moxypoo

I'll be interested in hearing about this mysterious model as well! I tend to use Scout the Field in aggressive melee based crews, where that extra Wk can be the difference between getting shot in the face for 2 turns or only 1. This usually entails at least 2 copies of Scout the Field on slower enforcers/henchmen combined with some faster melee based melee models. For example, using a Sisters in Spirit heavy list with Taelor can really catapult some hurt into the enemy crew early on.

In that case, just make sure to delete my previous post so I don't become public enemy number one around here! haha

Man that thing is gorgeous. Too bad I don't play Ressurs. The detail on the feathers and tolls hanging from the belt is fantastic, and I'm excited to see how Curtis and the other great painters around here attack this model. I'm waiting for Nathan to troll us all and make every single feather a separate piece that has to be glued to the wing in a specific order; otherwise the feathers all pop off and you have to play with a bald crow.

I agree with the thoughts from all the other posters. The Hodgepodge Effigy is generally worth bringing for the mobile soft cover as well as it's own stats. All the effigies have a good statline and are deceptively difficult to take down, and Hodgepodge in particular deals a solid amount of damage for its cost. In terms of Loyalty to the Coin, I would always consider Hodgepodge with Von Schill, Leveticus, Misaki, and Viktoria, because all those masters can generally eliminate one enemy model per turn. Hodgepodge is most useful with Hamelin as mobile soft cover for his rat swarms, but I don't find it as useful with Tara or Jack Daw.

I actually really like that they're all very similar, because the blurb in Shifting Loyalties says something about their victims "seeing many children all with the same face." The middle one seems like it was disturbed while in the middle of pooping its diaper, took its mask off, and and said "oh you just made a bad mistake." haha That said, I do like the middle one.

For the factions I'm most familiar with: Guild - Sonnia. I know that most people suggest Lady J, but Sonnia is a viable option as well. The box gives a nice mix of ranged and melee models, teaches new players about conditions and other mechanics like . As the players advance slightly, there's more depth such as shooting your own models to drop on enemies or using proper activation order to get the most out of Sonnia and Sam. The internal synergy of the box is also very good. Honorable Mention: Lady J. Outcast - Von Schill. The Friekorps do a good job of introducing new players to Armor and healing, and provide a good mix of both melee and ranged attacks. Tactical actions also play a large role in the Friekorps. Once the new players graduate from simply using VOn SChill as a sledgehammer, there's lots more depth in the box as well as internal synergy to teach them about advanced play. Honorable Mention: Misaki. Arcanist - Ramos. I'm recommending Ramos over Rasputina, because Raspy is essentially the Arcanist version of Sonnia. Because of Ice Mirror, I find that new players find Raspy frustrating to play against. I think Ramos does a good job introducing new players to summoning and a support playstyle, with some obvious combos like using the Brass Arachnid to Reactivate Joss. Honorable Mention: Mei Feng Neverborn - Jacob Lynch. This box will teach players about activation order (using Brilliance to power up later activating models), give them a master that can play multiple styles, and has great internal synergy. It's also quite simple to play at a basic level, and your players can squeeze more power out of the crew easily as they become more advanced. Lynch is probably one of the easier dual faction masters to use as well, giving you an opportunity to introduce the dual faction concept. Honorable Mention: Lilith These four boxes are all similar in power level, with Ramos's box probably being slightly higher on the curve with Von Schill's box being slightly lower. However, I don't think the power differences will really be noticed until the players become more advanced. Hope this helps!

Thanks Justin! Don't have my books on me at the moment, but I'll check when I get home. Most likely, that's what I'm thinking of.

Not sure if this is the best place for a background question, so if a MOD thinks this topic fits better somewhere else, feel free to move it! There's a description of the two moons in the night sky of Malifaux in the Into the Steam book, and I swear I've read descriptions of some of the major constellations in Malifaux. However, I can't remember where I read about the constellations, though it might have been one of the Through the Breach books. If anyone knows what I'm talking about, could you point me in the right direction? Thanks!

Wyrd, you can't make me start Ten Thunders too... When the artwork for the emissaries were first released, my favorites were the Ten Thunders, Neverborn, and Guild, and I'm glad to see the Dragon lives up to my expectations. The details on the scales are outstanding, and I'll be impressed if they transfer that well to the plastic medium. I like everything about this from the pose to the menace it radiates.

This is a really good point, and it is easy to get comfortable with a list and then never make anything other than small tweaks. My group has sort of a mix, where some people take the same models repeatedly, while others change their list every game. For me, I have a core list of models that I like with each master to fall back on if I know I need to win a particular game. This core list tends to be models that I've used in many different situations, which makes me familiar with all their nuances. Once I add the core list to my crew, I try to select a few familiar models that synergize well with the list or are particularly useful for the scheme pool. Outside of competitive games, I like to mess around and try unorthodox crew combinations. To answer the OP's questions: I pick a master that should do well at accomplishing my objective pool and then build a crew around him/her/it. If I can't decide I default to Zoraida, because she's my best Neverborn master, in addition to being able to run nearly any crew she wants. As for crutch models, Silurids make appearances pretty much whenever I need to get to locations and interact, while I have an extremely difficult time leaving a Nurse out of any Zoraida crew.

There's lots of good advice in this thread, and I have to agree with the majority that I never use it since it's effect so rarely comes up and is completely unpredictable. Also, I try to layer multiple redundant layers into my lists and strategies, so failure of one particular model doesn't destroy my entire plan (even though it still does sometimes!). However, if I was going to use Pact, it would be on a model that could flip a large number or cards like Teddy with Dreamer or Bag of Props Collodi (both of which have been mentioned in this thread). It's probably also only worth using on a very high value model, such as your master, whose AP is very valuable.

So if my measurements are correct, the Arcane Emissary should be roughly 65mm tall to the top of its smokestacks! He's a big boy. The render turned out great, so I'm excited to see the other Emissaries as they come out, especially Hodgepodge and Mysterious. The old man part of the Hodgepodge Emissary will be painted green, like Shrek.

I like that two are identical to the original metals, since those were excellent, iconic sculpts, and I really like the new third one, especially hit butt flap pajama bottoms. Now, I just need to decide whether my original two metals are enough, or I need three more...

Looks good to me! I can imagine the thought process behind designing this thing: "What are people afraid of?" "Giant Spiders?" "Great!" "But that's not good enough. We have to make it even scarier!" "Ummm...add a giant chainsaw to its face?" "Brilliant!"

I hereby officially request that Wyrd issues errata to change the name of the Large Arachnid's attack to "Lightning Dong." But they do look great - my Ramos playing friend will be quite pleased.

Another thing about Liega I forgot to mention in my last post is that she can really mess up models that require decently high TNs to cast spells. For example, moving Liega next to a master like Nicodem (and maybe using Defensive stance) who requires moderates or suits to cast his spells can severely hamper his ability to perform any useful actions during his activation.

This. If you suspect you'll be playing a melee crew, it's generally worth taking her every time. Keep in mind which models can kill her easily and keep her away and out of LoS if possible. I often like to take a big, tough 50mm/Ht3 model like the Strongarm Suit to hide her behind. In my experience, Liega is best used as a scalpel rather than a sledgehammer - don't put her into the middle of the enemy crew and expect her to survive. Instead, choose an enemy model that really needs to die, park her near it, and then do mean things with your other models. I don't take her if I'm focusing heavily on forcing my opponent to discard since there's anti-synergy there. It's all about protecting Liega and playing mind games with your opponent. If your opponent puts an inordinate amount of AP into killing her then it's usually SS well spent. I tend to look for one or two game changing moments with Liega than expecting her to survive the entire game.

Some advice I got when I first started playing Jack was not to think about how you could score 10VP, but how to stop your opponent from scoring any VP at all. I worded that in an extreme manner for effect, but a more realistic way to think about it is: how can I focus on denial rather than focus on scoring points myself. Unlike all the other masters in the game, Jack excels at forcing the opponent to make really poor choices and then capitalizing, while simultaneously locking down enemy models. Basically, I'm trying to say: consider which schemes you can make difficult or impossible for your opponent, while squeaking out some VP here and there. This playstyle probably won't work for everyone, but I've had some good success with it!

WHOOSH! Someone needs to paint up a Terror Tot as the Flash right now!

Oh I don't think it's a bad model! Just that it doesn't help Levy in any particular fashion that he couldn't get form in faction models. But you're right that it has a big easy target painted on its cephalothorax.

I don't think the Scorpius is particularly useful for Levy, because its best stuff all revolves around Poison. The Outcasts have essentially no Poison, so the Scorpius would have to work as a stand alone model in a Levy crew. There also aren't many (any?) other constructs Levy can pull in along with the Scorpius that give out Poison to support it. I haven't tried it yet, but I suspect there are better ways for Levy to spend the 6SS. But I'd love to be proven wrong since the artwork is awesome!

Most of those renders have been shown as Monday previews if I remember correctly.

Thanks Aaron! I'll most likely be copying that basing scheme with a bit more M.C. Escher added when that tutorial comes out.

Aionus looks sweeeeet! Definitely getting my grubby little hands on him as soon as possible... @Nathan: Does Aionus come with the clock and the old man only or does the set include the basing details (swirl of bricks and cogs behind him in the painted image)?

B. It works just fine... except name a low Def model in Arcanists that this model suitably protects. Here's a list of Def 4 and below models we have access to, because I'm working off the assumption that an increase of only +1 Def is a poor return for 1AP and 4ss: - Raspy - Ice Golem - Ramos - Willie - Rail Golem And that's pretty much it. Of those, models that need to hold a position are probably going to be ranged, as otherwise you're wasting their entire offensive potential, which is suboptimal gameplay at best. So essentially Ramos and Raspy. That's two models total that you might plan, right from the start, to include the Metal Gamin in the list to protect. That's hardly a strong indicator that Metal Gamin are in any way flexible enough to be worth taking for their ability to support a model with POM. Hoffman can take them in Guild. Leveticus can take them in Outcasts. Mei Feng can take them in Ten Thunders. Plus all the mercenaries that can be brought into the Arcanists. There are lots and lots of models that can benefit from increasing their defense. Also you seem to be hinging your argument on hiring a Metal Gamin specifically to use PoM. I've generally seen Metal Gamin hired to tarpit a more costly enemy model since they're incredibly tough for a 4SS model in addition to any master specific synergy you might have. C. If you re-read my post above, you'll notice that I said POM was a bad ability even WITHOUT movement effects. I have never said that Lures et al are the only reason POM is incredibly useless. Incredibly useless is a strong phrase. There are a number of uses for PoM that have been delineated in this thread, including protecting a ranged model, holding a point, and one you yourself discussed - protecting a model engaged in a combat. That suggests that its not a useless ability. I agree that PoM is not broadly applicable, but there are most certainly uses for it. Many abilities in this game are what one could call corner-case, in that they only apply to specific situations, but I don't hear people saying things like Relentless are useless. (D) All of this was true of Protection of Metal before the errata; the difference is that people used PoM exclusively on the Metal Gamin itself, which was deemed too powerful. As dgraz pointed out, PoM works perfectly fine if you need to take and hold a spot. You're also assuming its use on a melee model, but the Metal Gamin can work perfectly fine as a bodyguard for a powerful ranged model. (E) Interesting that you called him out for using a not comparable skill but then ignored 'Cisco's Wp/Df buff that works nearly exactly the same way as PoM that dgraz mentioned in his post. The point is not that every example of a buff in the game works the same as PoM. Instead the point is that any buff that has some area of effect can be foiled by lure effects. Obviously it will be more difficult to foil some effects than others depending on the range of the effect. D. Surely saying that the only reason POM was used was to protect itself is an argument in support of my position? If the only use of the ability is through a "loophole" then surely it's a bad ability? As mentioned, our "Powerful ranged model" consists of two casters, only one of which the Gamin has any real synergy with (Ramos). Four factions can take the Metal Gamin, so you have to consider its uses in Outcasts, 10T, and Guild as well. I won't say that it's a bad ability, but I will say that it requires a specific setup to be useful. You seem to be saying that PoM is bad because it's rare that it will be useful, but I disagree.