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Hang on folks. We've missed a trick here. Think diving attack? Think Malifaux raptor!

Avatar Marcus has it too!!! ... ok, I'll get back in the corner. Come on aMarcus, we know when we're not wanted

Just to clear up the charge thingy. A charge is "the model moves up to its cg in a straight line towardd the target... at the end of the charge move, if the target is in melee range, the model immediately makes a melee strike...." (bold is from the rulebook 1.5) So it's not one action, it's a move (up to the cg) and then a strike, not a move and strike EDIT: Ninja'd (somewhat appropriately, given the topic) by dgraz

So if Misaki is at ground level, and wants to charge a model which is sat on a height 10 billion building, you just move her up to 8" horizontally and totally ignore the fact that she's climbing etc. You just literally place her 8" horizontally away from her current position (in this case, 8" horizontally, and 10 billion inches up)?

I don't think it makes a difference when stuff happens in this case. Either: Mei hits collette and moves into base contact, then collette switches places, so mei is now in base contact with the swapped showgirl. Or: mei hits collette. Collette switches with a showgirl who is now the target of the attack, so mei moves into base contact with the showgirl (which is now the defender). Either way she'll end up in the same place, hitting the showgirl

So the Warstore has Puppet wars unstitched slated for April release (though no specific date). Would anyone care to confirm/deny that? Next month may be expensive

Ah well, Myranda slinks off back to her rejection corner. Maybe in a brawl Marcus could make Ramos a beast, then you could go for major electrical fire spam with Myranda. Willie is good against Izamu (and most stuff) unless/until Izamu gets turned into a spirit. I haven't got the measure of Von Schill yet.

The problem which a lot of people seem to face with Kang, is that they charge him right into the heart of the enemy crew and expect him to "Happy Gilmore" his way out the other side. This simply isn't how Kang works. If he takes a few hits in any given turn, he will most likely laugh them off, but if he can be targetted by a lot of attacks in one turn (enough to get roughly 4 HITS on him) then he will die a horrible death. In my experience, Kang is brilliant at 3 things: 1) Killing a single relatively elite enemy model (we're usually talking 5-8 soulstones depending on the faction, but that's just a rule of thumb) 2) Holding up a mass of enemies with low cb (Ram trigger can get you a few extra attacks which may well one shot these rubbish cheap enemies, don't forget Kang can use defensive stance, so your chance of getting a reasonable ram is not bad, and even if you get that trigger just once, it cancels out the attack which you would have made with the 1 action) 3) Holding an objective (Kang is a scary prospect for most models to tackle, and with his knock back trigger, people often struggle to quickly get an objective) I haven't tried him with anyone other than Mei yet. I fear he may be a little too slow with anyone else (seismic punch for the win), but I certainly like him. Usually in my Mei lists I find space for either Kang or Kaeris, depending on the strategy etc. I've not tried the Rail golem or mechanical rider yet, purely because I don't have the models, but they seem like a good alternatives. On the subject of fire gamin, I might occasionally take 1, if I'm not playing slaughter/beatdown to hand out burning tokens and blow up, but usually I can find better things to spend those points on (small arachnid and a soulstone, railworker and one less soulstone, or half a Kang for instance). I really like small arachnids with Mei. High defense, manouverability, and many activations, means a single swarm can be very useful to put Mei where (and when) you want her. As a final point, Mei + 1 metal gamin = hilarious/awesome. They have such good synergy. Companion activate, Mei goes punch crazy handing out burning tokens, with her armour 2 on. Gamin then (0) action charges in, takes off the burning tokens and deals damage, then goes protective. Next turn Mei is still there (unless a particularly killy crew has spent all of their activations to beat up the pair) and goes punch crazy again.

Mine was delivered yesterday (though I wasn't in, so I've collected it this morning). All well packaged and quickly delivered. Thanks ThePandaDirector. Much appreciated

Module Version Number: v1.31 Summary: cards in deck appear upside down for some players (not others!) Affected Component(s): Playing last night, my deck started showing face up rather than face down (so I could see the top card). Strangely, in some cases an observer who could also see the deck face up, could see a different card on the top of the deck (eg I could see the 11 tomes, but he could see the 9 rams), however for my opponent, my deck still appeared face down for a while. Steps to Reproduce: Absolutely no idea, it just happened when I flipped a single card (though it had been working absolutely fine for an hour and a half before that). (Optional) Proposed Solution: Tried undoing it - didn't work. Tried refreshing counters - didn't work. Tried saving game, leaving, and coming back - didn't work. Eventually just abandoned the game. Haven't logged back in since, so I don't know if it's a bug in my version of vassal, or just something which cropped up last night.

The problem you hit is that the various spells which would do it (obey from minion hamelin, or wrangle critter from McTavish for instance) specify none-master models. So how about you do the opposite, use Marcus to (indirectly) give someone else a stupid amount of AP? In my attempts to find an actual use for Myranda, I may have figured something out... though it's long and complex... and definitely won't work in practice. What you'll need for this very situational piece of hilarity is: Marcus, Ama No Zako (any other hitty beast will do), Myranda, McTavish. Stage 1, Marcus uses his 2AP for whatever (probably getting into position), then (0) action feral on McTavish (so he's a beast now), then (0) pack leader on Myranda, so she activates next (remember Marcus is instinctual, so can use 2 (0) actions). Stage 2, Myranda activates and discards a card to do furious casting. As McTavish is a beast thanks to feral, Myranda casts Wrangle critter 3 times on Ama No Zako (needing a 5 of masks to cast it... you'll need to plan your hand for that). Ama charges with the first one, then makes 2 melee attacks (if you hit with claws and manage to get the embrace trigger off, this can be up to 6 attacks total... though to do that you'd be the luckiest person alive). Myranda then casts (0) Beast companion to activate McTavish (who's still a beast remember). Stage 3, McTavish activates and casts Wrangle Critter a further 2 times needing a 7 of Masks each time (the number of masks we're talking about starts to get a little ridiculous here... but you might top deck a few if you're lucky), so Ama makes another 2 attacks. Stage 4, Your opponent activates something Stage 5, Ama activates and attacks a further 2 times. So theoretically, you've just made 7 attacks at cb 5 or 6, with 3/5/7 or 2/3/4 damage... and it only used 22 soulstones worth of models, pretty much all of your activations for the turn, and your entire hand (assuming you managed to fill it with Masks already). I don't see how that could possibly go wrong. You could do the same with minion hamelin to cast obey 6 times, it's harder to cast, but at least he has a mask in his cast, so you'd need half as many masks, but higher cards in general.

Absolutely. She's definitely not a one trick pony. I use her much more for moving the rest of the crew around (seismic punch) and/or objective grabbing (rail walk + defensive stance + armour 2, and still an AP to go punch crazy or whatever if you want it). However if you can get the masks in hand, she can easily play the beatstick role. Obviously it's a different case to other beatsticks (which you can take with any master), I was just pointing out that if you take Mei, you don't necessarily need to worry about having a beatstick. Back on topic, the general issue I find with beatsticks is that they're pretty sluggish (mech rider and the blessed are exceptions). What methods do folks use to speed them up with various masters/other minions?

I think you're right to an extent. With most Arcanist masters, Kang is slow and will be shot/avoided before he gets anywhere. When used with Mei however, he can easily be seismic punched into position, and with the emberling you can either punch him further forward, or hide him in vent steam (which he can then see through) as the situation dictates. Other than this, I'd probably agree, though it very much depends on which master you take, as to whether some things are good beatsticks, or just expensive minions. For instance on paper, I'd say that Ama No Zako is going to be a great beatstick for Marcus (can't wait for Ama to be released!), but not terribly special for any other arcanists. Generally I'd agree with the original post's list, though the blessed of december is very situational. It CAN hit hard, but the damage spread is slightly too low to be a true heavy hitter, and it tends to be a swiss army knife, rather than a hitter (it can do a lot of things which might well distract it from killing stuff). I'd also add Mei into the hard melee hitter group.

pm sent... sadly not regarding puppet lucius

I'll give you my left leg for puppet Lucius.... sadly I don't have any money to spare right now, but you could do quite a bit with an extra leg right? Think it over and get back to me

I could bring Marcus for some hardcore Razorspine Rattler action? ...maybe next time... (not a joke) I've been playing Malifaux for near enough 5 months now, and still haven't played against the guild at all! A few games against, 10T McCabe, but that's the extent of my Guild experience.

I was contemplating taking arcanists again, but I think instead it'll be Ten Thunders (HOOOOOOOOOOO)... probably with a heavy arcanist feel to them (Mei-be I will, Mei-be I won't).

Really getting itchy feet for this now. There are a few people locally who have showed an interest in Puppet Wars, but I'm a little nervous of introducing them to it only to have the rules change a month or two (potentially) down the line. ... and I wants me some pupplastics.

Looks good to me. I think you probably have enough melee hitting power in Mei and rail workers, so maybe go with ukrocky's kang/oiran tora/archer swap. With the models you've mentioned, I'd probably go: Mei Emberling Torakage Archer Willie (all kinds of awesomeness) Rail worker 10 thunder brother Maybe swap the torakage for a railworker and an extra stone. For the sideboard, you could take Kang, rail worker (or torakage depending on which I'd put in the original list), oiran. Seems like a nice set of models for all round dealing with any strategies. Good stuff

No worries. I think most people glance over it. I did for quite a while. I've only managed to joker the blast once. It won me the game in one fell swoop (killed Nix and a ton of other Hamelin stuff in turn 2). I laughed heartily.

Just a small and commonly missed point. You can't cheat in jokers (well, I guess you could cheat in the red joker and choose to make it a tome, but it would only do the tome explosion, not the joker one). The wording specifically says "if the original card flipped is a joker... (it does massive damage)". Cheating in a joker isn't the original card flipped, so doesn't work.

Willie is really really good. Basically as long as you can stop him from getting shot, he's going to be worth his points (either in damage caused or making your opponent nervous). All of that blast damage is great for getting around people who have high defense or nasty defensive triggers (yes Lilith, I'm talking about you). My number one nasty trick suggestion is: place a dynamite marker in front of willie, so if it blows up it'll hit a few enemies, then have him walk forward and cheat in a tome (if you don't flip one) to blow it up. Willie will take 1 damage (he's got armour against things like that) and enemies will take 3 (unless they also have armour or other tricks). Then when they kill willie (to stop him doing it again), he'll blow up and deal out another 3 damage (potentially in a big chain of destruction. Very fun to use, but also very powerful (unless he gets shot at range, watch out for 10 thunder archers, gunsmiths, and most of the guild). He's also pretty fast, so it's not hard to get him where he needs to be. ... now if you don't mind, I'm going to go and put my Willie on the table, and have a blast (Wyrd have no one to blame but themselves)

Fingers crossed for when I get home then

Sadly smouldering heart is "when declared the target of a duel". Seismic punch doesn't target them

Hi folks, Sorry, but here's a complex situation which came up the other day and got me somewhat confused: There's a dynamite counter from willie on the board. A model then moves "within" 2 inches of it. First question: What is "moves within 2 inches"? Obviously if a walk/charge line goes within 2", that counts. I think a push also counts. What about if a model is placed? Does it count as moving if a model is placed within 2"? What about if the model is within 2" and is then "placed" outside of the 2"? Whatever the outcome of that question, I assume the card is flipped as soon as the model is first able to do so (ie when it first comes into the 2" range, or if it starts within 2", as soon as it declares an action which will move it). Next question (using named examples for simplicity): Mei Feng is within 2" of a dynamite marker, a Silent One is within 3" of it, but outside of 2" of Mei. Mei declares a charge (or walk for that matter) toward the Silent One. Mei sets off the dynamite, which explodes killing the silent one (but not Mei). The silent one now explodes. Would the physical Mei model have actually been moved when the silent one exploded (and therefore be in range to be hurt)? and drawing the whole thing together to the actual situation which occured: Mei is within 2" of a dynamite marker. A silent one with 1 wound remaining is within 3" of the dynamite, but outside 2" of Mei. Mei uses Rail walk (place her in base contact with a friendly construct) to be placed next to a metal gamin which is standing next to the silent one. Does she flip for the dynamite? If so, is she placed before or after it explodes? If it explodes, it will kill the silent one. Is Mei still where she started when the silent one explodes, or is she in base contact with the metal gamin? The way we played it, I declared and cast rail walk. I then flipped for the dynamite which exploded. We then resolved the dynamite explosion, and the silent one explosion, and then placed Mei in base contact with the metal gamin. Thanks for your help, and congratulations if you made it this far through my rambling examples.