Uncle

You may want to pick up Johan. Same with the Gunsmith once he comes out. But that's very much a playstyle thing, and your mileage will vary.

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

When was the last time you played in back-to-back Necromunda campaigns, or in consequential Blood Bowl leagues? Generally speaking, we're talking about short periods of activity followed by people sitting around and saying "You know, we really should start up a Blood Bowl league again..." You might want to look at the playgroups in my area, and those that existed in Lawrence, Kansas in the early 2000s (not sure what they're like now). There are a few people who went all Pokemon-style on the models, but they have always been a rare exception compared to the guys who build an army, play it until they're tired of it, and then sell it off or move on to another game. Variation has not been the high point of any game I've seen, and "all-comers" lists have always been considered the norm. The economic issue is not a problem to you, or to quite a few other posters on the board. Got it. Don't particularly care one way or t'other. I can run my Showgirls with any strategy, against virtually any Master, and have a fairly good chance of winning, in my mind at least. And as far as the Goblins go, my wife like Squigs and having a Night Goblin army makes her happy, so I built her one. That's really the long and the short of it. I at no time claimed that they agreed with me on the economic principles of gamesmanship, nor do I feel that I am "obsessed," but rather, that it keeps getting brought up as an easy target for you to snipe at. That's fine, though: the real issue is balance between masters. Acheive that, and there's really nothing more I can say.

Actually, it's been brought up by others. I've just caught the most flak. And, of course, you're again trying to reduce my argument to absurdities. I do not like spending more money on a game than I need to, and feel that being told that I need two or three times the models I want to play is an example of shoddy balance. Is it a good thing that the starter sets are so unbalanced, or that there are terrible matchups in the game? Hey, look, Buhallin, you admitted that there were people like me out there! Funny, innit? Now, I know you're going to try to say that we were talking about my dislike of needing more than one crew and spending money on models that will rarely, if ever, see play. My counterargument is as follows: That situation is intrinsically tied into the imbalance between masters. Fix the balance, and the economic issue settles itself.

For starters, there are two Warhammer players in my household. "My" Goblin army is actually "my wife's." Secondly, there is a substantial difference between having 2 completely different 2500 point armies and having a single 5000 point army. The closest thing to compare this to in Malifaux would be having, say, two crews from different factions. And as far as Necromunda goes, there's really not much change that a Spyrer gang can undergo. At all. So there's the answer there. I despise the concept of single-campaign models. Even with the Escher, I mentioned that during the 2nd Edition days, I was a kid in the proverbial candy store. It's been how many years since Necromunda's come out? In Second Edition, I played a Space Wolf army that, from the moment of its completion, didn't change one bit. In Third, I switched over to Orks and played a Kult of Speed list that, again, didn't switch from the moment it was complete (and also only lost a handful of games locally, go figure--I'm not a Big Tourney sort of guy). I didn't play in 4th Edition, and in fifth, I am in the process of painting up a Marine force. The army I played changed from edition to edition, but the composition of the army did not. People keep trying to reduce my argument to absurdities, and it makes me chuckle. Here's the thing: right now, with the system Wyrd has come up with, any egregious matchups or underpowered Masters can be brushed aside by "Well, use another Master in that situation!" That is lazy design, and it compounds onto the gotta catch 'em all nature of the system that, as mentioned, I find distasteful.

No, they totally aren't. I got caught up in that at one point in my life and realized that I had hundreds, if not thousands, of models that I never intended to even paint, let alone use. Now, I tend to be rather careful in my purchases. Hi, my name's JPRoth1980. How're you? Yep, and it usually takes about a year to do. I buy one unit, I paint it. Then I buy another unit, and so on. I never field unpainted models, ever. Nope. Admittedly, I've had to make a few tweaks over the years, as when I acquired a handful of Ironguts and 2 Scraplaunchers back when 8th was coming out, but that's it. You do? Seriously, there's very little point in "trying out" anything. How a unit performs can be very easily extrapolated through raw numerical data as opposed to "practical" experience, which is far more apt to be flawed. Partly, too, I build an army for a certain "feel." Once I've acheived said feel and have an effective list, why would I want to change it? I do not have to luxury of playing multiple times a week, nor do I play against the same opponents constantly. I honestly wouldn't know. I've never had that happen to me, ever since the days of 2nd Edition. There is darned little to adapt to, frankly. I have yet to see any new and sparkly toys that requires a major shift in how I build my armies. True, perhaps over a few years, a few things might need to be changed, but that is very different than buying a huge collection "to have options." Oh, no offense taken at all. Like I said, since the hallowed days of 2nd where I was quite literally a kid in the proverbial candystore (that sentence makes sense, promise!), I've schooled myself to make sensible purchases. With Malifaux, "game balance" is saying that I need to buy far more than I'll ever use in a game, and that just doesn't sit well with me at all.

Interestingly, no. Or at least, not to the extent of having an extra 150% of your "played" models sitting around. I am an avid fan of Bloodbowl, which I would say is easily GW's best game. I'll also say that the only "spare" models my Dwarfs contain are the ones I chose to by as decorations--cheerleaders, a ref, coach, commentator, etc. Aside from that, I have 13 models, one of which can only be on the pitch for one play, giving me one reserve in case of injury. In Necromunda, I own four Spyrers. Not exactly a lot of room to overlap there. I also have an Escher gang sitting somewhere in a storage facility, I'm sure. My Warhammer army has 2 "leftover" Ogres. My Space Marine army is even worse--there's not a single model that I have bought that isn't used in the standard tournament list. Perhaps I'm just frugal with my purchases, but I don't see the point in buying models "just in case." There are some that I buy specifically to paint, but that is very different from my playable forces.

If you purchase more models than you use willingly, congratulations. I do not consider it good game design to semi-force someone to buy more models than they will ever use at once. Starting off an automatic 4 VPs behind your opponent isn't really a good thing, and honestly, unless you were playing an Ophelia gunline and/or knew your opponent was going to run Hamelin, your only real source of blasts is likely to be Pere.

Actually, that's really not a half-bad idea, although I'd cover them with something to tone down on the glowyness. Either use some acryllic to make uncut stones, or spray the lights with matte/white sealer. But would the heat from the lights be an issue?

Agreed, and perfect balance is completely impossible to create. The easy catches, however, should have been caught. I'm not certain if Malifaux is the most balanced game I've played, but it's certainly up there alongside a few other, smaller games. However, keep in mind the game is still in its infancy, really--the rest will be to see if the balance is maintained, or improved, with more books and more models. Just about, yes, although there's the pervasive element of MMOs, which can provide over a hundred hours' "enjoyment" a month for fifteen bucks. Futhermore, the big issue with arguing the validity of wargames as a form of entertainment is that you need a second player to enjoy them. Some of us are lucky to be able to get to a game store/club once or twice a month. If said person also plays more than one game, he's getting considerably little "value" for his money there. But that's his call. But, to be fair, that's approximately the same amount of hours spent. Even more, if you buy the DVDs and go through the director's commentary. Again, it depends on the game. Buy an MMO or a JRPG and you'll get a lot more hours of "entertainment." I don't even want to think how many hours I spent on FFVII... Absolutely (with the arguable exception of the Vickies, since their box set really doesn't do much for them). I'd also throw in the Freikorps as a good, cheap "all-rounder" crew, and the Showgirls. Does that mean that you can't, very easily, need thirty or more models to be "competitive" in a tournament environment? This is an argument that really doesn't hold water. Luck is an integral part of any game that uses a random element, and minimizing it is more often than not something that experienced players try to minimize. Certainly, if the cards favor me, I can expect to do well. That doesn't mean that gross imbalances (which, I will reiterate, I only see in one very specific case here) are justified.

See, there's the problem: "pick a good master." There really shouldn't be "good" and "bad" masters, but there really are. Also, remember that for quite a few of us, there are just a handful (and sometimes only one) master that appeals to us. As an example, I have been considering getting back into WoW. However, I have found that my favorite class (Hunter) is terrible at my favorite activity (PvP). Therefore, I haven't jumped at the opportunity. If I was drawn into Malifaux by Marcus and did some research online, I probably wouldn't play Malifaux.

It's certainly possible in some circumstances, particularly if you're shopping for most impact in fewest models. In other situations, you will need 40 models--look at someone who wants to play Som'er as his/her primary Master, for example, with Vickies and perhaps Freikorps as backup. Heck, my Showgirls have 11 models for up to a 35 ss game. If I were to add, say, Rasputina or Ramos, I'd be hitting the 20-model mark pretty easily (and I'd go even higher if I chose Ramos due to the summoning). This may be a playgroup thing. I've honestly yet to see a non-Gremlin or summoning force that goes over 10 models in 25-35 ss. Are you guys playing bigger games, or is your area more prone to using cheaper models? For some reason I was under the impression that Rat Catchers are untargetable just like Hamelin. If that's not the case, then I apologize. This is true to an extent. There were some armies that could theoretically compete with a Daemon list, and then you had things like Ogres, in which a three-year-old with a Bloodthirster could win against an entire 2500 point list. 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. It is entirely possible to win a game without doing much, if any, killing. My point remains, however, that the best and easiest way to win remains killing. Otherwise, several crews have no option to cause a model to drop, say, the treasure or get away from the dynamite so they can disarm it. Or of simply clearing models from areas where yours need to be.

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. Here's the thing: we can talk about how "killing isn't required" until the cows come home, but it really is. Dead models cannot take objectives and cannot stop you from taking yours. Plus, the easiest (and in some cases, only) way to get an opponent to drop a counter, move off a marker, or whatever is to kill him. That's the problem with A Line in the Sand. If a Rat Catcher or Hamelin is standing on some dynamite, there is no way for a Gremlin to arm or disarm it. Now, Ratty, why would the Hamelin player ever take a single rat in these circumstances? For what it's worth, I've jumped into several games like that, either for fun or because they were new. When Warmachine came out, I bought a Kreoss starter before I knew anything about the game because it looked good, for example, and there are countless other games that I picked up because friends were playing without doing research beforehand--HeroClix comes to mind especially. But honestly, all of that is more of an aside than anything else. I do not think that having a matchup that is pretty much not worth playing is going to be a good thing for Malifaux. It certainly wasn't for 7th Edition.

Milky white is the "standard" color. For some reason, I always see them as oblong, faceted, and glowing greenly, but that's probably from too much exposure to warpstone. Assuming that the things Puppet Colette is juggling are soulstones, they are blue-white, which could make for some awesome source lighting if you were into that sort of thing. But that's several big assumptions on my part.

I know the game well--I've played it since it came out. However, I am not a particularly big fan of the system due to the attitude it seems to promote amongst its players. Remember, there are at any given time several arguments going on in the thread, with various level of communication between individuals. The Hamelin vs. Ophelia situation gets brought up because it's an obvious game balance issue. That is all.

Actually, I highly doubt you "need" every model to be competitive. But that does beg the question: exactly how many masters, minions, etc. would someone, in theory, need? I mean, on the one hand you have the Ortegas, the Dreamer, and Colette who can pretty much do it all and on the other you have the Gremlins, Nicodem, Marcus, and Leveticus. Logically, you should have set ups for offensive play, defensive play, and mobility, but if any of your plans have an astoundingly bad matchup, you would need a backup crew "just in case." All this starts to add up quickly in a game of 6-20 models. I currently think there's only one or two truly "might as well not play" set up right now: Ophelia vs. Hamelin in a Shared Slaughter or Shared A Line in the Sand. In any other circumstance, I'd say the game might be stacked very heavily in favor of one player, but not to the extent of, say, 7th Edition WHFB Daemons vs. Ogres.

Again, incorrect. Warmachine was brought up by someone other than myself--to be fair, I have a small amount of Khador and my original Menoth that I use and that's about it. Therefore, I am not overly familiar with the tournament scene in that game. Go figure, eh? Instead, I responded to the points that were made, with what knowledge I have. I fully admit that it's possible to have two Warmachine lists for a tournament that do not share a single model, and that it's likely to be a relatively common situation. However, I will also state, flatly, that the scale of Warmachine is larger than that of Malifaux, and that the total investment in building two playable lists can be substantial, but is not quite the same as buying playable lists for all the Masters in your faction in Malifaux. I fully admit I do not address all points made. Time constraints, you know? So it appears that what I should do is step back and go "Oh, there are vocal people who disagree with me. Better shut up, then." Sorry to have offended you by having an opinion that differs from the majority on two topics.

You'd be rather wrong there--I enjoy Malifaux quite a bit (it is currently my favorite wargame by a rather wide margin). However, enjoying a game does not mean that I think it is perfect. There is one crew that I play, and frankly I've yet to be in a situation where I felt like I was being hosed with my choice, especially once I figured out a few rules intricacies regarding the Dreamer and Companion. Oh, it's not a betrayal at all, especially since you are allowed to mix and match to your heart's content, within the limitations of the game. However, from a thematic standpoint, the Showgirls are very visually distinct from Rasputina's snowmen and cannibals. It is easy to see how someone would like one of those two and not the other. Ultimately, I guess what I am saying is that it would be far better to allow each Master a fighting chance against the others. We all know that the game is balanced around Factions, but it would be nice to have balanced Masters as well.

I actually agree with you there. It's not a particularly balanced game and was brought up because someone pointed out that you needed (gasp!) two lists for a standard tournament. I love how the term "troll" get thrown around so much on the internet. I assure you, the fact that I disagree with you does not make me a troll. However, you are correct in one sense--I believe I am correct and it would take quite a bit of effort to convince me otherwise. Kind of like you, huh? Was there someone who owned 3 of every model for his faction at the tournament or were most of the other players similarly limited? Furthermore, I fully agree that you can't ignore the "gotta buy 'em all!" aspect written into the rules. I just do not believe that it excuses bad balance decisions, specifically Marcus vs. Everyone and Ophelia/Som'er vs. Hamelin. To be honest, outside of those matchups, I think everything is fairly well balanced--there are bad matchups, but they're winnable.

I figured that out when I built my first tournament list, and as I continued to compete, that might involve an occasional purchase. That's far from saying that I need to buy a small army of models to play somewhere between 6 and 16 in a single game. I'm not sure why you think there's a similarity here. It's actually quite different. In Warmahordes, I need at most two Masters and the 'Jacks and units to support them. If I am careful in in how I build my lists, some of those units can overlap easily: Iron Fangs are typically always good, as is the Khadoran Winterguard Horde. On a completely other tangent, if I wanted to play, say, Outcasts in a Malifaux tournament, I would need a huge amount of models to be "competitive." I find that to be a major game balance issue. Go figure. No, my assumption is that Mr. Suitcase has an advantage coming into a game over the guy who has a box set and the models to support it. And that is a poverty of game design. For real this time, as opposed to the other times you bowed out?

You win by massacre because your 40-man hordes of Marauders and 30-40-man Tzeentch Chosen horde can't possibly take enough damage to matter before you hit the enemy? Sorry, had to.

The real question there is whether or not Hamelin can be targeted by Pere Ravage or Y'all Watch This. If that's the case, there's a small chance of Ophelia being able to work in, say, an Assassination game, but it's small. For what it's worth, my Night Goblin army was actually fairly inexpensive to put together, considering--I believe I've spent close to 200 dollars on it. Admittedly, BfSP helped out a lot there--much of my purchases consisted of split boxes with a local Dwarf player--but it's still not that bad. Furthermore, one would expect to spend more on a larger-scale wargame as opposed to a "character-driven skirmish game." Exactly. And that's more than a little silly, in several ways. Firstly, I doubt anyone would ever be that committed--and if so, more power to them--but also, we're talking about a skirmish game here. Buy-in should never be comparable to a large-scale war game. In both these cases you are incorrect. In a tournament setting for Warhammer/40k, I am limited to one set list for the entire event, therefore, to be as competitive as possible, I need only to build a single hard-as-nails list. I need no variation (although the changing metagame means I might swap things around in between events) whatsoever. In Warmahordes, I need two hard-as-nails lists with, again, no extra models lying around "just in case." I do not need to think "Hmm, my opponent is playing Guild, which means they're probably running Sonnia, so it'd be a good idea to run Ramos, but we're playing Shared A Line in the Sand, so I need some fast models that are survivable--maybe I should take Snow Storm?" etc. Instead, I have to think "Hmm, do I run my Karchev 'Jack-heavy list or my Irusk Infantry list?" Calling out strawman is a good way to make someone give up, but unfortunately you're incorrect here.

For what it's worth, I know quite a few people who play games like that for years. They're hardly "target customers," but they still spend the money to play in a two-player group with pretty much fixed models. Additionally, if those two players are the first two to show interest in Malifaux in a FLGS, the game's off for a very rocky start. Assuming they started off with Ophelia, they couldn't take warpigs (and Hamelin rapidly makes them worthless as well). So, your Ophelia player would then need to invest in a completely different Master--we'll say Som'er, because at least he's a gremlin. Som'er's Box: 37.00 Additonal Warpig: 15.00 Additonal Gremlins (you'll need them): 19.50 4 Mosquitos (pretty much mandatory for Som'er): 28.00 Hog Whisperer (for the pigs): 8.25 Piglets (because Som'er can make them): 7.50 So, with an investment of 115.25 retail, he too can have a second Master that gives him a snowball's chance in hell of dealing with Hamelin. Of course, the investment drops quite a bit if we're looking at the Vickies or the Freikorps. Of course, both those Gremlin crews have nasty matchups against Wp-based crews. Hmm, time to buy a box of Freikorps? If I want to be as competitive as possible, I need to own at least one of each Arcanist model (multiples, in most cases), plus the Mercenaries, all of the Beasts, and the Constructs that Ramos can take. That's starting to look less like a "character-driven skirmish game" and more like "40k, but with only a handful of models on the table at a given game." I would tell you that Warmachine is a game that seems to be played almost entirely by cutthroat gamers, and that it's far more CCG in feel than wargame. Hopefully that would drive the point across.

Let's say there are two hypothetical Malifaux players who decide that they are going to get into this game. Sure, there's a fledgling group in the area, but these guys are primarily going to play against eachother. One of them decides he's going to play Ophelia because they're like Mexican Bandito Goblins! Awesome! The other one decides he really likes Hamelin. What, precisely, would you tell the Ophelia player at that point? Marcus can win, but he typically struggles against any opponent. Sure, his weakness is probably overrated on the Internet, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't need a major boost. Okay, so now we're going to tell the new player who just wants to play with Som'er or Ophelia "Hey, look, spend another couple hundred dollars and you'll be fine!" I am not willing to buy every Arcanist model when what I want to play with is Colette. Likewise, players should not be forced to buy models they don't want to be "competitive" due to play balance issues.

Define 'Jack-heavy Protectorate. Back in Escalation, I was runnning a 3-'Jack pKreoss list that was considered up there with pSorscha in terms of power. Of course, they were two Redeemers and a Revenger, so maybe that's not the heaviest, but you know. The problem is exasperated by Malifaux because of the vast difference in appearance between factions. Really, only the Guild and the Resurrectionists really look particularly unified, and they both have their outliers. This is made worse by the Outcasts, who oftentimes cannot even come close to sharing models between masters. If I were to have started Malifaux and picked a "weak" box (let's say Som'er or McMourning) and been playing against "strong" boxes, there would be little incentive for me to stick around. Telling me "oh, you pretty much wasted that forty bucks, but hey, why don't you double down and buy Seamus or the like?" really would not encourage me. I'm not saying that bad matchups shouldn't exist. I'm saying that things like Marcus should not exist. And matchups like Ophelia vs. Hamelin, likewise, should not exist.