Uncle

Again, I have to point out: Colette ain't complicated. Sure, she has a few tricks that may not be immediately obvious to a brand new player, but she's nowhere near as confusing as people like to make her out to be. Of course, I'm biased. Colette's crew was what made me decide to invest in Malifaux, and if I was told "Oh, you should probably spend some money on a force you don't like to play as a 'starter,'" I would quickly find another game to play. Really, the only particularly "tricky" models in Colette's crew are the Showgirls. Aside from that, there's really nothing overly complicated about the girls. The game still boils down to "Get your stuff done T1-T2 and then try like hell to hold on the rest of the game."

Honest-to-god, I get tired of people trying to say that particular Masters are "difficult" or "challenging" to play. Sure, Colette's got a few more tricks up her sleeve than, say, Lady Justice, but Malifaux is not that complicated of a game. In a typical Malifaux game, a Showgirl crew will have at most 10 models to keep track of. That's not difficult to do, and your wife should have no problem, assuming she wants to play Showgirls because they're "neat" or "pretty." Just one minor word of caution, however: the Dreamer tends to be an interesting matchup for the girls. The Showgirls rely on maneuverability to avoid threats (in my experience), whereas the Dreamer is somewhat more maneuverable and has massive alpha strike capability.

Okay, this is all going largely off book theory, since I've never played the Freikorps, but I have to admit I find them the simplest crew to understand on paper. Therefore, I'll blather for a bit! Von Schill is obviously going to be your Master if you play pure Freikorps (the other option being to run them with the Vickies). As such, let's start off with him. He has fairly good stats across the line, and Nimble and Instinctual really help with making him more effective. Like the rest of the Freikorps, his damage isn't anything to write home about, but he certainly has a lot of utility. If you're going up against a force with a lot of Constructs, well, Von Schill can Magnetic Pulse. Against Ressers, he does extra damage and can Last Rights. Plus, he has the amazing Slow to Die and Use Soulstone combination, meaning that he never has to die until the last soulstone has been used. Judicial use of his triggers can make him either surprisingly mobile or have him do quite a bit more damage. All in all, a solid guy who can get the job done. Keep in mind he has no spells or magical weapons, though, so spirits might be a little tough (but they're tough for the whole crew). Freikorpsmen are your bread and butter unit, and to be honest, I'm not a huge fan of them. They're very tough to shift defensively, with an effective WP of 7, armor and magic resist of 1, and immunity to damage from pulses, auras, and blasts, but what they bring to the table offensively just doesn't do it for me. Of course, they are only four soulstones to hire, so I'm likely judging them more harshly than I should, and they can certainly fill out numbers once you're done with the more impressive Freikops. The Librarian is likewise not my favorite unit, although she brings some magic and card manipulation to the fight. Combat-wise, she's roughly equivalent to a Freikorpsman and costs nearly twice as much, so if the ability to get an extra card (and damage spirits) is worth that much to you, go ahead. Special mention must be made to her spells. Aetheric Theories really doesn't impress me much, but Block Connection and Magical Buffer can both be incredible when used correctly. Block a caster's preferred suit and suddenly, for example, Colette isn't summoning any birds. Or get rid of a CB suit to make Lilith less scary. +2 Defense is pretty darned good, too. I guess I'm waffling a bit on the Librarian, and that's okay. She's useful, but risky. There, is that better? Freikorps Specialist is the guy that really puts the love of this crew into me. He is, effectively, a Freikorpsman with a big flamethrower that costs one more soulstone to hire. Oh, and just about anything trying to strike him will be at a -1 flip (there's not a lot out there with Wp 7+). In addition to the obvious uses for him (get up close and burn stuff), I would recommend keeping him fairly close to Von Schill so you can use Willing to Die to Detonate Tanks as the poor guy eventually goes down. Of course, that will take the place of the Flammenwerfer's explosion, but it's far more likely to do serious damage as opposed to the kaboom. The Trapper is probably the trickiest model to use in the roster, because it's a long-ranged sniper who tends to get deployed off on his own to shoot some stuff up. Also, the Clockwork Rifle's damage leaves quite a bit to be desired on the low end, which means that against a fast-moving force, he can plink once or twice and then get mobbed by the enemy's main force. As such, the best places to put him are either in a position where such retribution is likely to result in a counter-counter-attack on your part, or somewhere difficult to get to in general. Against a beast- or construct-heavy force he'll shine, but keep in mind that his damage output, like the rest of the Freikorps, is on the low side. Hope this helps!

This might be a stupid question, but how do you play Freeze Over on an indoors table, like a sewer board? What would you think constitutes a single terrain feature?

To be honest, I see no reason to run the Brass Arachnid over the Mobile Tookit (well, unless 1 soulstone is a deal breaker). The Toolkit turns Ramos into a summoning machine, triggers Surge on all his other spells, both of which are more valuable, in my mind, than giving out Reactivate (assuming you have high Tomes in hand). I can see situations in which you'd want the Brass Arachnid over the Toolkit, but I just don't see those situations cropping up often enough to make it a valid choice.

Gotta admit, I think you're missing one thing here, although it may be thrown into either the first or third pillar. How pretty is your force? Armies (or crews, in this case) are made and broken on how the models look, in my opinion. If they're not aesthetically pleasing to me, well, I don't see the point in painting them, and I refuse to play with unpainted models. Therefore, for me to place a particular list, it has to fit the following: -The background has to be coherent. -It has to be relatively effective. -It should be affordable, but my definition is unlikely to be someone else's. -It needs to work locally, since I am unlikely to play in a major tournament. -I have to like how it looks.

Just one thing to point out, for what it's worth: The Dreamer should have 5-8 soulstones to burn on damage reduction flips, making him a little harder to kill. Magician's Duel should still do the trick, especially if you use Infusion, swap in, duel, let LCB go, reactivate, duel, and swap out with, say, a Mannequin, but it's a high risk tactic.

Sorry. I was under the impression that if you were going to send Cassie screaming at the Dreamer T1, you'd use Swords Dance and a high Mask to pull off Magician's Prop and hope for a one-turn kill of the Dreamer. If you're just sending her out as a roadblock... That's even less advisable.

Not only that, but engaging the dreamer T1 with Cassie will lead to a very dead Cassie. All he needs to do is summon his Nightmares and they can take their team turning her into a fine red paste, assuming that LCB doesn't do it on his own with 3 melee strikes.

http://wyrd-games.net/forum/showthread.php?t=16624 That's a pretty good thread on starting with the Showgirls. After reading that, and the few other threads about the crew at the top of the page, you should be able to get it pretty well figured out. The only advice I'll give you here is to buy the boxset, Coryphee, and get some wedding decoration doves for proxies. That's pretty much all you'll need.

To further elucidate, I find that Power Ritual is a near-must for Colette. Getting 3 VPs early in the game (you should be able to pull it off T2-3 with most crews) is just too good. Your other scheme should be either Bodyguard (Colette) or Sabotage, which you can pull off the same turn as Power Ritual with a bit of luck. The rest of the game will consist of you trying to accomplish your misson while thwarting your opponent, but starting off 5 VPs off is rather nice, if I don't say.

It's not necessary to run any Doves in a Colette crew, but she can summon them with a 0 action, a soulstone, and an 8 or higher. You'll want models for them, even if you're not taking any to start with. It's doable, but ever since I learned just how Companion works, I have to recommend running at least 1 Perfomer/Mannequin. At 30-35 SS, I like running Colette, Cassie, 2 Coryphee, and a Performer, with a dove or two making up extra points. As far as Outcasts go, Johan makes some sense thematically and can add some punch, but he's nowhere near as quick as the rest of the crew. The gunslinger's a solid model in general, but I'm just not certain there's room for him at smaller-scale games. Thing is, both Cassie and the Duet are absolute monsters, and together they eat up 23 soulstones. Add in a Performer and you're already looking pretty full, you know?

From some of the threads below, you'll see that I don't yet have a complete handle on Colette, and I've never played Rasputina, but hey, here goes. 'Tina is a spellcaster, plain and simple. She fits the "squishy wizard" archetype pretty well and likes to sit back behind some Ice Pillars and use her Frozen Heart models to cast spells. Her force is not particularly quick in general unless you take Snow Storm, but they're the closest thing to an Arcanist gunline you're going to find currently. Colette, on the other hand, plays fast and loose. The playstyle I've adopted with her is something like "get 5 VPs turn 2, try to stay alive the rest of the game." The really frightening thing about her force's speed is that it's so deceptive--she can swap models within 18" around like crazy, and Cassie and the Coryphee Duet can cover a ridiculous amount of ground while making melee strikes all the way. However, the Showgirls require a fairly high number of soulstones to work well--good thing they can make them. I'm admittedly biased towards the Showgirls, since they seem to fit in Malifaux better than the Cult of December. But that's my own foibles--they're both good crews.

Yeah, my little brother (who got me into Malifaux after I failed to get him into it a year ago--long story) plays Seamus and hasn't realized the full potential of Companion. Going to try to explain things to him soon...

Well, I knew I was missing something, and that'd be it. Simultaneous activation gets around all the issues I was having with the Performers, as well as keeping Paralyzed and Slow through the end phase.

Stop the presses. You mean I can activate all Showgirls within 6" of my Mannequin simultaneously? If so, I've been really misplaying that one.

For a start, I think you're confusing Poison Gift and Expensive Gift. Also remember that Poison doesn't stack with itself. And yes, if you have a high Masks in your hand and happen to be rather close to a low-Wp enemy, a Performer can do pretty well. I just don't see many opportunities tog et in that situation.

Off the main topic, but yes, you can. This means that Lucius, Von Schill, and Colette are all very difficult to actually kill.

See, here's what I've noticed... Showgirls are great with Mesmerizing and Seduction, assuming you can get them into range to use them and your opponent hasn't things that either haven't activated or are about to get beat up on. So basically, if you manage to use Colette to swap them down the field and activate them before the duet/Cassie, they're good models. Of course, if you're activating them first, then the duet doesn't have Use Soulstone and Cassandra doesn't have Southern Charm (if needed). Once those two have activated, you've really used up most of your damage-dealing possibilities, so a debuff becomes largely useless. I can see all their potential, I'm just not seeing how to put it to use without risking a 9 or 14-cost model.

As the title states, I'm having quite a bit of trouble understanding the role Performers are supposed to fill in a Colette crew. I'm sure I'm overlooking something incredible, but they've spent every game thus far hanging out in the back while Colette, Cassie, the Coryphee, and Doves do all the important stuff. I'm just having trouble justifying a Performer and Mannequin when I could be taking Johan or a Gunsmith or the like, and I'm sure it's a failing of mine. So someone, point out what I'm missing. Please?

Update: I'm starting to attach the "inner" walls to the table. Once these are all on, I will finish them and texture before moving on to the walkways and the like. The project is taking more time than I'd like, although part of that I'm attributing to daylight savings time--it's hard to go outside and work when it's pitch black. Anyways, here's a bad iPhone pic of what's happened thus far. I have quite a few more walls to put up, but the whole thing is pretty sturdy thus far.

Progress! I have acquired 3/4" blue EPS foam and made the first few steps towards building the board. Here's a list of my construction materials. Blue EPS foam PVA glue Toothpicks for support Razorblade Ball-point pen Hot Wire Cutter (which I need to purchase soon!) Piece of broken concrete for texturing Thus far, I have managed to create a 3'x3'x1.5" square for the playing surface and enclose it in 5" walls, some of which will be crumbled down to provide exits and the like. Nothing impressive, but it's a solid start. I expect to be sanding the walls smooth soon and to begin texturing them and the "sewer bottom." It's decided on an uneven fieldstone look for the walls and will be using the concrete to dimple the board where the sewer runs, giving it an uneven bottom. Water effects will cover this and largely obscure it, but hey, it counts. I've also learned that leaving large pieces of EPS out in the living room is a good way to get kitty scratch-marks on said EPS. Luckily, they've kept themselves focused only on the sewer bottom, so it's not a huge tragedy, and the project is now securely kept in the garage when not being worked on. I'll try to get the texturing done and post some pics by Thursday. Thanks for looking!

It's only cheating if it's intentional, so no worries. Besides, that was like my third or fourth game, so I don't think I got everything right, either. As far as the rematch, gladly.

Took a bad iPhone pic of the map I did at work on Friday. It's amazing what happens when you float between branches and nothing is going on. Please note: the blue-hatched areas are meant to be solid walls surrounded by walkways, making tunnels themselves. It's not perfect, but it's a start.

Well, I managed to find myself some nice, pretty blue EPS at the Loew's by my brother's place, and after a little bit of frantic cutting, I even managed to get it in my car for the trip home. Therefore, I am pleased to announce that I can begin building my sewer Malifaux board. Thus far, I have no pics--but I'll get ones of the plans, at least, ASAP. I do have a few questions for the general public, though. 1: In a largely "set" table, meaning there's not much room for other terrain to be placed at all, how important is symmetry? Right now, both sides of the table are reverse-mirrored so that no matter how deployment is done, players have the exact same setup, but the plans are (hopefully) complex enough to disguise that. 2: What color and opacity should Malifaux sewage be? I would assume a very murky brownish black, but if someone else has an idea, I'm willing to hear it out. 3: Should pipes be involved at all? I have plans for a few, but it seems a bit counter to the "open sewer" idea in the first place, with walkways, ladders, and the like. 4: How much of the sewers is brickwork, how much is stone, and should the walkways be flagstone? Right now, I am planning a mix of brick and stonework for the walls and big squarish flagstones for the walkways, but any advice would be welcomed. Likewise, I would be interested in hearing any advice as to how to make "crumbling" brick walls with EPS foam. As always, your opinions are valued, and look here for more details once I get things going more. I expect this project will take me about one month to build and another to paint, but you never know. It could be less, and it could be a lot more.