JoeJones

I've actually used Mouse and the Ice Golem as a team before, but I just had them running fairly close together and when Mouse got into lasso range of a decent target, lasso the thing & drag it into (3) Smash range, then Accomplice the Golem, and paste the target.

Of course, I've only had that combo work once, since it's a bit finicky and extremely obvious to anyone who's seen it work once. When it does go off, however...

Technically speaking, I own 4 factions. However, my Outcast & Rezzer collection consists of an unassembled Tara box, and my Ten Thunders is an unassembled Mei Feng box. Effectively, I just have Arcanists so far.

I own all the Arcanist masters except Colette, but haven't assembled Mei Feng or Kaeris yet. My most-played masters are Rasputina and Ramos, and I've only played Marcus twice so far. 

Eventually, I plan on picking up Colette to finish out my Arcanists, then Seamus, Molly, & McMourning for Rezzers. Maybe I'll pick up the Viks or Von Schill for Outcasts along the way, too. 

The dude the Wendigo is hanging off of has other problems. My nickname for him is "Lunch".

The Captain's Airburst and Johan's condition removal are both attack actions, and in my experience they tend to be used on friendly models as much as, if not more than, on enemy models. So, yes, you can attack friendly models. The only restriction is that a model cannot use an attack action against itself.

The metal gamin and rail golem, being constructs, give Mei Feng more places to railwalk to. Also, the metal gamin are extremely tough for 4 ss minions and can give models Df 6 (though they often seem to use that on themselves).

The rail golem I haven't played yet (mine is still unassembled), but in my experience playing against it, it can put out a lot of damage and can be very fast, but I've tended to kill it faster than I expected. It's a good beatstick, but it's no Howard Langston, and Hank is only one more soulstone to hire. (Yes, I am biased toward Hank. Ramos is one of my most-played masters, and I used to play Hank with Raspy instead of the Ice Golem.) The rail golem is much more thematic with Mei Feng, however.

My most egregious interaction is the Sabertooth Cerberus Postal Service: messages delivered on time, every time, even though the postman in this case is a horse-sized, three-headed, predatory monstrosity.

"Rrrraaawr! Grrarr!" (Translation: Message for Ms. Ortega! Just sign here.)

Edited for punctuation.

For Ramos, after getting his M&SU box, you need Metal Gamin, Johan, and maybe an Electrical Creation and/or another box or so of Steam Arachnids. Maybe the Mechanical Rider if you don't think Ramos is summoning fast enough. A December Acolyte or two can add a decent amount of shooting also (and can also be useful if you pick up Rasputina as well).

I do do love the world's best RPG, but I spell it "Chrono Trigger".

Union. Check the contract and read the fine print.

I chose my first master by finding which one most appealed to me aesthetically. Seamus, McMourning, Pandora, and Lilith all caught my attention, but then I saw Rasputina, and knew that she was the master for me.

Note: I've played Warmachine for years, and my first warcaster in that game was an angry pseudo-Russian woman with ice powers and slow but powerful constructs working with her. No, I don't see any pattern here whatsoever....

Thank you for putting these together. I've been looking for the schemes & strategies deck since I started the game in June, and haven't found any. I'll be using your version as a stand-in until Wyrd rereleases the decks.

Mine was day-glo pink, and was inside the box, with no label on the outside indicating its presence. After I found that, I was stupidly happy for a while. I was giddy, even. 

In my opinion, it's worth it to start a faction if you like at least one of the masters in said faction. The main problem with getting a master in a new faction is that other masters in the faction (or factions for dual-faction masters) start looking really nice after a very short amount of time. 

For example, I've been playing mostly Arcanists since I started the game in June. Recently, after reading the Dead of Winter fiction, i decided to pick up Tara and start playing Outcasts. After looking at what runs well with her, I've realized that it would be more cost-effective to buy certain crew boxes rather than just getting boxes of minions (Nicodem for Punk Zombies, Lady J for Death Marshals, McMourning for Nurses, Viks for Taelor & Ronin, etc), which will start costing me more In the long run, since I'm looking at starting Ressers & Guild as well as Outcasts....

I was wondering if anyone had tried running the Arcane Effigy with Raspy.

I am amused by the idea of Raspy's ice blasts causing Burning, and I think the combination could be potentially rather effective. Given how many shots on target she can take in a given activation, she could get up to Burning+6 on a single target. Or, the opponent could just discard 3-6 cards to avoid burning, but I could live with that, too.

I'd love to get more input on this. I thank you for your opinions.

And I thought my Raspy + Wendigo combo was bad...

Freeze Over + Shatter + Devour has won me several games.

Metal gamin are really good. They are insanely difficult to kill for their cost (Armor+2, Hard to Kill, Defensive Stance) and can buff one model's Df really well. As a 4ss model, they aren't amazing at attacking, but they can hand out Burning if their target is in melee with their protected model.

i usually use 1 or 2 if I'm running an M&SU master, and I'll occasionally even run one with Raspy.

The Demolish trigger on the Shatter attack on Child of December reads "After succeeding, the target suffers 3 damage for each Upgrade it has attached."

If the target has multiple upgrades, is the damage allocated as multiple 3-point instances of damage or all in one massive lump of pain?

His upgrade is in the Arsenal wave 2 deck, and should also be in the Generalist Upgrades deck which is coming soon(ish).

I've actually cut back on using him since I felt that he was starting to become a crutch for me. Having the extra mobility from Airburst made things feel almost too easy sometimes. He also seems to make Bodyguard really simple, since he is fairly tough & mobile and tends to stay back in a support role rather than getting stuck into melee.

I also tend to take Patron's Blessing with him, since that greatly adds to his utility. It may not be the best 2ss spent in faction (Arcane Reservoir), but it's pretty close.

I generally find Assassinate to be fairly simple, but I'm a long-time Warmahordes player, so caster kill is ingrained in my play style.

Hardest for me would probably be Entourage, since I tend to play less mobile masters.

I have always been much more a "gamer" than a "hobbyist". I had looked at miniatures games at various times, but stayed out of them since I didn't want to be bothered with assembling and painting models.

I've played Battletech since 1990, but I didn't buy or build minis for it; I just used the cardboard stands that came with the game instead. Then I went to Star Fleet Battles: more strategy, but no minis. I dabbled in Magic: the Gathering - still no minis.

When Mage Knight came out, I played it for a while. It was a minis game, but no hobby aspect beyond collecting. The same went for HeroClix, Mechwarrior Dark Age, and Star Wars Minis. I had some form of minis game going on, but no hobby aspect.

In 2006, a friend of mine who worked at a FLGS decided to get into Warmachine, and bring a lot of his friends into the game so he could have opponents.... I resisted for a short while, but picked up a Khador starter soon afterward. I didn't enjoy assembling the models at first, but I got used to it, and the game was a lot of fun - but I still didn't paint anything. Two of my WM/H buddies painted the army I took to my first Hardcore (severe time restrictions, fully-painted armies required) tournament. I liked the look of the painted models, but I still didn't have the patience to actually paint minis myself.

I had fallen away from Warmachine for a while, having moved away from my regular group, but I started doing a bit more on the hobby side of things. I painted a few Battletech minis here, a couple minis for a Pathfinder game there. In 2013, I decided to go to GenCon and get back into Warmachine by entering the Hardcore tournament there. I painted a couple minis to prepare for that event, but mostly used the models my friends had painted. After that, though, I started painting a bit more, including painting a unit I'd owned for almost 9 years so that I could play a small local tournament with a fully-painted army.

Two months ago, some friends of mine started talking to me about Malifaux, and I finally picked up a few minis: Children of December box, December Acolytes, and the Hoarcat Pride. Within one week, I had all those models assembled and painted. I have not played a single Malifaux mini which was not fully painted. I have fallen firmly into the hobby side of gaming through starting this game. As of this point (late Saturday night/early Sunday morning), I have a crew box unassembled which I plan to play fully painted Thursday evening at the local league....

And that is how a dedicated gamer gets sucked into the hobby aspect of miniatures gaming.

Having recently started playing Malifaux myself (mid-June), I have found answers to some of your questions in my own introduction to the game.

First, what you need to play is fairly straightforward: models and stat cards for your crew, a tape measure, a deck of cards (dedicated fate decks are preferred, but a standard poker deck with jokers will work), either the Malifaux 2.0 core book or the smaller rules book, some 30mm bases to use as scheme markers, access to a lot of terrain (much more than Warmachine uses, since terrain can play a much bigger role in Malifaux), and an opponent. A few counters and dry erase markers are very helpful, also.

Yes, there is a small rule book available. It fits comfortably into most minis cases, even though it's printed in a font large enough to read easily.

The best way to get a good starting crew is to find a crew box you like the looks of, and then check the forums here or the tactics wiki to find what works well with them. For example, as a long-time Khador player, I liked the looks of the Rasputina box. An angry Russian woman with ice powers and a big, slow, hard-hitting construct was familiar territory for me, so I looked up what could go well with her, and bought December Acolytes & a Hoarcat Pride. I've had some success with them so far, even though I'm still fairly new to the game.

There is an app for iOS and Android called The Breach. It includes a Crew Creator, Strategies & Schemes generator, a link to the tactics wiki, and other useful things.

I can't comment too much on game balance, since I've played fewer than 20 games so far, but for the most part, I've never found any matchup to be unwinnable. Difficult, yes, but not impossible. I haven't figured out all the top-tier masters yet, but I've gotten some ideas from reading these forums, watching battle report videos, talking with more experienced players, and reading through the tactics wiki.

All in all, I've loved (almost) all of my experiences with Malifaux. I've enjoyed the games I've played thoroughly, and I've found the strategies and schemes to bring a new feel to each of them. One of the toughest things I've found about going from Warmachine to Malifaux is how caster-kill is no longer a win condition, and that the games revolves around completing objectives. It's tough to shake the "go for the throat" mentality of Warmachine, but once you do, completing the schemes and strategies will become far more natural.

I hope this was helpful, and wish you happy gaming.

All I can say about assembling Malifaux plastics is that I've gotten really good at finding 1/8" pieces of grey plastic on a grey carpet - by feeling the bounce when it hits....

That being said, I love these plastic minis. They tend to be very beautiful, however fiddly the assembly can be.

I listen to music. Usually, I'll set my music player on shuffle, but if I really feel I need to concentrate, I'll go with one of the metal bands I've been listening to recently. Currently, that would be The Agonist (with Alissa or Vicky on vocals, they're both really good) or Arkona.

I thought it was three: Shenlong, Hamelin, and Lord Chompy Bits.