DavicusPrime

I really like The textures the plasticraft products provide. That's the most difficult/time consuming aspect of my scratchbuilds. I have only actually held one of their Asian themed buildings in hand and the detail was nice, but I'm a little concerned about the material. The main issue I have is that it seems too easy to accidentally crease or otherwise mar the surface and since my storage options are not ideal, I'm afraid they won't hold up over time. I also have the same issue with the cartoony stylization on their malifaux themed kits others have mentioned. One other question, do these kits have playable interiors? The thinner walls due to the material compared to terraclips and/or the more conventional foamcore buildings seems to be helpful for that, but are the kits made for it? Miniature Market is selling the textured PVC from plasticraft. If y'all think the material will hold up from your experience, I may grab some to use on my own scratch builds. I also found general dimensions from the assembly instructions for these kits on their website so I may attempt to make my own, less stylized, versions of these puppies. As for the mention of the cost of these kits, being able to build detailed terrain with a little glue and paint is a big deal for folks that either have no inclination to build their own stuff or for those that just don't have the time. The dollars spent are way worth the time saved. And this is from someone who really prefers to make his own stuff. While I can make several tables worth of terrain from about $50 of materials, it takes me months to do so, considering I have a job and family. Being able to whip up a table worth of terrain in a couple days is pretty nice even if it'll cost a couple times more. -DavicusPrime

Thanks. My biggest problem is that I live in a small house so terrain gets stored in an outdoor shed. My terrain takes a lot more wear and tear from dealing with temp changes and varying humidity than actual play. But with swamp terrain, the random changes in the angle on the sagging roofs and what-not look totally normal. I saw the miniwargame.com guys doing similar with pink/blue foam. The paper on the foamcore is easier. I tried etching a brick pattern into the MDF before. That I do not recommend. Looked bad and required way more effort than it's worth. -DavicusPrime

I'm afraid not. Hadn't even thought about trying that. If you creased the card that might work, but I'm thinking that would be unsatisfactory performance wise. It would be an interesting project to make a working hinge using the same materials I've been using... Use a pin vice to drill out the center of the hinge, cut it into two parts, then use a bit of wire as the pin and it would work. All of the swamp shacks I've been making are so small, that I haven't been worried about doing anything with the interior of them. Without an interior, having opening doors and/or transparent windows hasn't been something I've put any real thought into. If I make a large structure with a playable interior, then I'll have to take all of that sort of thing into account. -DavicusPrime

Looks like you and I have the same general method for making wooden buildings with foamcore... Here's a trick I figured out to help with getting an obvious woodgrain when you paint. Press your wood grain into the wood with a ball point pen and when you drybrush/wash it the grain is there to be seen. Takes more time, but looks cool. I think I'll be stealing your brickwork ideas for making some non-swamp related terrain. I found some textured PVC stuff you can get from plasti craft but I'd rather not spend any extra cash. The point is to make good looking stuff on the cheap. AMEN! -DavicusPrime

Another way I've done things... As if the door hinges on the opposite side, I just recess the door into the foamcore like so... -DavicusPrime

For the Outhouse above, I used some card with some 1/16" plastic rod for the hinge and for the ends of the bolt heads. A little paint and there you go. You could probably do the same thing with some cut-offs from a round tooth pick or even a dry noodle, but my experiments with noodles has proven to be more easily wrecked than the more non-edible building materials. -DavicusPrime

The trees are magnetized and removable to make moving figs easier. The water effect is just a couple coats of gloss varnish over painted hardboard. I'll see if I can get some more current pics in the next couple days. I've been looking to start selling some of my terrain pieces on ebay or to do commission work for any of y'all that might be interested, to make ends meet. If you like anything you see, IM me and we can do some dealing. -DavicusPrime

I made mine out of 1/8" hardboard screwed onto a wooden frame I made from scrap lumber to keep it light. Then I covered it with brown duck cloth (canvas) as most of my terrain is swamp themed. It's a 36" x 36" square so no lines required. I haven't taken any pictures of it after I painted the surface but here it is after I got the cloth stapled on... Since that picture, I added some decorative nails to the edges to better hold the cloth in place then painted some shades of brown and green to make it less uniform. This typically goes on my dinning room table which is 4.5' x 4.5' which leaves plenty of room for models and cards around the perimeter of the board. -DavicusPrime

I was wondering if anyone has received their Somer box from an online retailer to confirm or deny that they don't contain the Johanna? I preordered mine months ago and it has yet to ship. -DavicusPrime

For small out buildings (Outhouse/shed/gremlin shacks) 2" x 2" to 4" x 3" works. My first Malifaux terrain piece was an outhouse, BTW... Even powerful mages like Ramos need their alone time, you know. For your general store type thing I would think a 4" x 6" to 6" x 8" foot print should do the trick. For your bigger saloon/Inn type thing, especially if you have a playable interior, could be anything from 12" x 12" and even bigger foot print with 2 floors With terraclip buildings everything is built in 3" x 3" or 6" x 6" chunks so it's easy to use similar dimensions to mix in your own creations pretty seamlessly. Last time I used terra clips, we had a 6" x 6" building and a 12" x 6" building with a 6" x 6" second story and it worked pretty well. -DavicusPrime

I've been just printing them out and putting them in card sleeves for the time being. As Justin says, the wave 2 arsenal decks won't be too far off in the future. So I figure I'll just have to roll with it for a little while before everything looks official. -DavicusPrime

The only thing protecting my pocketbook is that I've focused on collecting Arcanists and Gremlins. The Bayou Boyz are all I was waiting on. But I've been hearing good things about the Mole Men. DavicusPrime

Pretty much, yes. When I got into the game back in 2012, I picked Ramos then came here to ask what I should buy to add to the starter crew box. The new plastic set you're looking at is so much more complete compared to the old metals. For the M&SU crew back then, you got Ramos, Howard Langston, and a pair of SteamPunk Arachnid swarms. I picked up Joss, an Electrical Creation and Brass Arachnid on that advice, which is what you get now in one package. From there I added a couple more Arcanist masters that all have minons that work well with each other (Kaeris and Mei Feng) and picked up an LSA, Johann and more recently, metal gamin, and have a Rail Golem on order. Your mileage may vary, but what you're doing is pretty much what I did way back when. Typically with Ramos, you will be wanting to bring in some small low cost constructs to run objectives and to start producing scrap counters to begin the spider factory. And you'll want to also take an assortment of minions, enforcers and henchmen to back them up. Ramos' crew lacks fire power, which is why I've always liked bringing 1 or 2 Gunsmiths if the soul stones allow. I will almost always bring Howie since I just like the model and what he can do to my opponent's minions, the decapitate trigger is a great way of forcing your opponent to discard their control hand and with a 3" engagement range, he can hold down a solid chunk of the board if your playing the area denial game. I take Imbued Protection on Howie to keep him alive and punching longer and I take Bleeding Edge Tech on Joss most of the time so he can help keep the spiders in the game. The upgrades on Ramos change from game to game based on schemes, and which small constructs get bought up front changes as well. The metal gamin have been fun, especially as body guards for Ramos himself. But the spiders and Howie tend to be the game winners for me. The Swarm's ability to clear out your opponent's scheme markers are a great way to thwart their plans. And the latch on ability of the single spiders let your whole gang punch above their weight class. I guess what I'm getting at, is that the crew box is all you really need to to get a feel for Ramos, the first add-on I would suggest is another box or two of arachnids, how many depends on whether or not you model them with magnets or not. After that opinions diverge. -DavicusPrime

I agree that a fixed list is usually a bad idea, having examples of lists that work well together that can be tweaked to fit the scheme/strat mix is really helpful to folks that are new to the game or to a particular master/faction. -DavicusPrime

Mine have 45 degree slopes that rise an 1" over the space of 1"... you can kinda place models depending on how well balanced the model is, but we typically use an object to prop them up so they stay standing. -DavicusPrime

Looks like i need to reread the terrain and movement rules... The way we've been playing hills is that they slow movement moving up and down. So hills are a combo of blocking, height increase and movement impeding. Is that how the rules read or are we doing it wrong. I like there to be some elevation changes on my table but it is tricky making it work. Something i know I need to add more of is a combo of scatter terrain for Ht 1/2 cover and some linear obstacles (fallen trees, wooden fences, etc.). What terrain attributes would you give something like a wooden paddock fence (pig pens to be exact). My guess would be they should be soft cover, climbable. -DavicusPrime

Ramos was my first master and I was having trouble with him back in 1.5 due to the relatively slow movement speeds and lack of ranged attacks in his crew. With M2E it's gotten a lot better but I'm still just starting out on the learning curve. You're going to want 1-2 Electrical Creations and 1-2 additional boxes of spiders (I have three but magnetized them so I can put them on the table as any combination of 9 singles or 3 swarms if I didn't model them that way, I'd have a minimum of 4, 2 swarms and 6 singles). Summoning is powerful, but I just can't seem to get things to work as often as I like. 1st issue, you need scrap markers on the table. That means something has to die that has the construct attribute or via one of your crew's special abilities (Joss' creative salvage for example). My current way of getting that first scrap counter is by either summoning (requires an Upgrade) or hiring an Electrical Creation. They take a point of damage each time they activate and they only have 3 wounds. Zap it with Ramos' ranged hit, especially if you can get the EC next to an enemy so their explosive demise can be put to good use. It dies, explodes and drops a scrap. Since M2E, EC's aren't rare 1 anymore, so you can pump them out once a turn (the summon is a 0 action but requires the right cards so not fool proof) so a second model becomes a potentially useful investment. EC's also have the ability to cause damage just by ending a turn in Base-2-Base, if they die, they inflict 2 wounds to everything too close, and if they survive, you can detonate them to cause 3 damage but won't leave scrap. 2nd Issue, you need a high in your hand and have a soul stone to maximize the quantity of spiders summoned off of a single scrap counter. This is where my control hand hasn't played along. I've ended up having to summon just one or two at a time which always feels lame, especially when I'm hurting to find scrap counters. I've recently started using Metal Gamin and they are very good at helping out your defensive game, I still need to look at how to use them in a more offensive manner. They've been very good at keeping Ramos from getting chewed up early in the game. Boosting Ramos' Defense to 6 and acting as a road block which lets Ramos utilize his ranged attack (that does not randomize) makes these little dudes quite useful. I have a Rail Golem on order so can't speak to that yet. And I've not really included any of the Wave 2 models aside from a single gunsmith (needed more ways to inflict burning to make them really shine). I have the models for the Large Arachnid, Kaeris, gunsmith x2 and fire Gamin x6 but haven't put them on the table yet. I'm looking forward to testing them all out soon. -DavicusPrime

Card management is a huge part of the game. Often I find myself holding a card or two for something I'm planning to do and the rest of my hand gets used if opportunities emerge. I run Ramos as a summoner often and I typically find myself without the cards I need to use him well. Just bad luck really. I always take Archane Reservoir with him to be able to draw that 7th card but that doesn't solve everything. One thing you might want to limit is burning cards to help your minions. Sometimes it's not worth hamstringing your master keeping a minion on the table unless its of direct strategic importance. 6 cards means you can't get every attack, defence or cast off. If the action isn't critical, let it go. Hope you find your next game less frustrating. -DavicusPrime

Between the Spanking Spoon and Trixie's Gremlin Lure, I'd do the same thing if I hadn't already been hooked on the green swamp psychos of joy. My next terrain project: Granny's Pig-A-Q Pit and Slop Shack! YEEHAW!!! -DavicusPrime

If we can't have evil Penguins, then can we have a horde of Gremlin Mimes! -DavicusPrime

Looks like I'm going to have to grab this nutter and start running Mei as a 10T so I can use them. -DavicusPrime

You make me sad.

Hey Renen, So a dual faction master allows you to use that master to build your crew if you have declared one of their factions when hiring your crew. You must use the faction declared when selecting models and upgrades. And in many cases, especially 10T masters, the master's card indicates if they are allowed to include out of faction models. Plus the usual 0-2 mercs that every master can include. Example: Mei Feng is a 10T/Arcanist. As most of my models are Arcanist that's the faction I typically use for her. This lets me take any Arcanist or arcanist dual faction models and upgrades I have in my collection. Mei Feng's card states that I may also take up to 4 out of faction models with the Foundary Trait. Which inlcudes her Henchman, Kang who is a straight 10T faction model. If I used her as a 10T faction master that would let me potentially include Willie, Metal Gamin and/or Rail Golem in the crew, who are all straight Arcanist models with the Foundry Trait. Clear as mud? -DavicusPrime

A rip off? Yes. Inferior? Not so much. -DavicusPrime

Re: Snipers... There seem to be one or two models per faction that can act as snipers, and with the Outcast Mercs no one has to go without one. I play Arcanists and Gremlins. The Arcanists, at least the ones I have (Ramos, Kaeris, Mei Feng), really don't have much in the way of shooting nor sniping. The gunsmiths are mid to close range gunfighters and the masters and henchmen have some solid ranged attacks, but my construct heavy lists are more melee focused and the ranged stuff doesn't have much reach beyond 12". The gremlins however are very shooty all around, and the crew I have (Ophelia) is as shooty as they get, with Rami LaCroix as the resident sniper. Rami doesn't hit hard but he can take a single long ranged focused shot or up to three short ranged shots in an activation. And if his Dumb luck trigger goes off, he can double the damage. With the right suits and some slop hauler back-up to counter the self inflicted damage from dumb luck, The Kin are extremely fun. Sniper'ish models I've fought against: Ten Thunders Archers, Guild Austringers (don't need Line of Sight, so extra difficult to flush out), Freidcorps Trappers (outcasts), and Guild Rifleman. -DavicusPrime