards me. Jacob spoke again in German and the man unfastened his belt and allowed his trousers to fall around his ankles. My initial burst of embarrassment was rapidly replaced by what can only be described as dumbfoundment. From the top of the man’s thighs downwards, his legs were of the same meckanikal artifice as the automaton that had greeted me at the door. ‘Kaspar was once a soldier in the Emperors armies until an infected wound caused his left leg to be amputated. I later found him begging on the streets and thought him perfect for my experiments. In my work on the automaton I had discovered that there is a certain organic nature to the artifice that matches a certain meckanikal quality of the human body. I had grown frustrated with the inability of the automaton to carry out anything but the most basic of instructions and this discovery resolved me to try and marry the meckanikal attributes of the automaton to the organic ones of a human. After much experimentation on cats, I achieved success. Kaspar is my first human subject. Attaching the meckanikal limb to his left hip had left him somewhat uneven so I decided it would be best to amputate the right leg and replace it with a new limb also.’ ‘H-How well does it work?’ I stammered. ‘Kaspar is able to walk as before, admittedly with a more ungainly gait. Stairs are proving to be a problem and he also requires regular intake of water to power his new limbs but overall the experiment has been a success. I believe I could replace an entire human body with an automated one, needing only the head intact. There is one problem though.’ I had expected Jacob to ask of me for funding. The naturalist is the most important man of our time but his work is not always paid commensurate with his feats. I assured Jacob that I would send immediate word to the institute back in London and he would have funding for another five years if need be but Jacob told me that this was not the problem. What he said was far more disturbing. ‘You have heard the rumours from Prussia that Bismarck has discovered the long hidden Crown of Charlemagne and is using its power to unite the Germanic people once again?’ ‘Ah yes, the Grossdeutschland.’ ‘No Lord ____, the Kleindeutchsland. Bismarck does not want to compete with Austria for leadership of a new Germanic state. He is crafty and aggressive and seeks dominion over all of central Europe. Sooner or later he will provoke Austria into a war that will achieve Kleindeutchsland and fracture the Austrian Empire. Already the Hungarian nobility senses a weakened Empire and pushes for more power.’ ‘I would not worry overmuch about the machinations of Bismarck. The French will not allow the balance of power in Europe to tip too much in his favour lest they lose their status as the mainland’s pre-eminent power.’ ‘The French are arrogant fools. Already they have agreed with Bismarck to remain neutral in any conflict between Prussia and Austria. By the time Bismarck has defeated us it will already be too late for them.’ ‘Whilst I sympathise with your country’s predicament I fail to grasp why this will cause a problem for you and your work. Surely Bismarck will not prevent you carrying on with your experiments?’ ‘As I say, Lord ____, Bismarck is crafty. He has studied the civil commotion in the new world and realised the importance of new tecknologies for the contemporary army. Already he has sent a representative to my laboratory to request I continue my experiments in Prussia. With my work at his disposal, Bismarck will be able to construct armies that maybe not even the mighty British Empire can resist. I requested some time to contemplate the offer and was given two weeks. When the representative returns I suspect he will not be so accommodating a second time.’

I live in the North East of England and I'm yet to locate a Malifaux player here so I'm making it my mission to bring it to the wargaming masses. I've got the rulebook and the Legion of Sorrows and Cult of December box sets on order from Maelstrom Games. None of which are currently in stock with them so I'm eagerly and impatiently awaiting them.