Vermicious Knid

Wow man, those look completely awesome. I have never been that interested in playing a bunch of Menites (as I tend to shy away from religous zealots in both games and reality lol), but the appearance of those guys really captures my imagination and makes me want to give it a try at some point!

I'm "mikethefish" over on the PP forums, so I have seen your stuff plenty of times over the years. Great as always, good sir!

I think it's pretty rare in 2E for Masters to NOT be competetive in-theme. Most of them have some fairly good synergy with their thematic options. In almost all cases, you can select a thematic crew and do pretty well

Now if you are going to look at the question of if a certain Master works BETTER with their thematic Crews, that's really a different story. There's plenty of Masters who really do work best with their thematic choices, but on the other hand, some folks just work better with non-thematic options. It really just depends.

So I ended up with a Lone Marshall model as a gift from a friend of mine. I haven't really lookedat how to make this guy work. He's fast and killy and that's about it, right?

Does anyone use this guy regularly? Who do you use him with, and for what schemes? My favorite Guild masters are Sonia and Lucius - does he work OK with either of those two?

No to pick on you OP, but as criticisms go, this one seems a bit...shallow. I am not entirely certain why you seem to expect professional-grade writing on a work that's not made by professionals? Additionally, I am not sure where you expect to actually FIND such levels of professinalism on Malifaux tactics articles of all things. Everything is basically fan-written work and the quality reflects that.

But again - not trying to attack you here. I read the same blogs that Math listed, and they are all great. They are mostly similar in terms of writing to PMF though, so they might not be what you are looking for either I suppose.

When reading about Leveticus, you always here about how great (or even necessary) his Pariah upgrades are. Almost every single source I have found mentions the fact that his Pariah upgrades, while adittedly awesome, aren't really necessary, since his thematic crew is good and works for some Strategies.

On the other hand, when you hear PLAYERS talk about Leveticus, it seems like the Pariah abilities are kind of a no-brainer. Basically it looks like they get taken almost every game played, just to get use of the huge hiring pool.

While doing "theoryfaux", I find myself sticking with the good Leveticus options available in just the regular Outcast pool. My imaginary crews seem to include things like Alice, Lazarus, Ashes & Dust, the Engine, with maybe a couple of Abominations or some other non-Construct Outcast as a filler.

I get that lists like what I described would only really be good in limited areas, but still they don't seem too bad. Plus I find it annoying to "waste" an Upgrade slot on a Pariah, unless you have some devious master plan that involves Constructs/Undead from other factions.

So I guess my question is, how often do you take a Pariah upgrade? Is it truly necessary to the way Leveticus works? How much mileage can he get off of his basic Abomination summoning/DE creating mechanics?

So I plan on running some Malifaux demos in the quasi-near future (maybe not till after the holiday season).

Besides getting ahold of a couple of the easier to use starter sets (Rasputina, Lady Justice, etc), what sort of tips can you folks offer? what should be explained in detail, and what should be glossed over? What strategies and schemes should be used? Stuff like that

Oh really? Well that's cool - I think I shall simply use it as a terrain piece

So there's a recently Kickstarted miniatures like called Infinity. It's mostly not my style really. As a die-hard Holmes fan, I can't get used to Infany's depiction of Sherlock as a supervillain - he's basically Blofeldt from James Bond.

They do, however, make a few few cool things that might be scavenged over to games of Malifaux. Some of their figures could make cool stand-ins for either existing models, or perhaps stuff that could be used for customized story encounters.

It looks as if they are going to produce terrain as well, such as this whimical and fun looking automatic tea dispensor.

, but it definitely leaves the ice mage and beastmaster to the wilds where they feel like they should be in another faction.  I'd have loved to have seen them fit in with the outcasts, as they really fit now thematically with masters like Hamelin and Jack Daw.

I feel that Marcus (and possibly Rasputina) should have been dual-faction with Outcasts. I enjoy their Arcanist roots, but I can definitelys see them being lumped under the Outcast umbrella nowadays

Marcus typically operates in the wild, though it's not unusual for him to stray into town. I would assume that when in town, typically he mostly keeps to the Quarantine Zone though, as that place has no real Guild presence at all, and a bunch of freaky creatures aren't too unusual (since the QZ is riddled with Neverborn).

Speaking personally, "natural" looking bases would be fine for Marcus, but you could also easily use any of the cobblestone street bases, or perhaps the more "steampunk junkyard" looking bases from Secret Weapon Miniatures

Has anyone found out why the Hoffman box is way overpriced for what you get or have wyrd just buried their heads and said nothing

If the price is that skewed, I am assuming there are multiples of something. Those might not appear on the box art.

No chest-hole? But isn't that basically part of Tara's "thing"? She even gets an ability based on it

So the Tara we have all seen is the Nightmare version. She doesn't seem very "nightmarish" (or at least no more than her normal look - which is admittedly pretty freaky). When the normal version comes out, do we know how she's going to be different?

So the Hanged are coming out, and Jack Daw is theoritically coming out at some point in the future. I'm trying to juggle concepts for color schemes and wanted some opinions...

On one hand, I might try the usual color scheme for Daw and the various spirits he hangs with (pun intended). This would be a "realistic" approach, with pale flesh, dirty clothes, etc.

On the other hand, I thought that since they are supposed to be ghosts, I might sell the idea if I went with something more monochromatic and spectral looking. Something like how these warmachine models are painted...

These aren't my models - they are just an example of the scheme I was thining of. But I am worried that the look will be striking but ultimately fairly boring. Any thoughts?

If you go Ressurectionists as a beginning faction, I would look pretty hard at Seamus and McMorning. They both have badass models, fun undead legions, and seem to lean towards a fast, fun and agressive playstyle. Probably just what you are looking for

I'm just trying to get a feel for using Misaki in Outcasts. Read the Pull My Finger article and all, but haven't gotten too many good ideas from that. Obviously crew the usual statements apply where selection varies with the Strategies (blah blah, etc), but surely there have to be some "usual suspects" when it comes to crews?

As an minor aside, I am thinking of getting Von Schill in the future, and so I'm thinking of getting Lazarus in prep for the day when I pull the trigger on the Hired Guns box (pun intended). What do you think of using Lazarus with Outcast Misaki? I get that he's better with other constructs, but he seems to be pretty rugged and might provide some ranged support that the Misaki starter might lack

Seeing these all together definitely accents the "cartoony" look of the new art direction. I am not a fan. Ausplosions may disagree but I prefer the Terraclips line.

Malifaux always has, and always will have a "cartoony" look (as in a bizarro Tim Burton sort of cartoon). This stuff is nothing new.

Kinda what I thought - thanks guys!

Lets say you wanted to get enough Schemes & Strategies Decks to comfortably run with two players (I'm getting stuff for my personal gaming at home). Would one deck suffice, or should I actually buy two?

So I love the models and theme of Zoraida, but am not much of a Neverborn fan outside of Collodi. Gremlins seem like a pretty cool and fun faction to run - as well as being not terribly "graphic" outside of silly potty humor (my good friend who games is letting his 10 year old son learn some gaming stuff, so I am trying to avoid the gruesome and/or sexualized Malifaux stuff).

So anyhow, I was thinking of grabbing a Zoraida box, and then pick up some of the other Gremlin stuff and checking out how they work. Out of curiosity, have folks been having any success running Zoraida along with Gremlins? Or is Neverborn going to be pretty much the better option for her?

To each their own I guess - to me, the original metals look like they were sculpted by a 5 year old. IMO, the new plastics are far superior, and look very Gremlin-esque

Pretty sure it's actually a 30mm base, Spectre - which is causing some folks a little bit of consternation - so it's even worse than you think!!

Actually it's unlikely they would care even at gencon. It's not as though there's a ton of Malifaux players at these events - they can't afford to turn away players/models like this. As long as the conversion is very obvious/logical, nobody's disallowing anything, Gencon or no

Once again - it's not a question of what they are technically able to do - it's a question of what they are ACTUALLY going to do in a real world situation

This requirement is from Wyrds Official Gaining Grounds tournament documentation not something I made up. A TO can choose not to enforce it however he can also justifiably choose to enforce it. Other players could also justifiably complain about such things to preclude the models use (competitive events tend to bring out the worst in people).

Well that's not exactly correct. I suggest that you re-read the document again - you've made a pretty common mistake in regards to this rule. There is a clause in the document that states that all TO's have final say over what conversions are allowed. This gives the power for the TO to either disallow any conversion (even if it has 67% Wyrd parts) and to allow any conversion (even if it's a complete proxy). The example you stated is not "a TO chosing not to enforce it" as it's explicitly stated that the TO has global power for conversions. It's not like a TO allowing conversions is an example of him being slack in his authority, as you seem to imply. Additionally, the tournament players have no ability to "complain" about a conversion, and force that conversion to be disallowed. The power rests solely with the TO.

Again - no TO I have ever met would disallow a conversion like the one we are discussing. It's a question of what they have the authority to do, and what they are ACTUALLY going to do.

Just be sure to include 67% Wyrd parts in that conversion or you wont be able to use it in "Official" Gaining Grounds tournaments.

Unlikely, given that the TO has final say over any and all conversions. And considering that most steam trunk conversions are probably going to still look like...a steam-powered trunk, I really don't think there will be any confusion as to what the model represents. No TO I have ever met would disallow a reasonable conversion like that