Cats Laughing

Wong has some tech that might be good into Cadmus, as you mention. - Blasts may spread enough damage out to get past We Are Legion (though once you have parasite on you, that becomes an issue) - Wizz Bang can bring obeys to separate the bubble, or have his bigger models put hits into his own crew. If you have the cards (masks) for the triggers, Berserker Husks can theoretically be good models to Obey to attack and push around your opponent's models. - Glimpse the Void on Sammy can yeet Nests away from you, or yeet key bubble models (Meredith/Archivist/Emissary) out of the center of the bubble. - Flying piglets are good cheap schemers that can help you grab vp while the rest of your crew tries to deal with your opponent - Shielding from Bokors can help mitigate the incoming We Are Legion damage once you have parasite on you Cadmus, will have some answers to this: - Emissary healing on passing TNs can make the shockwaves work against you - Shielding from Emissary + We Are Legion + Meredith healing (and above Emissary healing) can make a lot of the shockwave damage disappear. If you go early with Wong to avoid some of this, then your opponent may have enough good cards in hand to pass many of the shockwave TNs, at least on important models. - Flush with Cash can protect against the Obeys and Glimpse attempts (and get refueled when you do kill cheap models) - E&E lures can reform the bubble that you're trying to break apart with obeys

Curious, what was the last minute general rules change. I feel like there's something missing in a few keywords that might have suffered from such last minute changes, but especially in Wong.

Some of the tools that help with bookkeeping: In Vassal many conditions can be marked directly on models. Glowy isn't a hotkeyed condition (as it's not a condition), but there are tokens in Vassal for Glowy that have the number function (so you can use one token per model and just update the number up/down as needed). It's good to grab such tokens during set up so you have them available during the game. In the Malifaux App when you "play" a game you're able to track all sorts of conditions & tokens in game, including glowy. If playing in person and not using the app, then you'll want to have various tokens/markers to use. Dry-erase ones are very good for marking +1 type conditions/tokens. When new to Malifaux, I do suggest sticking to the same master (and also a core of models) for several games, while you learn mechanics and also the crew. But I totally understand the desire to butterfly jump between masters and crews frequently.

Love all the speculation and Plot Hooks. Large amounts of seed is probably hard to smuggle on the Iron Ram but I've got more seed than I'll ever plant in my yard (probably won't use more than 1,000 sqft of it) in a gallon ziploc baggie, which distributed through out hidden pockets on clothing or in chests, or whatever, might be easy to smuggle in. There's also at least the Ten Thunder's breach for smuggling in such goods, and if the Guild is inflating prices excessively, it could be possible that the price of seed is high enough to be worth it by volume. That said, I think I recall guild related stories talk about feeding Malifaux (not in detail, probably more just mentioning it as a duty) so I assume some part of the Iron Ram loads are food related and there are likely also Guild Sanctioned farms as well.

You could, presumable have a Strategy that required you to bring minions at hiring, by having you give friendly minions the strategy markers at deployment (a reverse or Recover Evidence placement that doesn't allow placement on non-minions). The strategy could then require dropping the marker somewhere or giving it to an opponent, or similar. Yes as briefly written above the strategy might potentially favor strong expensive minions, though that would be limited if you need 4-5 such markers for full VP and can only carry 1 per model. Another possibility would be to allow placement only on minions X soulstones or cheaper. The insignificant rule should stop issues with spamming most 2-3 soulstone minions, and spamming cheap significant minions might be limited depending on how such a strategy was written.

Side comment (not following on the interesting pop-density comments) but there are definitely farms Breachside. There's at least one story involving the livestock going mad and presumably killing & eating farmers (no bodies to verify).

Yes, surprised they didn't go for some mix of Jorogumo and/or Rex basing for Calypso... Big body on 1 foot taking up the whole base or spider legs gripping the edge of the base between them... TBH, happy it'll fit on it's base easily

The Bayou Starter hasn't been fully spoiled, but so far that box has: (?guess) = guess on my part Rooster-rider : Henchman (?guess), Jockey (assumed), Tricksy (?guess), versatile Rabbit-rider : Enforcer, Jockey, WizzBang, versatile Tree-rider : Enforcer, Jockey, Swampfiend, versatile Pig-rider : Enforcer (&guess), Jockey (assumed), Pig/Sooey (?guess), versatile Given that. It seems completely reasonable to have multiple keywords in the Neverborn box. Alternatively, the Explorer box has only one model with a keyword other than versatile, so it's also possible it will go that route and have 1 or no keywords. It looks like the outcast box is versatile Outcasts with an Explorer keyword on all of the models. At this point I have no guesses, but once we see pictures of the box I think the speculation will be quite interesting.

I think this scope is on straight. If I just stand here looking like this maybe no one will notice.

The aura being referred to above is "Corrupted Innocence" Stunned from Candy from Corrupted Innocence can help keep your models alive, which kind of doubles up on Titania's Cruel Disappointment. Not getting triggers against your models and not being able to do Severe damage can make things quite annoying to deal with. Cruel Disappointment also really helps keep Candy alive (Disarming & no Severe damage is quite tough). Misery can also somewhat stack with the damage from Life Leech, or be used to push models into Titania's terrain (or the Emissary's).

Marshall & Henry & Gonzales & Spooner? Awesome (If I forgot any, apologies as it's been a while)

Would be really awesome if the Malifools actually joined in on this.

Takes some set up, but if you have a friendly model that will survive 3 damage within ~3" of the enemy bubble, you could charge that model, rampage through them, then toss them in the mud for the stagger bomb. Though rereading the Spread Roots ability, maybe this doesn't work if you're relying on that ability to provide the terrain, since your friendly model doesn't count it as terrain.

I understand the idea, especially given how Fast/Slow work, but I don't think Distract/Focus would really result in better balance. Focus is available to every model (except certain models like Archie) but Distract is not evenly spread around factions, much less keywords. Colette certainly doesn't need this sort of buff.

There are existing shockwaves that allow friendly models to effectively relent: Wong's Fzzzzap! Snow Storm's Ice Tornado (which is not a true relent, but kind of is) Fire Golem's Flame Tornado (similar to Snow Storm, affects certain friendly models in a manner without flipping) Willie's Throw Dynamite has a trigger that allows friendlies to get a benefit without flipping, so...? Not sure that counts. Several Explorers can automatically not affect friendlies (though that's the opposite of relenting I guess)

In the background blurb in the Explorer book, Cadmus is referred to as "they/them" throughout. (I haven't had time to read the Explorer stories yet, as my reading backlog is almost as long/longer than my painting backlog, which is almost as long as my assembly backlog...)

Overall, my ideas above are not fleshed out ready to publish ideas, but merely starting points for discussions on schemes/strats that might bring up the cheaper minions

Thought about something like that, but then it's possible to make your opponent unable to score at the hire step of the game, by simply bringing nothing but cheaper than your opponent's stuff models.

I suppose the obvious fix, would be to make it Minions with a cost of (number, probably 5 or 6) or less without a summon upgrade*. I mean it's not impossible to make such modifiers. And yes, i get that would mean people would look at the best 5s (or 6s, which ever level is used), but once you get down to that level, it's easier for other models to kill them so the power discrepancy, while there, is much smaller and less meaningful. *and add such upgrades to the specific corner cases that arise (ashigaru?)

Or just score with Minions, so Enforcers/Henchmen/Masters can't score but can stop opponent's from scoring via killing minions.

Possibly more complex than Wyrd wants for GG, but a modified Public Enemies could work: After a model kills an enemy model, it gains a number of Bounty Tokens based on the comparative model cost: Model cost > Killed enemy cost = 1 Token Model cost <= Killed enemy cost = 2 Tokens Killed enemy cost > 2x model cost = +2 Tokens (Total 4 tokens) (insert same friendly controlled kill wording) (Revise wording on discarding bounty tokens to 4 tokens discarded to gain 1 vp) Obviously breakpoints and token numbers could be massaged for balance.

I'm sorry, can you elaborate on you relenting to obeys? I'm not quite sure how relenting protects Cadmus from opponent's obeys (and you can't relent to opponents, iirc), so I'm confused by your statement. I totally understand how you can use Eyes & Ears to Lure your own models back as defense against Lures, so it's just the obey comment that I'm not getting.

Too many changes, too constantly makes a tabletop minis game terrible and bleed players (looks at warmahordes during their "a CID every month" time). Making frequent changes might be fine for card games where switching up your deck could cost money but doesn't cost time in assembly & painting, and is perfectly fine for video games where all the changes are automatically implemented and responding to changes just take game time. Both video games and card games can also be played very quickly, which allows players to more easily gain practice with the new changes. Vassal/TTS might help with getting in more practice with changes (compared to the days when you'd go to the FLGS once or twice a week), but you're still looking at 2+ hours a game, which leads to frequent changes actually effing up balance more than it helps. It may look laissez-faire to you, but it's probably not, given the difference between tabletop minis and other game types.

Different keywords have different options, Changelings and Necropunks can't be in the same crew (ever, iirc) so can't really be compared. Also it is possible that changelings are underpowered (their kit is very different from standard models so hard to truly compare), which is fine as long as the keyword overall isn't too underpowered/overpowered compared to others. Leap is powerful, and possibly too strong on some models (why it was nerfed on Archie, iirc), but less so on other models. Some models need a high-ish card, some need the suit, some need both high-ish card and suit. Some just need a low card and no suit.

It does make Leap quite powerful, but FWIW, there's a lot more than Leap that will allow you to interact during an activation that you started engaged. Walk out of melee if Agile Charge out of melee with Diving Charge use Don't Mind Me and just interact while engaged use any number of attacks/triggers/abilities that move you or the opponent engaging you out of engagement. Into Thorns is one such trigger, but there are many many more. use other attacks/triggers/abilities that allow you to drop a scheme marker while engaged kill the thing engaging you Making the disengage action disallow the interact action was a way in which Wyrd tried to make melee combat and tying models up in it important for scheming purposes (and not just killing purposes). Can you imagine how easy many schemes/strategies would be if every model could just walk out of melee then interact?