Q'iq'el

IIRC the reason you cannot get the Soulstone when the target has none is the way the spells fail in Malifaux.

Normally description of the spell contains additional requirements+effects, which are executed in order they are written in (the order is important, actually).

Generally if you fail to meet any of the ARs or any of the Effects fails, the entire spell fails and none of the effects are applied. I'm not sure right now if you still pay the ARs or if that part of the spell description gets cancelled as well.

So when enemy model cannot discard a Soulstone, you cannot gain one because neither of the effects applies.

@bashamer And yes, in the December's Maw on aRasputina you cannot make a healing flip if there are no enemies in range (based on the quotation provided). Perhaps it is quite logical - judging by the name it's all about consuming the opponents, isn't it? And we know from the fluff Tina has knack for cannibalism.

And while there are some issues with wording here and there, the general principles are not only well thought of, but consistently applied to new rules design - this actually is Wyrd's strong side. You may be sure that if you apply the above explained principle to all the spells in the game, you will always get correct results, even if sometimes they may seem to be counter-intuitive to you (but that is subjective, isn't it?).

Either you agree for the walls to be very high (some of Malifaux sewers seem to be very cavernous, if I remember the fluff correctly) and treat it as open terrain encounter with no significant ceiling... or you probably should play it as Interior Encounter.

The walls are higher in Interior Encounters, IIRC, and there is still no penalty for Ht, but it does affect some game mechanics (flight for example).

I will probably give him a second look and try him out a couple times, but I've only heard negative things.

Because people are all about min-maxing lists and assessing the SS cost of getting models. But there are other resources in the game, more precious than SS. Especially for Nicodem, who can add to his crew after the game starts. The most precious resource, IMHO, are the Action Points - no matter what you do, you won't get more of them. That's why I think people undervalue models that save them APs (and Mortimer does, even if just a little) and overvalue models that waste APs (Canine Remains in your list, for example - if you intent to kill them to get Corpse Counters, you are wasting multiple APs in the early game, when you should push forward to get good positioning despite slow speed).

Why is it bad to have less dependence on Nico? Wouldn't that be a good thing?

I'm not a fan of Mortimer, he doesn't seem worth the 7ss.

Consider how slow the 5 PZ list is, and then take a good look at Fresh Meat on Mortimer's card. Note that Nicodem himself benefits of that too.

Mortimer's present doesn't translate into direct gains. He just makes the crew run smoother, can take pot shots at targets of opportunity (and who knows, that 1-2 Wd difference can mean the death of the target couple of turns later) and is somewhat hard to dislodge if he decides to occupy a location.

That makes sense, but I'm still confused so clearly I'm missing something...

The vast majority of models seem to have Wk4 or 5 and so jumping down from a Ht3 wall (assuming Ht3 is 3") would be more than half their Wk. I read Jump as saying a model can move down up to half their Wk without suffering damage, and if the drop is any more than that they do suffer damage. Is that wrong? (So to clarify I read it that a Wk4 model jumping down from a 3" elevation jumps 2", but the distance is more than he can safely jump so instead it counts as a 3" fall and he suffers damage.)

You've got it almost right.

The model suffers damage for each 3" it has fallen. So it is not the Ht of the wall that matters, but the distance of the fall.

If you use jump to move 2" down, then you fall only 1", therefore no damage.

If you are on Ht6 roof and fall down, you'd have to make 2 flips... but if you jump, you effectively fall only 4", so just 1 flip. And the better the Wk stat, the better the model is at avoiding damage when jumping down.

What I find strange, and am tempted to house-rule, is the fact that you can use the Jump(2) action to move up to half walk from a higher elevation to a lower one without suffering damage - so for most characters that's 2" to 2.5" - yet that same character can fall 3" before they suffer damage anyway without needing to spend 2 AP.

So with Terraclips any character can fall from one level without being hurt, but slow ones with just Wk3 would injure themselves if they tried to jump down that distance...

Again, there's nothing wrong with that, in practice.

From my experience all the walls and (1)Interact doors slow down models considerably already (unless they are spirits and then it is all moot anyway) and then you have to move around all the walls, fences, smaller and bigger buildings - reaching targets is already more problematic for most crews than on a traditional table, even with solid amount of terrain.

Being able to simply fall from Ht2 wall and continue walking is nothing special. Having to spent whole 2 AP to jump down from ht3+ wall to avoid damage slows the model so much, it is a worthy penalty for avoiding taking damage and makes sense fluff-wise too (there's difference between someone just falling and someone taking all the time they have to find a safe spot to jump and do it in the safest possible way).

Obviously we are dealing with certain level of abstraction here and if something seems too weird and makes it difficult to suspend the disbelief, by all means house-rule it. But I feel there's a point where house-ruling does more harm than good - especially when players get nit-picky about very minor details but introduced changes have disproportionally big impact on some crews. Anything that makes models slower or forces them to take longer routes than the basic rules would require falls into that category without any doubt.

Well, if we try to put it into human scale, Nekima is about 4 meters tall... and she wields a sword which is 3 or 4 meters long... and then she can also fly.

I have no problem at all with her reaching high. I can also imagine that mere hit of her sword against the tower could send people on the top flying down. The Df duel doesn't have to be, in my imagination, a mere representation of fencing (how do you fight with something that big anyway?) - people try to duck, dodge her swings, catch something to hold on when the entire tower shakes from her angry hits etc.

There are plenty of other drawbacks to her size, so it isn't too much of an advantage. I just try to keep open mind and don't discount rules as unrealistic if they can be explained with all the fantastic stuff we have in Malifaux.

---------- Post added at 01:14 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:12 AM ----------

Ah, and I like that you can jump down from a single level of walls with no damage. I try to get at least three levels (some "falls" with damage and some without) and I put fences on the edges of some raised tiles - if you fall after walking over a fence, it is Ht3, not 2, so damage appears.

Terraclips need a few house rules to work anyway (flat elevation terrain Ht and shadows, for example)

Really? I've never needed to do that... I just count all the walls as Ht2 by default and use Rules Manual basic rules for Shadows, LoS and such.

Wow, no one sees the beauty of what would effectively be a moving piece of terrain placed where you want every turn? Interesting.

Yeah, forgot about the cheat/SS but... I'm not a fan of blowing a SS on a "chance" for something to happen :1_Happy_Puppet2:

For one it's magic, not terrain. There are different restrictions and different counters to it. Granted, terrain is actually somewhat easier to circumvent in Malifaux than magical cover, but the opponent still can do it if he expects you to use it.

Secondly, shooting in Malifaux is secondary to melee combat, in general. Fog does little to protect Nicodem from really dangerous opponents, and those who actually get hindered by it, he typically can withstand anyway. In other words, it is a second line of defense for the crew and most of the time Fog doesn't go up, because other spells are more important.

That would suggest getting it up with the Totem is a great plan, just the way Lilith uses her totems to cast Illusionary Forest... the problem is Nicodem's Totems have their hands full anyway and wasting their AP on a secondary defense is somewhat weak.

The way I use Fog, it provides great protection against some crews capable of nasty turn 1~2 tricks, that'd still require LoS. It is also situationally useable against very shooty crews, but other than Guild, you don't see those very often. Interestingly enough, I haven't seen a Guild player in over a year now, so my dismisal of the Fog's usefulness may be influenced by this strange meta.

Either way, this is a great early game spell and during early game, most of the time, you don't need Totems to cast it. Late game Undead are either survivable enough, replaceable or expendable and Nicodem has his Mindless Zombies for protection.

Another thing is why would you want to do it anyway?

Birds are fast, can hide very well and you need them mostly to get a better angle for Decay (Rigor Mortis situationally, but it's hard to cast with the penalty). They are likely to be away from your other models and they don't need the Fog themselves.

The most important models will be close to Nicodem anyway and Nicodem is the one you really need to protect.

Between moving and setting up Eyes and Ears Vultures have few AP to spare for Fog.

Well, that'd be your houserule then.

But there is a myriad of problems if you want to treat each tile as a piece of terrain. Some Schemes would be incredibly trivial to complete, for example.

Also I'm not convinced ability to freeze a big chunk of the board, due to the building being really big, is all that OP for Rasputina. Some other masters would be, for example, able to completely ignore such a huge building on their way to the objective, which is equally powerful.

The simple solution (in-game) is for the opponent to not go there.

As for elevated streets, bridges and such - yes, they all have their virtual bases and are terrain. Everything "above" the ground has.

Personally I think Freeze Over is extremely situational ability, ranging from nearly useless to extremely powerful depending on the table you play on. It sounds to me you've discovered the powerful end of the stick and balked, but is it really unintended? I haven't played against Tina for quite a bit now, but I had a game or two with bigger Terraclips houses (2 floors, roughly 1.5~2 tiles wide) and I simply had to deal with her before I could access objectives inside. In my case it meant Soulstoned Transposition, but even a decent push or a lure can put her out of range of the terrain you're interested in.

Unless someone has a link to this being ruled differently?

Nicodem's rule specifically says he is affected, so I suppose it constitutes an exception.

Haven't played him for a while and I forgot it is 6" radius... was thinking 6" diameter...

There's a difference between Eyes and Ears and Magical Extension. You can cast the Fog through Magical Extension (even though with Vulture's low Ca it may be hard), because in that case Vulture is the Caster and the spell targets the Caster.

---------- Post added at 09:43 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:38 PM ----------

But if you you Magical Extension this spell, and also put up Eyes and Ears, the Vulture will not be able to see through it's own Fog. So be wary.

Same goes for Nico. Don't use The Fog first. I learned that the hard way early on in my Nico career.

Is it true? Both Vulture and Nico would have exactly 3" of Obscuring Fog around them, and you can draw LoS up to 3"... so it seems to me like the opponents can see Nico and Nico can see them (all Nicodem gets out of the Fog is Cover Save). The Fog is fully blocking for models behind Nicodem and the Fog, who have either more than 3" of Fog between them and the attacker, or are behind and thus LoS is blocked.

So how have you guys been dealing with this?

Thanks for any ideas.

IMHO the rules are clear: Terrain is something on a base. If there is no base, the "shade" (zenital) is used for a base. This last may be a bit tricky, because if there is a balcony or a walkway between two buildings, there's base under it, even if it hangs over the street (in other words, can be counter-intuitive on Terraclips specifically, becauseof the tiled structure). With Terraclips it is particularly important to use the shade as the base of terrain, because otherwise it gets very confusing, IMHO.

Street tiles, by the rules, are merely decorated table, not terrain. Anything which protrudes out of the ground has a base (even if "virtual") and therefore is terrain. If you build a huge multi-level house, yes she can Freeze it over with all the floors, balconies and other stuff. If you join two houses with a bridge, you now have a two-house big terrain piece.

If you want to play inside such big houses, it probably is better to move to Interior Encounter rules, for that reason.

The most tricky Outdoors situation is with multi-level tables IMHO. I don't have any, but if I had, I'd try to imagine the levels as table (ground) and all the things that look as if they were placed there to be terrain - that would mean I probably wouldn't count sub-terrean walls and rooms as terrain, but I would treat some rocky outcrops as such. Everything above the ground terrain though (trees, houses, walkways etc.) would be terrain though. That's just my interpretation though.

Thank you very much. My cognitive powers have clearly diminished.

Turns out I'm a bit out of the loop this year, so could anyone tell me when does the Gencon starts and when will the Online Store open for Gencon orders?

I thought it'd be this Thursday...

If all were right in this world, the size of the hat would be proportional to their power and awesomeness.

Inversely proportional would be more fun.

---------- Post added at 01:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:00 PM ----------

His sword does look a bit like an umbrella.

It is an umbrella. And that thing you guys take for a gun of murderous design is actually a steampunk lollipop dispenser. This is Governor's personal servant and he doesn't do much except for dispensing lollipops for people Governor wish to reward for a job well done. That, and running away in panic, when somebody pops a balloon. Malifaux is not healthy for the poor chap's nerves.

I think by now Guild players should just deal with general floppiness of the characters and a complete lack of coolness in their faction.

I always thought the two (0) actions just needed to have a different name, not that they couldn't be the same type of action.

It's not the same type of action. It is the action of the same name. It is called Cast. It doesn't matter which spell you choose for it, you always perform the same action with the same name. It's been clarified as such in the ruling in the linked thread as well - not sure what more of a confirmation can we get.

I'm not saying it is intended for Marcus to be suffering from that limitation, but in general that is how casting works - no matter the spell, it is always the same action (casting).

Hmm. So with Expensive Gift, as the second part is an independent sentence ("Gain one Soulstone.") would that part go off, or is it something like "If you did make a target with Use Soulstone lose a Soulstone, then you can gain one Soulstone"?

I'm not 100% sure it still holds, but in the past we've been told that if one effect of the spell fails, all of them fail.

So if a model has no Use Soulstone and can't discard a Soulstone because of that, you cannot also gain one.

IMHO there are two differences between these rules, one obscure and one superficial.

Superficial difference is in singular/plural. The plural form suggest we speak in general about targets (Magician's Duel) while the singular suggests it is an effect on the actual Target (hence "target model"). This may be just me though.

The obscure side relates to how use soulstone works in Malifaux. Even if you are told to discard a Soulstone, you cannot do it unless the model has special permission or use soulstone ability. Because of that if you target someone with Expensive gift, and he has no use soulstone ability, he cannot discard a Soulstone. First effect of the spell fails, so the second fails automatically too and the spell has no effect at all. The spell will also fail if the opponent has no Soulstones left.

With Magician's Duel however you are told in more general terms, that the targets with use soulstone are to receive -2CA. There is no way for that penalty to fail whether the target has use soulstone or not. If it has, nothing in the game (AFAIK) can prevent the debuff. If it doesn't have the rule, the sentence doesn't apply to it, rather than fail (because it refers in general to Targets with use soulstone rather than to Target model).

It's a bit convoluted, but I hope this explanation works for you.

I'm not sure if Interact in this case counts as an attack or not, but I'd treat it as one and reveal the Decoy.

Consider how incredibly hard it is to Deliver Messege against Colette. She knows you're doing it and she can teleport every activation... and it is a (2)AP action to Deliver it (do I remember it right?), so unless you have a Fast minion (not that common), you need to set your crew up so that whenever she teleports, she lands in melee range with one of yours yet to activate minions.

If on the top of that it turns out the Colette was Decoy, that makes it nearly impossible to complete this Strategy.

i think you can because it says the decoys when not revealed can take actions as if it was Colette, meaning interacting with things, so i would think it it can interact with things then other things can interact with it as long as it isnt revealed yet.

but as its been posted i can see this argued both ways

Actually this seems to be a one-way street. IMHO the fact the Decoy needs special permission to perform actions as if it was Avatar of Deception means other models would also need special permission to treat a Decoy as Avatar of Deception when interacting with it. Since the permission is given only for the Decoy's own action, it works only one-way.

Never thought of it that way, Q'iq'el, but I can't really make an argument against it.. as for a model with several 0-spells, no need to look further than Marcus. By your argument he couldn't cast Feral and Wild Heart in the same turn.

He has other non-cast Actions he can use though.

I don't think it's the intention, but I really can't formulate an argument to say against you as I fully see your point. I'll have to give that some thought before trying.

I'm pretty sure it is the intention - whenever issues regarding AP and casting spells crop out, we are being reminded the name of the action is Cast (or Channel) and that the spells are not Actions themselves. Why should it suddenly work different here?

Spells ar not actions. Cast is the name of the action you use with spells. And yes, you cannot cast two different (0) spells with Instinctual. I thought it obvious, but I also have hard time recalling right now any Instinctual model with multiple (0) Spells to choose from.

Go to the beginning of Magic section and you'll have Cast and Channel listed as the actions used with spells.

On your character cards actions are listed separately from spells too.

The action you perform isn't the Leap, but cast. Even if you fail to cast the spell, the cast action has already been taken, hasn't it?

Normally you can perform cast action as many times as you want, that is why you can repeat once-per-activation or turn spells until you run out of AP or succeed. But here you are limited by Instinctual to taking cast action only once.

I'm sure they will work great in Colette's crew because of other abilities, but I'm not sure if the Lure isn't a bit redundant.

Mobile as showgirls are, Lure is mostly for messing up opponent's plans rather than moving faster/getting the target closer the way other crews tend to do it. But that duplicates Siren's Call which essentially is good enough, especially when cast by Casandra. I guess no such thing as too many instances of Lure in a crew.