Tzarcastic

I just can't help imagining Hoffman pulling that bottle and crying for hours.

One each Essence of Power, Malifaux Child, and Arcane Effigy. It was so thoughtful of Wyrd to provide options!

Worse for collecting lumber, though.

Yeah, if I had to break down Masters by type, I'd probably make "Summoner" a type of its own, and list each of them in a primary/secondary paradigm. So, you would have a bunch of Summoner/Support (or Support/Summoner), but also stuff like Damage/Summoner (Seamus, Leveticus, Sonnia...), or even Mobility/Summoner (this is probably what I'd say about Kaeris, though she's hard to pin down). As alluded to above, I certainly think that Mobility gets its own category, for Masters like Shenlong which clearly focus on that above all else. The MMOs we're getting out terms from seldom have fights which can be won by movement without any bloodshed, but Malifaux has been known to do that. One might argue instead for a more general "Scheme" title, separating Lucius and Colette (et. al) from the rest of the Support crowd. Sadly, I do not yet have enough experience to make a comprehensive list.

The Tin... bazookaman?

Having to see Dirial's sex dungeon does seem like a good reason to get drunk. So, for my eventual schemes to have a stand-off in the spirit of this one, do people think two months was a good length? Too short? Too long?

I am always surprised by what a high percentage of Malifaux players seem to be Warmahordes people, though. The steampunk connection?

You play Guild. You're crazy by default. ... you know, a group of new players may find it less then helpful to be told what boxes to buy in an unstable quantum-state future rather than, you know, when they're starting the game. Granted, I personally am a big believer in proxies for unreleased models. But not everyone is! At the very least, it doesn't matter what's in Wong or Ulix's starters, since anyone who is starting them right now gets to decide the mix of models they use to do so.

Nobody is as spammy or as unstable as those two, be fair. Rutabaga.

There's a limit? Harsh. Though I suppose I can see why. This thread is great - in addition to the fun armchair psychology, seeing a breakdown of the "philosophy" of assorted Masters is very interesting - one more arrow in my quiver when I actually face them. (Except for the stuff about Pandora, which only served to further persuade me that there is nothing I can do against Pandora.)

Wait! I know this one. zFiend's Master future is... Lucius.

Just ask your Resser player whether they prefer Repo: the Genetic Opera or Jack Staff. If they say the former, go with McMourning. If the latter, Molly. And if they are unfamiliar with one or both, why are you wasting time? Just grab Nicodem and Seamus for now - you've gotta get out there to experience more surreal musicals and awesome indie comics!

This is a topic of great interest to me personally, since it's exactly how my friends and I are getting into the game! By that token, we're none of us experts, but here's what we're rolling with: Arcanists: Ramos, Mei Feng, Ironsides. Ramos and Mei both bring a heavy Construct skew, but use it different ways. Ironsides doesn't so much, but Ramos' crew has some M&SU people for her to buff... plus, I think Toni and her Mages are probably my favorite models in all of Malifaux, so I had to get in on that! (Dirial may be right that Kaeris is a stronger synergy, though she lacks a plastic release.) Outcasts: Leveticus, Tara, Von Schill. My abandoned plan - I wanted Levi and Tara (for maximum rule-breakage), and everyone said that VS was the best support for both with his Librarians and the like. A wiser person might cut out Leveticus entirely, however - his starting box lets you build a whopping 10 SS force - the lowest Stone-to-money ratio in the game. And unlike Void Wretches, nobody is going to hire out-of-crew Abominations. Ressers: Nicodem, Seamus, Molly (Lost Life, obviously). They share a summoning pool, after all. Neverborn: The Dreamer, Pandora, Lych. Lots of Insidious Madness. Lots of Stitched Together. Both need proxies/pewter. Proceed with caution. Ten Thunders: Misaki, Lynch, McCabe. The Thunders are really hard to do this with, but everyone says that McCabe makes everyone better, Misaki doesn't care what her Crew does, and Illuminated are just strong beaters, so that should- wait a moment: ... Ten inches? What? Keep your twisted insecurity-driven fantasies in the Mexican Standoff thread, mate.

Really, you think that MD plays the Viks? Fascinating! What possibly lead you to such a suspicion? (I don't mean to be rude. It's just that I've only now realized that I need to start developing an archnemesis so I can one day have a cool thread like this one, then lose and live in shame for all eternity, just like zFiend!)

Okay, I'm impressed - I've just started Arcanists, and had been debating whether to start work on a proxied Colette crew or buy more of the corebook Masters. I guess that answers that question... Hey, now. I was specifically asked to explain what games I liked and why - it just wouldn't be honest to pretend that I mistook hamburger for steak, now would it? (That said, I do love me some MvC.)

Closes what gap? By my count, Guild is ahead.

Isn't the Arachnid immune to some of that damage? There were a bunch of Pulses in that...

Interesting! Okay, then, this could be a bit odd, since most RTS games just don't do it for me. But I do like... Batman: Arkham City. I hold this up as the best-designed game I have ever played. With a really good mix of combat/stealth/puzzles/plot points, a great job of having you advance over the course of the game while still having things feel powerful and fun at the start, and stellar voice acting (all of these traits reach their zenith in Mr. Freeze) and a great sense of a living environment which changes over time, it's just incredible. Soulcalibur 3. I like several games in the series, but 3 will always be my baby. Haters gonna hate, but I maintain that 3D fighting games are much deeper and more tactical than 2D ones, and 3 has my favorite combination of speed, diversity, and simply technical controls not bogged down by too many gimmicks. I largely play Sigfried and Zasalamel, but have been known to switch to Ivy if I just want to win. BioWare RPGs are a huge part of my background. Lising every game and every favorite thing would take much too long, so I'll simply say that Jade Empire had my favorite setting*, Mass Effect 3 had the best gameplay, Mordin Solus was the best character (followed by Jack from the same game, Dorian from Inquisition, Morrigan from Awakening, and Jaheira from Baldur's Gate 2), and my favorite moment was the big reveal from Knights of the Old Republic. The recent games having tighter gameplay but looser plots saddens me. For just day-to-day fun, I log a lot of time playing classic 3-D beat-em-ups: Devil May Cry (pre-reboot), God Of War, Bayonetta, etc. I enjoy the fast pace and over-the-top setting, along with occasional moments of oddly brilliant story (see also: Bayonetta 2). * But please don't advise a Ten Thunders master by default. There's too much Thunders around here already!

Also, if I understand the cover rules correctly, a model making a shooting attack against another model which it can only see a small sliver of the base of due to intervening objects can do so at no penalty... so long as the target is not within 1'' of any of those objects. Shooting through a window, past two lamp posts, to hit someone's leg peeking out from the other side of a building is easier than tagging a guy casually standing next to a waist-height wall. Hum. Hope I got that wrong.

All of those numbers assume I'm playing in an open meadow, though. Without Flight, Incorporeal, Unimpeded, Leap or Nimble, a fence/wall/forest/whatever can quickly add multiple AP.

Just what it says on the tin. I have VERY limited experience with painting some other models, but since Wyrd plastic looks so different from the metals and resins I've seen elsewhere, I want to test my understanding. Each bullet point can be taken as a True/False question: Wyrd plastics do not require washing. Wyrd plastics do need primer. Wyrd plastics hold together well when assembled with "resin"-oriented glues, such as Zap. Is that all correct? Is there anything else potentially fraught of which I should be aware.

I have only time to blame... I hadn't heard of Malifaux yet! Though I suppose an enmity with time is only appropriate, all things considered... (Also, I don't pay Guild. I just dig Death Marshal sculpts, and would love to see another.)

So, I recently read Dead of Winter. It was a fair bit of fun (though it did make me sad that Karina went from such a haughty and distinct character to yet another crazy person following some Master around Malifaux), but it got me wondering - what exactly was going on? It reads as if there was some sort of contest where any faction (or combination of two factions) could have been the one to get an Oblivion-channeling Master. All the characters from the first installment were the candidates, but then Ten Thunders and Neverborn did so badly at... however the competition worked that they never showed up again. Is that it? If so, what was the resolution mechanic? If not, what was going on? And in either case, how much must I weep that we never saw a Death Marshal Master?

I still find it counterintuitive how that upgrade makes models what are theoretically Kaeris' thematic crew work worse with her - I wish the order of operations let Fire Gamin and the Rail Golem and such heal.

I don't mean to re-open a can of worms here, but looking back on this conversation from seven months in the future, it's interesting to see it in light of a few new models. It seems to me that the Pathfinder and the standing-up Austringer are both clearly meant to be Native American characters (culturally, at least, since the Pathfinder has facial hair). The use of feathers, fringe, and long black hair seems distinctive to me. Notably, the Austringer is bringing this aesthetic all the way to a book cover, which is a pretty prominent part of how the game gets represented. This does, indeed, mean that they're some more non-white models outside the Arcanists. Moreover, it gives of view of how Wyrd portrays Native Americans: they're certainly both more typical views of Native Americans than Joss (as a wilderness tracking expert and a dude who communicates with animals) - but they're not in loincloths and headdresses, either. The Trapper, like the Ten Thunders forces he sometimes works with, mixes a fairly-standard idea of "what these forgeigners do" with the best technology available (moving clockwork traps, which are admittedly not as sublimely silly as gattling gun samurai). And the Austringer might be lower-tech, but he still defies cliches, simply by being dressed like every other Guild agent from the shoulders down. He looks like a boss paying heed to traditions (facial paint and all) whilst not turning into a walking cliche. Perhaps most notably, the other animal-talkey guy doing the same job (crouching-down Austringer) appears to be white, so we're not being told that Austringing is set aside for only Magical Natives. Working from that perspective, I think I would like to see a Native American-themed Outcast Crew. I think the evidence indicates that Wyrd can navigate the minefield better than most - and if everybody concerned with sensitive portrayals of minority groups just opts out, only insensitive ones remain.