MONSTERNOGGIN

Good deal, thanks for the quick response!

This will be my time playing in an enforcer brawl. When enforcers re-enter the brawl, is it essentially a hard-reset on all the stats including upgrades?

Mine's next on the painting table after I finish Wong (and also the last of my GenCon painting list unless I decide to grind out a Brewmaster crew) and will be seeing a hefty amount of table time in the coming weeks. Do you have any particularly favorite pig-tossing hijinks Doc?

+1 to Ultrapro binders. I use a small four sleeve one for the faction I'm taking, cards organized by Master, Henchman, Enforcer, Minion, and Peon alphabetically. Upgrades follow broken down by master, then generic. My gremlins fit nicely, along with the various out of faction models that tend to wander into my lists. It's small enough to where it fits in the top tray of my toolbox (magnetized bases here, i don't trust my skeeters to foam!) with my tape measure, fate decks, markers, and dice so I don't end up with extra stuff I will inevitably forget.

Quite right Math! The young have their roles, to be sure. Reloading Ophelia's upgrades and dropping the random jug rocket barrage has definitely provided it's enjoyable moments. I've finally got my old cranky painted up, and have been fielding him more lately. He fits my playstyle a bit more than the young do at the moment, and his ability to buff the rest of the crew makes him a bit more versatile for me.

I'll be around (it's mike from Asgard's). Just text me. I should be looking for games throughout the day.

You may be able to find a lone M1e Lenny floating around on the interwebs, but at some point you will need to expand into the Bayou Boss set so you may as well set aside a little cash for the box. I second Fetid on the slop haulers as well. Don't mourn the loss of the young per se`, you can proxy Old Cranky and you won't even miss them. Welcome to the bayou! Once you get the hang of things, be prepared for making folks rage-quit. Ophelia can dish out the pain, and Francois mops 'em up.

Since this got resurrected, had my first brewie game against Pandora the other day. It turned into a big slap-fest in the middle while our scheme runners did their job. Not to eventful, but it was interesting none-the-less.

Thanks for posting this, I've been thinking the same myself. My first thought is whether the Malifaux side of the breach is a parallel, but alternate reality which is following the earthside timeline regarding civilization development. If so, the first breach was in the 1700's and the city already felt ancient. For me this would imply wattle and daub heavy timber construction along compacted dirt/cobblestone streets in the merchant and residential quarters and stone veneer and paving in the governmental and wealthier class quarters of the city a-la Europe of the 1500-1600's. Option two: The Malifaux side of the Breach represents a fluid manifestation of the darker, more sinister side of human consciousness (for me best exemplified by the Dreamer). So the first time the Breach opens, it reflects the architecture of the 1700's but more sinister. The second time it opens, it now reflects the architecture of the late 1800's. Since it is continually inhabited it doesn't 'reset' and therefore evolves with the inhabitants. If that's the case, then I would read Dickens for desciptions of dirty London for inspiration. As new quarters are uncovered, they will in turn manifest to reflect the darker side of those who discover them. Option three: The Malifaux timeline is completely independent but comparable to earthside time. If that's the case, then the sky's the limit. I tend to lean in this direction and get images of an organic city much in the vein of the "sung stone" found in Robert Jordan's descriptions of Aes Sedai buildings built by the Ogier in the Wheel of Time series. The architecture would seem familiar, but the lines and proportions would have an unnerving effect due to the un-earthly means of construction. "Elegant horror" is the way I describe it to myself. The fluff describes humanity scabbing onto the existing vernacular, making due, reshaping, or completely gutting what's there to make way for what's needed. The terrain possibilities are really exciting. I've been playing around with sketches for some city oriented terrain lately. My image library is a growing collection of the shanty towns of Mexico City and Brazil as well as black and whites from the Great Depression here in the U.S (which is roughly analogous to present day Malifaux give or take 10 years). There's an architect by the name of Lebius Woods who has a slew of concept sketches dealing with how a new civilization builds upon the infrastructure of the old. Granted, his stuff is very futuristic, but his idea about grafting onto and repurposing existing buildings and the juxtaposing of very disparate design aesthetics definitely has place in the Malifaux world. What are your thoughts?

Starting in mid-January, we started keeping track of my flips. Over the course of 22 consecutive games, I had won 8 initiative or deployment flips and that includes stoning for an extra card. Yes, I do believe that like poker, anyone can win with a good hand, but good players win with a mediocre hand so I'm not whining. However, the comedic value is just stellar. At this point, my local henchman has taken to reassuring my opponents that they needn't worry about going second, and that all they need to flip is a 5 or better. We've begun crew building and theory-fauxing based around the assumption that I will be going second every turn. It's proving quite the puzzle.

Month 01 posted to FlippingJokers. Like the rest of you, I'm looking for feedback. Thinking about either sammy and another 4 gremlins or sammy and burt. Leaning to sammy and burt, let me know your thoughts.

sammy + family tree = gremlin summoning factory that can leave somer (carrying encouragement) free to go beat face. Leave a skeeter with her for suits and your good to go. If she's in the mix, I drop lenny and pick up burt or francois for extra fire power. I like using her to defend markers by denying movement to enemy models, she's very good at dishing out healthy dose of 'nope' when needed. Turning enemy markers into stuffed piglets on turn 5 is also a whole heap of fun.

Here's that Old Cranky conversion.

Yup, Nico is the favored master of our top player and he rolls with it without blinking, I swear. Between Nico, Seamus, and Molly, they've got me where I just assume everything in their lists is terrifying, hard to wound, hard to kill, and fast . It's pretty ridiculous.

Thanks for the input guys. Ya'll are talking sense, I just wanted an outsiders perspective because 40SS games are too common to not have some basis for the decision. We have an interesting Meta here. Our local store has a very fast, aggressive playstyle so we very rarely have games that are called due time. Our better players will have a game done, or their opponent tabled, within 45min or so. Models start leaving the table and markers are down starting turn two, and it's not uncommon for Masters to be locked down/removed by end of turn three. Also, our top players all play summoners, so the lower SS tends to amplify their power level. It's definitely an interesting Meta to 'grow-up' in. Frustrating at times, but it teaches to you move fast. Most of us are getting 3-4 games a week and have been since first edition (and now we're having monthly tournaments), so the general advice around here is that you need 50-60 games with a Master before moving to the next. I logged around 30 games with Lynch, 25-30 with Collodi, 30 or so with Dreamer, and 25-30 with Ophelia in 2014 and I keep being heckled for jumping Masters . We also follow the "I am going to punch you in the face until you learn to dodge the punch, then I'll start sweeping your leg...." method of teaching the game, so mistakes are costly. Again, thanks for the replies.

As a bit of a disclaimer, I've only played M2e and so have no ties to previous versions' formats or carryovers. Forgive me if I've skipped over a previous discussion on this topic, but I feel I'm missing something. I understand the premise behind the 25SS Henchman Hardcore format (not a fan myself, but I can appreciate why people like it and support its growth), but the 40-45SS bracket leaves me scratching my head. From what I gather, the game is designed for optimal balance at 50SS. My local group plays 50SS almost exclusively (save for the occasional grow league) and generally the only time we play at the 40-45SS level is when a new player doesn't have enough models to round out 50SS rather than because we want to run a smaller crew. The few times I have played at the slightly smaller crew size I don't know that it brought a different aspect to the game. If anything, it implied a arm-behind-the-back handicap with the masters not hitting on all cylinders more than any additional nuances to strategy. A 5-10SS differential is a model, maybe two, or a slightly smaller cache and again, not 'game-changing' (again, my observance, no trolling implied). I realize the flipside to this reasoning is that "If 5-10SS isn't a big deal, then why do you care?". And that's a valid question too. I guess for me at the end of the day, with the manner in which Wyrd packages their models, if you have 40-45SS worth of models then you more than likely have the 50SS so go ahead and play it at 50SS where it's intended. The ultimate reason I'm polling the group is that I see a proliferation of 40SS tournaments floating about, and it leaves me asking...why? Is it a tournament time management tactic (fewer stones, fewer models, shorter turns)? Is it a nod to the newer player to help encourage more folks to play? Is it a quest to have a optimally optimized optimal build? I know there are those of us who love this format, so now is your chance to sell me on it. Thanks for your thoughts, I'm interested to see where this goes.

The second contributor to Flipping Jokers has posted his Yan-Lo Month 0.

My inability to walk into a store and buy a hat like a normal person has long been a subject of humor amongst my friends. ...

I'm using a converted bayou gremlin a buddy whipped up for me. He also made a pretty sweet Sammy proxy as well.

My Ophelia core as of late has been Ophelia (dirty cheater) Francois (dirty cheater) Lenny Old Cranky Lenny tosses Ophelia and Francois 8", then Ooh a Girl Lenny into ram-buff range. You can erase a model a turn no problem and get a SS a turn while also receiving to defense and +1 WP to boot. If you're facing blasty crews, then throw in a Merris. Knowing you can eliminate 3 flesh constructs on turn one if you have to is a nice feeling when facing Rezzers.

I add Merris and Old Cranky to my core Ophelia/Lenny/Francois group for anti-blast fun against the likes of Raspy and Sonnia. After Ophelia and Francois pick off key enemy models at will for the first 2 or 3 turns, Merris then can pop over and get your your breakthrough/power ritual/plant evidence without breaking a sweat. Also, gremlin hotpants and tubetop FTW.

We've kicked ours off the ground this evening. http://flippingjokers.blogspot.com/ There are two of us and so the idea is to watch how the power balance shifts between the crews as models are added and we get more comfortable with the Masters. We'll see how it goes!

Should we prep ourselves for the oncoming storm of gremlin-bandwagoneers?