Vlad the Mad

Jonas, there is an online store (no B&M store yet) based in Osaka that sells Malifaux. I have had some e-mail contact with the owner, so I know there is a group playing over there as well (mainly or all Japanese players I believe). The owner doesn't really seem to speak much English, and the prices are 15-20% percent higher than Ring-Tail, and it also holds less inventory than Ring-Tail. The store HP is: http://orca-factory.ocnk.net/product-list/44 Yellow Submarine doesn't sell any Malifaux, nor does the other "major" miniature store in Osaka, Iconoclasm (http://www.hobbymetal-iconoclasm.com/). Ring-Tail usually holds more stock and has better prices, but it's far from Osaka. If you order on time, he can deliver to Osaka on a set date and time of your choice though, so it might be worth considering. As for gaming options, there is a group in Saitama around Tokyo, the before mentioned group in Osaka, and there are two small groups down here around Fukuoka City where I'm currently living. If you need any help with Malifaux in Japan, feel free to PM me anytime - I've got contacts in all the above mentioned groups/stores, and could get you some e-mail addresses if you need them. Cheers, Vlad @Q'iq'el Should you ever come down to Kyushu, PM me and I'll see to arrange a game or two. Nice to see somebody else from Japan on the forums!

I think I started playing WHFB (High Elves) as my first ever tabletop game in around ten years ago, and I'm still playing it (Vampire Counts and Dogs of War as well), though not as much since 8th edition came out. As for other GW games, I used to play Mordheim somewhere in between, but the GW game I like the most and still play on a regular basis is Battlefleet Gothic (Imperial Navy). I was almost set to get myself a Death Corps of Krieg WH40K Imperial Guard army, but GWs latest business decisions, as well as the availability of so many other interesting option on the market, made my re-think my options. As for non-GW, I used to play Warmachine (Cygnar), but then dropped it for Malifaux, Infinity (Nomads) and most recently Freebooter's Fate (Brootherhood). Wyrd is doing a good job with Malifaux so far, and it definitively is one of my top game systems, if not even the most enjoyable one in general (but sometimes I just need my dose of pirates/hackers/spaceships...).

One of my regular opponents plays Rasputina, and indeed I think I've played most of my Malifaux games against her and can say that she is by no means a weak master - I would even go so far to say that she is rather a strong than a weak master. Her biggest weakness is her low speed, but with Ice Mirror she can get around that somewhat. She has some very good abilities like Freeze Over (somewhat conditional, but priceless at the right moment), Ice Pillars (board control), December's Curse (ranged damage), White Out (shooting/charging protection) and Biting Chill (when something gets to near) that provide you with a plethora of options to deal with almost any threat. Add to that one extra hand card and triggers like Surge (card recycling) and Overpower (even more damage!), and you can put some serious pressure on you opponent. She is the most straightforward of the Arcanists, but that doesn't mean she should just be going forward and shooting everything in sight, especially against fast crews like Lilith, Kirai or the Dreamer. Watch you objectives and watch you opponent, and you should be able to avoid getting her killed. I can tell you from experience, nobody wants to stand open in Raspy's LoS for even one round, so they will be planning their assassination run very carefully... As for the totems, as an opponent I've learned to fear the Essence of Power much more than the Wendigo. Her damage output can be quite insane, especially with the positive twist.

LadyJ doesn't really have any explicit synergies with the Marshals, nor any other specific models actually. This is both a bad thing, as you don't get the flashy combos, but also a good thing as she's not really dependent on hiring any specific models, nor is she a master that needs all that many soulstones or even control cards. In this sense she is somewhat one-dimensional. Still, she's not a pure solo character as she can enhance her crew with Inspiring Swordplay, Combat Prowess and Blind Justice (can work wonders against Pandora), and she should never be walking alone, considering her average Df and lack of any defensive talents. When I was starting with Malifaux, LadyJ was my first master and I used to play the box in two "strike teams" - the three marshals and LadyJ&Judge, never too far from each other, but enough to cover objectives that are eventually spread out on the table. Both teams are a serious melee and ranged threat, and can hold out for a while on their own against everything but a full commitment by your opponent. This is the biggest problem with the Executioner - he is much slower, and has no ranged options. If you need to go to a place and hold it or slaughter something around there, he's a solid choice, but if you need to walk around the board he'll be slowing you down. As has been already said, the Peacekeeper is a better option for LadyJ if you wan't a hard hitter substitute for the Judge - he can keep up, and she doesn't need all that many cards so you can cover possible malfunctions. From my experience, the real "trick" with LadyJ is how to use her as an effective psychological deterrent, because even though everybody knows she's a glass cannon, most people just don't really want to come anywhere near her if possible. Use this as much as possible to influence their decisions, inviting them to make risky choices, and use the opportunities that arise when their choices prove to be wrong.

Thanks for all the advice. I'm starting to visualize how the demo should look like. It seems we'll have quite a lot of time to play, so I'll probably run three games (any idea which of my crews I should pair up with Nicodem should he prefer him?), making the games progressively more complex by introducing more rules in each new game. Maybe I'll start with a small 18"x18" game just to introduce the basic mechanics, and slowly evolve to a game with preset strategies and schemes on a 3x3 board. Any other ideas and opinions? I'd also like to hear your experiences, both the good and the bad ones when you were demoing or introducing the game.

I'll be giving an introductory game to a friend at the end of the month, and I'd like to get some general and specific advise on how to do demos. I had some experience before, but I consider myself a rather bad "demoer" as I tend to get overly competitive and forget that it's a demo somewhere along the way... I'd like to be properly prepared this time, as having a concrete plan helps me remember why I'm here. So, any general advise on running demos is highly appreciated, i.E. should we draw for strategies or just used fixed ones, use schemes or not (or maybe just one?), any specific things I should pay attention too, what should I explain and what is just too much information etc. As for specific advice, the person participating already has the Perdita and Nicodem boxes, so I'm wondering what should I use in the demos to make it an interesting and fun experience. I have the following masters: - all Guild - McMourning (not painted yet, so I'd prefer skipping him) - Lilith, Zoraida, Dreamer - Leveticus So far I was thinking Lilith for Perdita, and LadyJ or Sonnia for Nicodem.The rest has some rather specific rules or is just not really nice against his masters. I'd probably recommend him to play Perdita for starters as Nicodem is not as beginner friendly. Opinions and advice welcome! Help me become a better teacher!!

He is slow and expensive, but I've found him useful with Lucius. For example: Activate the Student, give Fast to LadyJ, then activate Lucius and send him as far as you can. With Casting Expert cast Reinforcements and you have LadyJ standing potentially 14'' away from your deployment zone, with 3 general APs + Melee Expert. On the second turn get the Student close to Lucius via Reinforcements and you don't need to wait to use his ability. With Sonnia, you could give Fast to Lucius and have him move more upfield for deeper placement of reinforcements, and than put Sonnia in a more defensive position next to Lucius where she or he would profit from the Students buff from turn two. If he was 3SS I would use him a lot, but at 4SS he's not an auto-include in my crews, although playing a rather quick crew with him and Lucius is a lot of fun.

Not so sure about myself, but I can say that my wife would like a few plushy puppets for sure. She already finished the coloring book and needs something new to play with...

Maybe Malifaux is just not her thing then. There are many type of players, male of female, with many different tastes. Around here people usually have a love-it-or-hate-it kind of relationship towards Wyrd miniatures, and especially people who play stock fantasy and sci-fi tend to shun away from it.

Malifaux is objectifying towards everything in it's own way. It's one of its design points to build upon a stereotype and push it, and it certainly doesn't apply only to female characters. I think it is one of the aspects that makes people have a love-or-hate attitude towards it. As for your girlfriend, there are a lot of miniatures that she might not like, but actually most of the female characters are not so over the top as they may seem (especially if you read the background as well). I'd suggest she tries Sonnia Criid, both for the way she looks (a somewhat "professional" fashion sense) and her personality traits in the stories. She strikes me as somewhat closest to the "modern woman", especially as seen in her relationship towards Samael.

As many here have already said, it's rare to see a Nicodem player that says Nicodem is overpowered. Most players rather struggle with him, and although Mortimer's Fresh Meat can give the crew the speed it badly needs, Morty and Nicodem themselves are not really speed daemons. It does sound a bit like an ideal way of playing Nicodem, when you have the privilege to bunch up and move up the field. However, for many strategies and table setups this approach will not work as you'll need to split your crew to fulfill your objectives. Against any bunched up opponent I would focus on the objectives and try disrupting my opponents ones, forcing him to split his forces. I play LadyJ, Sonnia, Lilith, and one of my frequent opponents plays Tina. I don't see a reason for any of them to have extra difficulties with the above mentioned Nicodem playstyle - LadyJ has her anti-undead abilities, Sonnia doesn't even need LoS to target Nicodem (and his Df is very low) and Samael will shoot neatly through the fog, Lilith will make forests and transpose models around the table to get her crew into best position for the killing blow (on a side note, Lilith actually tends to like resser crews as they can give her a lot of blood counters for the nephilim to feed on), and Tina will bog down your activations with her crews Sub Zero trigger and Statue abilities, giving her a chance to happily blast away (if she has a Essence of Power linked and Hans in her crew, there is even more reason to fear her). Out of the four crews, I'd actually say LadyJ might have the toughest time as she isn't really quick and her ranged options are not as strong. Adding Nino to her crew would greatly improve this though. Tina might also have some problems as she's painfully slow, but one small mistake and you'll be looking at a lot of ranged blast damage. I really don't believe that the bunched approach will work for many strategies and schemes, and even then, if there is enough terrain you opponents will get a chance gain tactical advantages.

Also, when playing masters with a high SS reserve it's better to slowly lower that reserve to a more manageable level before engaging seriously - any master with 8SS is not really going to be easy to hit and damage by a model without the Use Soulstones ability. For Nicodem, I think both Decay and Rigor Mortis are good ways to force your opponent to use those SS when he's using Lilith.

Hmm, sounds to me like you've got more of a problem with the players then with the decks. Better make a ruling to do a deck check for each player instead - it's just more fair. Now it's basically a targeted discrimination against one player, of whom you BELIEVE he MIGHT cheat. For demo games the standard Malifaux decks are practical in order to make games go fasters, but in generally I'd let everybody use whatever they want.

Although I use the Puppet Deck myself and have gotten used to it by now, I also must agree that it was quite hard following the cards (both my own and my opponents) in the beginning. Took me a week or so to get used to it. However, not allowing them in a tournament might bring up another question - are you going to prohibit the use of all decks except the "standard" Malifaux decks, or just the Puppet Deck? It would be rather harsh banning all of them as even the rulebook states that the game can be played with a standard deck. As for the latter, I would disagree on banning just the Puppet Deck but allowing standard card decks (spades, hearts etc.) as it takes a long time to convert the suits for people who are not used to it, therefore you have the same problem as with the Puppet Deck. I believe Puppet Decks (or any other decks) should not be banned - maybe only on ultra high level professional tournaments with huge prizes and very short playing times. Still, the best thing is for people to get used to them - it really doesn't take that much time.

Unless you fail them. I had almost my entire crew slaughtered by Pandy's nasty trigger when I played against her the first time and used the proxy (the opponent had a rather large SS cache to make the duels irresistible). The proxy does help a lot with other WP duels though. On another note - I've actually never used LadyJ's Blind Justice spell before, but looking at her card yesterday I thought, wouldn't it allow my models within 6" to target Pandy without a WP duel?

I generally don't believe in the "not fluffy = cheesy" equation (Alp bomb = cheesy & fluffy?). Also, I think Malifaux is quite a "cheesy" game in itself, where rather nasty combos (that often make your opponent feel really miserable or helpless) are rewarded, even encouraged. The good thing is, everybody is aware of it so it's not really cheesy.

Both Marcus and Ramos are considered rather hard to learn masters, Marcus usually being even considered the weakest master (though this might have changed with Rising Powers). Lilith is a lot more forgiving due to her rather straightforward play style, excellent defence, and fast movement of the crew in general. If you're all about a themed army, any master will do, as most of them can be used to resemble their respective theme very well. I'd say just go with whatever miniatures and stories you like best, and you'll manage the rest somehow (I've personally never liked Marcus' background - he stands out to me as a generic fantasy background guy lost in a world of Malifaux wyrdness. But hey, tastes differ - that's why there's 20 masters to choose from!).

In principle I'd advise against splitting your force too much against the Dreamer. As others have already said, Nightmares will usually get to hit first, but will not last long if there is anything left to hit back - small groups of enemies make the best target for the Dreamer's Hit&Run crew. They can be used as bait though, like Karn already mentioned. With Levy I'd play Crooked Man for blast damage and area denial through Shafted markers. Belles can be used to Lure the bodyguard away from the Dreamer if there is no Teddy present. The Ortegas might have a problem as they usually won't be able to get enough shots off before the Nightmares are in melee. As general advice I'd say play it patiently, focus on your objectives and be ready to sacrifice a some models to achieve your goal. Papa Loco could eliminate all those Alps in one turn easily,if he was in the right place. I'd also like to second that taking out the Daydreams as soon as possible will largely improve your chances of success.

Nothing to do with the minis really, just a few tips on photography: 1. Try filling the frame with the subject as much as possible - either zoom in more, or just bring the camera closer to the miniature. It is very hard to tell anything except the red-grey colour scheme from your photographs. 2. Try using an angle that does not produce direct reflections - 45 degrees top-down works well usually. 3. Using a makeshift softbox (http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/softbox.jpe) will make your miniatures look much better, and it can be done in 20 minutes.

Thanks, that helps a lot!

There is also a bunch of resin bases or base inserts and Wyrd makes metal inserts as well - it might work for you depending on what theme you're looking for. Just get the base, then get some more basing material for that small "extra touch" and voila - you're done! I've been using Dragon Forge, Fiendish Fabrications, Scibor Monstrous, Micro Art Studios bases and the Wyrd inserts, and I've been very happy with all of them. Not really economical if you need to base 200+ Goblins, but for 30-40 Malifaux miniatures it's quite affordable. I've also heard good things about Dark Age and Enigma bases, but didn't have a chance to try them out myself yet.

Nothing really constructive to add to here (I think Karn has most of it covered), but I think you should tell your friends not to complain too much about OP masters, as they are playing quite powerful masters themselves.

Nice find. Looking forward to the Sergeant and Madness. I really hope that Madness is at least two miniatures in a pack.

Just a small off topic question - which trays do you use for your BFG fleet, and what fleet do you play? My Imperial Navy is looking for a safe way to travel the warp...

Reading your post it also made my wonder - the only way I could explain it is that Riposte does grant you a Strike (not just a damage flip), where the dual totals are already decided (previous duel totals), therefore you get to activate the trigger. But I agree it is something that requires some more clarification.