Ludvig

I avoided getting Nekima because of her sculpt but now that Lilith was kicked out of tournament play I felt forced to pick Nekima up since I still want to play Nephilim. I won't be doing any demos with her though. I haven't really bought into the ten Thunders except for McCabe and Lynch and I don't own gremlins so I guess I'm avoiding the worst appropriation models but it's not because I'm trying to be PC, it's mostly that the anesthetics aren't my cup of tea. I have the Ortegas but I have no idea if they're considered offensive to anyone? They're mostly cowboys with Spanish names and actions. One of them has a Sombrero and the others are just playing on general cowboy tropes in my eyes.

Niche picks need to be extremely good to be worth changing up your crew vs a well oiled machine that does good in any sort of pool. In my experience more than half a list is usually set and then you rotate a few models depending on Strat and schemes but in m2e at least people would play the same list for entire tournaments and do really well. It's just a matter of learning which crews have that capability through playing an absurd amount of games.

M3e probably made the problem worse, I've barely started playing 3e and haven't been in any tournaments yet. In m2e you had the whole faction at base cost and some masters could hire a ridiculous amount of out of faction models. You also didn't announce the master beforehand. Despite no announced masters the keywords that had solid counters just ended up not being taken much at all in tournaments which will likely be even more true now. If you know what people will take as counters you'll need to counter the counter. Maybe do a leader that works well solo or has a good value totem a d then fill the list with versatile models and a second summoning master to make their counters less effective. The best answer is probably just take a master with no hard counters.

Depends on what you define as a budget. Mini games are always going to be a rich man's game. A single master and no out of theme models is probably a bad limit but if you know what you want before starting a faction you can usually build a limited model pool and kick ass.

Early in m2e playing only one master was seen as something limiting you and an achievement if you did well. In the later stages of m2e people were playing very limited pools of models under a single or maybe two masters and doing well. I've also seen tournaments put in pool limits but we've never felt the need around here, the winning players often show up with a single crew and some off picks.

Obviously "Charlie" Hoffman as your leader. 😉

Seems like a topic for the general malifaux boards but I'll play. Painted: Guild: LJ box, Perdita box, Hoffman and all oldschool constructs, Lucius old box and various mimics working in m2e, Sonnia old box and handlers, Dashel and all old guard models. Arcanists: Marcus and most beasts. Ressers: McMourning and most of his theme (the old stuff that had metals). Neverborn: Zoraida and some assorted swamp fiends. Lilith and most nephilim (not Nekima). Teddy. Outcasts: many of the previously cross faction mercs. Thunders: McCabe, the better part of Lynch's keyword. I have a few bits and bobs that I can't use anymore as well. Unpainted: Pandora box, Mei Feng box, Nekima, many old mercenaries.

@Math Mathonwy I find your lack of faith disturbing... A gremlin toddler killing Nekima and the nephilim losing their second master to DMH so Barbie can come back to nvb sounds like the perfect move for the next edition. 😅

You reshuffle if you can't draw enough cards but a plus flip with a single card deck would just break the game I suppose.

I don't think I've seen any since the initial release sold out. I found one second hand because I assumed I would only ever use one. I wonder if the new box will come bundled with corrupted hounds.

Just drawing this from the hat but: Judge let's you draw cards. Use a pro El when you have cards you don't need to cheat and a good use of the action. With a good hand you should probably use it a lot less, maybe for the last attack on a model you really need to kill this activation. Use family values to recuperate your hand if you really really have to. Do you mean is it a good idea to use a por el and target Nino? I would ususally use a por el to take the concentrate action since the family get to push from that. Since concentrate is once per activation you can stack up a lot more focus on your crew turn one than what is normal and since they all move from it you also get further up the board. If he can get a kill shot from it when no one else can then by all means use it on him but turn one I would probably use it a lot on models with shorter range to get them close enough for unleashing hell.

Agree on the double cerberus! They're really flexible models. Wisps seem like very useful schemers that also manipulate enemy positioning so your cerberus can get their bonus for attacking lonely models (and hopefully avoid retaliation from the rest of the enemy crew if you put stealth on them). Wisps will make you want to get adze because of their abilities but they really shouldn't be killing models so unless you really like the look of adze I would hold of getting those. Eventually it will set you up nicely for the inevitable slide into Zoraida. My usual advice to anyone is to not go overboard and buy everything. It is better to get a master box and one or two extra boxes to plug obvious holes and then try to play a lot with what you have. That way you notice which roles models can fill instead of buying twenty different models because they are theoretically slightly better in a certain scheme pool. TLDR: wisps and an extra cerberus should last you a long time. You are missing out on Myranda's shapechange options but maybe you could proxy a few models until you see what you actually like turning her into.

Nobody puts Frank in the corner!

I believe there is a sort of introductions forum here and you can check if there is a local henchman and message them. I haven't found these forums very useful for meeting local players. Do you have a local shop that sells malifaux? Usually they tend to have certain days of the week when people meet up so ask there and show up on that day. I keep a Facebook profile almost exclusively to keep track of the local mini scene and get more people for my events, it seems to be a good platform for such things.

Discarding isn't using. The rules on soulstones say henches and masters can use them but I don't think it ever says soulstone users can just discard them at any time so either the ability allows everyone to discard a soulstone or no one can do it.

I really liked the Marcus episode. Good tips and good disposition/editing. I aso found the guest very enjoyable to listen to. He had a low pace of talking instead of quick speech with lots of pause sounds. I usually turn podcasts off because I can't stand all the "uhms" and weird tangents (podcasts are not an ideal medium for me).

A single pass token is very different form four pass tokens, that means they can't be certain of going first so they'll need to plan for more eventualities. Grave diggers seem very handy.

@Ender101 Third floor wars lately but I used to like schemes and stones as well. First activations can be really important depending on the board state. If you know you'll be going first you can usually set up to make it very impactful.

@Ender101 haven't played him yet but I might use his actions to charge an enemy schemer that got cocky or for setting up strategy points of my own. Starting 3 zombies and summoning from them likely means giving your opponent a lot of pass tokens which let's your opponent be very aggressive since they can almost guarantee turn 2 initiative from pass tokens. Knowing you will have initiative e turn 2 is an extremely big advantage since the early activations turn 2 can swing a game. All the podcasts and friends I've heard talking about m3e stress how important early tempo is.

Your second list looks similar to the lists I've been ending up with but I always want to bring Sebastian. He can get you more dogs! I don't believe hiring zombies for a cheaper construct is worth it because your are spending master ap. I'd start with the construct and get more when stuff dies. I've also been looking at the emissary and Mortimer for more corpses and nice actions all around.

I'm definitely trying a three master list with them.

@Ender101 I would probably have made the cut at the waist and arms outside of the capes. I think fleshing out the shoulders with GS is easier than doing the cutting at weird places. It kind of locks you into certain poses but cutting metal is probably the worst part of this hobby so I'd happily skip that step.

@Ender101 Love those! I will have to start looking at something like that because I never bothered to get the thralls. Unfortunately I don't have miners either but I bet I can dig something out of my miniature box.

My group already had about 90% themed lists with just the occasional master who picked all over the place like Lucius and beast McMourning. It might even be possible that casual theme-junkies make up the majority of the player base even if they don't dominate online tactics discussions.

@Hot4Perdita It remains to be seen if it will lead to more varied crews or everyone playing the same master with similar crews. Certain versatile models may also sail up as auto includes. It will be fun to face more themed crews once I get my head around all the new stuff.