CannibalBob

The arms are not on upside-down, they are simply glued at a different position. The thumbs are correct for the arms, so the arms cannot have been swapped.

The only thing I don't really care for about the Marcus avatar is the rock outcropping his foot is resting on. It either needs to be cut off, so that it looks like he is walking forward, or it should be replaced with a different piece of terrain that actually looks decent.

I think she is pretty cheesecake - too bad I cannot find one anymore...

This is too awesome for words - and yet it was stated with words...

I wish this was not true, but good lord it is...

I really like how you did the Coryphee dancers. The modular base strategy is brilliant.

I like the cobblestone bases from Dragonforge. I have used them for a lot of my Warmachine mercenary force and they look good. I plan to use these bases for the majority of my malifaux models - other than Gremlins and other odd stuff.

Fair enough, but that was not the impression I got from reading your posts. Now that we have clarified continue with your discussion.

I don't really feel like arguing for/against whether or not, or how, Malifaux is balanced compared to other mini games. However, I do not recall the game ever being "sold" as being balanced in any way shape or form. I don't recall seeing advertising to that effect, it is not printed on the sales blurbs on the book covers or crew boxes, and I don't recall ever seeing anything about game-balance in the advertising on the Wyrd website. The only thing I see advertised about Malifaux is that it has an alternate earth setting, uses cards instead of dice, and has a relatively small number of models needed. That is all I have found from Wyrd's advertising. Now, as I understand it the developers have commented in interviews/interwebs/whatnot that their goal was balance between factions rather than the masters, and the rules for the game itself seem to imply that, but I have not seen them try to SELL that. The only people that seem to be trying to sell that seem to not be affiliated with Wyrd.

I like the Reaper Geisha mini. I bought the exact same mini, for the exact same purpose, when I picked up my Seamus box a couple weeks ago.

I have played miniature games for about 20 years now, and for the last few years I have mainly played WM/H. I have pretty large collections for the factions I own - mainly because I like the looks of the minis and there is actually some semblance of strategy and thought to the game (unlike 40k anymore). But more and more I have gotten to the point where I agree with the above quote. There are a number of things I don't care for in WM/H, but there are also a lot of things about the game I really like. However, what has simply started to grate on my nerves about WM/H is the terribly boring win condition for the games. The vast majority of games are assassination games and little else. Even when you play with scenarios, most of them seem damn near unwinnable and simply force the armies to play a bit forward and end in assassination or just counting points of dead stuff. This got me looking back into Malifaux. I originally bought the book when it came out, but I have to say that it did not have the best layout and was a bit of a jumbled read. Although I bought the Viktorias box set when it originally came out I never did play the game for some reason (most likely something distracted me and I lost interest). But I recently picked up the small rulebook and I have to say that it is a massive improvement. Altogether I find the game highly interesting, and the main reason is due to the emphasis on varied objectives. I have always loved skirmish games (Necromunda, Gorkamorka, and Mordheim were brilliant - too bad GW was not brilliant in supporting them), but Malifaux strikes me as even better than any other skirmish game I have played. The only thing I think the game lacks is a good set of rules for continuing campaigns - which is something that skirmish games are generally very good at. The objective oriented nature of the game strikes me as a great way to deal with situations where one crew is at a disadvantage in damaging and killing another crew. In addition, I have always preferred alternate activation games to i-go/u-go games. Alternate activation limits player downtime, and it also adds a lot more strategy in that you have more opportunity to react and foil your opponents plans. It also limits the hazards of a losing to a simple mistake.

I love the look of the blood soaking through the bottom of his bag. I may very well have to steal that for my Seamus.

Assuming that there were avatar forms of henchmen at some point, what would they do with Von Shill? He has no spells at all, and that leads me to believe that he really does not have any magical talent - just a big bucket of pure bad-assery. So would the Event unlock magical powers for him, or would he just become the Avatar of Badassery and skip all that magic hooplah?

I have yet to see any of the avatars that really looks overly difficult to transport. They will just require a larger foam tray like most 50mm models. Cut out the foam to fit the model and you should not have any issues transporting. Of all the avatar models so far the only thing that has looked fragile is possibly the snakes coming out of the box on the pandora miniature and the Lady Justice avatar. The tentacles on the base of the Pandora model look pretty thick and I think it would take some conscious effort to bend them.

I am wondering the same thing.

My point was that it should pretty much cost almost nothing to send an updated file for a book to the printing company when you request a new print run. These books are all compiled digitally. If you look, the Malifaux book is printed somewhere in asia, so I am pretty sure they are just emailing the file to their supplier. It should not cost anything to email a newer version when they request a new print run. I guess you could say that it would cost them something to update the file. But it looks like they are already doing that with the online pdfs. It should not really cost them much to roll those changes into the file they send to the printer. It might not be the best solution altogether, but I think it is certainly better than just having a bunch of outdated books and expecting everyone to go to the internet. I have found that most gamers don't really bother. I have seen the same thing you are talking about. I have played miniature games for over 2 decades now and have seen how plenty of different companies do things. I also play the Spartan Games, and have dealt with the various printings they have. It is not that big a deal I have found. The books all have the date of printing in them, and you should have a date attached to any errata you print. The opposite issue you run into is that as mentioned earlier you need something on the shelf for retailers. It can be hard to get people into a game where playing requires reams of printed FAQ and errata carried with you. Most people do not want to go online to look for that stuff, and they certainly don't want to cart it around with them and deal with it in a game. The small rules manual was a great idea. Not only is it portable, but it is well put together, very concise with its explanations, and has a superb index and reference. It is also stupid cheap. If they need to make an update to the core rules at some point I would hope that they would update the small rules manual. If they did, I would happily buy another one rather than cart a bunch of printed FAQ around with me. Fifteen bucks for a more up to date set of rules won't break my bank. By the same token, I would like a convenient way to update my model rules. In my experience in table-top gaming, consistency is nowhere near as nice as convenience. I will pay extra money for things that make it more convenient to play. And I will also play a game more often if it is convenient to do so - which in turn keeps me buying stuff for said game. I love that Wyrd sells the small rules manual individually. GW made small rules manuals for their games, but then makes it a pain to purchase them. I will buy the big book for home reference, but I don't want to cart a giant tome with me to play a game. Not being able to buy those books outside of an expensive box set which most likely I only want 50% or none of the minis is simply annoying. Privateer Press is making a condensed rule book as well, and they are also not selling it outside of an expensive box. If a condensed rules set is available by itself I will happily purchase it. And I would also be happy to replace it periodically as rules evolve. Using cards to track stats, damage, effects, etc makes things very convenient. I love that about the Privateer Press games. Privateer had a good idea in making replacement cards easy to acquire when they changed the rules. Sadly they don't ever seem to do any significant errata to models - so there is no need for update cards after a rules revision. One thing I wish Wyrd would do is redesign their cards. I like that they have all the rules on them for a model - thats great. What I don't like is that they fold. So if you put them into a sleeve in order to make damage tracking simple you cannot unfold the card to read the rules. That is a bit annoying. My other issue is that right now it is inconvenient to replace the cards. I will probably replace the ones I need through the store when I do a big order for the gencon stuff, but that does not really work well for most people. The print-off pdfs are nice, but most people would rather have the actual cards.

I agree with your point about faction decks not being a replacement for books. I want faction decks not so that new players can get all the rules for various models, but rather so that existing players can get current version of the cards for their models. Theoretically new players will get the new version of the cards when they purchase their stuff, although that is not always the case as product can sit on the shelf at a retailer for a while. A periodically issued card deck would be a convenient, and somewhat inexpensive (at least for the consumers), way to distribute updated cards to existing players.

I was mainly referring to the first book. And it is in no way a stretch to call that book obsolete. There is only a handful of models in that book that do not have rule changes. Unless I am mistaken, I believe there were some errata/changes to the core rules in the rules manual as well. The only thing that the first book still functions for is the background and fluff - which it does very well. If at some point they decided to go and dump a huge errata on the Rising Powers book (who knows - it could possibly happen) then that book would pretty much be rendered obsolete as well. It would no longer work to provide you with the rules for the various models as most of them would have changed. If Wyrd wants to continue to sell the various books then eventually they will need to have an additional print-run from their book supplier. In that case it should not be very difficult for them to send an updated pdf (or whatever format they send to the printing company) for the next run. Sure, that would mean that there would be different versions floating around, but the alternative is to keep everyone on the same footing with a book where the contents are no longer current to the game - which is poor. If I bought a book for the rules, and found out that the majority of the rules were no longer current and I needed a whole lot of online updates then I would probably immediately return the book to the store. I would then look to see if there was an updated version of the book I could buy. If there was not, and the updates were all just online, then I would not purchase a book at all and I would just get the online stuff. However, I know a lot of people that would just drop the game right there. Regardless, the company would have lost the sale of the book - which is not a good thing for them. If they are going to continue to sell a product, then I personally think they should strive to make sure it is current and a good product for their game. A book full of invalid model entries is no longer a good product for a miniature game. I am not really sure what you mean by consistent compared to good in this context. But I don't think a set of rules for a miniature game and a software UI are really very comparable things. I understand your point in regards to software, as I am a software engineer, but it does not really seem a good analogy in this context. In my opinion, heavily changing the rules in a book is something like heavily changing an interpreter and/or library without retaining backwards compatibility. What happens then is you obsolete all code people have that uses that interpreter or library. That can be very annoying. If by consistent, you mean that every printed copy of a book is identical, and none of the changes or errata are ever rolled into newer printings, then that seems like it would never be the best option. If that was the case then you would simply know to never buy an old book for Malifaux unless all you wanted was the stories. The rules would never again be current, and that book would not be overly useful in regards to playing a game of Malifaux. But, if they did periodically update the printings, you would know that you could get an up-to-date version. It might not be on the shelf in a game store, but at worst you would know you could get a current version direct from Wyrd. That is not the greatest option either, since it would leave older books in retail circulation - but at least current versions would be available somewhere. But all I really want is a nice convenient way to get updated cards other than through mail-order or printing a pdf.

I believe this was what they were originally planning, but then the concept artist suffered a fatal heart-attack...

My guess is that it probably will not be a good swimmer.

The alternative is to simply have all printings of a book obsolete? Not sure that is a better option.

Good to know. As I said, it is my only complaint. Well, I guess I could complain that they are taking a lot of my money, but it just saves it from going to hookers & blow. At least with Malifaux I have something for my money afterwards other than cloudy memories, a bad hangover, and possible health complications.

Do they eventually incorporate changes to model rules back into the books when they do another print run? I have the original print run of the main book and I have not checked newer ones to see if they have the updated model rules in them. If not, then they should probably roll changes into the book as they make additional print runs.

I appreciate that they have made the pdf for the statcards available. That is great. However, I really do wish they would just issue an anthology deck of current cards for the different factions. It is a pain to mail order cards, unless you piggy-back them on another order since you pay for shipping. But the other issue is that many players don't bother with going online and searching for updated rules and often have no idea if the rules for their models are current. If a set of updated cards was available in a store then many of these people would get the updated cards. I don't like needing to worry about if my opponent has the current errata of rules, and if not then either I get to play against old rules or I need to carry printed PDFs for their factions with me. Online updates are fine for FAQs and clarifications, but not for large model changes. For that they really ought to issue an updated set of cards for sale.

The rules manual does address the rules for building a crew. Everything you need to play a game is located in that book. The only thing it does not have are the model rules. What I would like to see them do is periodically, lets say annually, put out a deck of cards for each faction that contains the up to-date cards for that whole faction and a few extra duplicates for models that see a lot of use such as Belles, Gremlins, etc. Put out that box, charge $10-15 for it and clearly label the package with the current date - that way we can tell when they have sat on a shelf in a store and a newer version has come out. My only gripe with Wyrd is that a number of model rules have changed from what they were on the card (for the better it seems), but replacing those cards is currently a pain. In addition, the store I buy from has a lot of old stock and when you buy a model you are not always guaranteed to be getting current cards.