Sway

So, the Arcanists won the Dead Heat campaign. As such we're supposed to get an alternative sculpt for Kaeris. Wyrd said somewhere (sorry I couldn't track it down) that they're waiting for a special time to release the new Kaeris sculpt. I started thinking about it recently and it seems odd for Wyrd to release a new Kaeris sculpt now that M2E is coming out and she won't have rules until the winter. But then I had a thought. We've been told what the Nightmare edition will be at Gen Con this year. But we don't know the Miss yet. So far we've never had an Arcanist Miss. Might Wyrd release Kaeris as Miss Fire or something along those lines? It seems a bit crazy to release a henchman Miss model but it's the only method of releasing a bonus alternate sculpt that makes sense to me. To be clear, this is nothing more than wild speculation. I'm mostly sharing to hear what other ways people think Wyrd might release Alt Kaeris. Are they going to make us wait she has updated rules? That would be quite a long time from announcement to release...

I've been thinking recently that it would be great for Malifaux to have a wiki for fluff just like we have a wiki for strategy. I'm not talking about fanfiction, just a place that summarizes what has happened in the books, chronicles, and other fluff sources. It would help new players who want to get an idea of what their master is like. And it would help people who are trying to remember what happened in a specific storyline but don't have the book around. I know I would contribute to a wiki like that. I just have no idea how to create it (or whether Wyrd would be happy about such a thing).

That's the direct quote. It seems pretty clear that he's referring to what models will be in the box sets, not what the models will look like. So don't get upset if the Marcus box set doesn't include the Gorilla. That said, nobody has said in any official capacity one way or another if the models will match the concept art (as far as I've seen). If we read the past as prologue we can assume the models will match the concepts, but it would only be an assumption.

He's becoming more and more of a neanderthal with each new sculpt. More muscle, bigger jaw, broader brow... I'll stick with my old sculpt for sure. The original Marcus sculpt does the best job of portraying my conception of Marcus which is as a highly intelligent but physically capable man. AltMarcus looks like a savage man who has been overtaken by instinct. Plastic Marcus just looks like a brute. To put it another way, Marcus, in my mind, is a man capable of sitting down for a formal dinner and behaving himself. He would likely hate it, but he could. Alt and Plastic Marcus make me think he would act like the beast in Beauty and Beast. Open Spoiler

I would love it if this means the cerberus and rattler are closer to five point models (or whatever that translates to in M2E). I've always thought the best way to improve them would be to make them cheaper rather than stronger. And the ape is our first indication that factions like the Arcanists will be getting brand new models. We knew there would be new stuff for the Gremlins but it's exciting to see that everyone will likely get new toys.

Perdita is wearing a low cut v-neck belly shirt. Pandora is wearing a corset and a "skirt" that is more like a loin cloth. Old Misaki had a similarly side-less dress and her cleavage is popping out. New Misaki, as with most of the new models, is much better. Granted, I would classify these models as "sexy" not quite into the realm of "objectifying". But even so, they're unnecessarily sexy. They don't need to have visible cleavage to be strong women. And as Forar said before, Malifaux is a tiny piece of a much larger mosaic of sexism. The more Wyrd can do to lessen their place in that mosaic, the better. They're doing well. Much, MUCH better than most miniature companies. But they're far from perfect. And I should say, I believe that Wyrd have gotten much better about this as time has gone on. Yes, the proportions of some of the plastics are odd, but the models are wearing appropriate amounts of clothing. EDIT: It seems in my haste to reply I missed an entire page of comments and got ninja'd by folks from 5 hours ago...

This thread is trying to have an open, honest, and safe conversation about the degree of sexism found in the fluff and game of Malifaux. If you don't understand why that is an important conversation to have every once in a while, I would suggest you read Forar's post right above yours. He quoted an excellent explanation of why it's important to discuss the degree of sexism found in any sufficiently popular piece of media. If you still think this conversation is not worth having, I would suggest you navigate to a different thread on the Wyrd Boards and not click on the "sexism?" thread again. No one is forcing you to.

Again, her avatar fits into the fluff. She is a master who gets her power from a being that is constantly fighting with her for control of her mind (body? not too sure). Sure, that could be seen as falling into a trope about women being powerless until someone else helps them, but I would say that Wyrd does so much to subvert the powerless women trope that it's okay to fall into now and again. Sonnia, Perdita, Viktoria, and so many other female characters are strong and powerful all on their own. And I would argue that the male characters subvert and fall into tropes just as often. Seamus is a typical male power fantasy in many ways (power over women, often shirtless, avatars into a very muscular man). But men like Hoffman (who has already been mentioned) and Ramos have to use their wits to get by. In the guild we see male sidekicks all over the place faithfully serving their female leaders. You can't make every character a subversion of tropes. That would wind up being a trope in and of itself. ---------- Post added at 08:25 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:19 AM ---------- I also want to say, the lack of clothing helps us to understand Rasspy as a being who has been dominated by something more powerful than her. It helps us to sympathize with her struggle over her own body. It's the same reason torturers will strip their victims. Clothing, or lack thereof, can demonstrate who has the power. Raspy in avatar form has lost some of her power over December. The reason we don't see Hoffman naked is because his struggle is against his own body, not an outside force. He is not being dominated, he is simply weak and frail.

As others have said I'm most looking forward to taking a look at the stats for the minions I own but never see the table. As a Marcus player I am planning to Myranda on the table as often as possible during the beta so I can advocate for her and help to ensure that she will be a model that sees play once the final book is out.

I could be mistaken (I would have to wait until I get off work to go check) but I could swear that in one of the interviews either Mack or Justin explicitly stated that they were hoping to discourage players from always taking a full cache. From there I've just been reading that motivation into the change I've been seeing. I totally agree that increasing the cost of minions across the board does seem counter-productive to this goal. In fact, I agree with all of Forar's points except Again, it comes down to utility vs value. Sure, it looks like there are going to be dozens of situations in an average game where I'm going to want to spend a SS to improve my position in some way. There's a whole lot of utility. But the question remains will that utility outweigh the utility I would get from having another model on the board? Would I rather have a Witchling Stalker or the Witchling's weight in SS? That's the question. And if I'm remembering correctly than the intention is to make players lean towards the Witchling. But I'll admit, I may have invented that snippet in my head in which case all of my talk is for nothing.

The barbalag has what I was trying to say half right. I wasn't thinking about the inflation factor but I was thinking about value and utility differently. (Everything that follows is very much only my opinion and only based on what limited information I've dug up) I really don't think that SS in M2E will be nearly as powerful as they are now. In one of the interviews, Mack and Justin said that they wanted to encourage players to not always bring a full cache. How do you do that? Make players think that there are better ways to spend their SS. Think of it this way, how many games have you seen a Lady J or Sonnia crew take a full cache? Most of my games are against these two Guild masters and I see full caches all the time. Guild have a variety of excellent 4ss minions. But STILL we see players constantly deciding that they would rather have an 8ss cache than an extra Witchling Stalker. How do you stop that from happening? Make minions better for starters. But then you also need to make SS worse. I love the idea of spending a SS to discard two cards and draw two fresh ones. But if that option was added to 1.5, I agree with Nighthater; I would never use it. I want those SS to increase my duel totals. They're too good in that one place for me to want to use them anywhere else until I absolutely have to (prevention flips). But with the "flip an extra card" rule turned to a simple positive twist I'm suddenly much more open to alternative uses. So yes, SS seem to have more uses. They seem to have much greater utility. But are they better uses? Do they have more value? We'll have to wait and see, but I think that the intention is that they won't. I think the intention is that they will decrease in value and increase in utility.

I agree that the increasing prevalence of dual-faction masters will decrease the feel of a faction. It will definitely serve to decrease some of the "Guild pride!" (or *insert faction here* pride!) However, as someone who primarily plays Marcus, I welcome this change. I think that dual faction masters will help players become attached to a master rather than a faction. I've never felt any Arcanist pride, but I have a huge sentimental attachment to Marcus. And in so far as I have expanded away from Marcus it's been based on the models I already own for his crew. Because of the way the current system works, that's meant expanding to Kaeris and then Mei Feng. But that was because I already had the models that allowed me to buy those masters' box sets and have a decent crew. I would love to see a system where I could do a similar expansion that leads me out of my current faction. All that said, it does make it difficult to attend a fixed faction tourney if all you have one master from every faction...

I think that what everyone saying "I will never spend a soulstone on that" needs to remember is that soulstones are being devalued. The designers don't want everyone to bring 8 by default. The current intention seems to be more like, "Well, there's no way to fill in those last 1-2 stones left in my hiring pool so I guess I'll take those into my cache." Soulstones won't be the game changers they used to be. So when you say you would never spend a soulstone on an ability, remember that that's based on your current conception of what a soulstone is worth. I expect that we will all have to adjust that conception pretty drastically.

That's the official stance, sure. And maybe that means we can expect individual boxes of those models eventually. But currently we have no way to buy the non-uniques from any of the plastic box sets released so far. So I wouldn't expect to see anything released in a box set available outside of the box on release. I would love to be wrong, but that's where the evidence points so far.

That Marcus box set would be terrible. Even if molemen become fast enough to be tough objective grabbers, being given Myranda with nothing to transform into just doesn't work. I for one would hope that Myranda would not be included in the box set. She does much better as a later purchase once you own a few beasts. I think jackalope, 3 molemen, and the cerberus would be a great box set. If she does stay, I would hope that the box stay exactly as is. The Cerberus and Razorspine work well as transformations for her. Has it been confirmed that Book 1 of M2E will contain everything from Book 1 Classic? I wouldn't be surprised to see Marcus delayed until Book 2. In Classic he was never going to be a great master in book 1. He needed the other books of models to support him. M2E may well see the same thing happen.