madaxeman

I'd not turn down a buff on either model, however Cojo's un-resistable, no-tariff, no flip required "push all models away 3"" can/should be a guaranteed way of preventing your opponent scoring on the Strategy for at least one turn per game in Extraction, Turf War, Guard the Stash. These tend to be schemes where both players would normally look to score heavily, so denying it for 1-2 turns can be decisive. You do need activation control to move him up late in the turn, which is not that difficult with Marcus. The marker-eating trick is also pretty good. Cojo's not a beater or a tarpit, but he does have his own unique role to play.

Some sort of aura upgrade that makes armour more effective again/immune to armour-ignoring effects - there are now so many armour-ignoring models available to all factions that the value of armour in-game is now significantly reduced from what it was back under Wave 1.

Arcane Effigy. Companion ("Oh, hi - look like Sandeep just got to summon you with his out of turn activation. Wanna go next?") and Condition Removal (like, "oh, I forgot - you are slow when summoned? .. let me fix that for you too!"). Getting 5 consecutive actions and a summons from a turn with a 4SS minion is a real hoot. If you summon a Wind Gamin and get their Leap as well it feel like 6 actions...

This is actually a decision as to what sort of behavior and approach to the game TOs want to encourage their players to adopt at their events. If you think that the 'integrity of the final result' is sacrosanct, and all other considerations should be secondary you go for a complete free-for-all in the draw, and accept that the outcome might be that this creates a more overtly competitive atmosphere which encourages some players to play more competitively, and others to give up and walk away as they just want to shove their toys around the table and flip cards against new people. If you think that "having fun and meeting nice new people who you might decide to go for a beer with later" is kinda important, you keep clubmates apart in the first round (and maybe even in later ones too if its possible without breaking the fairness of the draw too badly), and accept the outcome that this may encourage people to enjoy themselves, be polite to each other, not get into arguments, have a laugh and maybe even go for a curry with each other later that evening. Given we are talking about playing a made-up game with plastic models of evil teddy bears, flying monkeys, undead punks, and little green gremlins on stilts dropping piano's on other models heads from an imaginary airship, I'm kinda skeptical that option 1 is going to be the right one... FWIW, having played on the historical circuit for (mumble mumble) years, this debate was chewed over and put to bed many years ago, with the end result that all events are set up such that clubmates don't play in the first 2 rounds (of what are typically 4-5 round events), and family members/partners never play each other at all.

Not an unboxing point, but using Carlos and a Performer as a double-team is quite good. The Performer can pull him around after her, and is dangerous enough that the opponent can't just ignore her and try and take down the tank Vasquez instead. But when they do focus on her, he gets Reactivate if she is killed...

I pinned him, and also positioned the smaller flame so it could be glued onto the larger one. I really dislike single pointsof contact on such big bits of model. http://www.madaxeman.com/Malifaux/Malifaux_Oiran_Carlos_Vasquez.php

I don't think anyone is suggesting this is happening, or is even suggesting it is even maybe going to happen. There's a beta version of GG18 doing the rounds (as is the case every year) and it sounds like those involved in the beta group appear to quite like it so far. That's all. Almost everything else on this thread appears to be baseless speculation, resting on an unsupported assumption that Wyrd will introduce a series of changes in GG18 that make buying some of their models an entirely pointless exercise. Given that this would undermine their entire business model, and in the absence of any evidence t the contrary, I for one am kinda skeptical that this will be the case...

Here's a Carlos Vasquez, in his "American Showman-themed" trousers. The stars are from a sheet of 10mm scale US Army tank markings I happened to have lying around...it's always good to recycle ! Full set of pics on my blog, from a page which also has some gaming-table-quality Oiran on it too.

Raptors are Peons....

Don't you find that the marker-spacing requirements on many of the schemes in GG17 have gone some way to addressing this anyway? It does also - in a non-showgirl crew - require a 6 or 8 point model to carry it, and for that model also not to be killed early-doors.

Firestarter is reasonably often seen on eBay - although often in an "alt" version which can be pricy. The other models you'd typically use can all be bought in separate boxes or come in other crews anyway. Comments on the totem are seconded...

I think the OP may have been saying that a Marcus list has 2 of these 3 models in it. Pretty sure the Blessed is rare 1, so you can't have 2 of them... It would be hard to repose a Cerberus, but you conceivably might have 2 in a list. I painted one of mine grey and one brown to differentiate them. For Marcus, Molemen & Silurids is a nice combo. You can buy Silurids on their own, no need for the Swamp Mother box set.

As there is a best-in-faction prize, am I right in assuming this is a fixed faction event?

I'm in...

Hijacking a tad, but does anything get rid of the Widow Weaver "web of despair" (you know what I mean!) markers?

Cheap and cheerful proxy... even has a circular saw blade.

The most spiders I've ever put out is 9, and at most one swarm. I did start with a scheme with magnets and the like, but after about a year realized that I'd basically done a huge amount of extra work and incurred a lot of extra cost, the only real impact of which was that I had also managed to make some of my smallest and hardest to handle models even more flimsy and subject to in-game breakages than they were originally, just to save a few quid on models fora game where I already probably have literally hundreds of pounds worth of models I'll never use, or at best use far less often than I'd use a swarm. So, in a moment of sanity I just glued all of the individual magnetized spiders to their bases, shelled out on another pack of spiders and built myself a separate swarm. Now I'm a much happier and rounded individual-)

Here's an interesting question about the Mages... Played all three of them against Pandora last night, and it seems as if their "reduce damage from attacks by one down, can go down to zero" ability meant they are essentially immune to the multiple instances of "take one damage from each of the sources within 3" because you failed a single willpower duel" attacks dished out by Pandora and all of the other crap in that horrible list... on the bass that they were taking (in this case) three separate, but simultaneous 1-damage attacks. OK, they are then usually going to be engaged at more than 1" ...so they become mostly useless anyway at that range, but it was a nice little bonus .. if it's right of course.

Marcus is a whole new set of models. If you can pick up a metal Ramos (fairly easy to do on eBay), buy some spiders and either find, or proxy the Brass Arachnid (proxy is good as the real model is rather ungainly and frankly doesn't fit on it's base) you're off and running with the Spider factory. It's a different sort of summoning to Sandeep, and he can also make use of some of the other models from Raspy as well. Or Mei Feng. Again for synergy with Hank & Joss

Slate Ridge Hamster.... ? I do like the model, but I always think it should have Frozen Heart, or maybe be some weird sort of MS&U beast too. Then it would be not really be worth taking in a Raspy list and an Ironsides list, whereas at the moment it is not really worth taking in a Marcus list, and definitely not worth taking in any other list at all.

As Banasuva has to do damage to a friendly nearby Gamin when summoned or he evaporates immediately, am I right in thinking this would also need a 'leaping' Wind Gamin, the Ice Golem's toss, or that new "swap a beast and a construct" upgrade + probably a raptor to achieve?

Ice Golem comes in the raspy box anyway, so no need to look for that. drop in the Acolyte box instead, as you'll soon get tired of looking on this forum and seeing people post about how they are the best value shooter in the game! If you're getting these 2 crews, you can handle most schemes between them. Ramos is maybe more flexible, but as you are starting out its not going to really make a huge deal of difference - playing both crews in most scheme pools will help you learn the rules and what the crews do well / not so well. (For some reason there always seem to be nicely painted raspy crews on ebay at sensible prices, so that might be worth considering too)

I think the OP is asked no a different question, aka "with Bracon, is the EoPs effective +1 range measured to Sandeep, or to the position of the model that's copying Sandeeps cast?" My guess would be the position of the model taking the activation is what counts...

Would have thought the Razorspine had more (poison) synergy in that list if you are picking a snake - any chance you could share your thinking on the choice to use Dawn Serpent ?

Hmmm - so many interactions in this game that I'd missed that one! Does that apply to Blasts as well then?