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I think this is just a reference to the classical Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber. Sun Wukong is from another classical chinese novel, Journey to the West. Miya's name last name is a reference to contemporary Japanese author Hideki Murakami. A few more based on what I'm painting right now: Kin Francois LaCroix's sculpt visually references Clint Eastwood's character from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Tuco and Angel Eyes from the Half-Bloods box are also named for characters from this movie. Euripides / Savage: Euripides is a ancient Greek playwright who is known for his tragedies. He's also the author of Cyclops, the only surviving satyr play. Euripides' missing eye, gift for prophecy, and association with runes all allude to Odin from Norse myth. The reading of entrails or livers was practiced in the Ancient Mediterranean world and Ancient Near East world as a form of divination; "hepatomancy" is one name for a variant of this practice. His crew draws inspiration extensively from Greek mythology: Gigantes are primordial giants in Greek mythology who fought the Olympians. Thoon (pronounced with two syllables) is the name of many minor characters in Greek mythology, including ones of the Gigantes. Geryon is the name of a giant with either 3 heads or 3 bodies. Getting his cattle was one of the labors of Heracles. The Erymanthian Boar is another reference to the labors of Heracles. Lyssa is one of the Greek words for "rage" and is sometimes personified in as a spirit in Greek mythology. She makes an appearance in Eurpides' tragedy Herakles. Bultungin is one of the many names for were-hyenas which are common in African folklore. Other models inspired by African Folklore include Adze and the Grootslang. The Damned seems to be inspired by the wendigo of Native American / First Nations folklore. Kaltgeists aren't a thing in real-world folklore (as far as I know), but their name means "cold spirits" and seems meant to evoke categories of real-world spirits from Germanic folklore. For example, Waldgeist (meaning "forest spirit") which is a term used in real-world folklore.

This is pretty much spot on. The current (M2E) hiring rules made sense when the game was much smaller and there were many fewer options within each theme, but at the current size it just means too many models get left on the sidelines. Keyword hiring also makes things much easier for new players, and the new rules avoid the "bait and switch" of buying a master you like the look of and learning that playing that master competitively means getting a bunch of models that have nothing to do with that master thematically. Also, thanks for publishing the keyword list before M3E is officially released! It's really helpful for existing players who want to use this opportunity to reorganize / round out our collections so we're ready to hit the ground running. I've started building mini display boards for each keyword to make it easier to choose what to bring to game night.

I'd definitely buy one of these, and I'd also be interested in lots of the other random characters from the Chronicles. I'm really hoping that Wyrd takes advantage of the fact that the whole line will be out soon to produce more alternate models and story-encounter only models. I think that the success of the retail release of the Carver will have a lot to do with whether we get more models like this, too, so make sure you and your friends all buy 20.

Oh yeah! Of course! I was pretty tired when I was reading it, and for some reason when I was thinking back on it, I thought the chicken bone scene was from the party in the Resser story not from the train robbery, so that didn't seem like the right explanation. Actually in retrospect that means I liked the Outcast story even better than I realized because that was the one with the funny Tara / Karina scene. Rereading it right now, it seems neither Tara nor I really understood what was really happening in that scene. I still think the Neverborn one was my favorite, but it's probably worth hiring whoever wrote the Taelor story again next time. There was something else interesting that was hinted at in the Taelor story that I'm curious about. Was each Relic Hammer created to destroy a specific tyrant? And if so, does that mean we're supposed to infer The Good Lady reaction's to Blight mean that it's the one that opposes Plague or is it some different tyrant? If so, it's interesting that Taelor and Hamelin are in the same faction, and it might be an interesting opportunity to have specific upgrades for the individual Relic Hammers which represent their individual personality when they get woken up. Just saying...

Warning: There might be some actual spoilers about what really happens. I just finished the last few pages of Shifting Loyalties which I've been reading steadily since I picked up a copy at GenCon. I have some individual thoughts on each story, but first I wanted to say that overall I really enjoyed reading it and, after having read some fluff for certain other games recently, I think Malifaux rulebooks still have the best fluff sections of any game currently on the market or otherwise. And it's not close. That said, I think this book didn't live up to the phenomenal standard set by Crossroads last year and was merely 'great' or 'very good' or something. Last year, I thought the anthology format suited Crossroads really well. Having stories in many different styles reflects Malifaux and its combination of visual and aesthetic styles. That worked especially well for crossroads since the stories were set at different points chronologically and didn't have any obligation to push the main narrative forward. This year, the mix of mostly unconnected stories for each faction, and then a major narrative-driving story at the end was just awkward. Having the faction-specific stories touch on the same loose theme (ie 'Shifting Loyalties') is a great idea, but for some reason it didn't play that well. Perhaps it was executed too subtly, or wasn't a strong enough theme. I felt like any of these stories could have been in any other Malifaux publication. Also, I was surprised that there were no hints in the fiction about the Campaign (which seems amazing from a gameplay perspective). Basically it seemed like there was a 65 page campaign rulebook glued to the front of my 200 Shifting Loyalties book, but there wasn't much of a connection other than the idea of Avatars, which didn't really come up until the last 50 pages of the Shifting Loyalties portion. Role Reversals (Guild) This was my least favorite story in the book. Sonnia is one of my favorite characters, so I'm always glad when she shows up, but other than that this story didn't do much for me. The overall setup didn't make for exciting storytelling (all the characters in the story know it's a trap but don't care...so why would the reader?) and the final reveal didn't mean much to me. Was this a character I was supposed to recognize? The gimmick of each character fighting the wrong kind of enemy also didn't seem that interesting. In the end, this one just reminded me of single-issue a superhero team up comic; most of the appeal is that it's cool to see the different superheroes fighting together. The Dead Man's Ball (Ressers) In contrast, this one was one of my favorites (probably #3). I find that Malifaux stories work best when told from the perspective of a character who is mostly unfamiliar with the weirdness of the world they live in, since it's easier for a reader to identify with that perspective. Also it allows the author to highlight those weird and terrifying bits of the Malifaux world that make it so interesting; one thing that will always stick out to me from some piece of Malifaux fluff that I read years ago was the 2 line description of aethervoxes and the way people would sometimes go crazy and listen to the static with rapt attention. Gwen was an interesting character, and a young girl being instructed in the arts of necromancy by a mysterious voice in her head is exactly the kind of creepy element that makes Malifaux fluff tick. Plus, having a Tara cameo was fun. High Noone (Arcanists) I've been playing Marcus almost exclusively for 18 months, so I'm glad he finally got some loving in the fiction. This one was sort of middling for me. The general outline of the story was mostly fine, but suffered from the fact that Marcus' plan was totally transparent and there was no risk of him getting killed by some random guild officer. In general, having characters that are so important to the story that they cannot be harmed is a major obstacle for creating interest in the fiction and it sort of showed here. Probably the most interesting part of the story was the position of the local M&SU boss who tried to avoid getting tangled up in the Guild vs Arcanist conflict, but got tangled up in it anyway. Master of Fate (Neverborn) This was my favorite of the faction stories. First of all, I think it was the best-written, and part of that was the fact that it was very funny. I'm not really sure if that fit the subject matter or not, but I loved it anyway. I'm smiling right now thinking about the description of a random guild official being as magisterial in her proportions as the hallway she was walking down, and the ways Lilith and Pandora each ended up being perfect for their desk jobs in the Guild HQ. This story also benefitted from having the best 'twist' at the end, and the tantalizing glimpse at Zoraida's past worked very well for me. I think we're probably all suckers for origin stories, especially ones told in interesting ways. Also I don't remember Pandora getting much screen time in the fiction before, but I really enjoyed her personality in this story. So much so, in fact, that it almost cost me $40. Almost. Welcome to Malifaux (Outcast) From a technical point of view, this was the most ambitious piece of storytelling in the book by a clear margin, and I'm happy to say it mostly hit the mark. Other than Master of Fate, I thought this was the best of the faction stories. First of all, this story did a wonderful job of tantalizing us with hints about the way Malifaux works; I don't think I realized how special Relic Hammers are in the fluff before this story. Certainly I didn't realize that there was one per tyrant, nor did I realize they each had their own personality. Given what Taelor had to go through to get hers, I'm especially interested in the stories behind the ones belonging to Johan and the Captain. And where are the rest of them anyway? Also, where can I read more about the Nameless? Also Tara and especially Karina are really fun characters. The way the story was structured as a series of 3 individual scenes, each narrated by a progressively drunker Taelor and each of dubious veracity, was a wonderful idea and really compelling in practice. There were some sections where the style of the narration changed sort of abruptly as we started or came to the end of one of the self contained stories and more of Taelor's particular speech patterns came out, but it's hard to have a story stay readable when the whole thing is written in vernacular. The one thing that annoys me about this story is the way the connecting thread between episodes 1 and 2 (trading the arm for the hammer and the Tara team-up) was mostly lost. Maybe I missed it, but it seems like it is suggested that Taelor wins in the gambling scene through the intervention of some tyrant (Obliteration?), a fact which is supposed to be explained by the next story (about Tara), but then never is mentioned again. Perhaps that's Taelor fault for being too many drinks in when she started the story. Bullet (Gremlins) I don't have much to say about this one. The gremlins are always pretty interesting characters and this was no exception. I'm curious to see what Zoraida has planned for the gremlins and it was pretty funny to see Somer get used by the rest of the faction. It was an interesting story, but its tie-ins to some broader narrative felt sort of out of place. Also, this gremlin story needed more pigs. From the Ashes (10T) The first thing about this story, which isn't really about this story specifically is the fact that there's an annoying printing error that seemed replace all the transliterations of 3rd tone Mandarin vowels with boxes. That was pretty annoying and seemed inconsistent with the high editorial standard throughout the rest of the book. Other than that, I think this story was pretty solidly in the middle of the pack, along with the Gremlin and Arcanist ones. Seeing the world Earthside is always interesting, and the alternate history bits about the Boxer's Rebellion was pretty cool. In general, though, this story made 10T seem so thoroughly unlikeable that it was hard to get behind the story as a whole. Mei's cruelty and the 10T's deception in this story paints them pretty solidly in black in a universe where most characters are varying shades of gray. Maybe people who are drawn to the faction will disagree, but I found it hard to stomach. Shifting Loyalties / A Man Burns I seem to remember that Matthew Farrer was responsible for many of my favorite stories in the past, so I'm glad he got to do the main stories in this book. Predictably, these 2 were awesome as well. I think story hint that 'someone dies' actually sort of spoiled this story arc since it was pretty easy to identify the G-G as the only major story character who was eligible for dying (because he's not in the game), but on its own merits this pair of stories was very cool. One nice touch I really appreciated was the way the little documents like invitations and telegraph transmissions created transitions between different scenes. The conversation between Perdita and the G-G was especially interesting and made me a little sad. The fight between Avatar Mei Feng and Avatar G-G was really cool, even though I was rooting against Mei after the 10T story. Another thing I really appreciated was the way the 'What happened to the rest of the masters?' epilogue was executed without touching all 39 masters which would have obviously caused it to overstay its welcome. The emissaries are all super cool, especially the man (Sorry, I meant 'thing') on the donkey. Thanks for another great year of awesome Malifaux fluff. Can it be 2016 already?

Looks great! Also, it seems HUGE. Almost makes me wonder if it will be a Nightmare Edition available at GenCon....

I'm most of the way through the stories in the book and I'm loving them so much I just had to chime in here before I'm done. I think everything Norken said above is spot on. To me, one of the coolest things about the world of Malifaux is that it's a hodgepodge of different genres unified under a single visual aesthetic. The anthology format is a really nice way of translating that into the fiction. Personally my favorite stories are the ones that remind me of the darker elements of American romanticism, especially the stories of Poe and Hawthorne. So far, my favorites have been The Portrait (Lucius), Falling to Fly (Kaeris), The Moonlight Gallery (Dreamer), The Magistrate of Stranglehold (Jack Daw), and the one about the golden piglet (Ulix) (which is the last one I've read so far). In spite of it being among my favorites, I think the Jack Daw story didn't reach its full potential. Jack Daw's character concept is so incredibly good and lends itself so well to stories in this genre that I was expecting a little more, especially after reading the Dreamer story which does a great job of leveraging a similarly excellent character concept. To me, the Kaeris story did the best job of fleshing out the world of Malifaux by taking us outside Malifaux itself and outside the current timeline. Also it just made me happy to read the description of the San Francisco's fog and hills. Since I just read the Ulix story, that's the one that most entrenched in my mind. First of all, I really liked it and enjoyed the humorous tone, but I have 2 major questions about it. 1) What does it remind me of? I know the structure is pretty similar to lots of classic fairy tale or fable storytelling with the three successive attempts to get the pig. Does it have any direct literary antecedents, though? 2) Ulix is the master for whom I'm most eagerly awaiting the plastic release, I love his mechanical theme and I loved his story, but after reading the story I don't understand at all why he's a master. Hamelin is an unkillable otherworldly Tyrant entity. Hoffman can connect telepathically to machines. Nicodem can literally reanimate the dead. Ulix is just a pig farmer with a limp, and, given that the story starts with him nearly losing one of his pigs, it's not even obvious that he's an especially good one. From the story it's not even clear that he has any authority in his community. The only thing we see him do is demonstrate how clever he is by outsmarting a few slack-jawed yokels. What's so special about him? Ok. Enough typing! I have 5 more stories to read!

One challenge with Malifaux is that already very inexpensive to get started with. One of the biggest selling points in my opinion is that $40 buys you a 'real' starter crew that is very close to the ideal size for a game. This is in contrast to a game like Warhammer ( my second favorite game) where the relatively affordable 'starter boxes' give you between 1/3 and 1/4 of a normal tournament size army. In games like that, the goal is to provide a very cheap starting point for 2 players to entice them into the game. For Malifaux, the advantage of a 'starter' set' would mainly just be that there's a single thing on the shelf to buy. It's a way to lower the barrier to entry in terms of 'research' effort rather than time. That's why I like these 2 ideas: The box I'm envisioning could have 2 henchmen led crews and some appropriate enforcers and minions (targeting 25 ss games) , 2 special fate decks, a mini rulebook, and a starter box pamphlet. Ideally these would be models that aren't in any crew boxes (or are something like Bayou Gremlins where we could use more unique sculpts ) so that new players would have obvious next steps: After you buy the starter box and get a few games under your belt, you can choose your favorite master from the corresponding faction. The pamphlet would include a few things: 1) Basic introduction to the story of Malifaux, 2) Quick start rules with some examples that use the models in the box 3) Some little bit of fluff describing an encounter between the models in the box 4) A 'next steps' section describing how people can expand their game, with special emphasis on describing a few different crew boxes that people could pick up next.

Welcome to Malifaux! I'm really glad you enjoyed your first games even though there were some hiccups. The pointers everyone else have given all seem spot on. I just wanted to call attention to one thing that might have gotten lost among all the other advice: I just want to echo this point because I think it's probably the most important part of the Malifaux learning curve. The biggest distinction between Malifaux and other minis games is that killing things is not an important goal in and of itself. The only things that matters are scoring on your Schemes and Strategies and preventing your opponent from doing so. Killing opposing models just happens to be a surefire way of stopping your opponent from achieving most schemes and strats. Killing things in Malifaux is primarily a way of playing defense, not offense. Balance in Malifaux means that there's a way to build an effective crew for any strategy/scheme pool using any master. This doesn't mean that different crews are equally good at killing things (and that's ok!) I think you'll find Collette is a very fun, very capable master who doesn't need to kill much to score a lot of points. It also means that the game is balanced around having a bit of flexibility in your model pool to tailor your list to the strategy / schemes. You definitely don't need to go out and buy every model in a faction to have a great time, but I think you'll find the game will feel a lot more balanced when you have a few more models on the table and a couple of models that you can leave on the sidelines because this isn't the right strat + scheme pool for them. Glad you're still really enjoying the game, though. That's the most important thing.

It's too bad I didn't find out about this earlier since I don't think I'll have a fully painted crew by next weekend. Hopefully this is the first of many and I can make it in the future. If this event hasn't already been linked on the A Wyrd Place Facebook Group, that might be another good way to get the word out. By the way, is there regular a Malifaux night at Black Diamond?

I don't really see how the 0" part movement question is related either. Having thought about it more, I guess the main thrust of my question was this: If you use the ability, but there is no legal way to place the two markers, can you still declare the trigger? My intuition says "no," but this feeling isn't based on anything in particular. A related question is whether or not you're allowed to place them so that they're overlapping each other; to my ear the wording there seems ambiguous. If not, then there can be a situation where you could find a place for one and not the other. In that case, can you just place one? Can you still declare the trigger? I don't really have a strong gut feeling on this part. About the 3" range, if your suggestion is correct, then I definitely misunderstood this ability. I think you don't choose a friendly model unless you successfully use the trigger, but the ability you get from using the trigger doesn't have a range. Also, I don't think this would really make sense anyway, since buried models aren't on the board. Nothing is ever in 3" of them. I think it's probably a typo, or I'm just way off base here.

Thanks for the reply. One of the concerns I have with this upgrade is that this action only costs (1) while Shadow Stride is a (2). It's only slightly harder to cast Smoke Bombs and hit the trigger than it is to just cast Shadow Stride straight up (you need a 8+ of Masks then a 4+ of anything instead of a 6+ of Masks), but you save the AP. It just seems a little strange because there are lots of situations where you just want to use Smoke Bombs for the 1 AP discount on Shadow Stride and the smoke bombs part of the ability is pretty irrelevant or possibly even a disadvantage.

There are 2 things about the Smoke Bomb I was hoping someone could clear up for me: First, why does the Smoke Bombs action have a range of 3? Second, what happens if you can't actually place both of the Smoke Markers? I would guess that you can still take the action, but I can't figure out what happens. Can you place just one if that's all you can fit? Does "not touching any other models or Markers" imply that the two smoke markers cannot touch (so you can't stack them on top of each other)? Do you need to be able to actually place both to activate the Vanish trigger?

We actually got this rule wrong while playing at a local store yesterday. A von Schill player was playing on one table and a Misaki crew was playing on the other. After comparing the rules, we thought Diving Charge didn't require LOS. The most embarrassing part is that we actually had the FAQ printed out, but still missed it because it's under "Abilities found in Multiple Factions." It wasn't game-breaking though, and I certainly still had fun. It's definitely a bit strange that these rules are worded so differently. As an avid player of both M:tG and miniatures games, this is something I wish minis games in general would pay more attention to. Thankfully, I think Malifaux 2E does a much better job of this than many other games I've seen, but this shows there's still room to improve.

This sounds pretty cool, but I have a few questions about how this all works. It seems like you should be able to move Sword Vik ~6 inches with the Student of Conflict + 15 more from a walk and a charge with Scramble and Fast from Oathkeeper. That's 21 inches (which is still crazy far) but I'm wondering if there's some other piece I'm missing. I was also wondering whether or not there's anything in the rulebook about the timing of effects that are "triggered" simultaneously. I don't remember anything, but it seems relevant here. If Sword Vik kills a model, ideally you'd be able to unbury Gun Vik before Into the Fray ability happens, so that you can heal the 2 damage on Gun Vik (from the Void Wretch's attack) with Sword Vik's Fates Entwined. Finally, I'm looking for some "Getting Started" advice since totally new to the Viks and fairly new to Malifaux in general (I played maybe 6 or so real games in 1.5 with Rasputina and a bit with her during the beta). I have the metal Viks box plus 3 Ronin and Student of Conflict, plus the Tara box from Gencon, and I'm looking forward to getting some games in with the Viks this weekend. Are there some common upgrade configurations or particular synergies I should keep in mind? Are there any schemes that the Viks seem particularly well suited to tackling in general (since of course everything depends on your playstyle and your opponent's crew)? Are there any other models I should think about picking up? (For example, I've noticed that lots of people seem to run a Convict Gunslinger in M2E.)