Brightmore

With M2E each game of Malifaux is pretty different in my experience, different scheme, strategy, terrain combinations can really change the game. Like I might skip over Plant Evidence(which is pretty easy), if I notice my opponent only has a 3 big pieces of terrain on his side of the board, etc. The one thing I can say for absolute sureness, I leverage a great deal more of my collection in Malifaux then I do with any other game. To be fair there is not quite as many models in Malifaux, but I find that pretty much all of the ones I own are useful and hit the board, where as that is not the case in the other games i play.

Do.....want.......

I always forget the damned thing(lost a few games because of it), My plan is when I buy an M2E Red Chapel Gang box(I really want the new Sebelle), I am going to decapitate my metal Seamus(which had a bad incident and is damaged), and use his hat to make a token.

I bought a bunch of blank 30mm bases. I cut pieces of blister and covered the inside of the base. For Schemes, I primed the whole thing and painted some punny scheme stuff on it, and painted the base rim with some joke slogan, in bright green. For Corpse Markers, I took the Tombstone from the old GW Skeleton kit, and made a bunch of tiny graves. I used green stuff to give them a slightly raised look to make them look fresh. I use purple glass stones for poison. My friend gave me a Advanced Deploy Malifaux token bag for xMas and it has great lazer cut tokens I use for everything else. I have been thinking about getting a set of the colored bases, and masking off the outer edge, and priming the center to make scheme markers for my opponents to use.(since I have a ton of tokens we generally just use mine).

Malifaux Models particularly M2E have some scale problems pretty much universally, though it's generally not by much and they fit right in with most other models(like PPs dwarfism problem). Santiago is suppose to be huge. If it bothers you convert a new one, but his model is universally large as opposed to you getting some type of miscast.

I really like Malifaux but I have very few people that play it around here. What I have been doing to scratch the itch is I have been inviting my good friend Lemming Stampede to my house and we play in my Living Room over some drinks. Frankly it's been a blast. Maybe you should specifically ask a guy to play with you. Even if it is 40k ask one of your friends at the shop to dial it down, so you can play at the level you want. Also consider doing something different. One of the things I have been grappling with is my drive to play Warmachine is nearing an all time low. Why? because I don't like how the game is currently played. I have been dabbling in other stuff to try to hook back into that sense of community. It can be tough to remember your not married to this hobby ^^.

I agree with this, I have tried the hanged a few times with Seamus and found it to not great. The Hanged isn't tough enough to get stuck in against most crews, couple that with Incorporeal is not as strong as it was(there are a ton of stuff that does damage that isn't SH, or MI), it makes his Aura really just not come up much. The Horror test on his gun is pretty nice, but I frequently find that he is easily played around. Another one of his problems is his points slot is in stiff competition land. Sybelle is a house, particularly with Bleeder Lash, Mort is very good. For one more point you get Izamu, or Rogue, both very strong, and if your hung up on the shooting, a Guild Autopsy projects similar damage(though not as much tech), for significantly less investment. I have never got much use of Whispers, but maybe that is on me. Speaking to Dead Rider, he is insane with Nicodem, but most high pointed models are. Think of it this way, if he Rigor's a 12 point model. he is getting a 50% output increase on 12 points, that generally is a much higher quality Rigor then say on a 4 point guild autopsy, couple that with his healing from Decay and he can make dead rider unstoppable.

Personally I would consider buying a Necropunk pack. Some of the best Scheme Runners in the game. I would avoid the hanged they are brutally hard for Nicodem to summon, and I have found them to be largely meh in my games. (considering what else you can get for 9 points). The Box set for Nicodem is perfect pretty much everything you need and nothing you do(except I am not a huge fan of the vulture). I would buy Necro Punks on top of that. I agree with others though, Belles are fab, but I would really buy the Seamus box, for them as opposed to their minion box unless you want six.

I dry erase on my cards all the time, they are great for it, that gloss finish does wonders.

I have tried it out, I like it a great deal. I was looking at the collection manager, would it be possible to add an option to indicate if a model is unassembled, assembled, painted, number of times played? It was the first thing I wanted to do after I entered my Resser collection. Also have you considered some meta data on the collection screen. How many models, How many stones?

At least to me unpainted demo models are kind of weak. Hell if I knew they were going to be unpainted demo crews, I would have mailed them a painted Nicodem crew, they could even keep it if they just mailed me a new box back, and I live in SoCal. I think for the biggest event of the year, they could have rounded up the troops, to crank out a bunch of demo crews, so that as they got damaged through the weekend they could be swapped out. Unpainted models in the display case don't bother me that much. I would prefer them painted, because that is the goal, but I can deal with it not being painted. I mean it could be like Legion Models for Privateer, that look way worse in the studio scheme.

Another Trick with the Nurse. Let us say that the Voodoo doll has something really though fate bound. You hammer the doll for 4 damage. You can then use the nurse to paralyze the doll, and heal it to full. The tough model will gain the paralyze but not get the heal because the healing isn't a condition or damage.(as I recall)

One of the big advantages of Mindless Zombies from Muahahahaha, is that they effectively can move Corpse tokens for you, so if Moritmer digs on up turn one, Nicodem doesn't need to summon a model right yet. He can Muahahahahaha, have the token become a Zombie, within 6. Then the Zombie Activates, and gets to walk twice(because of Death's Whip it isn't slowed), and move to a better spot for the next turn. If your opponent kills it, your really happy because he wasted an attack on a model you literally didn't care about, and if he doesn't you can move the zombie again to the perfect spot, then summon a(generally a punk zombie) guy, within range of death's whip not to be slow, give it fast, and charge into combat right away. It can be really tough for your opponents to deal with Zombie Cruise missles that mindless zombies make into effectively Laser guided Zombie Cruise Missles. If you throw in his upgrade that gives him "I can use that" he also draws a card for his trouble, it's very slick.

By and large in my experience I have found the two to not mix well. When I play Nicodem I run him largely 1 of three ways. First is Summoning Machine: The goal of this build is to summon so many models to gain serious stone advantage on my opponents, and force them into an unwinnable attrition scenario. One of the major downsides of this build is it basically requires Mortimer, with Corpse bloat, and is really hard on you control hand.(having the cards for Mort and Nicodem while still have cards so your Minions actually do things can be tough). When I played this build with Torshiro I found that I never had enough cards for War Fan, I just didn't consistently draw hands with that many 9+s in them, or if I did, my opponent would have a very high quality turn because I didn't have any fate cards to cheat for defense. Second is Castle Nicodem: In this build there is a smaller focus on summoning and a larger focus on shooting using the fast from Nicodem to allow Guild Autopsies to move and focus, and also with Undead Crowning allows them to gain a positive twist to damage all the time, allowing them to cheat damage freely, and inflict some potent damage at range(which is rare for Rezzers). Torshiro fits in this plan on the top, since he can fight, and he can also hand out fast, but I again found that having enough cards for War Fan was trouble, particularly if I wanted to cheat damage on the guns. Third is Value Nicodem: This build I focus on having a big heavy hitter(like Dead Rider or Izamu), and a couple of role players and the primary focus is to use Nicodem to keep my heavy hitter fast, and to keep them healthy. The primary purpose of this build is to reduce the number of models for Reckoning, and to make it so I can aggressively use my control hand to cheat on attacks, and defense.(Card Lite Nicodem). Torshiro fits into the build fairly well, War Fan has good value and since I don't need high cards to trigger very many abilities in the crew, I have some left over from him to use. Torshiro fights decently and is very tough to kill meaning Nicodem can focus on providing him fast and hitpoints as well, meaning more fasts per turn.(i.e. Instead of Nicodem using Fast on a minion, He uses fast on Toshiro and then Torshiro uses War Fan on the Minion as a 0)

As a Rezzer I could see a bunch of different uses for the summon, depending on what your playing. You do need a high crow which is a drag, but if the bury trigger is trouble you could always roll her with Sebastion, and play "those aren't ours" and sac the model after you summon it, meaning it doesn't get buried, because it's dead. I have also in my limited experience found that Tara doesn't do a great deal of Taxing after the first couple of turn, unless I am completely blowing my opponent out. Why? Rezzer Enforcers have a bad habit of just dying against Crews designed to play against Rezzers. For it's price I would call it intriguing. Void shield just legit. The burying thing aside(which I think is very strong), being able to block that one huge hit when you lose the initiative flip to keep the Nothing Beast Alive for just a little longer to maybe combo with him again is very strong. I had actually stopped taking him not because he did bad damage(he did disgusting damage), He would just die too easily when I biffed the initiative flip, or absolutely needed Tara to activate twice.

I am a stickler about this, and I have found a common theme. If a model is in an unusual and dynamic pose they tend to be scaled incorrectly(always too big). If you look at the Beckoner's box, the one leaning over the cane is huge because her head, and the head of the girl standing straight up are nearly at the same height. I think just as a rule Wyrd has a habit of missing the mark in models that are in dynamic poses, that have some bend at the waist. It's the same with the huge Death Marshal, he is bending a ton at the waist, and is just mammoth. The same could be said about the Gremlins, the two with big motion(one being folded in half, the other fall away), just have the top of their model too high, and the rest is scaled against it. To be fair it might be on purposes, and compromise, if some of the models were accurately scaled we would have some V1 problems with models just being too freaking flimsy, or just not big enough to be seen on the board really well. The dog is only two parts, and he is only difficult to assemble because his paws are absolutely tiny. Like can be mistaken for flash tiny(that is what happened to my Yan Lo beard =/), the contact point is also tiny, and the contact point to the base is tiny. All and all a bad shoot, they should have made the totem like 20% bigger even if it was out of scale. I ended up throwing mine away, and just using my old metal one.

So the vibe I am getting is most people are take it or leave it, with largely on the leave it end. That is why I asked the question. I find that while I remember it, I never care. I would love for an upgrade like Oathkeeper, I would also love something that interacts with poison(but doesn't apply it, so that my infect triggers aren't just bad fire damage triggers)

Personally, I would love if the upgrade interacted with poison to make things like Transfusion a better pick. Like positive flips against models with the poison condition or something. I just never see myself buying this, even though it isn't overpowered.

So our upgrade has been finalized for a little while and I wanted to ask around, is anyone actually buying it? I find myself never interested in buying it. Most of our Enforcers and Henchmen are very tough, and buying an upgrade relying on your opponent attacking them, when attacking them is frequently not that useful doesn't seem to be a brilliant plan. I was wondering if others of you had more success.

Having played Belles a bunch and in some builds running 3. Lure is very strong, but it is balanced in that Resser's have very poor shooting. The problem with running 15+ Stones of bells, is once the guy gets there, then what? Belles are garbage in hand to hand. Now if you pull them into range of one of your beaters you can get solid pay out, but then your having 10+ soul stones that have only one job to lend a hand for another 7-10 soul stone model to do work. Or you could just be Guild and spend that 10 Stones on guys with guns, and shoot and achieve similar damage output per stone. Lure is just this games mechanism to counter shooting without shooting. Most models with the real aren't actually that great in Combat, and are paying a steep price for the ability. When I started playing, I thought Rotten Belles were OP, particularly when my friends would play ultra shooting stacked crews, and I would pick off their models. Then my friend got wise and started running models I didn't want to lure making it a dead rule on their card.(Luring a Peace Keeper generally ends badly for you). To be fair, I get that 8 CA might be too strong for their ability, but I will also point out they have a ML of 5, and a min damage of 1. Personally, I would be fine with trading one point of CA, for a point of ML, no questions asked, or a meaningful trigger. The discard a card trigger is there to synergize with Relentless assault, it actually doesn't come up much unless your playing a super belle stacked crews, but the rub is super belle stacked crews gets eatten alive by masters that are beaters, or strong enforcers. Personally at CA 6, I am not sure I would run them anymore, I certainly wouldn't summon them. If you want to complain about overpowered models, talk about Nurses that are insanely strong.

Not really, Since Bete` being Burried as I recall shuts off, the Tome Trigger on all of Tara's models. As it doesn't specify buried by this ability, it just specifies buried. I loved Bete` in version one, and have become less a fan in version two. Holding a high card, and her very unreliable combat output(your opponent having control of when she places frequently, or you not hitting the right trigger) have left me cold on her. The trick about her is, if your opponent places her, when one of his models kills one of yours kill her, while she is defense 7, she has only 4 wounds, which means you have to stick generally 2 weaks to her, which isn't to hard, and if your opponent is forcing misses with high cards, he is consuming his control hand pretty heavily since he has to sit on a 10. If you summon her, by killing one of his models, just plan for it. Put your opponent in a situation where summoning Bete` there means he can't summon her some place else when you kill another model, or just accept she is going to BBQ one of your minions, which is totally fine because she is an 8 stone enforcer, other 8 stone enforcers would be killing your minions anyway, also consider, if he flurries with her that is another control card from hand. That means Bete` locks down 2 control cards per turn, one of them high, that means that he doesn't have much to cheat for the rest of his crew.

I have found Nicodem a very flexible master. Building a Zombie horde frequently doesn't pan out. It's a liability in Reckoning(which is a great scenario for him), and in squatters rights Nicodem is just not a great choice, since he can trouble getting to a good spot to support his crew, while at the same time being spread out enough to contest opponents markers, and castle on his own. Turf War is a similar thing, though if you can in theory generate guys every turn to score. Nicodem is beastmode in Recon. I find that he is fine against crews that don't drop tokens, the thing with him is you have to make a choice about what your going to do with him at the very start of the game. If you go the Mortimer/Summoning road, you need to stack stones, and understand your control hand is going to be stretched. This kind of build is potent in Recon, Pretty good in Turf War(Schemes can swing it to strong, to kind of weak depending on what they are), Decent in Squatters rights, presuming they aren't playing Guild, and just terrible in reckoning.(summing a bunch of hurt models for them to kill is a terrible idea most of the time in Reckoning). You can also do another build, where you don't bring Mortimer at all, and you just focus on supporting your crew. In this case your summoning is largely restricted to recycling your own models, or pressing your advantage by recycling their dead models into more of your own. It's really strong in Reckoning because Nico can heal models out of range of getting two in a round, and depending on your make up, can give you Fast Belles, to triple lure models to death, setting up turns where you can bag two. Rule of thumb, never play him in a situation where you need alot of movement from your master, move actions on him are largely wasted, so try to avoid them.

The Fate of the FLGS is intresting, As a long time gamer, here is my take. The Shabby, poorly run, slightly unfriendly hole in the wall LGS with one table is dying. It's dying a slow hard death. Back in the day these shops prospered because there was no alternative, so you would politely ignore the grimy bathroom or 100 degree heat in the gaming room because of no AC, due to the fact that your alternative was playing at your house. It was also the only way to network with gamers to find players. But times they are a changen, With the advent of the internet and a vastly improved method of networking setting up a home leauge in your basement and getting the all important new blood is easy, as long as your willing to roll the dice on getting a poor fellow, but the upshot of gaming at your house, if a guy is a tool, you can easily kick him out. It's the same with product, back in the day, You had to go to the shabby hole in the wall, to buy product because there was no other way other then incrediably cumbersome catalogs, you also wouldn't be exposed to new games, unless you saw someone else playing them at a shop or a con. Now you can buy items at a steep discount, with the click of a button, there is no need to brave the surly counter attendant, and dig through racks to find what you need. Because of these two factors the old school style of the LGS is dying, I am not going to lie I am part of the cause. The store I played at when I was a teen, was a perfect example of shabby LGS, a place where my Fiance wasn't all that keen, because the guys were a shade creepy, and the store was a fire hazard, and one of the clerks was a total ****. Now that store doesn't get a red cent of my money. So against so dire odds what is an LGS to do. Well I have talked to my LGS owner that I do frequent(A superb shop called Game Empire in Pasadena), and this is what he said. Don't discount, because you can't discount enough to compete with Online Stores, but give the thing you can't get at the Online store. Community. He said the advantage that a gaming store has over a normal retail shop, is the only way to make business to pickup at a retail shop, is to have a sale. At a game shop you can boost business by running Events, Tournaments, Leagues, Game Days, etc, etc, etc. He gives store credit to his employees, for running events, and encourages(if not outright demanding), that they learn and promote games, each one of the clerks has a speciality game that they are into and manage, They run tournaments, leagues, campaigns run demos, give advise, help starting purchases, they keep the store clean, and make superb pieces of terrain. Because of this the Store is a total powerhouse, and growing despite the soft economy, Why? Because why should I order my Malifaux online, and wait two weeks, when I can pay MSRP, get it right now, and play it in a game, on Malifaux night at the store. This community, breeds a sense of loyalty(not obligation, but real loyalty), where you buy from the shop to support the shop, because you love the shop. The Market for your Gaming Dollar is fierce, it's kill or be killed out there, So shops needs to be really cognizant about what players want, focusing in on providing the services you can't get from an online retailer.

Ressers have ranged...it's called Lure and is quite possibly the best ranged attack in the game.

The McM Box set isn't all that great, you won't get a great deal of use out of that second nurse, the Flesh Construct is good, but your not going to pay SS for it Dogs are a must, 2 Blisters, I haven't regreted buying them. Generally you want to buy one hitter for your team, Bete Noire or a Hanged can fill this slot nicely, as they are both tech heavy, and can give beat downs(or in the Hanged Case Scare downs). If you don't like the Flesh Construct, I would recommend against playing McM, They are really core to his ability set, You generally summon 2-3 a game, if you don't like them on the table you are denying yourself effectively his best ability. I have had games where I have ended up 25SS ahead of my opponent because of Sebastion and McM