Tawg

Well, I play far less games and don't really know terribly much. I have no local play group, and only recently got terribly interested in the game to the point I got on these forums (In the past month, month and a half maybe), which has opened up Vassal, but even those games have been fairly limited. So unfortunately I don't know how I treat (Or should treat) many things Sidir included. I just think on paper Anna offers a ton of useful abilities. Her being a Merc is clearly a big part of her design, because she clearly has a strong bit to offer anyone as far as utility and counter-picking for crew selections. Although to my experience, most games are not played in the true order of Declare Faction, Schemes/Deployment type, Pick factions. Normally I have only had available single crew boxes, so my games thus far have been predominantly limited, vassal being the exception (Though I also own very many more models at this point). But I am probably just as scared of, if not more, of Levi or the thought of facing him. But I'm sure it isn't that bad in the end, it just means learning to play against a person who is neigh invincible, or in Anna's case, extremely annoying to push/placement fanatics.

I know this quote is a bit in the past, but I just want to reply to the very last part of this, where DocWut says "People aren't prioritizing her." I'm curious what you mean in a sense (Do/did you feel that people simply aren't trying her out/playing her enough?), and or did you mean this in a specific sense of the game (Competitive vs otherwise)? I'm really only curious because honestly, after I picked up the Shifting, and saw Anna, I absolutely knew she terrified me. I don't normally play Ressers (Though I have a few), but Anna's existence is on the boarder of sane to me. The one "balancing" factor I see for her really is that she was granted the Merc type so technically all the factions can make use of her incredible power; Which both makes her a threat to all crews, it does potentially offer the chance of failing a bit if she doesn't offer too much against a certain crew. Although I don't know what crew style trumps her, or exactly what weakness she exhibits, as I don't know the whole of the game that well. But her abilities seem quite game altering in general (Being able to lock down over 16" of the board from pushes is nuts, although I guess it's an aura, so LoS does effect it, and she is only Ht 2) plus she is certainly not lacking in the attack area, with her primary Ca being good enough that I don't even know when someone would want to use her Ml (Unless the opponent's Wp was that much lower than their Df and you were already engaged). Off hand, have you had any exceptionally hard times using her, or any match ups where she seemed to offer less? I mean, aside for someone potentially realizing the threat she presents and focusing her down, which is not exactly a deep "tactical" answer to her. Also, do you feel outside of the Tara list, that the Hanna/Anna combo (Which they are both Mercs, so theoretically they can pair up in any crew for a few extra ss) is worth taking? Or is it based on a conditional boon it grants in a certain crew? It seems like you are of the mindset that taking Anna and Hanna is simply a no-brainer, but I can't determine if that is simply the pair or if they are being "enabled" by something. Not including the beta, I've had 30 some games using Anna Lovelace across all 7 Ressur masters, Outcast Tara, and 2 with Von Schill (I just don't care for him) to try and find a place for her. When Shifting Loyalties came in the mail, only 2 things really made me super excited; Yan Lo's upgrade for the Carrion Emissary and Anna Lovelace. People seem to look at her like some Cross of Datsue Ba and Sidir (Squishy if you focus, but versatile). They don't gun for her, they go after Tara/Izamu/Hannah/The Dead Rider/any other beater or master, and that is the mistake. She has solid 6's for stats,9 wounds, and armor +1 (which is eh, but Nurses are always an option), as well as access to stoning for prevention. Her Rush of Magic is always great. While Izamu or anyone is tying you up, Anna can still beat the crap out of you and she's making summoning fuel on tomes or spamming horror duels against models (a great way to shut down the Mech Rider or Gremlins). In melee? Anna trades 1 point of damage for healing and being more of a nuisance. Got Belles? Anna can push models into them like dropping chum to piranhas. Her 8 inches of "basically, you can't do anything but walk or charge" is an absolute pain for a lot of players I've come across. No Hunpo Assault, close Back Alleys, Misaki/Pandora/Colette escapes, or anything if Anna's nearby (and she almost always is). You've locked a model down and Anna can beat it from afar/prevent its escape unless they burn AP from walking or kill the model holding them (often someone big like Izamu). She fits into any crew that likes to keep things in melee or away from squishy models (Notably Molly and Kirai, who work well with summoning into combat). Some additional notes: Corpse Bloat is amazing as always and Anna is a great carrier for it. She's a good bodyguard model as well (or a fake bodyguard). As for Hannah: Hannah can copy Anna's push 0 and her amazing casting gun (or corpse bloat!). Throw in Oathkeeper and you can have Anna activate, pump 2-3 shots into a model that's locked in with Hannah, push the model away (if it's not dead yet), Activate Hannah, copy the Ca shot and fire again, then charge something else because you've probably put 12 points of damage from Ca 6 goodness into them. Is she game breaking? No, not at all. She's a versatile Henchwoman that has an awesome theme, model, and thematically works with Ressurectionists and her sister (Hannah). Is she strong? Absolutely. She's right up there with Sidir, Francisco, and Francois. I'm more interested in the idea of, is the only real answer to her to kill her? There really isn't terribly much you can do to get around her abilities besides kill her as far as I can tell. I guess, thinking about it Misaki crews could smoke bomb to drop Ht 5 blocking markers that would cut off the Aura (It requires LoS to function right? So anything hidden from her would be free to push again?) I guess that in general is a solution, just trying to block LoS with large-ish models would basically shut Anna off, even if you weren't killing her. Ototo could walk up to her by himself and once a 40mm base is touching her 30mm base she'd be fairly eclipsed huh? Is that a potential option, or something that is very unfeasible?

I know this quote is a bit in the past, but I just want to reply to the very last part of this, where DocWut says "People aren't prioritizing her." I'm curious what you mean in a sense (Do/did you feel that people simply aren't trying her out/playing her enough?), and or did you mean this in a specific sense of the game (Competitive vs otherwise)? I'm really only curious because honestly, after I picked up the Shifting, and saw Anna, I absolutely knew she terrified me. I don't normally play Ressers (Though I have a few), but Anna's existence is on the boarder of sane to me. The one "balancing" factor I see for her really is that she was granted the Merc type so technically all the factions can make use of her incredible power; Which both makes her a threat to all crews, it does potentially offer the chance of failing a bit if she doesn't offer too much against a certain crew. Although I don't know what crew style trumps her, or exactly what weakness she exhibits, as I don't know the whole of the game that well. But her abilities seem quite game altering in general (Being able to lock down over 16" of the board from pushes is nuts, although I guess it's an aura, so LoS does effect it, and she is only Ht 2) plus she is certainly not lacking in the attack area, with her primary Ca being good enough that I don't even know when someone would want to use her Ml (Unless the opponent's Wp was that much lower than their Df and you were already engaged). Off hand, have you had any exceptionally hard times using her, or any match ups where she seemed to offer less? I mean, aside for someone potentially realizing the threat she presents and focusing her down, which is not exactly a deep "tactical" answer to her. Also, do you feel outside of the Tara list, that the Hanna/Anna combo (Which they are both Mercs, so theoretically they can pair up in any crew for a few extra ss) is worth taking? Or is it based on a conditional boon it grants in a certain crew? It seems like you are of the mindset that taking Anna and Hanna is simply a no-brainer, but I can't determine if that is simply the pair or if they are being "enabled" by something.

Why not just say "Select a (1) Action target non-Leader model has"? In comparison, look at Show Off and consider the possible rules discussions if it had said "gains". "So I move my gremlin into LoS so that it gains the action, then move back out of line of sight and take the action..." I do think that Ludvig's point on Dopplegangers is a good point, although perhaps not too clear. Can you not take actions granted to individual models by upgrades? (But that isn't this discussion). As a counter point Solkan, look at Howling Wolf Tattoo: Point being, I don't assume they keep the ability when they leave LoS, do you? Because originally my question with the Smoke and Shadows was "If it said everyone gains this ability, would they lose it when the model carrying the upgrade dies?" Because my thought was that, with Howling Wolf Tattoo, it only benefits them if they are within LoS, so if the model with that upgrade dies, there is no LoS to them, so they can't use it. But if the LoS clause was gone, would it change anything? I don't know exactly, but I would learn towards no. They can neither keep the ability when walking out of LoS (As with Howling Wolf) nor if the Smoke and Shadow Caddy died, if the card had been worded with "Gains" instead. I would be glad to play it either way, as long as it was consistent, even just in a single game. And I don't know if it is intended to be different or not. I feel this question is really down to Wyrd to declare their intentions, because both ways seem reasonable to me.

I'm pretty sure Killjoy is actually just a pig. I mean, he basically has Set'er Off, right?

That's a really funny work around. But yeah, Ml and Sh are clearly defined, and it is clearly not defined as either of them. On a side note, I guess ghost shouldn't stick their hands in Bishop's mouth.

Especially if what people have suggested about the Plant-girl changelings being from around the Mysterious Emissary's feet. I would buy.. all the Neverborn.

That's funny. I thought this was a numerically classed contest, and last one was the sixth. I understand now better. Also, the word Obsessions, ahhh such fun to be had. PS: You mention the non-literal nature of incorporating ingredients, but does that work with "the line/the location" or is that directly meant to be a piece of dialog? Just curious of the nature of things in the contest. Some of the items lend themselves to the nature of being non-literal (Mask and monsters), but I want to make sure the other ones could be accepted outside of their implied use. Not that I have any idea how that would even work. Would it also suffice to have a character say a line like "And there comes Jimbo walkin' in" when Jimbo happens to be a one eyed (Potentially) stranger?

So this came up in a game I played against my friend, who was using Collodi for the first time against me. It didn't end up coming into play, because I didn't go gunning for Collodi right off the bat, but we discussed it, and figured that Collodi would be able to run away from Misaki, rendering her ability to charge him a bit less useful. I'm pretty sure I haven't asked this before, but the question was what order does Next Target and Run Away Home trigger in? Since that determines if Misaki get's to respond to Collodi's movement, and thus keep engaged, or if he can actually skirt away from her. From page 32 of the rule book, I am correct to read the line: "If two Triggers would resolve at the same time, Defender's Trigger is resolved first." and take it to mean Misaki is the one who get's to follow, yes? I believe we based our answer on the aside box on page 46, titled General Timing. Which says acting model resolves ability's first, then defenders. But it seems this is referring to multiple models prompted to take actions rather than the state of triggers. Anyhow, just making sure I have this fully under control. Seems clear cut now that I happened to have read that sentence, but just to verify As a followup question, when a Beckoner uses their Lure, and triggers Not that kind of Girl, the lured model is moved as resolution of the action in Step 5 (As on pages 32-33), and then the trigger happens? Or do those both count as happening during Step 5? In which case, which occurs first, since moving the Beckoner before the Lure goes off could potentially change the line of approach of the target. Thanks for the help in advance (Solkan).

Well, just because mechanically they both "Bury" doesn't mean it's going to the same place. It is entirely possibly it's literally just in a coffin (Maybe a magic coffin). Likewise, Torakage Bury to do their smoke & shadows, and they aren't literally Nightcrawlering across the board (As far as I know), they are just doing.. sheisty ninja tricks.

The effects in this game are fairly clear, like in Magic. Which is to say, ": (effects)" are on the right side of the colon, and the "(Cost) :" are on the left. And when other timing sequences might be an issue they typically say things like "When a model dies, place this model in base contact before removing it." or such. If the colon argument helps.

I didn't look too far back (Just what was on this page), but just a quick bit of comments: I don't like Kat's dress being the same green as everything else, but over all they look pretty cool. Green+purple works well, and you can't see it in the close shot of Tara (I think lighting ruined it maybe), but the further back one, her claw has that same purple tint to it's starker-bright highlights, and that is really nice. I also dislike the very fleshy tones on the Belles with Seamus, a bit too living (Almost closer to someone getting a tan, too much life in it IMO). I enjoy the juxtaposition between Seamus and the Little Hatter's colors between hats, it's an interesting way to link those two, since they are very closely related. But overall I feel like the crew suffers a bit from a bit offbeat colors between them. I guess they share the flesh in common, although I feel like that is a bit off. Although I guess they also share the grey hair/black shades. But neutral colors don't really offer as good of cohesion between them I feel. Might just be me. However, more importantly, and the reason I wanted to post: That Molly looks fantastic. I absolutely love the fact that you got the very faint veins across her all over, with the black-blooded evilness inside her. The yellow dress is also quite nice, considering that color is often quite hard. I will say though that the "Purple" OSL shading on her yellow dress looks a fair bit muddled when not looked at very closely, and they just look a bit like dark/messy blotches on her dress. You may want to make the purple more evident (It looks like you were trying to be a bit subtle, but it looks likely off from a distance to me). Cool though. Very nice over all.

Isn't it one of the easy summons as well? AkA, something to potentially just throw out there just because you're holding a Crow that is just high enough to catch one off a corpse? I don't really play/see Ressers as of yet, so I dunno if the Autopsy is not a fan favorite.

Anyone want/available for a game tonight? I'll be around for the next few hours if someone wants to start a match, and available to play till the end.

No Shirt? Is he friends with Von Schill?

By the By, Monday is the 5th.

I guess that's the more typical question. Same difference, the meaning gets across. Yeah, I suppose that simply starting another game is a choice. Although that has potential risk with appealing less mechanically or otherwise. And it feels weird to think that a miniature game like this would be shelved and simply kept in a single state, a final state. If that's what you're implying, that "closing the chapter" on Malifaux to prevent it degenerating due to design limitations/flaws inherent to games that seek to never stop expanding. Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you're saying. But it seems like going that route would be the same as asking people to stop caring. I mean, certainly plenty of people are interested in the game as it stands, but with no new products ever I don't see the game drawing in new customers? Especially when it's this style, where there is a very large selection of things to potentially buy, as appose to say, a board game, which you expect to typically purchase once and be done. Although even board games often have expansions, but there are a great number stand on their own over the years. Settlers of Catan or Carcassonne are two that despite not being new are quite likely to continue being purchased by board gamers. But I can't imagine stock for a typical table-top wargame to draw in sales when the game no longer is generating new support or product.

That's funny, I didn't catch a chance to vote (Or even read all of the entries, unfortunately), but the only three I read were those three. Certainly seems like a fun run.

Well to be fair, TCGs are rather pricey at this point, and simply building a land base for a top tier deck can be comparable to much of the spending you could put into a minis game. Not that players/consumers would ever look at it that way. Plus the biggest difference is that the cards are basically liquid assets, as you can easily trade value for value without batting an eye. With miniatures not many people want to simply swap models, as either they are interested in doing their own work, or the value of aesthetics are often not there, meaning there is little reason to value. Though you could trade models, just most people would sooner proxy than swap if they wanted to try something new without buying it. And all of that is a fair point, and certainly divides the way the business model can be set up (Which I did note, maybe not as precisely). Well, they already are almost, with the newest iteration of Avatars and Campaign upgrades that are stated as legal only in campaign. Granted a lot of this is very much fundamentally an "Alternate" play style to the main game, so people don't feel like they are being cheated or denied things if they aren't given access to it. But why can't something similar exist as the base game? They don't need to exclusively ban all prior models or remove them in any way, I'm just suggesting that for their higher-level play, where players expect controlled and balanced games, perhaps having a 2-3 year window of what is "Tournament" legal is a decent idea to prevent unintended play issues. Control is the goal, and not having to build all new abilities and interactions with the full game's worth of models effecting it would prevent accidentally poor designs (Or intentional, if they were meant to rotate out before the other model came in) affecting the game in a negative way. But you could still fully play anything you want in any open format or friendly game, so I don't see how that is a huge issue, just like you're fully allowed to use Avatars in friendly matches if you please. It's not like 2-3 years is so short people can't expect to invest more into the hobby, if they like the game. Hell you'd spend more on Video gaming in such a span of time than you'd be forced to with this sort of rotation. And this doesn't apply simply to new masters. Even under the plan to expand previous masters with upgrades that make them feel unique and fresh could fall into this same trapping, or potentially fit into a rotation scheme. Honestly, I don't view new masters and new upgrades for masters differently. They are both going to be asking the game to bend to a new set of rules, and if the upgrades don't give a distinct take on the master (IE, are not terribly unique), then they won't exactly be offering very much to the game anyways. But at the same time, any upgrades that do alter the master in a significant way will still put a mechanical pressure on the game to not design new upgrades/models that accidentally make abusive situations. I am taking a bit of liberty in assuming you intend for upgrades to alter the masters in meaningful ways, similar to how the Limited upgrades function currently, so forgive me if this is not true. Regardless, the ground stands on theory that, as Omenbringer has pointed to, the game can not infinitely grow. And while I can't venture a guess as to any sort of time span that would be required to effectively spoil the game with poor design interactions, intended or otherwise, I can make a few statements with a fair bit of certainty. For one, Wyrd/Malifaux is not looking to end. So in continuing, they must release more content to some extent. Regardless of the form it takes, eventually toes will be stepped on, and designs may either limit the scope of future design, or be accidentally released with unintended consequences. I think it's at least a preferable option to consider that such a time may come. And I think a design choice to control this theoretical event is better than what many games seem to do, in edition resets. And while the game has plenty of space to explore mechanically, space becomes more limited when nothing is ever at least side-lined to allow models to tweak concepts which would otherwise seem far too similar. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like there should be a way to implement a system. And I don't know that people objecting is a sign that things shouldn't change, though considering the market is something that has to be done.

Perhaps I am simply tired, but I feel like the meaning of this is a little muddled. Is this saying if the attack causes burning? Or the target is burning? Or that the model attack is, itself, burning? I am leaning towards the last option, but I feel it could be cleaned up as a sentence. re worded it - how does it sound now? Perfect!

Perhaps I am simply tired, but I feel like the meaning of this is a little muddled. Is this saying if the attack causes burning? Or the target is burning? Or that the model attack is, itself, burning? I am leaning towards the last option, but I feel it could be cleaned up as a sentence.

You would recommend a gremlin box.. As an alternative, have you simply considered asking her for a list of top 3-5 masters or maybe factions she would like to get into? Typically I think most players would enjoy rather playing something they are interested in than a good match up if the crew they are playing is unappealing. But that might just be how I look at things

Good gosh, I wasn't getting notifications on this thread, I assumed as the person that started it I didn't need to do anything to further be aware of things being posted. I'm use to just having my topics fall to the way-side, so I didn't even look here for the past day or two, durp! That would be great actually. I'd love to see that. But what faction would that be? A few possibilities of the top of me head: Another tribe of Neverborn (like Gremlins are a kind of Neverborn). With the Guild in Malifaux being a total mess after Shifting Loyalties and I guess SS exports being held up, a force from earth could show and try to take control. Either earth Guild guys or some other lot that has taken over after earth Guild turned out to be a bit of mess themselves and collapsed when the SS deliveries seized. The monsters from The Other Side. I agree very much that factions with over-lap or cross-utility would be an amazing tool to utilize. I also thoroughly love the goal of brainstorming new faction potentials for various cross-combinations of the factions. The fluffy ramifications are always fun to imagine! I never asked for more Masters. What I can not fathom is the notion of quelling a regular disbursement of new masters. They are fundamental to generating excitement and inspiring players. And while new ways to play a master might be mechanically dynamic, if I hate the factions or masters available currently, I will not be more excited to see them do new tricks. Granted there is a decent amount of flavorful composition in Malifaux that lends itself to appealing to someone in at least one way, but you understand the point. Players get more excited about new things typically. The thing that gets me is that I feel like many people who were looking to stem Master-flow based it on the notion of avoiding unbalancing the game, or making too many variables for Wyrd to keep things easy without breaking them. To which the counter point of offering new upgrades for variant play-styles on existing masters offers no advantage, because changing a master in a meaningful way to create new play options would inflict the same sort of issue on the game. Potential imbalance. But if that is not the primary objection to new masters then I find it far less odd. I just had assumed that players were misunderstanding the implications of certain twist to the game. Which is why I brought up Anna Lovelace, since she has a rather strong pull on the game (That's a gravity pun, yes). What I fear is models/abilities/potentially upgrades for old masters/or what have you, that become far too staple in the game. I have not played terribly much, but I see Anna being a strong contender for hard to resist when building crews. I agree, it would be very interesting to see a keyword (Like Belle/Showgirl/Freikorps/Etc.) that is spread out across many factions, with masters that utilize them specifically more limited. It's actually something that already happens, with things like Puppets and Collodi or the fact that all Friekorps are generally Mercs so everyone can hire them, as well as masters/henches that are dual-faction and can bring in members of other factions to the crew (Toshiro, Lynch, Misaki, McMourning, Etc.). But having that sort of thematic spread supported with mechanics is always wonderful to see, although center piece figures for specific crews that cry "Build around me!" are also a potential for changing up how a crew is played. I think masters are not the only ones that offer strong alterations to the game though. As I have mentioned previously, Anna Lovelace is a very strong character, and I think one of the defining features that truly balances her is the fact that she is a Mercenary. The fact that anyone can potentially have access to a very strong counter to crews based on pushing everything around means everyone has to stay on their toes. And that's an interesting point about Malifaux, in that they offer the ability to mold your forces once you have knowledge of the game's specific conditions, such as the faction match up and Strat/Scheme. That means you can potentially call someone's motive in faction and seek to counter it before hand (Such as Merc Anna/Hanna, who are both good at specific goals, and available to everyone). But it also hurts games where players have less available models, because then inability to switch up crews can create poor match ups on a regular basis if the players don't understand the idea of maintaining fun between themselves. On the other hand, the story of the Masters and their motives isn't entirely dependent on not releasing new masters. Although I can understand the desire that no one is left entirely in the dust, I think it is healthy to have a rotation with old themes making way for new. Although for Malifaux that is not yet something that is happening exactly. Though we did see progress from 1st Ed to M2e, with characters changing station and the story progressing. I would however expect that Wyrd does not need to release new editions of the game to fuel further progress, but I don't know how possible the idea of rotating format/model availability is exactly. If they are going to continue to add models to the game this is likely the best way to do it (and likely why we now have two more factions for the game than in the last edition). Continuing to add to the existing factions will just decrease the variety of models that are actually played (due to optimization) and also the uniqueness of each Master/ Faction. Warmachine is a great example of this hazard (when it started the factions were fairly clearly defined with strengths and weakness, now the lines are heavily blurred and in some cases no longer exist). In my opinion you are already starting to see this in Malifaux. The upgrades have a bit of potential to offer new styles of play for the existing Masters/ Factions, though also carry the dangers of obsolescence. You can not sustain unlimted growth without invalidating things. Well, you can, I believe. Though the growth is not the only thing that needs to be considered. Well grown plants are often tended to carefully, and pruning the unwanted is certainly something that allows growth to blossom into something we would like to see. On the other hand, unlimited growth without any sort of attempt to cull issues as they are presented/develop is more akin to simply allowing a bush to grow unhindered, potentially taking over the sidewalk we used to observe it from, or destroying other plants that were simply too close to it. That is what needs to be avoided, not limiting growth all together. I am curious, since no one has actually commented on it yet, does anyone have any opinion on a rotation based system for the game? Sorry this post was so long by the way, I really wish I had known this topic spurred a discussion, I would have loved to reply to people not all in one huge post. Hopefully this isn't too much of a wall of text though, and still worth looking at.

Did Crystal Skull ruin it for you? At least McCabe never got into a refrigerator to avoid Sonnia's avatar.

Where'd this scenario come around? I haven't played any of the tailored scenarios in Malifaux thus far, just the normal matches in general.