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I'm well excited about this! The localness of the location is all the icing on the days playing games cake. Woop woop!

I think this question is maybe more open ended than you'd hope, play styles can be subtle enough in variance that it can be hard to know in advance how one will fare with different make up's and games. I learnt to play with Guild and I'm now learning to play with Neverborn. My experiments with Neverborn have been centred around Lilith as she's the only painted master I have so far. However it does seem to me as though you can't go wrong picking up the Dark Debts box and Mother of Monsters. It has a decent spread of minions that are effective enough for the points. Illuminated are amazing and reasonably forgiving and the Terror tots have decent advantages that are in a different area. Maybe more victory points oriented and less raw killing/ survivability. The other advantage of these 2 boxes is that the masters play differently enough to give you some variety in how you can play the game. Each box has different strength and weaknesses. Do you have any you like the look of aesthetically in particular?

I have a bunch of stuff I'm clearing out. On the off chance you fine folks want any of it let#'s see if we can trade. I'm based in the UK. I have; Bushido- Rulebook, Ito Clan starter set fully based and painted. Bases are done in a wilderness by a river theme. I also have Kenzo Ito, Kaihhimie Ito, Ayako Ito and Satoshi built and with bases prepared to match the other bases. Urban War Viridian Blisters of shock troops and 1 other (to be edited in correctly) Triads 4 retainers with guns, 4 reatiners with naginata 2 Kabuki dolls and 3 Sumatori GW 40K; Space Wolves, 2 10 man grey hunter squads with double Plasma guns built and undercoated black. 5 Blood claws built and 4 Wolf Guard in power armour built, some undercoated, also have a clutch of extra grey hunters with bolters built and undercoated. I have a Blood Angel army all built and painted to a high standard with plenty of conversions/kit bashes throughout I want quite a lot for this and there's a lot of it. Further details on request. A partially painted Leman Russ Exterminator in brown camo pattern, Camo done but no details painted. 1 Dark Eldar warriors box, 5 built rest on sprue. Resin Farseer and 3 Warlock box, farseer built and undercoated rest untouched. A box of the Mordheim Carnival of Chaos, and maybe an extra blister of basic spods, can't remember now how they were packaged. I also have a blood on the streets scenery pack. Tons of Battlefleet Gothic Imperial ships plus core game bits, Core game minus 1 or 2 dropped dice and tokens and without the Chaos ships. 1 1st Edition Space Hulk full rules and board pieces but miniatures in a shambolic state. I have a bunch of Harbingers from the olden days of Harbinger magazine, around 10 of them. I'm after Guild: Relic Hunters, Sonnia and McMourning crew boxes Neverborn: Graves, Tannen, Beckoners, Depleted, Primordial Magic, doppleganger Outcasts: Von SChill Crew, Strongarm suit, Bishop, Vanessa Only interested in Plastics and not after painted stuff. More stuff to be added as I get a sort through.

Lee, I'm a little concerned that you made your Kade naked. So that'll lead to a minor thread tangent. In general 3 of a minion aren't often used, but are Illuminated good enough to use 3? They are so good but equally lists can seem boring with so many of the same thing, particularly if it costs more than 4ss. Do people ever use 3 Illuminated though?

I've used them a fair few times over the years and never failed to get the items I ordered from them. The free second class post is nice. They are however not the quickest. Communication is generally sluggish and dispatch isn't wildly quick. I've never used the not free postage options from them so don't know if that bumps you up priority or whatever. It's hard to give them a glowing review, but I've never had any problems personally. One friend had an issue and got quite annoyed with a lack of communication and has vowed never to us them again. But to balance that out I have a group of 5 friends who order from Arcane all the time and consider them a favoured retailer and only say neutral to positive things. So that's 6 pluses to one negative in my experience

I chuffin' love Infinity. I'd have liked it to be my main game but Malifaux has found a local audience that I can play good fun games with. Part of the appeal for me of Malifaux, and Infinity is the small model count and the different lists often approach. As a fringe benefit I find the flipping for strats and schemes and list building on the day, quite a social and engaging way to start the game. Gaming is about hanging out with friends for me. Certainly true. However they all have an underlying structure and when it comes to games, a shallow system is still a shallow system. They're designed to allow options and if the options all boil down to the same thing, you're choices will become meaningless. The old frontline gamer blog had a nice dissection of Dreadfleet detailing it's design points. The best quote, was along the lines of the player was just a cog in it's own internal logic engine basically saying you didn't get to make meaningful choices. So while the subjectivity of how much you like that applies, we can still discuss what the underlying structures actually are and what choices and engagements each individual player responds to are personal. I don't like games where I'm not making decisions that affect the outcome. Bridge is a structured and tactical game, which is why it can support an industry and has literature describing and analysing the options available. Snap uses cards to test reflexes and recognition speed. Both card games and you cam't say one is better because of how different they are. however you could make a closer comparison between bridge and sevens as they both use full decks require some planning and strategic choices impact the result. Comparing Malifaux and Warmahordes is closer to bridge/sevens in terms of the comparison. If you like both fill your boots, if you like one but not the other, no worries. It can be helpful to understand what they have in common and where they differ for research.

More a case of an exaggeration of my feelings for the game, for comic effect and to keep the discussion here moving along. @Fetid Strumpet that's a well constructed post. Where did you learn to write like that? (This is not sarcastic, I'm trying to improve my writing currently and I'm interested how much is school/job/personal study) The analysis does hit the spot on where his comments come from and how it doesn't match my thoughts so far. Although as veteran gamer I'm fairly confident with my ability to grapple with rules and see potentials, this game is too complex to work out quickly if it'll be shallow or long lasting. So cheers for that, most reassuring.

I was confused by his claims about Warmachine as well. I find it a deeply tedious and un-dynamic game. It is however quite popular, so it must have something about it even if I can't fathom why you'd play a game with such bland and/or rubbish miniatures in a power gamers walk 2 lines straight at each other rules set and see who gets to pull out their cheese first way. I am however aware of the subjective nature of all art and entertainments. How did strats and schemes work previously, if they even existed before? M2E appears interesting, dynamic and the depth of options looks good to me. I've not yet played a game where both players don't have options to win and what to do with their forces. I've not faced a Belle spam yet, but found the Ramos summoning really awkward but I still played the game. Luck's inherently a factor but I'm still of the opinion that making more better choices than your opponent drastically increases your chance of winning the game, so balance is probably pretty good. Possibly the purpose of starting this thread is seeking some reassurance that there is depth to this game. I've invested time and money now and it's a case of how much more can go in

Awesome. Of the Guild I currently own, I've got it down to just the trapper needing to be finished painting now. I reckon if I get 2 Executioners on the table Misaki won't kill both of them before something dies now...

I was talking with an acquaintance at a local games club recently about miniatures games as a whole. He said "loads of tournament players move on from Malifaux and go to Warmachine. They get bored with Malifaux as you're only ever playing 1 type of game." This didn't chime with my experience, and it turned out he was talking about the game prior to M2E. I've not played any previous editions of this game so I'm in the dark. Also I ignored the internet for toy soldiers for years so don't have a sense of the broad forum opinions. So my question is this, has this new edition changed broadened the feel of how many different games you play? This is a tricky thing to discuss though. The depth of a game isn't always a problem to do with number of scenarios or ways of playing the game necessarily. WFB spent year sonly being played with one scenario as that scenario was a lot of fun and had broad tactical challenges. 3rd to 6Th Ed that is. I spent maybe 6 years playing Confrontation 3rd edition almost only ever playing the one scenario. That was easily my favourite game ever. His criticism may have been the right sentiment but picking up on the wrong things. However it's happened has this game now got more depth or was he just on the wrong forums? Cheers Chaps

I still can't find my cards. I'm starting to get nervous that I've lost them rather than pushed it in to the mess of stuff I've getting rid of. How did you find the Wastrels? The models look cool and for 4SS I think they look pretty good. MI and SH 5 seems relatively rare on 4SS on both stats, which makes them look appealing.

So Action Dan took a search deck action? He's so full of actions. What was your list?

Are you that bored at work that you've had to post here? Oh Dear Mr Grey. How was games on Sunday?

Cheers Chaps. I now realise my problem was more to do with my image of a tumbleweed rather than what it actually looks like. Plato couldn't model it but a photographer would have more chance of getting it right. Maybe I could varnish a dandelion seed head?

Doesn't Epsom have a games club fairly locally? And the Tolworth First Founding should be open to Malifaux being played there. Although people don't do so currently.