CannibalBob

Not sure that you could play Ulix out of theme or would ever want to. Who needs Gremlins when you have Hogs?

Five minutes after I posted this the post man dropped off the gencon order box with Ulix and the Shifting Loyalties book. Coincidence?

I think it is time for Ulix to gather the hogs for the showdown!

A Som'er bayou gremlin summon factory crew is also another crew that can be absurdly strong with shooting. If there is not enough terrain on the table then Som'ers crew will simply take the enemy off of the table through sheer volume of bullets.

With gremlins I have half a mind to take Old Major. I just find the idea of a campaign involving nothing but Pigs to be hilarious. I am also tempted in Outcasts to run Nix and nothing but hounds.

Dogmantra makes a good point about balance and terrain, but I think there is a bit more to be said about early play-group balance. First off, I think Malifaux is in my opinion the most balanced miniature game on the market. The game certain does have choices that are better than other equivalent options (Francois is usually considered one of these), but usually the disparity between those choices is not so great that you are hamstrung by picking the other options. The game also has a lot of specialty and niche-role models. In most miniature games those models are usually poor choices since you cannot guarantee that their specialty will be called for or useful in a game and so they get left on the shelf to collect dust. Warmachine is a big offender in regards to this issue. Malifaux does not suffer from this problem because you do not use pregenerated crew lists and instead you select your crew for the game only once you know what the objectives for the game are and what the terrain is. This means that you will usually know when a specialist will be useful and so you can confidently choose them. The result of this is that the pool of useful models is much larger in this game than many others. On top of that the designers have done a superb job in making most models work well at some role or situation. So on the whole I can confidently say that there really are no crew choices that are OP and cannot be dealt with. But that said, there are some masters who do have bad possible match-ups against certain enemy crews and can end up fighting a very uphill battle. That problem is usually dealt with by players having a couple of masters and so they generally do not need to commit a master to a situation where they will be heavily outclassed. But for this to work the players each generally need more than one master each. This is a game that is generally not meant for a player to continually play a particular set list, so players need to be aware of that. You do not need to buy a huge amount of stuff, but you do generally need more options than you will use in a single game. Thankfully the game is relatively inexpensive. In addition, some masters are more complex and tougher to get the hang of than others. This can often lead to an early impression of some masters being stronger than others simply due to the easier learning curves. Perdita and Ophelia generally fit into this category as both crews are relatively straight-forward in regards to their abilities and both of them emphasize very strong shooting games. New players often find these crews tougher to play against until they become more experienced with their crews and the game as a whole. This game is also quite different from many other miniature games in that the emphasis is purely on the objectives as that is the only way to score victory points. Most other games have a victory emphasis on combat and killing more of the enemy force and in Malifaux that is generally just a means to make achieving your own objectives simpler. In some cases combat can be a trap that consumes resources you are better off using in other ways and can be a detriment (especially in the later turns of a game). New players often take a while to learn this - especially if they come from a different game such as Warmachine or Warhammer 40k. This can lead players to try to take a crew with less emphasis on combat, such as Colette, straight into the teeth of a crew that is heavily aimed towards fighting and that is usually not a winning proposition. This in turn can often lead to frustration and a sense that the enemy crew is seriously overpowered. So keep in mind that some crews are much more effective in the hands of beginners as others and that can lead to some skewed initial impressions. But if people ride out those initial games and get more accustomed to the nuances of the game then they will often find the crews with higher learning curves also often end up having high rewards.

Now stuff that full of explosives and you have exactly what a master Taxidermist would try to do.

Maybe, but the absurd thing is the guild actually giving any gremlins employment.

This needs to happen just for the sheer absurdity it represents.

Since Ulix is basically a master version of a slop hauler I think a Gremlin/Resser master could be based on a Taxidermist. I like the idea of zombie gremlins.

Showgirls that get eaten by pigs have a hard time placing markers. For that reason I think Ulix is a bit better than Colette's crew.

Ophelia's crew really is about as point-and-click as you get in Malifaux. The only master who is simpler that I can think of is Von Schill in the outcasts. Now, I am not saying that Ophelia is bad in any way at all, but rather the opposite. Ophelia and her crew are very very good. They are one of the meanest crews in the games in terms of sheer raw damage output. Just about anyone in the game will have a tough time going into a straight-up fight with the Lacroix gang. While there are some tricks for the models in her crew, on the whole they are not terribly subtle. One of the nice things about Ophelia is that she also gets a fair bit of mileage from the stuff from Somer's box. Lenny fits right in with her crew, and Bayou gremlins are excellent all-round minions. For Som'er I recommend you start by checking out the information on how to run him as a summoner and bayou boss. That strategy focuses heavily on Bayou gremlins and no other master can make them as useful as Som'er can - and he can summon them as well. However, this style of play will often make use of more than the 4 bayou gremlin that come in his box, so you will want a second box. Other than a second box of Bayou Gremlins you will probably not need to get an extra box of any other minion and you can make do with a single box or the ones that come in the box with a master.

Ulix can turn a couple of them into a Warpig.

Ulix really does not need many actual gremlins - if any at all. He can do a whole lot with the various pigs and some prominent members of his crew have some very good pig-based buffs - like Penelope and Old Major. Slop Haulers work great for him, just like for every other gremlin force, to both debuff and heal. I think they are mandatory only if you are running a lot of Piglets as they only have ML-4 and so you want debuffs to help them hit important targets. The slop haulers are a good thematic fit as well since Ulix himself is basically a master Slop Hauler. Beyond that Hog Whisperers give you an expanded control area on a quick. cheap minion, that can also do good scheme running and has a decent melee attack. The Pigapult gives you good ranged firepower if you can spare the piglets to fuel it. The Taxidermist can recycle piggy corpses into mobile bombs and can hand out Flight to pigs nearby. Lenny can summon pigs with the upgrade to his Whacked Piglet ranged attack. And McTavish has some synergy with beasts and swampfiends. Beyond that there is little reason to bring any non-pig models along with Ulix.

The core rules and the rules for the units are free, but they are charging quite a premium on the rules for scenarios - which seem to be how they are structuring the game. Those rules come in a $75 book, and they are already selling the 2nd $75 installment book. This game looks extremely expensive to me - which is the main issue that I think made sales on 8th ed tank over the long term.

I think it will be an initial success. Games Workshop games usually do very well in the sort initial sale period (other than DreadFleet), from there it depends on the quality of the game and how they support it. From what I can tell Age of Sigmar still has all the rediculous cost issues that plague all GW games anymore. I saw some of the second wave of stuff at my local game store the other day and the box of 20 khorne marauders/cultists cost around $58. The miniatures looked nice for what they were, but that price is simply bonkers for what you are getting in regards to the game. Sure, the fact that you can play with whatever can provide some cost relief, but the fact is that they are still selling stuff for insane prices. I don't think that is going to generate a lot of long-term sales.

I have played a huge array of miniature games since the late 80's and in my opinion the fluff and background in Malifaux is second to none. There are other games that have done just as good a job at the basic concept of their universe and the world-building, but I don't think anyone holds a candle to Wyrd in regards to the narrative fiction that they put out for Malifaux. They do an amazing job of bringing the world to life through the eyes of the inhabitants in a wide variety of short-stories from all sorts of genres. They have action stories, horror stories, mysteries, thrillers, etc. I have not really seen other companies that take to their fiction with such gusto and variety. One thing that I greatly enjoy is that they also vary who the protagonist and main characters of a particular story are. Many other games will only tell fiction through the eyes of the main in-game characters, but with Malifaux you get many stories from the eyes of common (or uncommon) citizens, villains, monsters, heroes, etc. How the world is protrayed also changes depending on who's view you are getting. How many games have fiction delivered through the eyes of a 10-foot tall teddy-bear powered by the stolen nightmares of children? Every story is different, and so far they have all been fun.

A good Henchman does whatever it is that his master needs or wants. An excellent Henchman knows what his master needs and wants before he does.

I had to drive to Salt Lake City to see that show, but it was worth it. Iron Maiden shows are in a league of their own. They pretty much own the giant arena spectacle. If you ever get a chance to go see them I recommend that you do. They probably won't be touring for too many more years.

Coheed and Cambia are excellent live. I have seen them twice. The first time I saw them they opened for Iron Maiden, so that was overall a pretty epic show. The second time I saw them they were the headliners and the opening acts were Between the Buried and Me and Russian Circles. I had been a Russian Circles fan for a number of years already, but hardly anyone knew who they were so it was fun to see them blow most of the crowd away.

Lately I have been listening to the new Between the Buried and Me album. I have also been listening to Animals As Leaders, who I recently discovered when they opened at the Between the Buried and Me concert a couple weeks ago. They were pretty amazing to watch live so I have been checking out their albums.

I never really checked out Orange Goblin, but I really like the song you posted. I am a big fan of The Sword so this sounds like it is right up my alley.

I have a wife and 3 kids (soon to be 4) and I listen to whatever I want. The kids know that if they get in the car with me and not with mom that it is usually going to be some sort of loud metal on the radio. My wife often comes with me to metal shows as well.

Yup, there are not many problems that cannot be solved by simply throwing more Bayou gremlins at it.

Those are all very good models. However, I think part of the problem in regards to them being so prevalent in many lists and discussions that you may see out there has to do with how limited the Gremlin model range is. While gremlins have just as many options as the other factions when you look in the books, they are the faction that is most effected by the current state of releases. Gremlins were once a sub-faction within Outcasts with only 2 masters and they were spun off into their own faction in 2nd edition. For various reasons Gremlins ended up being the faction that was furthest behind in physical releases. Trixie is a new release and so I think some of current excitement about her is the new-shiny thing. She is a great model, but I think that as we have time to play with the various crews and models as they make it to general release we will see the discussion broaden.