LunarSol

Fwiw. If the cap isn't +3 in general there's very little value in there being a cap at all .

I assume Colette, but I can make an argument for Raspy or Ramos as well. Lilith springs to mind for NVB, though Lynch can probably hold his own for either faction. 10T in particular seems to be the faction whose unique aspects are just now being uncovered, so I wouldn't put it past others. My first guess for Ressers would be Kirai, but I haven't played against her enough to say that with conviction.

These are generally only available at Easter/Black Friday. The GenCon sale is mostly about giving everyone the same options that are available to people at the actual GenCon store, so there aren't really any exclusives that they're not bringing with them to GenCon.

They were in the last book, but I don't have the specifics in front of me. The big hook is they have an ability that stops nearby models from being forced to move that's useful to shutdown lure. They also have a cast with a variety of triggers and the ability to be turned into bombs. 5 SS? I think? They're a rather useful tool to have in the box at the very least.

I wouldn't count on the stuff that doesn't really show up in Outcast lists personally, but some of those models that are excellent, but just not really worth another stone like Ronin are tempting.

Meh, I think with Wave 2 in particular, 10T definitely got the tools to be in the top 5 and Neverborn has masters versatile enough to easily make it a top 6. I'd also definitely consider Ressers if I was to list the top 7 factions in the game.

Valedictorian is nice, but I'm not terribly sure how necessary it is. Sanctioned Spellcasters are nice just for the anti-Lure.

The totem is pretty blah. Some people like it, but generally you're probably better off with just picking up the Malifaux Child. The ability to throw up a second flame wall is very very powerful.

Just off the base card, tagging a bunch of stuff with Slow and a bit of damage seems good and annoying. I'd start there and consider any other triggers a bonus rather than plan on always having Evidence available. If anything, its nice having so much Rst:Wp on her card.

Hounds are the obvious thing to add to it and fit fine. From there I'd probably add some Trappers who can easily fit the apocalyptic aesthetic. Last year's Miss model is a solid Wastrel option too.

I'm guessing a few of them won't be simply because they'll have been upgraded to "already released and in stores" by then. There's only a few things besides the crew boxes here that aren't slated for a release by September.

Nightmare pricing is what I'd expect. Certainly its biggest detraction here is how many other awesome exclusives are competing with it. It's actually a pretty solid (if premium) deal when you consider you're getting the $40 Mounted Guardsmen set in it. Rather unfortunate that the Mounted Guardsmen themselves look fantastic. Getting Nellie and the Mounted Guardsmen for sure. After that I've got a lot of temptations, but realistically I won't get them painted before an official release. Something to ponder for a couple weeks at least.

Ramen is too expensive. I'm looking at foraging for flowers and grass clippings from the neighbor's lawn.

Guild is mildly dull only in comparison to the others, but its weird in the sense that its mundane qualities are what make it a stand out concept. Love how the reporters all turned out and Phiona is an incredibly looking render. The Resser box is quite stunning. The Vincent is very intimidating and the shieldbeaers all have really appealing designs. Set is suprisingly not very Resser looking until the Corpse Candles show up. Arcanists are only let down by the rather meh Gamin. Kudra looks spectacular and Banasuva looks to add to the huge field of Arcanist centerpieces. Neverborn probably get the best box. Not sure there's much room to argue here. The Gorar is the only model that is only great, where everything else is just... making me consider bad choices. Outcasts get a very cool box. I'd be 100% in on the faction if it was more of this and less Resser. Doc is hilariously awesome. Solid set, but there's already gunslingers and pistoleros so its not quite as amazing as it would have been once upon a time. Gremlins get more of the completely unfair Sky Pirate theme. McCabe's hunting party is cool, but compared to Skeeters flying in to Ride of the Valkyrie? No contest. Ten Thunders get a great addition, but less my particular style. Oni are such a deep well of creative designs though and seeing so many great interpretations of under appreciated horror myths is fantastic. The bettari is particularly well done. So for me? Neverborn > Resser > Gremlins > Guild > Outcasts > Arcanists > Ten Thunders? Maybe? Expect to see the edit tag appear on this post frequently, because I'm honestly not sure. They're all top notch.

I'd largely question why you're not running McMourning instead or more specifically in addition. The two actually work together fairly well due to their high mobility and his box set makes for a fun thematic crew combined with the starter (even if they're only visually thematic). The only thing outside I'd feel the need to add is a Witchling Stalker as the Igor of the group.

It's far less powerful in practice than it sounds in theory. It's horrifying on Howard in a large part because of Nimble. On the Emissary you're looking at a very expensive package to make it work efficiently and at a significantly shorter threat range. The Emissary has some cool tricks, but the tax of needing a Death Marshal to make it even remotely flexible enough to function limits how truly effective the combos are and the crews it can slot in to. It's a good piece, but it's really far from auto-include.

Looks incredible. The motorcycle and wheels of doom are just incredibly well done.

Edna never understood the value of quick release snaps.

Reactivated Trapper shots with McCabe are also pretty cool.

I saw her and got a huge grin, but ultimately thought I could do without. Then someone mentioned her with Colette and... sigh... Worse yet, someone's going to do an awesome basing job of her on a tightrope for the Dark Carnival...

I've played around with Handlers and quite like the package, but find it a tad expensive to really sing. You're paying 8 stones to buff 5 stone models and that really doesn't pay off until you spam the things, at which point you really just need to go all in with 4+ of them, Disrupt Magic and Reincarnation support. It's cool, but I'm not sure its efficient enough to work with the masters I mentioned. Maybe its the right answer, but I'd still love to have something more melee focused and ideally Death Marshal themed.

I've often pondered the US/UK split on the faction but found more questions than answers. Is it just player preference? Is it terrain? (Guild is probably the faction most affected by terrain honestly) I honestly don't know. In terms of the faction itself, I find the biggest issue comes from the lack of a fast, effective, cheap melee minion option. It doesn't really affect the faction's top end viability, but it tends to result in McMourning/Lady J/Lucius lacking the tools and support to fight effectively in the middle of the table. It's a little easy for them to wind up overextended while the rest of their crew needs to hang back around their effective ranges. McCabe gets around this by removing the biggest limit on the Hounds. Orderlies might also just be what the doctor ordered but I can't help but feel like what's missing is essentially faster Witchling Stalkers that drop their condition removal for the speed to make full use of their melee. What I really want is some kind of melee Death Marshal that could benefit from Lady J's currently niche push upgrade and Inspiring Swordplay.

Sky Pirate is completely broken. It's strictly better than every other character trait in the game.

Right, that's what I was getting at. I think the idea is sound, but the issue with the implementation is simply that you can control the existence of the 4th rat well enough to get full value in a turn out of the individual rats before forming a King. I'd considered the idea myself, but I'd have to try it to know if it has its own problems. That much interrupted AP might be a different sort of problem, even if its low quality AP.

This. The important lesson to learn here is that there's an inherent value in an activation and there needs to be considerations whenever something breaks this base value. One good example is that 2 SS totems are often a good way to break a base value simply because there's (usually) a hard limit of one per crew. I don't think any of the stopgap measures I've seen work for Malifaux. The Marvel game has a pass system, but ultimately that gets weird when most of your activations are being created mid turn. I certainly wouldn't want Ramos starting with the option to pass several times before overrunning the board with spiders, for example. Besides, its been my experience that passing only lessons an issue that really mostly comes down to the old issue of games largely being a collection of different kinds of resources and it being important to remember that while you might have a primary resource (mana) the game can break if any of them fail to be limited properly (card draw). As for fixing issues in Malifaux, I'm kind of curious about taking the Waif's tether concept further. Basically, give them a version of Companion where they can only activate as a Chain Activation after a friendly model activates near them. I'm not sure this could be used to solve the Rat problem though. In many ways, I think the Rat King was the intent to create a "group of cheap models working together" sort of mechanic; unfortunately though, I think there's just a little too much room to control its creation in order to abuse the concept.