Fulgrima

I would say if you dont know what you want then it isnt time to get one. When you know 100% you want a tattoo of something that is the time

I would of loved to of come but unfortunatly I will be suffering at Villa Park hope its a real success so that I can come along next time

Thats exactly what I intend to do when I get my Molly crew up and running

I think that is partially because what those NB masters can bring to the table is good enough that they don't need to go reactionary in alot of situatuions as they are good to begin with.

I do take Marcus but I think in many ways I think one of his better match ups is against a Pandy crew as Howl helps alot. However it is still an uphill struggle against her at all times because if she gets through once with a run away trigger its all over but I guess that is the same problem for everyone

Their synergy is a lot harder to understand for players who haven't tried them. They are no way OP. Out of all the factions I feel all the masters play the most like each other than any other factions.

Got to disagree with that point I think the NB masters play completly different to each other.

Lilith is a fast beat stick

Pandy has all of her WP tests

The dreamer is all about picking fights with nightmares then burying them again

The hag tbh isnt really that obvious but has great flexability with Hex and Obey etc

You can use wild heart as the first zero action, getting one of the zero actions from it, as well as defense and + flips to combat, then use that 0 action to strike the person you want to alpha, using your combat triger to turn them into a beast. Then you have the two action points to alpha.

Against the Book one masters, Marcu is the only one likely to get into the opponents half of the table. Also likely to be the only one able to do anything when locked in combat.

Sure, Colette now does that as well, and shows a lot more synergy with her crew than Marcus does with his. If you picked a pure arcanist beast list and put Collette in charge she wouldn't do a worse job than marcus. What she can't do is hire Shikome, or Silurids, or a Rogue necromancy.

Phil

Yea you can use the wild heart (0) to get the extra attack (0) you can also take the charge (0) which means you can threaten it from a greater distance. However this means that you wont have stare down when you come to use Alpha which is very helpful.

It does have alot to do with the players I played Craig in the main tournament and James in the hardcore challenge and Marcus fought a good fight but was eventually out matched. As they were both great players.

I think the main thing with the Neverborn is that even their weaker choices are actually quite good which does give alot of variety with few drawbacks.

Agreed. I'd also love to know what goals Marcus is good at, at least in comparison to the other Arcanist masters.

Having played Marcus as my main master now for well over a year I would say that their isn't a single strat that he has any advantage over Colette in, and to make matters worse by far the best model that he can take is a Coryphee Duet. But that doesn't hurt his beast synergy any as he really doesn't have any.

As for Alpha it is a fantastic ability but not only hard to pull off especially if it is against a master where if you both have stones its a stone off and if not its still a card off as you cant use either Howl to reduce the Wp of a target because its a (1) and alpha is a (2), and unless you managed to hit the model previous with a Raptor then Stare Down is difficult as its to use it you must use feral as your other (0) to make Alpha any better. So there are times you can pull this off but if you don't manage to and fail on the alpa stage of it you will leave yourself within 8" of a model that was worthy of using Alpha on which can be bad for Marcus as he may not have all of hist wild heart on.

This thread is no longer talking about balance in anyway just about how many models people think it is appropirate to play which is nothing to do with the balance of the game. As an unbalanced model/faction would still be unbalanced if you owned all of the other models.

They have arrived at my LGS in Birmingham so are popping up now

You will never see a force with 30 models in a standard Malifaux game, but to have three Masters ready to go for a tournament, or two Masters that have a plethora of options (think Som'er and Leveticus for example, or Kirai and Nicodemus), you can break that 30 model mark pretty quickly. On the same token, you can run two beatstick lists and rarely, if ever, need more than 15 models, so it depends on what you're trying to do.

Exactly if money is an issue then you can create cheap solid crews and have options. Or by picking a good master to start with (would involve research) then you can build one crew with enough options to be competative in 99% of situations. There is no need to have that many models to play in a competative enviroment.

There are of course crews that do require more models i.e the summoning ones but that would be the same with any mini game.

Perhaps it's better to say that I have less of a problem spending more money on a game that lets me use somewhere between 20 and 50 models regularly as opposed to one in which I apparently should be buying 30-40 models to use 6-10. Does that make a little more sense?

Oh, I agree. However, I also would not be surprised by the guy who's playing Talion/Madhammer or something like that, or the guy who's running Karchev/Irusk (hey!) and doesn't have a single model in common.

Cost is a problem due to the scale of the game. I shouldn't be looking at comparable costs between a 6-10 model game and a 20-50 model game.

I understand the concept but what force would require you to have 30 models? to consider yourself competative even with the worst case of ophelia v haemlin if you take it at faction level which you would need to in that case as more gremlins wont help. An additional vik force would not add that many models. I think in some ways your arguments are valid just greatly exagerated.

Call me old fashioned but I see a massive difference when it comes to game balance between people that are activly trying to be competative and those that are just playing with there friends for fun.

I can't think of a single miniature game out there that will allow you to take whatever models you like and be considered truely competative it is always about making the current best meta list going. If you want to be competative at a tournament setting you will more than likely have to choose one of the more powerfull masters Pandora, Dreamer, Kirai etc and build a list around them.

This doesnt meant that you need all the models in a faction to be competative as most of them would probably be useless with the master you are taking. For instance if you take alot of non nightmares with the dreamer you are only hampering yourself and if that is what you choose to do its not the games fault it would be your list design.

However I do feel that there are some things that need buffing and others that may need a cuddle in the future as a Marcus player he could do with alot but that is a whole other rant haha.

When it comes to casual play between friends I think that is easily sorted to be honest as you can agree that you wont play ohpelia v haemlin every week as one player is just going to get shafted and if your friend wont agree to that there are bigger issues.

I'll be coming along definatly as im from Birmingham its nice and easy are you still planning to sell the Terraclips off at the end? as i'm also 100% interested in getting a set that we can use at the October Club.

Also can help with the sunday demo games if needed.

Took Marcus to a tournament this weekend just gone and I must say the best performer by far was the Coryphee. As for beasts I found the necromancy to be the best single beast as it gives you a ranged attack that you wouldn't normally have and if you can get to combat with more than half wounds it will rip things apart with three headed.

I also used the Raptors some more and I am not that impressed with them at all. I know that they are cheap but even with diving charge and ganging up on a model I didn't find them able to take down anything. However I did have some success taking Frame for Murder on one of the birds and then running them at the opponents master and any damage that I managed to inflict was a bonus.

Animal instincts allows you to cast the spell as if it was on your profile if the casting value gets to what is required of the original spell, if i remember right off the top of my head. So the limitation would apply its a real shame.

I tried out quite a few raptors last night in a brawl game against outcasts and to be honest I wasnt massivly impressed with them even for the 2SS that they cost. They were definatly more of a road block than anything else as they are so damn quick.

However I did quite like running the Shikome without using Hunting Partner as I have a fear that it will be too restrictive having both models going after the same target however it can be very usefull.

Have you thought about taking a pair of hoarcats? while you have the pair alive devour can be devastating.

How about a GW Yhetee (im quite sure this is spelled wrong )from the Ogre range.

I never really had much luck with the sabertooth i found it lost most of its effectiveness as soon as its down to half wounds.

Has anyone picked up a starter box from them? My order with Malestrom includes Colette and is still showing as processing. Just wondering if they dont have the starters in stock.

I think I might cry

We have a few players at the October Wargames Club on Birmingham. We meet on a Tuesday between 6 and 10ish. The club is located just at the top of Broad at very close to the city center so it's nice and easy to get to.

Anyone new to the game is more than welcome people would be happy to help new players along so everyone is welcome