Necromorph

Haha, yeah, did some updating and got all ahead of myself. It's under hoff now.

Last but definitely not least, the Neverborn Avatar Summary. Dreamer, Avatar of Imagination Focus- Crew Manipulation Rundown- Chompy takes a back seat and the Dreamer gets a complex twist. Basically, the dreamer is all about effecting the game indirectly. That's not to say he doesn't have some bite with several abilities slow, paralyze, bury, etc. He can do dg, but it's not impressive, and his toy sword is really more about picking suits for his triggers if you're in melee. The interesting thing is how he manipulates the game. When he comes into play he has to pick an effect to apply to the game, which will effect both friendly and enemy models. An example is Cops and Robbers- Friendly models get hunter and enemy models get scout...brilliant. Others include Pirates, Slay the Dragon, and Hide and Seek. Second, he can generate random Event/Terrain features in the game every turn like Caustic Gas and Hanging Trees. Lilith, Avatar of Nature's Malevolence Focus- Hit and Run/Terrain Manipulation Rundown- If you couldn't tell from her artwork, Lilith's Avatar functions a lot like what you'd expect a waldgeist master to be like. When she enters play, she generates 3 pieces of woods terrain, and can cast a spell to add extra terrain onto another piece of woods terrain...like it's spreading I guess. Almost all of her abilities have to do with said woods terrain including attacking from/through the terrain with both a ranged and melee attack, pushes, rooting effects, gaining blood counters whenever an enemy model dies in woods terrain, etc. It may seem limiting, but it's actually pretty cool, and I'm sure waldgeists will be incredibly popular now, haha. Pandora, Avatar of Insanity Focus- Wp duels. Rundown- Another Complex one here. She didn't change much in her tactics, she's based on stripping immunity to Wp and killing you through Wp duels. She is Immobile..she can't move once manifested, but she does have some synergy with Candy which lets her push around. She has several rooting/slowing effects as well which make it harder for enemies to get away from her influence. Candy, the Petulant Youth comes with her, and the great part is, even if you didn't have a candy on the table, you get one for free with 2 fewer wounds. Wounds taken by either model can be split between them after the manifest as well. Candy is her other half (Pandora has Pacify, Candy has Incite, etc), and also has an ice mirror like function for pandora's spells...actually it is ice mirror just renamed "Her Eyes". She runs around debuffing enemies and stripping other resistances making it easier for pandora to take them out. Zoraida, Avatar of Fate Focus- Card Manipulation Rundown- Zoraida is pretty much awesome at messing with your hand. Where colette forces you to swap cards and manipulate your hand, zoraida just drains you. He has several awesome draw mechanics, + to initiative flips, the ability to make a model discard whenever it performs an action, and the ability to make an opponent ignore suits in their duel totals, it's brutal. She's not without teeth either. She has two attacks, her withering touch and a spell pins and needles, both have strange dg spreads, but it's the triggers that are important; poison, discarding, and reducing a models total wd by 2 for the rest of the game just to name a few. She still has her old staple obey, and has a trigger for chain casting it on an extra mask. She seems a bit tricky, but absolutely nasty. Ah, yeah...ok, here's how to Manifest them. Dreamer- 1-Deal 5dg to enemy models with Twist Reality Strikes 2- Chompy uses his All Finished Trigger after killing and enemy model. Lilith- 1-Inflicts 10wd on enemy models while they are in base contact with woods terrain. 2-casts Illusionary Forst during two different turns. Pandora 1-Inflicts 10wd with Emotional Trauma and/or Self-Loathing. 2-The same enemy model must lose the Wp duel from Dementia two times. Zoraida 1-Successfully cast Crystal Ball twice. 2-Kill an enemy model with a model controled by obey.

Sorry it too so long, but here we go, a brief summary of the Arcanist Avatars. Colette, Avatar of Deception Focus- Card Manipulation Rundown- Well, she's a bit different from her master form. First off, she has two Decoys, which function exactly like her, and she can split a total of 6 general ap between them, but cannot use the same spells between them...baring certain spells that have triggers that allow this. You secretly mark which one is the real one and you have to reveal what each is when it takes dg, yadda yadda. The interesting thing to note with her is that she no longer manipulates ss as an Avatar, with only one ability that lets her gain ss...though she can still use the first one each turn free. She does, however, manipulate cards like no other. Though she retains Magicians Duel for offense, she focuses on forcing discards/stacking your opponents deck and even has a spell that forces her opponent to cheat randomly when cheating from their hand. Marcus, Avatar of Instinct Focus- Melee/Beast Synergy Rundown- He really isn't much different from his Master form...more like Marcus 2.0. He has some extra synergy with beasts; companion with 2 at once, cb bonuses, etc. However, his main focus is on his secondary weapon Chimeric Assault which has different damage and bonuses like poison depending on a discarded cards' suit...strange...he still has the shillelagh but it can't be boosted and only has onslaught. He has an "Alpha lite" ability that is basically a better obey that only effects beasts. He also gains fast in addition to instinctual and flight. Ramos, Avatar of Invetion Focus- Melee Rundown- Ramos is quite the melee monster now. He has his fist as one weapon with cb 6 or spidery limbs that attack at cb5masks, but with a much better dg range. He has melee expert, and an impressive self buff that he can use once a turn for different effects like Healing flips or making 2 extra melee attacks (yes that's 5 total if you wanted to). He makes scrap for (1) and drops scrap while taking dg...he also has synergy where he gets bonuses for the amount of scrap around/on him. He still has electrical fire and can make EC's but his role as a summoner is limited. He can (1) Hasty Assembly which allows him to make most non-unique constructs, but they come in at half wd. He's really quite impressive though. Rasputina, Avatar of Famine Focus- Melee/Enemy Manipulation Rundown- Raspy gets a brutal overhaul. She now does some decent melee dg, has eat your fill, and can devour ht1-2 models. She can buff golems, summon gamin and gives everything within 3" shatter, even enemy models. She seems to focus on forcing the enemy into melee with a spell that hurts opponents for not being in melee, she then slows them down with triggers and effects, and then basically proceeds to messily devour them while shatter damaging all of their friends nearby while her armor +2 - immune to blasts/pulses/auras keeps her safe. Manifest Requirements Colette 1-Use Illusionist three times over at least two activations. 2-Kill and enemy with Magicians Duel. Marcus 1-Give two enemies Beast with Feral. 2-Give an enemy beast with his Primal Reaction trigger. Ramos 1-Cast Electrical Creation and/or Construct Spider two times. 2-Do 8wd with Electrical Fire to enemies. Rasputina 1-Reduce an enemy to 1 wd with Biting Chill. 2-Kill two models with 1 cast of December's Curse.

Continuing right allong with my Avatar Summaries...here's the Ressers. Kirai, Avatar of Vengeance Focus- Melee/Movement Shenanigans Rundown- So, in addition to basically being Ikiryo on speed, she has a few other surprises. Being the avatar of vengeance, she has several abilities that punish enemies for hurting her and her spirits. She also has a variety of spells and abilites that push and switch models but not the same mechanics as her Master form. She also has many ways of stripping enemies of their defenses and she can even cause enemies to lose Terrifying...she also has Terror 13 herself. Though she only has Instictual, she warps to any friendly spirit that dies, and attacks their killer...pretty damn awesome, and makes up for her not having Melee expert or flurry quite nicely. McMourning, Avatar of Athanasia Focus- Melee Debuffing/Face Smashing Rundown- So, Doug and his friend Simulacrum 29 (the big golem from the GC release thread) can really dish out the nastiness. Mcm himself isn't quite as much of a beast though. He's much more survivable with +flips to all resists, and his weapons are paired, but no longer ignore armor and h2w...but 29's attacks do. With abilities like Rancid Transplant and his ability to heal more with bodypart counters, he's more of the support role in the pair, keeping 29 up and making sure he hits like a truck. 29 himself is pretty much what you'd expect...a big wall of flesh that likes to smash things. He gets buffs while near Mcm, and with a couple nasty triggers (really nasty if combined with Rancid Transplant) this big boy can hit for anywhere between 4-14 dg in a single hit...ouchies. Nicodem, Avatar of Decay Focus- Mindless Zombies...yeah that's pretty much it. Rundown- Nico's Avatar is to MZ's what Hamelin is to Rats. He can make the things by the bucketload, and he causes them to lose Neutral, Mindless, and Walking Dead. They come into play whenever a corpse counter hits the table, or he can take a 0 to flip and generate a random number of them. He can buff them, or sac them to prevent attacks or to make hordes of punk zombies. He retains (1)Decay and (1) Rigor Mortis. Shamus, Avatar of Dread Focus- Melee/Morale Duels Rundown- So...he's the hulk apparently. His melee damage is pretty disgusting, and buffed he can hit at 4" Cb7 Paired and Ignoring armor with an impressive dg spread...but that's not even the best part. He is Terror 13, which can be boosted to 15, he gives all friendly models terror 12, and can strip any immunities to morale duels. Sh!t is going to be running...a lot. He's a fairly simple Avatar, and he's really just about hitting stuff hard and making everything else run screaming like little girls. He can also Paralyze and heal flip as spells...has hard to kill, regen, and even +2 armor when in melee...he is...a beast. Manifest Requirements Kirai 1-Ikiryo kills 2 enemy models. 2-Kirai gains spirit on two separate turns. McMourning 1-Get 5 Body Parts from enemies. 2-Kill a model affected by Rancid Transplant. Nicodem 1-Kill two enemies with Decay. 2-Summon 3 Mindless Zombies with Arise. Seamus 1-Cast Face of Death in two different activations. 2-Use Slit Jugular in the same turn that he charged that model after having used No Escape.

As promised, I'll give a brief rundown of the Guild Avatars so players can get a feel for what they can expect from their Masters in book 3. Again, this summary will be brief, as I don't play Guild, so I'll leave it up to you to ponder tactics and such. Hoffman, Avatar of Amalgamation Focus- Damage/Anit-Construct Rundown- Hoff no longer hides behind his minions buffing them and takes the fight to the enemy. Both his melee and ranged attacks are paired, and do pretty decent damage. He still has a variety of passive buffs for his construcs, but is vulnerable to blasts, pulses, etc. He also can give enemies the construct characteristic, and strip abilities from enemy construct to either use for himslef, or deny them to the enemy. He keeps assimilate as well. Justice, Avatar of Balance Focus- Crew Buffs Rundown- Justice still has her big 'ol Greatsword, melee expert, crit, etc, but her abilities don't really focus around her being in combat, and with a wk of 3 and only 1 push spell, she won't be getting into combat as much. Her real focus is buffing her crew's flips in duels. She can give her crew + flips, allow friends to win ties instead of lose, balance hand sizes and wound totals between opponents, and even has a pretty nasty bury spell that requires a wp wp duel to get out of. Not too shabby. Perdita, Avatar of Revelation Focus- Hand Sculpting/Hit and Run. Rundown- Well...she finally got her paired pistols...but she lost crit and all of her other nasty little ranged triggers, as well as gunfighter. Never worry though, she's riding a huge winged Neverborn, and gains the Neverborn characteristic, while gaining a melee attack from her mount. She even has a trigger that allows her to shoot (gaining gunfighter temporarily) after hitting in melee. She also gains terrifying and has spellbreaker. The nicest thing about her, IMO, is that she can sculpt a "God Hand" nearly every turn. She gets to use an ability for free at the end of every draw phase, and can cast a near identical ability (so she can basically do the same thing twice) that allows her to reveal and discard any number of cards, and draw an equal number. I'll say that again...she can redraw any bad cards she gets...twice...gross. Sonnia, Avatar of Conflagration Focus- Umm...burning sh!t. Rundown- Yeah pretty self explainatory, she sets stuff on fire. She's a purely offensive caster that hands out burning counters like noones business and has several defensive debuffs that make her a little more resilient in melee. She's also a great anti caster still, as her counterspell now does 2dg in addition to cancelling the spell, and he has Magic Resist 2. She keeps her Violation of Magic Spell. Manifest Requirements Hoffman 1-Kill two enemies with strikes using machine puppet. 2-Use Override Edict on 1 enemy construct or 2 friendly ones if no enemy constructs are in play. Justice 1-Three other models get the cb bonus from Inspiring Swordplay. 2-Kill two enemy models in range while using Sword Style. Perdita 1-Successfully trigger Anticipation two times against enemies. 2-Kill two enemy models with Execute. Sonnia 1-Deal 10wd on enemies using spells. 2-Use Inferno two times.

I think I'll go around and make a little summary like I did in the Outcasts forum just to give people a general Idea of what their Avatars will do. I wont be able to go into much in the way of detail, as I don't play anything outside ressers and outcasts, but I'll leave you all to decide if the changes were good or bad, lol...expect something tonight or tomorrow afternoon...I'll probably post something on all of the faction forums unless someone beats me to it, haha.

Som'er does indeed have both the pig and gremlin characteristic. He summons pigs by using a tome to cast (1) Swamp Gas, his upgraded version of (1) Pull My Finger. I might just do that, and go around to the other sub forums, but as I only play ressers and Outcasts, it would mostly just be summary's of the Avatars, but I guess I could look into doing that tonight or tomorrow...just to get people hyped, lol. @ Buck Magno and I had a chance to chat with bowen about some of the avatars and he cleared up a lot of our doubts about them, but he did agree that many of the masters force you to play a certain way or pick specific crews...I guess another part of balancing them out. After rereading the entries of Hamelin and Levi, yeah, I have a couple issues, though I still like them...I don't think any of the Avatars will be "bad" per se. Yes, you are forced to take at least a couple riders (actually you can't take all 4 and get his avatar in a 35ss game because they add up to exactly 35ss and (spoiler) you need to spend 2 stones b4 the game starts to even have the option to make your avatar, so you would have to take 3, and then summon the 4th when you make the avatar). To clarify a bit...Hamelin's avatar will ruin your day if you let him. I wasn't exagerating when I said you have about 1 turn to drop him before your crew goes bye bye. The flip side to this is, as I said, Hamelin has no survivability now unless you're a melee crew with no access to paired weapons. The sheer amount of dg he can put out when the blight counters start flowing is astronomical, and he has a mass bleeding disease 10" pulse, and a mass obey resisted by a wp 14 duel for all enemies with blight counters. My reference to guild was that A) They have more models with shrug off and spell breaker now, and his vulnerability to shooting will see him drop like a bag of rocks if he doesn't hide out after he manifests. He's definitely cool, but he got better at killing and worse at everything else except strategies that are won by having more models than the opponent (recon, claim jump, etc etc). *Disclaimer* You will need to buy more packs rats....lots and lots of rats.

Wanted to start this thread as a means for all the Outcast players to discuss the avatars and their tactics/strengths/weaknesses, etc. I realize few people likely have the book, but I plan on this being an ongoing thing. So without further delay, my first Impressions of the Outcast Avatars: I'll start off by saying that many of the Avatars have a focus...whether it is an aspect they were already good at as a master that they chose to amplify, or a different direction altogether from their master form. Avatars also usually keep at least one of their former Masters' abilities. Som'er and Peaches, Avatars of Indulgence Focus-Synergy with Gremlins and Pigs/Strong Melee. IMO- He gives the gremlins that which they need the most...Wp bonuses. He has several ways to boost gremlins Wp. On top of this, he adds a resilient melee heavy hitter to the crew, has synergy with pigs/stampede manipulation, and has a trigger to summon piglets with the successful cast of a spell, so he can help the pigapult out a bit as well. He keeps Sooey! from his Master form. Viktorias, Avatars of Slaughter Focus- Umm....Melee...lots of Melee. IMO Without going into too much detail so as not to spoil it for those who want to be surprised, when the Viks hit the table, it pretty much turns into a giant pinball game of death. They bounce around from target to target doing very high dg. They can also switch places with other friendly units in melee and...well... 8:rams:masks paired...I'll let you think about that for a minute. Oh...and (Spoiler)...did I mention paired and (+2) Melee Master...ouch. They keep Whirlwind from their Master form. Leveticus, Avatar of Entropy Focus-Card Draw Mechanics, Rider Synergy. IMO- A bit of a multi-faceted avatar here, but he's still pretty nice. He loses his dependancy on waifs, and uses the riders (Dead, Hooded, Mech., Pale) as his waifs. Each rider in play gives him a buff of some sort. He loses his current card draw mechanics, and replaces them with abilities that allow for tons of hand manipulation and healing via discards. His melee attack is the exact same, but he doesn't have that crow built in and needs a specific rider in play to give it to him...and yes, his Cb is still 5. His one remaining damage dealing spell is Necrotic Unmaking, so as you can see, aside from the chance to do 12 dg with his cane, he is much less damage focused. Oh...and he can summon any of the riders back, awesome. Honestly though, bit underwhelmed by him currently, but I'll have to wait and see when I use him. The rider synergy is cool, but you will prolly need to start with at least two if you plan on using the avatar, and ofc, he can't nuke anything in the game with spells, but I guess his slightly increased ability in Melee will get past that if you can land the hit. Hamelin, Avatar of Contagion Focus- Blight Counters IMO- If Hamelin the Plagued played like a boulder rolling down hill gaining momentum, then his avatar is that boulder with a booster rocket strapped to it. He focuses on giving out blight counters to everything...even his own models, and then mass killing everything that the rats don't take care of. I like that he can give other units (canines, tots, Pale Rider mwahahaha) blight counters which they can then dish out to enemies. I would say that once Hamelin gets his avatar, the opponent has maybe a turn to kill him before they start to get stomped hard. He keeps his pipes and their trigger. Some downsides though are that while he makes even more stuff insig, he doesn't have bully...though he does get an aura that makes anything with a BC get a -flip to hit him in melee. He also cannot come back off of stolen...basically making him a the equivalent of a resser master (low df, high wd) but without any survival abilities....he's really really squishy. I feel like he gets better at the things he was already good at, but gets worse at the things he was already bad at, making it easier to exploit him. Slaughter will still be hell for him, but recon, claim jump, etc will be super easy. Guild (all of guild now...not just sonnia and perdita thanks to some new units) will be even better against him, and terror crews like the dreamer will be even better against him, but crews without access to strong ranged attacks will be demolished. This is another Avatar where I think I'll have to try him out, but I'm currently not totally sold. Manifest Requirements Hamelin 1-Kill an enemy with a model controlled by his Pipes. 2-Make 3 enemies Insig with Understand the Soulless. Leveticus 1-Kill or Sacrifice Levi two times. 2-Summon two SPA's with Necrotic Unmaking. Som'er 1-Use Take a Swig three times on three different wounded gremlins. 2-Inflict 4dg with Pull My Finger. Viktorias 1-One Vik must kill an enemy while under the affect of SoB:Fury cast by the other Vik. 2-Both Viks use their Whirlwind trigger on enemies.

As a first impression, none of the avatars seem game breaking, but some of the avatars are a bit stronger than others. Vs those tough avatars, it will be paramount to stop them getting their avatar or kill it quick....not always easy as some of the requirements to Manifest avatars are stupid easy. What I believe balances them out a bit is that their manifest requirements often force you to play a certain way in order to meet the requirements. Therefore if you want to take a certain list / playstyle you may find it difficult to manifest an avatar if you aren't playing for the manifest reqs. Also, depending on your crew / specific master, some of the Strategies and Schemes will not synergize well with certain avatars (for example, Hamelin's avatar gets even worse at slaughter...first impression ofc, but that's what it seems like).

I seem to remember a thread about Hamelin....funny how debates devolve into gibberish after a while, eh?

Against guild specifically, yes. Ironic isn't it?

Between this and drinking at my friends house while we play mali on his table in the basement, I'd say I've probably played about as many games liquored up as I have sober, haha.

I usually play 1-3 games a week depending on my schedule. That's just Malifaux, but due to my group of friends shifting more toward malifaux, decline in popularity of other games, and my schedule not always allowing me to show up on other games' "league nights", I haven't been playing much besides malifaux...and somehow I'm fine with that, haha.

Again, yes, since Mali has no official way of recording competitive outcomes (oh god, I hate to bring this up again, but like infinity....and by no means is that system of recording scores perfect or unable to be manipulated, but it's something at least) then we have no way of knowing "how" x person wins a tournament. Are they a top 1 percentile player skillwise, did they have easy matchups, were y and z(strats, terrain, etc.) factors predominately in their favor, etc? We just don't know, and the sheer amount of factors that malifaux presents makes it difficult to measure accurately even if we did have some global tournament ranking system. I do, however, agree with you Ratty, that players' choices pre game are a big factor, and can mitigate some of the foolery. Hell, every time someone chooses holdout when I'm using Kirai it just brings a big ol' smile to my face. It's not everything though, and good choices can backfire if you can't know what your opponent will bring. "Well I know they're playing X faction, so I'll take Y master...I'm confident that Y master can handle 3/4 of the masters in thier faction. Oh, sh*t, they just put Z master on the table, and that was that 1 master out of that faction that I can't deal with using Y master...boned." Wow...that example is horribly constructed, but try to make some sense of it...at least from my end. I'm not saying that's how it will always be, but it happens. The other side of it is if someone only has 2 masters. "Oh, but if I played that 3rd master from my faction I could match up against more people...well I don't, so whenever I face x, y or z I'm gonna get owned most of the time." This is forcing people to buy masters they may not be interested in just so they can have a safety blanket against x, y or z, not a good approach IMO.

@ Hookers Gotta agree with Math on this one here. Yeah, you only need 2, but you have to pick the right two that compliment each other and pick up for each other's weaknesses. They also would likely have to be from the same faction, which, isn't always the case with many players, especially new ones. Also, the reason the argument isn't going to be concluded isn't because people like myself, Magno, Paradox, etc are some stubborn brutes who are completely uncompromising in our views. There are lots of aspects of the game and if certain players focus on different aspects, then their views of what blanace is are going to be shifted in one direction or the other. @ Ratty Interesting, but it really isn't the end-all of the argument. "Look, some people with lower teir masters did well in A tournament." Sure, it proves that yes, played in the right group and under unpredictable cricumstances (i.e. the Strag/scheme system of malifaux) less competitive masters CAN win. Does it mean that they will win often, or even place well in more than one tournament? Nope. To use tourney results as a means to break the argument we'd need to have lots of tournament results from a huge sample of meta's...all compiled into one database and then add up all of the other factors like matchups, strats flipped, schemes chosed, crew comp, etc...malifaux design makes that a bit tough to pull off with all of those variables. Nothing against the people that won ofc, and I'm sure they're awesome players. I don't want to seem rude either ratty, because I have mad respect for you, but one tourney result really doesn't prove much in the grand scheme of this debate.

Theres a thread a little ways up that me and lobo have posted on. Killing Sonnia with levi will be tough, and you'll likely have to rely on your Desi', Jack Daw, Hooded Rider or whathaveyou to kill or at least tie her up while Levi and the rest of your crew deal with her minions. It is a tough matchup, and she is fairly well designed to slow levi down a lot, but he can take her with a little planning and strategy.

I've only played her once with Levi, and it was like my 2nd game ever...sometime last october i believe, lol. I got my ass handed to me, but it was a wierd game, the terrain forced him through a choke point that (and he admitted it was unintentional) gave her whole crew advanced counterspell because they were clumped together...so levi was damn near useless. In the end I had Levi and his waifs left pinned in a corner, and he had, I believe, Sonnia, Samael and Santiago left. I walked up to her, and smacked her in the face for 12 dg killing her with Levi...it was incredibly rewarding, even though he then proceeded to kill off the waifs and win the game. Just goes to show you though, never underestimate Levi's melee. I once did 24 dg with him in 1 hit on Seamus....ofc he didn't die...damn Hard to Kill.

The past couple pages have made me support an idea I've been tossing around even more. The game is not balanced master to master....and can't be. What about the people that only have 1-2 crews and can't afford more? If their local meta, crew, faction, playstyle, etc sees them lose more often than not, its bound to get old after a while. This is why I'm all for an indirect form of organizing events. People who play the weaker masters are never going to win tournaments or leagues, but if they had a team to work with, or tertiary goals outside of the standard game format to boost their performance and say "well, I got railed, but I got a bunch of points for x cause," then it might make some masters feel more viable. This argument of balance will NEVER be concluded, because everyone has diffeent opinions on what makes a game balanced, and those opinions are based on personal preference that no one is going to change . I think finding a way to make the weaker masters "useful," maybe not competitive, but useful to a greater cause will solve some issues. $$$$$$$$...I'm going around in circles with this, and I've prolly had a drink too many tonight. WTF...where are you magno...just interpret my argument and make it look prettier hahahahaha.

One more little thing to add on this. Balancing faction to faction, IMO, doesn't make the game balanced. I mean, it does to a degree, and if you play for nothing but fun and casual play then sure, it doesn't seem so bad, if you enjoy getting your S**t packed by your one or two "counter crews" almost every time you play them. However, if you are happy to win some and lose some, then it's fine. As we said in "the other thread" if you are in it to win, then you are forced to play very specific crews from each faction in order to accomplish that (i.e. colette for arcanists). Again though, it depends on your goals for playing the game. Neither way is the right or wrong way to look at the game, but from a casual view, the game is balanced, from a competitive view, it is lacking. /sigh, didn't see magno's post...basically +1 to his post as well...as always, better at constructing arguments than I, haha.

Again with my nondescript wording here. I should have put an extra line in there like "even these masters have counters" not to say they have really strong counters generally. Really though...the best counters to the "top 5" are the top 5. Hamelin and Colette can beat each other up pretty well. Colette is very noninteractive, and Odin, who plays her and Guild is pretty firm on the idea that guild can counter her hard due to their high cb, range, and dg output...I tend to agree...just takes some smart play to lock down the duet. Hamelin, depending on your list, will either get wrecked or do the wrecking vs. dreamer and pandora. It's all pretty relative. That was more a comment meant to "easy the blow" of telling an unfamiliar player that the game isn't all that well balanced (in my opinion).

There is a thread below called "Malifaux Discussed on the Infinity Forum" that is pretty much a huge debate about the balance of the game, so there's no need to start a huge debate here. However, for my 2c, I would say not completely. All crews have hard counters in the form of other (specific) crews, even the very good masters like Hamelin, Colette and Dreamer. However, many crews are vastly superior to the majority of others, and some are just downright underwhelming unless played in a scenario where the stars align in their favor. Thats about all I can say without offending someone and turning this into a flame war / multipage debate...again. I'll even go so far as to say that they have done a fine job with what they have, but there are 20 masters and 6 henchmen, and all of the minions are completely unique. There are very few "generic" abilities like Furious Charge, or Feel no Pain (i.e. like 40k) that are just combined differently between armies and units...every model has its own abilities, making proper balance very difficult to achieve. I will say though, that despite my perceived imbalances, the game is wickedly fun and addictive, and so long as you're not a super cut-throat player, you will have a great time playing no matter the outcome of each game in a casual setting. If you're talking competitive, well, if you don't play one of the top, hell, I'll even say top 10 crews, you might find tournaments frustrating if you're out to win and happen to like a crew that doesn't stack up against the top tier. Again, just my 2c.

Colette Perdita Lilith (I don't have Hamelin or Kirai up there because currently I'm the only one who plays either master at the LGC...but I'm sure they would make the cut if others started them, haha).

The act of exploding my head would likely cause his head to explode as well...but good point haha.