GTFriday13

Agree with the posts above. While the Viks don't really open up options to take over Von Schill, They bring themselves, which is well worth it in most cases.

I'm pretty sure that the limit is removed when Kaeris hits the table. I agree with a pair of gamin. Another option would be a Blessed of December out of Book 3, Joss or an Ice Golem as they are (mostly) themed models that can pack a serious punch. Adding the second EoP takes care of having too many SS, and both Tina and Kaeris can use them well. On a different note, taking the Blessed and picking up the female gunslinger alt (or keeping Taelor) will also give you an all female crew, which is just fun Good to know you're still playing and messing around with the game!

The trick to dealing with gremlins as a vik player is to divide and conquer. Each of your models is a higher SS cost, and therefore theoretically more powerful, than each of your opponent's. Spread your guys out so he can't bring all his guns to bear on a single target, or if he does, use it as a sacrifice to run the rest of your guys up. Even though he has more models, you can kill 1-2 quickly and out-maneuver him with the rest.

Remember that she is a sidekick, not just a pawn. You sure you want to auto-include her vs. some of the other models out there? Misaki has a magical weapon, which is amazing vs. dodging opponents and she has leap. Wait until an upgrade with multitasker comes around and suddenly she becomes off to the races. Bete can run and hide, completely avoiding attacks to stay alive, and she has an auto-kill ability as well. Did I mention Combat 4? And with Seamus, any 7 or higher will animate her, so she's cheaper than Alyce. The Hooded Rider does damage based on how many spaces he's moved maxing at 4, and his upgrade, while expensive to get off, is downright epic. That isn't to say that Alyce isn't awesome, she is... but I'm not sure about auto-include in every list I play.

I disagree with your assessment of the Rotten Belle. She is amazing late game because you can discard 2 cards to have her not suffer a rip while exhausted. So as long as you have cards, you can keep animating her, which is important when you get down to 3 puppets and you want to do more than just move 1 space or perform a free action. She also has neglected, which helps keep her alive. On top of that Seamus can bring her back from the Scrap Heap, which is wonderful for some late game help. As if that is not enough, the +2 buttons doubles the life of over half the puppets currently available, increasing their survivability greatly. Not every puppet needs extra combat or powerful tokens. Sometimes a little old fashioned endurance is all it takes to win the race, and the Rotten Belle has that in spades.

Lots of others have the right understandings. Here are a series of facts to try and help with any outlying confusion. -Only Masters start on the board, every other puppet starts in the Toy Box. -Animating means selecting a puppet and having it do stuff. You may animate a puppet that is in play or in your Toy Box. -To bring a puppet into play from your Toy Box you must place it on an unoccupied friendly workbench. The exception to this rule is that you can place a puppet adjacent to a friendly workbench occupied by a Master, but as Nilus said it does cost 1 move. -when puppets become animated, they become exhausted. Animating an exhausted puppet causes the puppet to suffer 1 rip. -As an alternative to animating a puppet, you have a few options: -You may take the card into your hand -You may perform either a free action (lightning bolt) on 1 puppet, this can be either a general free action (Scrounge, etc.) or one printed on the card. Use the animation card to determine your initiative (the card is discarded as usual) -You may move 1 puppet 1 space. Use the animation card to determine your initiative (the card is discarded as usual) Hope that helps.

I rarely use the Convict with my Viks. Von Schill is a great model, but not necessary in every situation. Therefore Sue will definitely have a place in my crews. Will I use him every time? No. But then again there aren't any models that I use all of the time. The only auto-include model I know of is the Essence of Power for Tina, and even then I've played games without it. I think Sue is awesome, as a model, as a set of rules. Just because I can't play him with other models doesn't mean he isn't great, it just means that I'll have to change up my play-style and think more about who I am taking into battle. That doesn't make him bad, it makes the game challenging, which IMO is good.

GenCon is mostly a haze of sweat and energy drinks, but we might have bumped into each other at some point. You know, like when I was helping you judge the tourneys on Fri/Sat.

One of the things that makes learning this game easily is in the Pattern Book, which comes in every box of P-Wars. Inside are step-by-step instructions for your first 5 games of P-Wars, where they start with the basics and over the course of the games teach you all of the aspects of playing the game. This way you don't feel overwhelmed at the beginning, and by the end you're playing a full game of P-Wars. Its a great addition to the box and should help a lot of people who are in your shoes, or trying to teach the game to people who might not be experienced wargamers.

I learned that the Ice Golem is a great addition to any army for it's Rg 3 free action. I learned that working with the guys at Wyrd (everyone I met) was a blast, and that getting booth credit to demo a game that is awesome really is like having delicious cake and eating delicious cake at the same time! I learned that it is possible to demo games on very little sleep and with no voice assuming enough caffeine and/or adrenaline is running through your system. I learned that it really is fun to cackle with glee upon convincing people to spend $200+ on a game they had never heard of before!

The only question I would have about turning Bete into a spirit is whether or not that ability would persist through her burying herself. I would think it does, but I would also want a badge decision on the matter before trying it in a tourney. As for the merc thing... outcasts in general have a lot of sticky situations; it's because everyone knows that they are the best faction and without all of those rules no one could beat them! :approve:

I'll be there late on Thursday. Slotted to demo P-Wars on Friday and Saturday, which means that I'm not playing in any tournaments, but I'll definitely bring my stuff to hopefully get in a casual game or two! Only 3 weeks away at this point... excitement rising!

I agree that the Librarian is a great choice with LL. Also the Dead Rider or another powerful minion. I really like the Rider b/c he can heal himself, which is just awesome. @Ratty: can you not legally take both her and Jack? B/c Kirai doesn't add Jack as a merc, but I'm not sure on the ruling there vs. the Special Forces. It is a lot of points, but I didn't think it was illegal.

I would like to see a preacher type character. Doesn't have to be a particular religion, but someone who could consecrate, condemn and heal would be pretty cool. Also like the idea of Pinkertons - like Texas Rangers from New England, or just a few models from "back East" Of course I want to see more Chinese style Ten-Thunders models or a crew based on them.

@Lalo: If you are saying that enough nagging will make it happen, then prepare to have your inbox spammed with requests for a Malifaux RPG! I warned ya :evil:

If you want a Korps feeling list, I would drop the Gunslinger and Taelor and pick up the Trapper. That leaves you with 7 SS. If you're worried about being out-activated then you can always add a Desperate Merc for 2 SS. Having 5 in hand with (effectively) 3 masters will feel tight, so that's your call. When running Korps, I find that keeping most of my models together/near each other is better, especially with Von Schill's abilities (Hard-Ass, Slow to Die aura, etc). And with their relatively weak Dg, it's better to gang up on opponents than try to have a lot of solo 1 on 1 battles going on.

I have found the Korps Box is a good one to have as a Viks player. Von Schill, the Librarian (which you already have, but they aren't rare, so you could run 2 if you really wanted) and the Trapper are all solid models, and the Specialist and regular troops aren't bad in the right situations. Jack Daw adds some unique options to your crew. He has some great denial (wonderful for assassination runs) as well as a decent threat with his heart stopper trigger. The main down side is that he uses masks, which is the Viks bread and butter (for Whirlwind). But he is still a model that many opponents feel they need to consider/contend with (and if they don't deal with him you can usually kill a model and gain a VP for it!). Some would call me crazy, but I love Misaki. Using her effectively requires a lot of effort, otherwise she'll just run in and get killed. But she is also a great threatening tool (4/6/8 damage from one spell, 6" range from another) that works well as a clean-up or flanking piece. I agree with your thoughts on Bishop and Johan. Bishop is too expensive for what he does and having a Ronin is better points-wise than Johan (until they come out with another M&SU Merc). I also agree that list composition is key to using the Viks well: think about strats and schemes and plan accordingly. Mercs have tough models, fast models, high damage models, denial models... Play around with them to see how you enjoy running them, and pick schemes to match that play-style and models to compliment that and your strategy. Proxy when you can

I agree with the idea that the factions should be encountered after character creation. Eric and Nathan indicated a while ago that the factions in Malifaux were meant to be more guidelines that hard and fast rules, and we constantly see masters that break the faction borders (Kirai, Marcus, Levi, Zoraida). Let each group figure out for themselves how they are going to handle factions, which means that the factions need to be in there somewhere, just not as a necessary step of character creation. It is also my sneaking suspicion that the reason we haven't seen or heard much about a Malifaux RPG yet has to do with the story. There is obviously a pretty deep plot that is running through the books, and I think the story gurus at Wyrd are waiting to get certain key peices of plot printed before they delve more deeply into the setting of Malifaux. This is, IMHO a good thing, because it will mean the RPG is about a lot more than just combat, as the characters will be given the opportunity to explore the world in more depth.

I have enjoyed proxying Kaeris and 1-2 gunsmiths with her. I usually run them as 2 separate groups at that point, with Raspy + EoP and a Silent One as one group and Kaeris & Co. as another. The thing I really like about this is the board control. I can use Ice and Fire to channel, and both Kaeris and the Gunsmiths have good range, and Gunfighter, so I'm not scared to play them forward if I need to. Alternatively, I have always found Misaki to be good for speed. I use her as a flanker/assassin. And giving her armor and Frozen Heart on turns 1-2 can really help keep her alive until she gets into position to complete a scheme, kill something or threaten your opponent's master.

If last year is any indication, we will likely start seeing teasers in June-July, just like we saw teasers for LCB, Kirai and Collette come out just before Gen Con last year. I am hopeful for a Kaeris box release at Gen Con, along with a Molly box release, as well as 1-2 other boxes with new masters/henchmen. We only have 60-some-odd days to wait and see if these wishes come true.

If you take Hulk as the leader, you cap at 4 SS, not 7. You could add a ronin, SoC or a pair of Desperate Mercs to fill it out, depending on what you needed. But the Slow to Die trick is an effective one for popping Killjoy out. Maybe: Von Schill Librarian Killjoy Taelor Korpsman Trapper 36 SS leaving you with 3 SS in cache. It also has a nice set of ranged and melee, as well as staying power between the Librarian, Armor, Slow to Die and Taelor.

If you're planning on playing multiple games with progressively fuller rules sets (which I think is a good idea), I recommend having fixed lists, so that by the 3rd game, your opponent should know what both his and your models can do, and be able to focus more intently on the strategy/resource management elements of the game. I agree that Lilith and Perdita are going to be your best bets as far as simplicity goes. Another option would be to go over the basics of each of the masters, let them choose which one sounds cool to them, and then either use that box or build them a list around that master. This way they should be playing something they like, rather than just something that is easy to learn. I think that in the first game, fixed strategies (or a shared strategy) with no schemes and maybe even no SS would be easiest. In the other two games, you could add those elements in, as well as special terrain.

I have found that when playing the korps, it is often a good idea to keep them close together. There are a few models that can still hurt them, but since they are immune to damage from blast, pulse and aura effects, you can run them in a tight group and focus down enemy models quickly. Because of this, the librarian's bonus Df spell is awesome. In addition, I like taking Misaki along, and putting the librarian nearby on turn 1-2 to help Misaki's casting flips means that I am cheating fewer cards when casting wind or fire. I like Misaki in the list b/c I use her as a flanker/objective model while my korps run around killing stuff. I haven't added Hamelin to my korps list yet, but I can definitely see the benefit of doing it. As others said he adds some tricks/magic to an otherwise mundane crew. Another option would be Jack Daw, since he brings his own shennanigans to the table. In short, I think there could be some solid viability in using Hamelin. It also means you can take Nix, which might be cool if the scenario warranted it.

I think you mean Frozen Heart.

I think he does a great job as a turret. Place him near something you want to protect and let him use Rapid Fire to gun down models as they approach. One problem I have with him is that I play a lot of Viks, and their Whirlwind trigger requires masks, just like Trigger Happy. If I flip a high mask, then it's great, but I usually save my control hand for blender mode on my twins. He does ranged support rather well, especially as a merc for other factions.