Setoth

Nope. Got started when I was a wee lad at five moving pieces to my dad's BattleTech games around. Then got into 40k, then a little bit of Warmachine, and now Malifaux.

Or any of that pesky "national sovereignty." That was so 20th century.

I dunno, the price points of these releases doesn't really seem that off to me. In comparison: Infinity with metal models A box starter set: Six models, about 50 USD http://infinitythegame.com/store/en/nomadas/773-corregidor-jurisdictional-command-2805620004166.html http://infinitythegame.com/store/en/haqqislam/292-hassassin-bahram-2804380002276.html Single infantry models will run you about about 12.50 USD http://infinitythegame.com/store/en/nomadas/333-tomcats-2805250001597.html More unique models of the same size run slightly more expensive at around 14 USD http://infinitythegame.com/store/en/nomadas/732-moderators-multi-sniper-2805580003865.html Large intricate models will run a lot more. The Iguana (which I want to buy and paint even though I am awful at painting and don't play Infinity...but man is that sexy) will set you back about 60 USD (though it does come with a pilot) http://infinitythegame.com/store/en/nomadas/835-iguana-squadron-2805650004389.html Similar model, 55 USD. http://www.infinitythegame.com/infinity/en/2013/miniatures/anaconda-squad/ MERCS with metal models Probably the cheapest overall skirmish game to get into since you buy a starter pack and maybe two models more, tops, per faction. Box starter set 6 models and dice, 65 USD http://store.mercsminis.com/products/fcc-black-ops-deal Individual models, 10 USD http://store.mercsminis.com/collections/fcc Dark Ages with metal models Starter box varies greatly. 15 models for 60 USD https://www.coolminiornot.com/shop/catalog/product/view/id/7981/s/dragyri-warband-14/category/141/ 6 models for 40 USD https://www.coolminiornot.com/shop/forsaken-warband-6.html 8 models for 60 USD https://www.coolminiornot.com/shop/catalog/product/view/id/7985/s/outcast-warband-8/category/141/ Prices for individual models vary greatly. http://dark-age.com/shop/ DUST Tactics/Warfare plastics DUST Tactics is varied, with unit boxes of 5 models ranging from 20 USD to 30 USD. Bare in mind this is the old FFG page (it now belongs to the guys that do Flames of War) and this is pre-price hike which Paolo Parente and crew have told everyone to expect. http://store.fantasyflightgames.com/showproducts.cfm?FullCat=233 I'm not seeing that much of a huge price disparity compared to companies like GW. Plastics seem to be cheaper on a per-model basis than metal for comparably-sized sculpts, though I'm not looking too hard into it. Nothing in Malifaux's price range tops the highest price points of games like Infinity or Dark Ages. Of course, different companies employ different strategies. The Dark Ages box with 15 models, for example, is clearly just an attempt at getting you to buy into the game at about 4 USD per model. So there's concepts of loss leaders to take into account. Most companies seem to price their models in accordance to performance, since "better" or more "elite" models seem to outprice their more basic compatriots. All in all, I don't really think what Wyrd has said about it's change to plastics seems out of sync with what the market is presenting the gaming community, at least at a quick glance. But I mostly just quickly google'd these during lunch break, so that's all open to discussion.

I read Draco's post less as "W2 masters need to overshadow W1 masters" and more "I don't want W2 masters that are just reskins of W1 masters." The general idea, I think, is that an interesting mechanic like the Levi lifecycle (death cycle? waifcycle? bicycle?), if properly managed and implemented, add diversity and necessitate new tactics without destroying all semblance of balance. And I don't think Levi's life/death mechanics are impossible to balance considering we already have models in W1 that do a variant life/death cycle (Huggy, Bette Noir, Juju, etc). Drool put it best. The Dreamer in his earliest incarnation would have been considered more broken than Levi was in book 1, but that was because certain rules loop holes (alp bombs) broke the play experience. The key is there was almost nothing a player could have done about alp bombs when initially implemented. Similarly there was nothing stopping a Hamelin player who does the infinite activations loop. In Hamelin's case and in the Dreamer's case, the issue wasn't that the "special snowflake syndrome" made them incompatible with the flow of the game. The rules, as worded, is what broke them and that can be true of a model that is generic and doesn't have extra-special snowflake rules. There's a whole discussion going on now about Ophelia and how her crew are OP mostly because of the damage output. Certainly Ophelia's teleport gun plays a part, but the spread of min 4 damage has gotten a lot of mention. By contrast, a life/death cycle mechanic that is balanced could be countered with new tactics. Find ways to avoid the Master, sacrifice the master, in Tara's case lock the Master in an alternate dimension, etc. If these tactics can be done with minimal/no changes to crew compositions (ie no specific "this is my anti-Levi crew") then I think it's certainly manageable. And like I mentioned above, we already have powerhouse models that don't really do much of that whole "dying" thing, so I don't think it's unreasonable to make a Master's focus on it. It just requires careful playtesting and balancing.

You could always pimp this out in your local gaming group alongside Malifaux. http://www.wildwestexodus.com/

Which character is from the Middle East? The only one I can think of that comes close is Sidir Alchibal, but that's the Punjab region. Or am I missing someone else?

First hit's free, huh?

That sort of thing is, I think, acceptable in a tournament to an extent (at which point, like you said, personality is far more of an indicator than gamer type). I remember one time there was a 40k team tournament between two local stores, where folks from each store played each other and scored victory points based on how well they won. I didn't particularly want to play, but one of the stores was down a player on the second day so I stepped in to keep things smooth. I was never a competitive 40k player and usually built fluffy story lists. And the players were polite to me because they knew I was more into that part of the hobby. Some even apologized after stomping on me to death. But that was the tournament, winning by margins counted, so they had every right and reason to do so. What would make me less than happy is if someone knew I was a fluff player, asked me to play a game, and then proceed to melt me down into nothing by bringing their A-game tournament level list, and then argue about the rules every inch of the way. That never happened to me personally. Usually if someone wanted to face me they'd usually play a for-fun or experimental list (I tended to be the practice dummy for a lot of those). But I have seen instances where people have done that to clearly new players and its just really, really bothersome.

This so much. My biggest pet peeve is when people bring their A-game to stomp a newbie. For me, playing a new player is a chance to try something silly and fun as well as teach a new player how to get into the game. People who want to stomp new players into the ground are just...ugh. I will outright refuse to play people who do this.

Urinary tract infections?

That could just be a question of new prints going forward. Whether or not there is a combo-deck at the end, I imagine at some point they'll just start printing runs of the deck with corrections in them. Which may be more reason to wait on them. It wouldn't be that much different from the way it was previously, save that the cards are all concentrated so you can get every correction at once instead of having an out-of-date card for one model and an updated card for a different model in the same list. Unless I'm missing something?

Nytmare was confirmed a Tyrant?

But technically aren't you doing that right now? (I keed, I keed. Message received)

See, this is where I feel obliged to speak up. I haven't played the beta rules at all. I simply haven't had the time and had to take a several-month long break due to work and grad school. So I don't have that much of an opinion either way about M2E, and with a flux of cash in my wallet from late night work hours that I'll finally have a chance to enjoy, it's not that hard for me to switch to a new hobby like Infinity, hypothetically speaking. I say this to make absolutely clear that I am by no means a "die hard" fan of M2E that you seem to think everyone who's voiced a contrary opinion to yours is. With that in mind, snide comments like the ones I highlighted are asinine and remarkably disrespectful. I get that there was some frustration with you not being understood at first, and that there were some unfair comments directed at you initially. But your sweeping generalizations of anyone who disagrees with you as "fanboys" and "usual suspects" have done absolutely nothing to put you in a good light. This is made all the more irritating by the fact that you did not use one ounce, one iota, one modicum of actual support. No stories, no batreps, just one theory-faux example of a generic list and a concession about terrain usage that you turned into an attack. Believe it or not, people can have contrary opinions to what you hold to be true. Especially at the release of a new edition of a war game. Dismissing the opinions of others as fanboys is not a cogent argument that will convince anyone to see things your way. Neither will refusing to support your arguments with anything besides "I said so." If you want to show people there's an inherent imbalance problem that's being masked by the 5 turn limit, then play a six turn game. Or a seven turn game. Take pictures or do a write up. Try this several times, and get community support and actually *demonstrate* the imbalances. The Devs have shown tremendous willingness to take and implement community feedback. See the Hamelin erratas. Or wait, and if the imbalances you suggested are real then the community will find them. But this? Sweeping generalizations and a dismissive attitude towards the opinion of others? It's not constructive, it's just vindictive.

Within my specific time frame that wasn't an issue. I ordered Dark Debts. Most of my problems were Fedex.

Also bare in mind that, as previously mentioned, last year there was a Fedex issue. I know at least one week my order was waiting a town away at a Fedex station, since I contemplated a couple of times just driving over to pick it up. So I worded my last post poorly. I don't mean that I expect this year's Gencon orders to take a month and a half to reach us, I meant I was in agreement with what was previously said by other posters (long, long, long...long work day...). I would guess in a week or two orders will be shipped out. From there, it's in Fedex's hands.

Mine took about a month and a half or so last year. That's about what I'm expecting, though I heard rumblings about the books having to be restocked and that affecting send out time? I'd keep an eye out for order status changes starting late next week.

My friend and I, co-captains of the Bad Idea department for our group, were to roll up Green Sun Princes (the Exalted of Malfeas...for those unaware, essentially Demonic demigods trying to reclaim existence in the name of the setting's equivalent of Hell). At some point in time we decided that rather than play a straight evil campaign, we were going to subvert it by recreating the entire plot of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and see how long we could go without our DM knowing. The long and short of it, in our background story our demon patron Malfeas was tired of both of our characters being slacker rock 'n roll stoners and was threatening to send us back to the grueling Malfean military academy if we didn't shape up. So we decided to prove to "daddy" once and for all that we were worthy of our Exaltations by trying to conquer the world with the power of rock 'n roll. My character was the pretty boy bishounen with high charisma and a magical tongue that helped him mind control people through lyrical content and a righteous axe which was actually just an axe with guitar strings on it. I was also working on a magickal sentient spiked copper codpiece. The demon bound within said codpiece was supposed to provide backup vocals. My friend was lead guitarist whose guitar was a longsword. He had an astonishingly short temper and tended to headbang people into submission. After getting our equipment we stole a "sweet ride" (read, Warstrider or giant robot) and broke out of Hell to start our first world tour...until the robot ran out of gas. From there we established our goal, based primarily off the movie plot. We couldn't go back in time and grab historical figures, so we opted for the next best thing. We were going to break into the Underworld, steal history's greatest musicians from "The Goth Kids" (Deathlords and Abyssal Exalted) and take them on a tour to the heart of the Empire and steal the Scarlet Empress. We never got to finish, though we had some hilarious bits (inciting violent revolution with our rendition of Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It" comes to mind). Our GM had to take a break because our antics tended to pull the rug out from under him, and when he finally connected the dots about what we were trying to do he decided he couldn't handle it and dropped the game. Ooops.

Having played Exalted before (and consequently no longer being allowed to play Exalted anymore) I find the idea of being afraid of DMs as laughable.

Using book 2 as a reference point, mostly a lot of balancing issues. No major erratas for nonsense like alp bombs, clarification on bury, or Hamelin's never-ending rat swarms. No models that are ridiculously undercosted for their abilities/stats or models that are almost always included in lists (hello, Stitched Togethers). There are a lot more living models now that drop corpse counters. And as a Neverborn player there's a lot less terrain-ignoring movement, which I actually consider a good thing. Almost everything had float or fly except Stitched Togethers (mobile terrain), Collidi (which...yeah...), Wicked Dolls (which can teleport), Black Blood Shamens (which can be carried more easily...and it's totally fair), or Alps (which are taken by the Dreamer and are usually buried until needed). Individually not so bad, but when almost anything you take ignores most terrain it's kind of weird. Compared to book 3, there's a lot more worth taking. A lot of the stuff from book 3 felt like it would be used in rare circumstances or never at all (Jaakuna Ubume, the Hodgepodge Effigy, and others). It wasn't a bad book, but with only books 1 and 2 as a reference point it felt kind of "weak" even as the Avatar book (since some Avatars are seldom taken). Mostly it just boils down to the fact that they got the pricing model right for what each soulstone level should bring to the table, and that they've playtested more carefully. It lays down a really strong foundation for what will hopefully eventually be Malifaux 2.0.

I second Jonas. Book 4 hit a sweet spot of characterful models and rules balance. Plus the Hamelin errata came out.

Now I'm just imagining someone opening a box, and inside is a cat with a red beret and shades, smoking a cigarette. Cat: "If anyone asks, I was never here. Oh, and I trust you have my advanced payment prepared in unmarked bills. Now what's this about a neighbor problem?"

There's an ignore list? I should probably be more aware of forum settings. You have my thanks, Mr. Sternum.

Now I have Babylon Zoo's "Space Man" running through my head.