Malcontent

At the top of both Lady J and The Judge's card it says Death Marshal, in same way it does for the Exorcist.

Just reading through the Death Marshalls' cards and noticed Finish The Job. Would this stack with Critical Strike on individuals' weapons, effectively giving +2 per Ram in the cast total? …and I'm assuming that "Melee attacks made by friendly Death Marshals" includes Lady J and The Judge. If so, Greatsword strikes of possibly 8/9/10 damage!?! or is it all wishful thinking?

I'm learning Kirai at the moment. I'd recommend having a full complement of Seishin – or at least the means to create them ie. Merc/Dog to kill off and get bonus Gaki/Onryo. If this is your first time list I would drop the Dead Rider and Jack Daw. You're going to need a pool of more than 3ss. I'd even be tempted to drop the Shikome as they can be summoned – I usually summon 2 multiple times during a game. I would suggest 2x Insidious Madness (8ss total), Datsue-Ba (7ss) then maybe a Drowned or Gaki, leaving you a pool of 7 or 8 stones.

The first game of Malifaux I had took almost 4 hours!!… however, we were reading up on everything along the way. Even now, months later, learning to play Kirai has increased game time to 2 hours.

I have to say that Malifaux was the game that brought me out of the gaming wilderness. After overdosing on 40k tournaments for many years (and manufacturer greed and player animosity) I had positively burned out my gaming mojo. I thought I'd never roll a dice again …and I haven't! The card mechanic, the back story fluff and some fantastic models forced me to look at gaming again and keep me interested. The randomness of the Malifaux universe means that the game could be taken in any direction (except pirates I believe) and that is worrying and exciting at the same time. The personality, attitude and approachable nature of Wyrd impresses me. Egos are kept in check and even if I were to email Eric or Nathan I feel that I would get a reply (unless I had emailed pure drivel). The company (and community) should also be proud of this forum – it is an amazing source of info and support for old and new gamers alike. I have to say though that Book 3 was a bit of a letdown for me personally. I think I got caught up in all the hype and maybe expected something unrealistic. The miniature sculpts from this book have generally been disappointing when compared to previous. I think Wyrd did such a fantastic job when they set their stall out that the bar is perhaps set impossibly high. I don't know, it's a personal thing – the book 3 models just haven't caught my attention or imagination in a way the earlier miniatures did. The release schedule for stuff at the moment seems rushed – I don't really want to see a new book every year and it seems as if they're trying to clear the decks (excuse the pun) ready for new things already. I can feel the wheels of big business stirring in the background and I'd hate to see Wyrd churn out stuff the way and at the rate that other manufacturers do. Having said all that Wyrd are still head and shoulders above the competition. I can't see myself playing anything else instead of Malifaux, not seriously at least. I would like to see more fluff –$$stories to flesh out the characters we know and love, and to give more fodder for campaign/story based gaming as an alternative to all the tournament talk, which doesn't interest me. I would like to see some kind of customisation with characters, to make my models more individual and unique to me. I'm watching the horizon with great interest to see where Wyrd take us next…

I like your last list but personally I'd be tempted to drop Franciso in favour of an Austringer. 4ss pool sounds about right too, I rarely use more.

We usually play 30ss here as it forces you to make some difficult decisions with crew composition but I appreciate that most tournaments are 35ss. For an average game night (I don't play tournaments) crew I'd probably go with something along the lines of: Perdita; Enslaved Nephilim; Judge (or Guardian or Abuela); Santiago Ortega; Nino Ortega; 2x Austringers If you wanted to restrict any additional purchases I'd probably go with your first suggestion –$$box set + Austringer, but I'd also get the Enslaved Nephilim (or Governor's Proxy) as I find the totem essential for the extra Obey.

Perdita is the most successful out of the Guild masters I play (which is all of them). She is fast, has high Df and can move a long way which is fantastic. I do find it is easy for her to be well ahead of the rest of the crew as she is so fast, which can cause problems. She has a couple of zero actions which are great and, as far as I recall, I've never let her be killed. As for the rest of the crew I take Santiago and Nino and at least one, sometime two Austringers. I also sometimes take the Guardian to run alongside Perdita as this increases her survivability no end. Her key ability for me however is Obey. Take her Totem and you can cast it twice. Take Abuela Ortega too and you can cast it three times. On occasion I use Obey against the enemy to damage their own models or move them where I want but more often than not I use Obey on one of the Ortega brothers for extra shooting/moving. Another game winner can be having the totem sit alongside a hidden Austringer and Obey another shot with him (often the range finder shot so I know whether to use a 1 action 12" or 2 action 18" shot in the Austringer's own turn). Perdita is very easy to learn, is very forgiving and doesn't require many soulstones so they can be spent on support models. She is a bit of a one-man (woman) army at times and you can use her as a distraction. In the past I have had her run around the outside of the board, seemingly not involved, to then charge an unsupported Rasputina in her deployment zone and pick her off quite easily. Good luck with her – Kirai will play completely differently!

I started playing Kirai in the New Year and have slowly been building up my crew and experience with her. You will need the Lost Love and a total of 5 Seishin before going any further. I would also recommend 2 Shikome – one is almost essential but I found the second tipped the balance in my favour. A couple of Gaki are essential too as part of Datsue-Ba's summoning tricks. I have also found a couple of Insidious Madness to be very useful indeed as a lot of the combat is against the enemy's Wp not Df and they can give -ve flips, plus they're very quick. If you get chance read up on my experiences at: http://the-dark-templar.blogspot.com/search/label/Resurrectionists Also have a look at the Pull My Finger Wiki and this blog entry: http://tehmongoose.blogspot.com/2012/02/kirai-crew-tactica.html

Ooh, that's a tricky one. To my mind it would depend upon the order in which you allocated and worked out the damage. I would think that if Kirai was the main target she would be dealt with first. In this case she would undoubtedly pass the wounds onto a Seishin, which would mean that when the blast damage was then being calculated the odds are that there would be fewer Seishin left and Kirai would have indeed survived the attack. She wouldn't survive a follow up attack though Just my perspective, I'm happy to be corrected if this is not right.

Thanks Calmdown. With that in mind there seems no advantage in positioning the Shikome to engage with multiple models in the way we did last night, if they can just walk away.

A situation arose in last night's game that I can't find an answer to. Shikome was chasing down a Terror Tot as her Prey. She moved into melee range of the Prey and was positioned to also be in melee with a Cherub totem. Next turn the Cherub tried to disengage, Shikome flips to block and due to her Wicked ability (if I remember correctly) should be inflicting damage. However, according to her rules she cannot attack any other model until her Prey is dead. How does that all work? Does she not get to block the disengaging Cherub? Does she block the Cherub but can't damage it? Does she block and damage the Cherub as it's not strictly speaking a Strike? Any thoughts or previous experience of this?

I have an additional query regarding Transposition: Do you need LoS to both targets in order to cast this spell? I appreciate this doesn't much matter with Lilith due to her Master of Malifaux ability, it's more specifically regarding her totem (who does not have MoM) when casting it with Magical Extension. My own feeling is yes you do, because you are targeting specific models, as opposed to it being an aura or pulse, but would appreciate some clarification from more experienced gamers.

Thanks for the kind words. I may not have a professional set up here yet – it's a hobby still not a business – but I'm a perfectionist so won't send out stuff that I wouldn't use myself, and I'm quite fussy. In addition I often send out bonus bases that I consider 'seconds' with multi-base orders in case they can be used (as opposed to going in the bin!). The gratifying thing is that I'm getting a lot of repeat customers, so read into that what you will. Also wanted to add that I am a Graphic Designer by trade so the visuals took only minutes – I'm just that good There is already a 50mm Bamboo base on Ebay, 40mm coming soon plus some 30mm variations and a 50mm Sewer.

Thanks for the shout out Some 30mm test pieces still available on ebay – full production kicks off in November. I'm currently building 40mm and 50mm masters. More details here.