Vlad the Mad

If anybody thinks Molly is plumpy, they've been watching too many fashion shows and quasi-anorexic models. And many Gothic Lolita's in Asia might disagree about her haircut being ugly. But tastes do differ. Also, Alice is quite attractive for being a spoiled teenager girl...

I was just wondering if people are getting their orders shipped. I haven't received any notification as of yet. Anybody got a shipping notification, or perhaps even the goodies themselves?

The Justice-Lucius-Austringer combination is what strikes me as the most effective of the things mentioned so far, although it takes time to set up properly, and your opponent will have plenty of time to react. Many cheap minions to out-activate your opponent could be effective as well. Most of the other comments seem to be along the lines of "it won't stop it, bit it might help a bit". I think we need to work toward finding a more certain way do deal with the problem. So, it's the second turn and Nekima just finished activating. She's standing about 12~16" from your crew, hiding behind a Ht6 building. The Lilitu's are ready to Lure you to death once you enter their range ,with Pandy hiding nearby to make sure you get damage for every failed WP test. What do you take, and how to you get rid of Nekima?

But how do you take out Nekima with the Guild, especially in the first few turns?

I love the Malifaux fluff as well, but hey, victoriansteampunkwildwestgothichorror is not for everyone. I guess what I'm trying to say is that when it comes to fluff, the truth often lies in the eye of the beholder, and that whether something is "good" or "bad" is often more a matter of taste. If you didn't already, I would suggest reading the Freebooters Fate fluff if you like anything about pirates - it's not as much about what is written, but how it's written. Any BTW, sorry for derailing the thread...

Freebooter's Fate is a good game, and the fluff is... well, it's fantasy pirates, nothing more and nothing less, but quite fun. I recommend you try it sometime.

Yep, assuming the average order is about $100, although I'd rather put it in the $150~180 range, that's some $200,000 of sales, and least around $100,000 of gross profit, probably even more. And then you have all the goodies that they actually sold at GenCon. Good effort Wyrd!

Thanks for the nice write up. Give me a better idea of what it is to actually be there. Could you elaborate a bit more on this? I'm not trying to start a GW rant, but I'd like to hear what you consider 'GW fashion', and where the Malifaux fiction lets you down? I'm a Fantasy and Battlefleet Gothic player, and while the latter is more or less alright, the Fantasy background is pretty generic and non-innovative, Mordheim and Warhammer RPG excluded.

It's funny how I couldn't wait for GenCon to start, now I just can't wait for it to finish.

Never actually thought about Johan, but it might be worth taking him as one more member of the "core" group. Both him and the Witchling are good options to get magic weapons in the core group, but I'm still wondering what to put in the free part of the crew.

Thanks for the input. It does seem to support my concern that the Hunter is a rather situational and hard to use piece of equipment. I would like to try a Hunter suicide run with him charging something, getting detonated by the Mobile Toolkit after that, only to leave some counters for Hoffman to detonate. Need to find a good target though... I guess I will play him a few times anyway, to see if I can utilize him well enough. On the other hand, it seems that the Guardian is pretty much set for Hoffman, which was my impression as well. I think Hoffman needs a core component and a free component for his crew. The core consists of Hoffman, the Guardian, a big construct (Peacekeeper, Steamborg, Ryle, Mechanical Rider) and possibly a totem, while the free component would be fully adjusted to the strategies and schemes. Due to the high cost of the core, the crew will have a rather small model count, which one should try to offset by getting as much utility (for the strategy at hand) as possible from the free component. Or that's at least how it looks in my head... lets see how my first few games with him work out.

So, I've finally managed to paint up Hoffman and his crew, and am ready to unleash the mechanical fury on the enemies of the Guild. However, trying to actually build a crew in my head (25 and 35SS), I always get the feeling that I have too few models, and very little board coverage for strategies that require mobility (not that this is something that the Guild specializes in anyway - that's why we have all the guns!!). Is that how Hoffman is played, like a group of few elite heavily armoured models? I also have two models who seem under-powered and/or over-costed: Mechanical Attendant + rather durable for a totem + shoots well for a totem + not Insignificant - cannot keep up with the rest of the crew while shooting etc. - no really useful spells of Hoffman's to use Am I missing something? I would either run the Mobile Toolkit, or no totem at all if I feel the 4SS are too much. Hunter + kind of fast, if utilized properly + can deal quite some damage with Ambush + gives three scrap counters to detonate + good utility weapon with the Chain Spear - do you notice the "ifs" and "cans" above? - about as durable as a Death Marshal I read people writing he's good as he can operate somewhat independently from the rest of the crew, but why would I insist on a construct for that? The Watcher is better for objective runs, and I don't think the Hunter has enough staying capacity to clear a defended objective, no more then the Watcher. In the 5-7SS area you have Francisco, Santiago, Nino, Executioner, the Judge, two Guild Hound etc. - sure, I shouldn't be comparing apples and oranges, but somehow I get the feeling I'm not getting enough buck for my soulstone. So, tell me your experiences of crew building with Hoffman, and how do you cope with lower model count and lesser mobility (I know he can be fast, but seems to be focused on one spot)? Do you hire non-constructs, and which ones and why/when?

Although some people seem to be pushing for this thread to be closed, I must say I really enjoyed reading this thread, and to a lesser degree the one on the Infinity forums. Quite a few interesting opinions have been put up for discussion, and discussed in a civilized and constructive way. I used to play WM Prime, and I'm currently playing Malifaux, Infinity and a few other systems, but don't have enough time to do this discussion justice. But please, go on, give us some more brain-food!

Never actually checked the shipping as my LGS has them stocked. It says orders over $150 are shipped free of charge, so if you can manage to find some friends to order with you... The other option I guess is to ask at your LGS if they could get some one you.

As others have said already, I think the point is to construct a list geared for your strategies, while considering what scheme's you'll take afterwards as well. Of course, your opponents faction might influence your choice somewhat, but as many factions have masters who's styles radically differ, I find it hard to build a faction-tailored list. The Outcasts might have the most diverse Masters and Henchmen, but other factions also have enough variety to make it difficult to build a beat-them-all list. Zoraida, Pandora and Lilith; Ramos and Colette; Kirai and Seamus etc. - all of these play quite differently compared to each other.

I have the "original" Malifaux bag from Battle Foam and I'm quite happy with it - so much that I'll probably get another one to store all the things I'll be getting from GenCon this year... However, when I want to play some skirmish games (Malifaux, Infinity or Freebooter's Fate) and travel light, I use the Feldherr Mini Plus. Two trays for 16 standard size miniatures, and one thick pluck-foam tray will accommodate a reasonable force from any small-scale game system. Although I admire the quality, I'm not a big fan of the military green colour of the Battle Foam bags... For anybody interested: http://www.feldherr.us/us/mini-plus.html

Really great interview - it made me reorganize my budget for July, August and September

I could imagine Nightmare Editions of the more popular masters - Victorias, LadyJ, Seamus or Raspy would be my best bet. If they don't get their own avatar models in the first release, it would give some satisfaction to the players having a new and cool model while they are waiting for their avatars == everyone happy.

Really enjoyed the interview. Keep up the good work - both you guys at Aethervox, and of course Eric and Wyrd as well! ps. I think I'm slowly turning fanboy...

Of course Transposition is a great spell, but I find Illusionary Forest very versatile as it can both protect from ranged attacks, and also "funnel" and slow down the opponent - board control spells pretty useful in general (Ice Pillars, Flame Walls, Illusionary Forests and such), although Lilith doesn't depend on it as much as other masters due to her speed. Anyway back to topic - it might not be the most used spell ever, but I'd hardly call it useless.

How about Illusionary Forest? I tend to use it more often than Transposition.

After going through the whole thread in the community section, I see that both sides have some valid points. However, in the end I also tend to agree that a ranking system as proposed would not be beneficial. Many reasons have been stated, and I don't feel the need to repeat them. I do feel the need to say that players should always keep in mind that Malifaux is first and foremost a game and not a sport yet. In a sport people persue victory with any means inside a given rule framework. In a game people are not playing to lose, but they are playing for the joy of playing rather than victory. That joy may come from different places - discovery of a new move/combination, finding an emotional connection to your opponent, or some other kind of emotional trigger. Why do people who play it as a sport strive to win, and win at all costs? Usually because their livelihood depends on it. Take basketball or any other major sport out there. There is basketball as a sport, where people get paid and try to win at all costs, and there is basketball as a game, where the same people might just try out some new moves, try to improve their skills, or just have some fun interacting with the opponent. As nobody is making his living by playing Malifaux yet, and Wyrd have defined it as a game where the purpose is to have fun, I feel people are unnecessarily trying to impose a ranking system. If you want to organize more events to broaden the player base and to motivate present players more, how about this suggestion: Have each Henchman organize a league in his region that goes all year long. The league winner and runner-up get some nice prizes and can participate in a national tournament held once a year with some really nice prices for the top three players. Sure, not everyone can play in the league due to lack of time or other real-life problems, but hardcore competitive players would probably join, and it also gives the other players an incentive, both material and prestige (since I will not deny that quite a few players care about it). I think both the people arguing for and against in the original post need to sit down and work out an alternative idea. As was stated in the original post, the purpose is not to have the rankings for the rankings sake, but to increase player interest and motivation and broaden the player basis. I am sure if all the UK henchman sat down together with some of the forums more passionate posters, you should find a better solution. Last but not least, a local TTG club here has a nice moto: "The objective is to win, the point is to have fun." I think it says it all.

Plastics, resin, why not? I can see them going that way, but not for the time being. If rapid prototyping (so-called 3D printing) gets quicker and more affordable, miniature manufacturers, including Wyrd, might be some early adopters.

I'm still waiting on the reply from the Saitama guys, but there is a guy in Tokyo who says they are playing almost every weekend since May in Akihabara. He says they don't have any non-Japanese Malifaux players so far, but some PP players are non-Japanese so communication shouldn't be a big issue. He gave me this link for more info: http://kiramechimera.bbs.fc2.com/ It's a typical japanese-style posting board where they post the gaming dates and locations - so far they seem to play at the Yellow Submarine RPG Shop (http://www.yellowsubmarine.co.jp/shop/shop-059.htm). The last session was on June 5th from 13:00-19:00 - you might want to keep your eyes on that board for future dates. It's all in Japanese, so if your not confident in your Japanese you could ask any local friends, or me in case no ones around at the time, to translate you new posts.