Serigala

I've found Shang can be very effective as a speed bump. High movement can get him engaged with a model that is threatening other models in the crew and with Df 6 or 7 (I think) can sometimes last longer than expected...especially in Defensive stance. I had him hold up Teddy for 2 turns in one game.

I'm thinking 2 will be enough and am hoping to get hold of a friends spare Monk so we can sell a pair (UK) between us.

Mei Feng. Gives you another Master for variety and Kang is just generally 'good' - especially against Ressers. Or the Viks boxset will give you an alternative Outcast Master, with Ronin which will work well in an Outcast Misaki crew (and aren't extremely overpriced hiring them as mercenaries if you are still playing Misaki as 10T).

Is that right Mike? My reading of the card is that Misaki only has the option to walk towards the Stalked target. If it isn't in her interests to do so, she can choose not to take advantage of this.

Not taking Assassinate can be as useful as taking it. Knowing that your opponent will take Assassinate against Misaki does allow you to deny 3VP fairly easily by holding her in the backfield. She can still be very useful picking off models trying to place scheme markers for breakthrough or protect territory etc. and can usually easily outmanoeuvre heavy hitters. The fact that your opponent will suspect that Assassinate is an auto choice for Misaki, might make other schemes easier to complete.

As the title says, I have just ordered the monks box to bolster my Misaki & Mei Feng crews. I have also ordered some generic ninja which I hope to convert a little and proxy as Tengu. I traded one 10 Thunder Brother for an Oiran, a while back as I figured that 2 of each was as many as I was ever likely to need. Would it be the same in the case of the monks? Am I ever likely to want 3 of them? If not, would 1 monk be useful to someone else, or do they really need to be played in pairs to cater for redundancy? Thanks

I like the format. 15mins is a good time. If I wanted a bit more time I would have just paused the video. For the future, it might be interesting to get some comment from the opponent. I can't get over how much you end up sounding like Ted Lowe the snooker commentator.

"Aim High" or "Aim High Boys" is the name of the ability. It used to be (m1e) on most of the Kin but now I think it might be an Ophelia upgrade.

When will we get the Scheme pools? In the player packs? Or at the beginning of each game? (Or even earlier?)

Where is the rulespack? I have seen it, but didn't download it yet and the link in the opening post isn't working anymore. Can anyone help me out? Thanks. Edit: Cancel that....found it on my iPad

Well, all except Ant.

Can you get to Manchester City Centre any earlier? What time?

How will ranking work in a team event?

If you look at the concept art for the Friekorps crew, which includes 2x Friekorpsman, Trapper, Librarian and Specialist, only Von Schill is in an alternative pose from the metal minis. Not sure whether this means anything, but it does suggest that they haven't got any other concept art for new plastics.

We've already planned the results of the first round! Paid. (Happy Birthday!) BTW if people have a paypal balance sending money like this doesn't cost them anything, but they are now charging £0.71 to pay from a card.

Bear in mind the way the game works. Players declare a faction, then determine strategy, then pick their crews. For this reason most players tend to expand within a faction, at least at first, before branching out into other factions later. The additional benefit of this would be that the models from either crew can be used interchangeably, allowing you more flexibility in your crew composition. Perdita is also Guild, has some cool new models and basically runs a gunline which would be a nice compliment to the melee focus of Lady J. There are crews which are easier than others but ultimately there are plenty of folk who have still managed to learn the game with crews which would be considered more complex. A lot of the complexity comes from switching up your crew composition but this is something that you will want to be able to do depending on the strategeies and schemes and also the faction of the opponent you are facing.

Although this isn't exactly what you have asked I would consider faction when making your decision. If you just have Mei's boxset then although you have a crew that you can play any strategy or scheme there will be particular matchups or strategy/schemes that Mei would be weak at or would at least benefit from some additional models able to fill specific roles. As you usually declare faction before determining strategies and then pick your crew most players expand their crews within a single faction (at least at first). You are in luck because Mei feng is dual faction so you could choose a crew from either Ten Thunders or Arcanists and still allow some sharing of models. On the Ten Thunders side, I've never played against Jakob Lynch but his playstyle is quite unlike any other Master, and he is quite competitive on the tournament scene. That being said because he is so different there won't be many models you already own which you would get much use of with Lynch. He is also dual faction, but being Neverborn, there won't be many models that both Jakob and Mei would use, though I think he might find Railworkers useful. Of the other Ten Thunders Misaki is probably the most similar to Mei, as she is also melee centric, but you would then have a lot of interchangeable models. On the Arcanist side, Ramos springs to mind. I played against Ramos with a Rail Golem last night, and I could see Railworkers fitting in one of his crews. Kang also gets benefits (or gives benefits?) from being with M&SU members. Ramos is all about swarming your opponent with spiders, tieing them down without necessarily killing them. My opponent last night (Mythic Fox) recently came second in a 3 round tournamet, killing only one model in the entire event (but with a VP difference of about +12. That would be quite a contrast to Mei Feng, but you'd get use out of the Rail Golem and Metal Gamin with both of them.

I'm sure there are many new features that will prove useful, when I've actually found them, though I willl admit I am not a terribly sophisticated user. I can't help but notice the amount of redundant space on the screen however. Avatars and profile now take up as much space as posts. Is there a way to change the layout to change the balance between posts and 'other stuff' ?

Isn't 28 a bit of an odd number? 32 would be an ideal number to aim at for a 4 rounder, and 24 is a sensible 'round' number even though it isn't ideal for Swiss scoring. Why would we want to encourage Tournament Organisers to accommodate 28? I can see that this would then reduce the points for every tournament with numbers below this, but if the aim is to increase the spread we could simply widen the differential between max and non-max events. i.e. instead of -1 for every player less than 20 (or 24, or 28) we could lmake it -2.

I'd agree with whats been said about the extra card. Everyone can pay 2 cards for a soulstone each turn, but with her bonuses Misaki doesn't really want to be holding ss, so spending 3ss from your hiring pool (rather than from your cache) for 5 cards is a preferable option. An extra activation is also great as is healing. What's not to like? I appreciate that the thinking process tends to be that dropping a cheap model and a SS or an upgrade might get me something really useful, and the games is now designed to create those difficult decisions, but making your strngest models better seems to me a better use of resources in most cases then one extra model which is so so.

I can't see a link to the Rulespack. Can anyone oblige? Thanks

If the original flip is a Black Joker, would this rule follow the usual precedent of not allowing a reflip? Presumably as written, this is not mentioned and therefore the BJ would make no difference, but if this was the intent but was overlooked then this also should be clarified in any FAQ.

This tournament is in Stockport, South of Manchester. They have a Henchman there... http://www.wyrd-games.net/showthread.php?29368-Toy-Soldier-Stockport-21st-and-22nd-July

No problem with size. Its about the same size as a Bren Carrier. To add to its 'feel' on the table, I'd consider something to limit movement to give it a bit more flavour. As it can pretty much move through anything on the table, maybe it should only be able to take a walk action in a straight line. If it has to weave in and out of models or terrain it will end up slowing down. You could also require it to set the direction of its first walk action at the end of its previous activation (but that would be introducing facing into Malifaux).

Nice list. Makes me want to be there....