sssk

Thing is, it's a tiny cost, you don't need them as cards come with the new models, and second wave cards will be free anyway (until they get printed). So it seemed harsh to force the few people who are starting a wave 1 master who's plastic box isn't yet out to buy an arsenal deck from their allowance. Therefore arsenal deck (if you want it) has been included in the "pre-requisite to play the game" pile, along with rulebooks, fate decks, tape measures, counters etc, which also don't count for the tale.

There's a big malifaux scene at Garrison club in York. I'll see if I can find some of the folks for you

Marcus can do a few different play styles. Personally, my favourite is the hit and run approach. For starting out, I'd recommend the Marcus starter box and some molemen (who knows when they'll get new plastics). There's very little you can't do with those few models. Sure, they might not be the best at various things, but they're good at most things, and arguably "the best" at some. I really need to do some spring cleaning on my blog so it's easier to navigate, but if you start with the oldest posts (last September) you should find some handy Marcus intro info. Enjoy

Check out the M2E Marcus thread (stickied at the top of the forum), it's choc-a-block with good Marcus info

Hmmm, so on my path to total averageness (missed by 1VP in the last game), I seem to have taken the most popular schemes for every strategy. It's all about being 100% mediocre.

Absolutely. The more the merrier. Side note for Dave: Change your profile pic to the RSR it deserves to be

Minor addition. If you're using models which aren't yet released (using proxies), take a semi-educated guess on how much they might cost for the purposes of the Tale.

To kick off, you can't go wrong with the Marcus box and a few molemen. Pretty much all the beasts are useful for whatever they do. Personally I don't find myself straying far outside the arcanists. I might use the occasional waldgeist, but other than that I generally stay in faction. Wave 2 adds a bunch of new beasts, but nothing is a must have. I'd start out with the core box and then see what you're lacking once you've played a few games.

The dawn serpent should be pretty nifty with Marcus. Unfortunately I've not managed to get it on the table due to being unable to find a model I like to proxy it (a small "classic" dragon, is what I'm going for). It doesn't have much defense, but with 2 activations per turn and Myranda, it should be a pretty good anvil, and not too shabby at killing stuff either. Just a shame about its native faction struggling to use it

I'm finding it very difficult to leave Myranda out of any Marcus crews. She gives him a lot of benefit in healing, beast melee obey, positive defense flips, and new Cerberuses.

There've been many threads on this topic. The most recent, Nathan summarised the various things which might be causing issues (of course it'd be unprofessional to say "Keith the printer dropped his sandwich in the machinery" or whatever. Basically there's various delays at various points due to shipping, imports and all kinds of other things. The books will be here/there/everywhere when they're here/there/everywhere. It's the fickle nature of having a big production line.

Terrifying is a rules terminology thing, not necessarily a fluff thing. Maybe in fluff terms, the "terrifying" model has some method of disrupting the reanimation process of the dead guy. If the master is controlling the zombies, maybe the "terrifying" model is disrupting the link between master and zombie.

Is it necessarily a bad thing having very few tournaments which qualify for the full 100? Surely in an ideal world, the 1st place player would have more points the second place, who has more points than 3rd place etc. If there's lots of 100 point tournaments, that just makes it more likely that multiple people might end up on "full points" (ok, very unlikely, but bear with me). Having few "100 point" tournaments just means there's a bit more variation. The best players are still getting high points, but things are more spread out (theoretically). ....hmmmm, mind seems to have wandered, not quite sure if that made sense, but I've written it now, so I guess I'll post it and see what happens

Could someone summarise the current scoring system for both under 20 and 20+ tournaments please?

Rail workers are really handy with Kaeris. Their (0) action makes them into really cheap beatsticks. They don't hand out burning themselves though

As an anti-Bete measure, the only good way of doing it that I've found is to put her on negative flips so that she has to get that 10 on a negative with no ability to cheat. Aside from that, she seems rather difficult to get rid of.

...and there goes my chance of beating (or equalling) my previous best...

I can't speak for Raspy, but Marcus loves these big construct beatsticks. I won't comment on one vs the other, as I've never used the golem (sadly I don't really like the model), but Howard works very well with Marcus. This is largely due to his alpha ability, which means you could activate Howard twice per turn (once you've turned him into a beast). That's an awful lot of movement and/or killing ability. He could move 20" and still flurry at the end of it! One can only imagine the golem would be equally useful. The only slight concern there being that Marcus doesn't tend to play with burning much.

Hi Jimmy, Do we have a list of people for #Jimmyfaux2?

Hi folks, There's a new blog post at http://playitlikebeatdown.wordpress.com/ all about one of my favourite things about Marcus: Alpha. It's a bit rambly, and I'm not totally convinced that it actually says anything of use/interest, but feel free to check it out. Also, don't forget the BIG COMPETITION (the previous blog post). Oh yeah, I still need to stick a photo on that one... I'll do it tomorrow (he says, knowing darn well that he'll forget). Enjoy Dave/sssk

Hi folks, There's a new blog post at http://playitlikebeatdown.wordpress.com/ all about one of my favourite things about Marcus: Alpha. It's a bit rambly, and I'm not totally convinced that it actually says anything of use/interest, but feel free to check it out. Also, don't forget the BIG COMPETITION (the previous blog post). Oh yeah, I still need to stick a photo on that one... I'll do it tomorrow (he says, knowing darn well that he'll forget). Enjoy Dave/sssk

I suspect this is coming down to a difference in who's "activation" you're talking about. To summarise: model A has an OPA (once per activation) ability. Godlyness' argument: that ability can be used once per model A activation (not once per generic model activation, but once per model A activation). So if model A activates once, and uses the ability, the one use per activation has been used, and thus is not available for anyone else to use. If model A activates and doesn't use the ability, then the 1 use per activation has not been used, and is available to be used via obey or whatever. ausplosions' argument: the ability can be used once per generic model activation. So model A can use the OPA ability during its activation. Model B (with obey) can then activate (a new activation), and once in model B's activation it can obey model A to use the OPA ability, because the OPA ability has not yet been used in model B's activation. Have I understood both sides properly?

I suspect this is coming down to a difference in who's "activation" you're talking about. To summarise: model A has an OPA (once per activation) ability. Godlyness' argument: that ability can be used once per model A activation (not once per generic model activation, but once per model A activation). So if model A activates once, and uses the ability, the one use per activation has been used, and thus is not available for anyone else to use. If model A activates and doesn't use the ability, then the 1 use per activation has not been used, and is available to be used via obey or whatever. ausplosions' argument: the ability can be used once per generic model activation. So model A can use the OPA ability during its activation. Model B (with obey) can then activate (a new activation), and once in model B's activation it can obey model A to use the OPA ability, because the OPA ability has not yet been used in model B's activation. Have I understood both sides properly?

Sorry, totally confused here. Is the question essentially: can I obey a model to use a "once per activation" action (eg Ramos' summon the swarm), even though the model is not activating?

Sorry, totally confused here. Is the question essentially: can I obey a model to use a "once per activation" action (eg Ramos' summon the swarm), even though the model is not activating?