Setoth

The only Master I've thought of that can get decent use from it is aZoraida. She cycles through cards very quickly and can give anyone Bayou Two-Step, which could be useful when your deck is running low. If you ever flip the Red Joker for something worthless you can Obey the Hodgepodge to charge something (preferably an enemy) and have it Bayou-Twostep the Red Joker on the attack flip. Since the Hodgepodge "used" the Red Joker you can cycle it back into your deck. Then Zoraida can Empowered By Fate" to draw cards and get it back. She could also hypothetically cast Obey on Keeping the Balance and then attempt to draw it again with Empowered by Fate. Topic: Well given Levi is supposed to die a lot, being able to cycle a Black Joker back into your deck doesn't sound like such a bad thing, so it has that going for it as well.

But couldn't Casting Expert combine with Conduct Aether? I know that it says +1 AP for casting spells, but the +1 AP isn't a general AP is it?

Haha, I know the feeling. The first two times I ran her I hadn't read the "Obey can only be cast once per activation" part. Four Obeys a turn is just wrong at 25 soulstones.

I thought the Voodoo Doll couldn't Conduit a Master model? Or did that get errata'd?

I'm wondering what translucent bases do as well. Though if everything else they've teased us with on the road to GenCon is any indication, it will likely have magical money-disappearing powers too.

I meant more that I have terrible memory (can't even remember the current suits and their Malifaux equivalents) so I like having everything in writing.

I totally would, so long as they wrote down what the suits were and provided me with a copy. And as a Zoraida player I kinda wanna snatch this idea...

I dunno, I always thought they were "left" leaning the same way the mob was. They claim that sort of stance to get the working class behind them and semi support their interests, but at the end of the day it's about controlling the soulstone.

You could also use Hex with Zoraida to remove Voracious Rats on his rat catchers. It'd require him to sacrifice more rats to get more rat catchers and if they aren't within six inches of Hamelin those three are lost and you can repeat the process. Jack Daw might also be something to look at with the Hangman's Knot? Plus you can Severed Ties with him when you get close enough to Hamelin that all he can use Soulstones for is preventing damage. Just some quick thoughts. Edit: In fact, if you go aZoraida and give yourself an Arcane Effigy you can wait for him to kill all his own rats, move Jack Daw into range and activate Severed Ties and keep aZoraida well out of range of Severed Ties using a Doll, then spam Pins and Needles on Hamelin? Total newb here, again just posting ideas...

Well if it's a pretty uniform problem across the industry then that would be a significant indicator that the problem isn't quite so easy to fix. Granted, it wasn't until recently that the mini wargaming industry has been able to really break out from the shadow of 40k (not counting historical minis re-enactment games) but still I don't know of any games that are really all that well balanced. WarmaHORDES comes to mind as being one of the better ones in terms of balance, but it's been out a lot longer than Malifaux. Not to mention the fact that Malifaux is very multi-variable and can be measured in a lot of different ways because of how strategies and schemes work, so I can understand changes taking a bit longer than something like WarmaHORDES which seems to focus mostly on KILL CASTER. None of this is to say the criticisms are invalid. I'm far too new to make that judgment and I plan to stick around because I love the fluff and playing casually. But I wouldn't discount industry performance as a benchmarking tool.

So I'm not sure if this would fit here or elsewhere, but what about introducing different rules for tournament play vs casual play? I don't mean a complete change in mechanics so much as alterations for competitive play based on statistics, overplayed lists and other things people don't like in tournaments. Like the Jokers for example. I personally like the way Jokers play out, but I understand how the randomness might irritate tournament players. So maybe a tournament can change the mechanics of the Red Joker and make it only do severe damage on a Hard to Wound 2, or whatever balance issue there is. It's akin to patching a multiplayer PC strategy game (used to play C&C 3 online). You could do something like releasing a new rules packet a few weeks before every tournament based on how things played out in previous tournaments and give the pros a chance to adjust their lists accordingly. Me personally, I left Warhammer 40,000 because the tournament scene pretty much scared away most casuals. I game at Austin and our local Bell of Lost Souls has a history of breaking codexes as soon as possible and tabling people. I might actually get back into it this new edition because of the randomness. It might make it possible to take someone on around here without losing all my units on the second turn. Just a thought I guess.

I'm curious to know what you guys think of the WW? I'm gonna be running a pretty standard 25 pt aZoraida list of Collidi, 3 Marionettes, a Stitched Together and an Arcane Effigy to get an early aZoraida pop. I was thinking that a WW would put me at 34 for a bigger-sized game at low financial cost. The way I'm imagining it in my head, Collidi does his zip-around like normal but once aZoraida pops and she can generate a crazy amount of cards to feed the Widow. Between the two of them they can pop out two Wicked Dolls a turn and 'port them to Collidi, which leads to all sorts of shenanigans like Wicked Intentions to lock down bigger low Df models and spread poison or claim more objectives. And since Wicked Dolls leave scrap counters when killed, Collidi can bring them back as Marionettes. But that's just my theory. Has anyone used WW for anything like this, or any other strategies for that matter? Or is she taking up valuable points that I could be using elsewhere?

Thanks all for the info! I'll definitely be running Kirai in the future, and this has given me a lot to think about.

LordZombie's right. The entry fluff describes plurals of each as Lelus and Lilitus, making them types rather than names.

If you pull a quick Evolve Spirit on the first turn for wounds you can also get a free heal flip by offing your Desperate Merc, assuming Kirai's within range. Not really a long-term strategy but early on it helps I imagine.

Malifaux newbie and first-time poster here. I picked up the Zoraida box set and I'm really enjoying playing her, but I've kinda fallen in love with Kirai's theme. I want to eventually have a dolls special forces but I'm contemplating picking up Kirai sooner rather than later. Love the models, the story, and the playstyle (or what I've gleaned is the playstyle based on the units). But before I commit to a completely new faction and box set, I had a few rules and strategy questions. My first question relates to Jaakuna Ubume. Spiritual Eagerness says that models casting Evolve spirit can summon her by sacrificing a friendly spirit and paying associate wound cost. My understanding is that this essentially adding the line "sacrifice...summon one Jaakuna Ubume" to Evolve Spirit. Is that correct, or am I missing it completely? My second question relates to the Don't Blink trigger. Do you have to have line of sight to place the model, or can you literally cannonball a spirit behind enemy lines and/or terrain without seeing where you have to place it? My third question is more about army composition. I get the idea having a lot of Seishin models is a good thing to have due to Spirit Anchor. But given Evolve Spirit's flexibility and wound costs, how many Seishin do you normally start with as part of your average 25 pt soulstone crew? I know it's possible to essentially get two Seishin by killing a Canine Remains and Desperate Merc (also free healing flip, yay) plus an Onryo or Gaki with Datsuo-Ba, so you can essentially get 2 off the bat plus some more expensive models. Do you even need any Seishin as part of your starting crew after those two, or is having more a good thing for healing and evolving? Thanks in advance!