scarlett fever

Got Shifting Loyalties in my hot little hands today, much to my excitement. So I'm going to go through my initial reactions and I'd be curious about other folks immediate reactions also Been pouring through all the cards, skimming bits and pieces of the stories (not usually a big fluff fan) and taking in the art. The bits and pieces I've picked up from the stories are actually pretty good, I'm not a huge fan of the fluff in the previous books, but these stories seem to be setting up more of an overall atmosphere for the world in a way that has got me imagining the background in a greater context. However my first port of call was the rules for the new models and they don't disappoint. Almost all the models appear really solid, not ovepowered and not underpowered but all bringing something new. The actions and abilities all add tone that makes them sound interesting and fires the imagination. The depth of rule interactions/rules breaking gets the mental gears churning, great stuff. Lots of models I'm excited to proxy. And that might be the crux of my feelings for the new book. The models are all inspiring in terms of concept and rules, but most of the art feels a bit simple and cartoony. Where are the Widow Weavers? The Dreamers? The Steampunk Abominations? Something like Anna Lovelaces' clockwork dress could have been a thing of wonder. Hayreddin could have been totally twisted, the Porkchop a mess of steel, the Void Wretch totally out-of-this-world, even a few more dynamic poses wouldn't go amiss. I'm already a convert so this doesn't unsettle me and I'll still buy models even if I prefer my proxies, but I want an imagination injection, that first rush of early Malifaux madness. Having said that I also really like the realistic models, McCabe crew is one of my favourites for that, so the Starter box I really like the look of. I think I'm a gamer first, but the aesthetic is also very important to keep me wanting to immerse. It's still good work, but there are more models in this book that I'm keen to convert than previous editions. There are so many interesting models in there though, can't wait to try out all those twisted combos

Oh, just went back to the original battle report and saw all the posts after mine. The above quote is what I was refering to, turn 2 Sensei Yu uses Monk of Many Styles to pick up the Lowe River upgrade currently on Shenlong. This would have left Shenlong without an upgrade and therefore unable to attach any for the rest of the game.

True, mould lines through faces is not a good look.

Do love the Swordsman with Shenlong, that's a crew of killers right there. One small point. In turn 2 Shenlong swaps from Wandering River to Low River (giving Yu Wandering River). Then Yu activates, uses Wandering River and then swaps to Low River using Disciple/Monk of Many Styles. Don't use Monk of Many Styles on Yu to gain a limited upgrade that Shenlong is currently carrying. Shenlong will discard his upgrade for Yu to attach it, leaving Shenlong without a limited upgrade and therefore without the ability to use Monk of Many Styles ("Choose a limited upgrade with the restriction of Shenlong. If another friendly model has the chosen upgrade attached, discard it. This model may discard a Limited upgrade it has attached to attach the chosen upgrade"). Technically from turn 2 only Yu would have been able to use Shenlong's upgrades.

That advice is on the money. Do what Adran says.

Looking at what your list of models I'd say you're pretty much set up to play, learn and/or win. I wouldn't say you're really missing anything necessary, more just decide who you want to learn to play and how you want to play them. Give them all a little time to find your favourite grooves. Five Masters is a lot of playtime. That said the Lone Swordsman, Katanaka Snipers and the rest of the Ancestors(Yin, Izamu, Toshiro) are all solid models that aren't in your list. I find the Lone Swordsman good and Shenlong makes him positively evil. Healing him of HtK and giving him Fast, I get the most out of him when I run him with Shenlong. He took a while to get the hang of, the first few games he just died, but as long as you set him up nicely he's a very reliable killer. Snipers give you a ranged threat that you'll only otherwise get from McCabes hire-ins or Trapper mercs. Plus they are strong in melee, your opponents will groan at them as much as Illuminated when you put them on the table. Shenlong and McCabe both make them even better but they run very strong vanilla as well. The Ancestors all have a place in lists depending on your strats/schemes and what Master you're running. If you do buy Toshiro you'll also have to pick up Komainu (you already have Ashigaru). Of the Masters you have I'd say Mei is the only one who isn't wholely supported and as AverageBoss said if you keep going with Lynch you'll want Depleted and Beckoners, but they're not necessary to make him competitive. McCabe is a great Master, but his box doesn't bring anything you're really missing and you've already got 5 of the 7 Masters! Plus you'll have to buy Austringers and Guild Hounds to get the most from him. Which of the Masters are you leaning towards? Have you put anyone on the table yet?

I've lost a couple of (luckily relatively insignificant) model pieces and sometimes the modelling is frustating. But also rewarding, the models are by far my favourite of any gaming company (even if I do have gripes with some of the scaling). Don't change anything, I would find compromising dynamism for ease of construction off-putting

True, though I love those big kill turns. I've always felt like Misaki is hard to keep alive, especially on an Assassinate run. Listening to that it sounded like Graham managed to keep Misaki alive and get Assassinate. I haven't taken Assassinate with her for months, think I'll try again.

Just had a listen, great podcast, I need to go back through and listen to some of the others. Feel like a lot of my Misaki posts could have been ripped straight from this. Made me think I'd like to try Cutpurse, as an assassination build that would probably mean playing without Misdirection, which would be tough.

If you're taking any healing vs Ressers take Chiaki (or Low Monks). The Hanged's Whispers from Beyond is one of the most annoying actions in the game.

I think the choice for me would be terrain dependent. Snipers like long firing alleys they can control, Archers are best hidden behind terrain or a wall of models. That said unless Vendetta is in the pool (Archers are great for Vendetta) I almost always go for Snipers. 2 focus shots from each Sniper per turn and then once they close in melee they do more damage and Shenlong can keep bumping them up over their HTK. They can be extremely frustrating for your opponent. Archers are very fragile and you need to have a babysitter with an upgrade slot to get the most out of them. I think of them mostly as a melee buff that you can move the focus of their attention each turn, good for finishing off models. Watch out for Neverborn as they have a heap of placement/movement tricks and can suddenly be right next to your archers when you don't want them to be.

2 Snipers and Shenlong is an evil combination. I always feel a bit dirty fielding it but it's so good. Take apart the enemy at range and when they close just keep bumping the Snipers over their HTK. The Swordsman is fairly indestructable to ranged attacks, but I agree with Ferossa, it's all about using the terrain to your advantage. Unless you're facing Austringers.

I used to think Misaki got to place the head marker and then push but now I believe it's as Adran states, for the same reason. Looking at those Strats and Schemes I'd be inclined to go for Brewmaster. I've only just started playing him but it seems like a good match. Brewy, Fingers, Wesley (because Brewy dies easy), Performers, other models to taste. I'd probably go for a Tengu or 2 and Ama No Zako. Unless I'm facing Ressers then you have to take Chiaki. Take Distract and Plant Evidence, or Bodyguard if you're that way inclined, though it's not the best tourney scheme. Outflank is just too hard, unless they have a small crew and you can tie them up. Keep your models reasonably close to one another. Drag a couple of models in with performers then Distract and Paralyse/Brewy bubble them. When the opponent kills your models snatch up the heads straight away with Fingers/Perfomers (Don't Mind Me), deny the opponent heads through this and Chatty. If I go for really killy crews I find there are more heads than necessary and it can be difficult to stop the opponent from scoring. Keep most of your crew on your side of the board and watch for possible Plant Evidence, Use Pay Up, I Saws it First or Still the Earth to take care of enemy scheme markers late game. Check out where you want the Tengu to drop Plant Evidence. Use them to regen models then turn 4 and 5 drop your markers. Ama No Zako, Fingers and Brewy are all good for this too if necessary. I'd watch for the opponents Bodyguard, Corner is an easy Bodyguard as they can keep the model on their side of the board and still get the points. Brewy has a brilliant targetted takedown in his Hangover, give a model swill and then send in Ama to destroy it. Or if you've taken Yin or they're Living you can always Paralyse it and have Ama Swallow you Whole. Of course in the heat of the game I end up reacting as much as acting, but that would be my general approach.

I've played a lot of games with Misaki, not as many with her and Yu, maybe only 6+ with that combo. I still loose more games with her than with Shenlong or McCabe. It does sound like you were unlucky, she generally gets one big turn (usually turn 2) and is dead before turn 5. You have to expect she will kill at least one model of her choosing, more if she goes for small fry, that's her schtick, She should get one assassination trigger (the last soulstone), everything else is what she picks up in her hand. For her assassination trigger to be threatening it has to come towards the end of a turn, this is usually her first turn of engagement. Once she's in the thick of it she generally has to keep killing/moving to stay alive and this usually happens towards the begining of the turn, so assassination is less of a concern. Once she's swarmed she'll go down, she may Misdirection an attack or 2 but a volume of average attacks will kill her. Save a big attack on her for late in the turn and there shouldn't be anything she can do about it. Deathtrout has already stated her combat weaknesses, Armor and Incorporeal, she relys on her plus flips to damage stuff. Outside of her 'big' turn her damage can be a bit average unless she has a good hand to dedicate to it. Not sure I'd bother taking out Yu unless he's threatening some end game scheme shenanigans, Misaki outpaces him quickly and he's fairly costly in this set-up, 11 points of Misaki support for a couple of pushes and fast. That's 11 points not doing anything else. He's not much of a threat himself without a charge range, unless you rely on damage triggers for defence (he's a Colette killer for sure). I'd just take down Misaki. Def 6 is good but not unbeatable. And Misaki hates Paralyse. Sensei Yu spent all his AP setting up Misaki only for her to be paralysed, that's a **. The Arcanist Master I've found the most annoying to play against with Misaki is Raspy. Blasts templates, Paralyse, Armor, Sub Zero, models that damge you when they die, Slow. If you want to chill Misaki out take Raspy.

Fantastic tone, really enjoyed reading this and it makes me want to get Ototo on the table again. Write more like this! I've tried out the Yu, Ototo, McCabe crew once and Ototo died pretty quick. But now I'm keen to try it again. I went through a period of using Yu and McCabe together every game, it was a lot of fun, but after a while I found I was getting where I wanted quickly, really quickly, but was often caught/out of steam end of turn 2. Then the rest of the game could be clinging to keep my up my VP. A lot of my Shenlong + Yu builds have felt similar, I end up with one or two speeding missiles that take up my focus and everything else scrapes by. I blame Yu. He's costly and adding a support henchman to a support Master makes the focus of their attention vulnerable. If it dies quickly it can hollow out your list. Makes me think Strangemetal Shirt might be a good idea. Or a few more soulstones. You've fired me to go back to these builds and try them out again. Been a while and with your inspiration I'll approach it with fresh eyes. Great read, you're so right about Ototo being in the wrong crew box.

No disconnect

Anaal Nathrakh Absu Ritualz Missy Elliot Azealia Banks Emperor

Misaki is a good choice, my first and most played Master (in M2e) so I have a soft spot for her. She's easy to pick up mechanically and a lot of fun because of it, not too many hoops to jump through to make an impact. To round out your choices I'd add; Yamaziko Katanaka Snipers Izamu Rest is preference. After this I'd be looking at a second crew box to add another flavour, even if you don't use the Master. Yan Lo - Chiaki is a massive help, if you pick up Toshiro as well you can use the Ashigaru as summons. Both these will open up your strategy/scheme options Mei Feng - for Kang, just anti undead/construct beast. Railworkers are solid too Lynch - Illuminated are great support to Misaki, give her something that can stick around And if happen to be buying from GenCon, you can't go wrong with the Lone Swordsman. Just saying.

Being a Thunders player who plays mostly Shenlong I was fairly invested in his crew and the Lone Swordsman. The renders of both look slightly odd proportionally and I'm a little worried breakdancing monk could end up being another 8'3" monster. However sometimes the plastics are better in 3 dimensions than their render suggests, so I reserve final judgement. But we're rating renders so , glad Shenlong lost his hand blobs in the final render though. Not a big fan of extra blobs. Really like Hamlins box and I quite like understated Masters. Rat king is the king. The blob is wrong on so many levels though :+fate Abula is just awesome, so are the Gaki, fantastic models, :+fate both Mah and Wong boxes are also awesome, so much character, love Mancha Roja and the Lightning Bugs, :+fate At first I wasn't sold on the Crossroads Seven (concept wise) but I've come around, who doesn't want play against other people with a rock band? Plus I have converted Fuhatsu as Bootsy Collins and my Graves has a slayer t-shirt, so yeah, may not like all the sculpts as much individually but together Agree on Lust and Greed looking generic and cloned though, even have the same shoes. Sometimes I don't why I play Thunders when the grass looks so green on every other side.

666 Malifaux has arrived I will only play Crossroads Seven Honestly, my mind is blown that every Crew box will be available during GenCon, well done Malicrew. I have all previous faction decks, are there new erratas in the campaign deck?

1, Yes. As seems to be shown by the apparent diversity of this group and the ability to have these discussions openly in the forum (as compared to other games). I've already stated my view point on environment and its ability to shape mindsets. No one expects you to change the world but it's amazing what conscious little acts can achieve, one subtle step at a time. And you are in the positions of power here. There were some fantastic rants and essays in this thread, if you're in any doubt you can influence communities you just need to read back through them again. 2, You got this far through diversity, keep pushing that envelope, why stop? Dirial and Admiralvorkraft covered this pretty solidly, as have many others in this thread. In the end we're all here because we want to play/paint Malifaux. I think a lot of us were drawn into it over other games for similar reasons.

Freaking awesome, love it. I've introduced a few new players to the game over time and with less experienced wargamers teaching Malifaux is an overwhelming experience. This looks like a very sound way to go about it and you could probably get through it in one sitting. I'll defiinitely be picking up a box.

Oh how I told myself I was no longer going to comment on these threads, speaking out against the conventional status quo can be exhausting, I just want to play some games! But I want everyone to feel safe playing those games. Thanks for a new perspective on this, I think I sorely needed it. Seamus was the one part of Malifaux I loathed, only because the rape and murder of sex workers is okay in conventional society. They are the butt of all jokes, the bottom of the social pecking order whom no-one protects/respects. Don't see why having a range of female types wouldn't be edgy. Edgy to me is difference in society. Sitting at home watching Hostel is conventional. Edgy is having muliple female body types in a hobby awash with scantily clad barbies. Ultra-violence and porn all seems pretty much acceptible home viewing nowdays. Edgy is the fringes of clever imagination, don't see how people interested in gender equity are going to stop that, they can only increase it and make it more inventive and interesting. Agree I do love over-sized killer teddies and knife-wielding children, just brilliant. Imagine you are the single (whatever easily defined stereotype you are, eg; white male) and you walk into a small space filled with some other easily defined stereotype (peoples of x descent perhaps) and they are all playing a game which has a number of white guys in compromising positions, and some in positions of power. There are casual jokes about torturing whitey (some jocular phrase, just a joke man!) when one of their figures is in a vulnerable position. Sometimes these spaces can be filled with hundreds of people, you're new and you want to feel safe and accepted. You want to feel that if you are threatened or victimised (subtly or not) you will be protected. It takes a lot of guts to be part of that first wave to break the deadlock. I've been in plenty of gaming clubs and heard rape jokes. I have two younger sisters. They both live in a seperate city to me. The eldest went through a long period of sexual harrassment in her workplace which was ignored by her managers because that was the status quo. She had to put up with porn sent to her and vile messages left on her computer as well as other comments about how 'f**kable" she was/wasn't. It turned out that her harrasser was part of the local wargaming scene. He's an accepted part of that scene, his rape jokes etc are all fine in an all-male context, I'm sure if I met him and confronted him there I'd be the scene pariah, I'd probably never get a game with anyone in that area. That's how humans work. My other youngest sister is interested in wargaming, she's a big nerd and gamer. I'd love to get her into Malifaux/Wargaming but the thought of her having to put up with that sort of bulls**t and being the only women in the scene, that feels like a big responsibility to hand someone! Wargaming is such a huge time and money commitment, it would be devastating to be led in only to have to put up with constant subtle discrimination, not being taken seriously, gender jokes when you're the only butt of the joke. I've heard equally abbhorrent things from my female friends who play online games. In games that require vocal commmunication they can quickly become targets for bullying and abuse. This is one hundred percent true. Once you get the right environment with a balanced discourse the more difficult aspects of society and be held in a way thats okay for everybody. Even terribly sexist/racist etc movies become laughable in the right setting. Just getting to that point can take time. Wish I was gaming at your club! Perhaps we just all need to move to San Fran. Malifaux is doing a pretty fine job indeed, still, no reason to feed the trolls! Putting forward alternate options and ideas does subtly influence people, it gets under their skin over time. People think they're immune but they're not, otherwise women still wouldn't have the vote. Imagine two gaming environments, one with only male figures in positions of power and the females all scantily clad, another with balanced gender roles. Imagine the nature of in-game jokes and discussions that might play out in each group, how the players visualise the gameplay. Overtime you'd expect the second group to move towards a more balnced outlook. That's just life, we think we're all autonomous but we're actually subtly fitting into out peer groups and environments, looking for acceptance, affirmation and respect. Oh man, another great conversion waiting to happen, brilliant.

Awesome, this would make play guild. Can totally see this alongside guild guard, riflemen and hounds.

Thanks for the critique Ferossa, I really appreciate your input in the forum. It would be less of a place without it (seem to be a lot of penis posts and what she said jokes lately, school's out maybe?). Okay, sorry but where are they? Nathan, Justin, Aaron, not even sure there's a female moderator? What roles do the women have in your team? Just curious. This is a white male dominated hobby and that's just how it is. That's truth is all. It'll be great when that changes but it'll take time, I look forward to a wargaming future of inclusion and diversity I still love and will buy Wyrd models, I believe they're doing much better job than most, but practical trousers and a greater range of female bodytypes would be awesome