InvokeChaos

Herald the official start of Malifaux Third Edition by coming on over to Game Theory in Raleigh, NC for a 50ss tournament, Saturday June 29th. There will be a best keyword painting contest, raffle prizes and more! Check Game Theory's Facebook page for more details and for the event posting coming soon! https://www.facebook.com/groups/gametheorystore/ Preliminary details: Address: 5910 Duraleigh Rd. Suite 125 Raleigh, NC 27612 3 Rounds, 50ss, Single Faction Start time will be promptly at 11. Rounds will be 2h15m. We will take a 45 minute lunch at the end of round 1. Entry Fee is $10 Mei Feng or Bust!

First M3E tournament for NC and the Triangle area! All are welcome to come check it out. Here's the details: Location: Atomic Empire - 3400 Westgate Dr #14B, Durham, NC 27707 Format: M3E (using most current open beta rules) DMH allowed as of right now. Rounds: 3 Proxy Policy: Case by case basis, but generally accepted as long as it won't slow down play. Cost: $10 Date: 3/16/2019 (Saturday) Timetable: Pre-reg at 10-1030. 1st Round 11am sharp. 2h15m rounds. 45m Lunch after 1st round.

Come check out the last event of the year for the Triangle at Gamer's Armory in Cary, NC! This will be a 50ss single faction tournament for Malifaux 2nd Edition. Entry will be $10. Check in is at 10am and will be 3 rounds starting at 11 and ending around 7pm. Come on out and get some faux in! The Gamer's Armory 683 Cary Towne Blvd F Cary, NC 27511 December 15th, 2018 Feel free to contact me here or at r.flynn@thirdfloorwars.com with any questions.

The standard shen core is basically shadow emissary and one low river monk, to make use of his conflux to draw 3 cards. Aside from that, he plays well with a lot of models. So as Da Git said, I would look first for just having fun with what interests you. If you have a more competitive meta that is playing what wins, let us know and we can all chime in on how to take him to the next level. Shen is one of the, if not the, most complex master out there, so don't hesitate to ask questions on piloting or how to tackle certain problems.

Oh thanks! Didn’t realize that! Though I suppose it got faq’ed to prevent exactly that kind of tomfoolery!

Awesome! Just don't over extend him and you'll love how he affects the board A point to re-iterate as well, that his Leave It To Luck 0 action only has a 6" range. So if you have high masks in hand and some ranged models nearby, they can cheat those masks at the +2 value, and your opponent doesn't get the boost. I've used this in the past for sniper fire in my Shenlong sniper list, because I have a 9 card hand, I often get a few masks. It's great for turning 9's and 10's into severe damage with the focused shot! The above was faq'ed to not affect severity, only numerical value. So it's only useful for attacks in the sniper scenario. Still good to have, just not quite as bad-ass as I previously had thought!

Keeping him alive is the big challenge. He's just such a card sink from existing. Good times! Keep the union in their place!

To be honest, just because it's a very blatant synergy and I was trying to focus on things aside from that. Pretty much every one I've talked to over the years has mentioned the Tannen summoning synergy, specifically for getting Teddy or for Joro on 11s. So to keep an already wordy article a tad shorter, I didn't touch on it. That's all!

New article up on Third Floor Wars on Mr. Tannen and why you should take him in your crews. https://thirdfloorwars.com/keep-calm-and-take-this-model/

New article up on Third Floor Wars and thoughts on why you should be looking at Mr. Tannen for your crew. https://thirdfloorwars.com/keep-calm-and-take-this-model/

The point reductions on HRM and Archers make them niche models that can definitely see table play. I've not been disappointed. As to samurai. I use one with jigoku often with Lynch and I use one with Earth often with Brewmaster. Brewie can obey him to shoot out of activation if I want, and his armor 2 and 9wds is great to misdirect onto, which I use a lot with brewie. The fact that he can just walk and heal with brew while I pass out swill is nice. Otherwise they need a bit of love to be competitive. They aren't terrible, but 2/3/4 damage is pathetic on an 8ss model that has nothing else going for it.

Some crazy folks are moving in on your turf, and it's time to eject them from the vicinity... forcefully if necessary! Welcome to my first league as the new henchman of The Gamer's Armory, in Cary, NC. I will be hosting this with my good friend and fellow henchman Dawn McCormack Plunge from the Durham meta at Atomic Empire Who? You! And anyone who has been interested in seeing how a tournament works without the pressure of doing multiple games in one day. What? This will be a five round league event run in the format of a tournament. We will use GG18, you will have one opponent a week. Future opponents will be determined by differential and CP. So if you lost first week, you'll play someone else who also lost. Only one game counts, so feel free to practice the pool with other people or play practice games with your opponent! It's all about having fun while maintaining the rules structure of a tournament. If there aren't enough people to do a five round (like only 8 participants) then we'll do random pairings for first two weeks and then the last three will be based on differential and CP. When? June 1st through July 8th! Official play days will be on Tuesday for AE and Thursday for GA. Where? The Gamer's Armory in Cary, NC and Atomic Empire in Durham, NC. Games held at either location count. Just need to play your opponent and report it (there will be a form submission online for that). Why? ... because Malifaux is awesome? Seriously, we hold a lot of tournaments in the NC meta, and I know a few people have expressed hesitance to just throw down. So here's your chance to get familiar with the rules and format, with no pressure and plenty of time to plan and play! I will be posting more information as well as the schemes and strats on ThirdFloorWars.com. How? $10 and a 50ss crew! Bring as many or as little masters as you like, standard 50ss tournament GG18 rules. Any questions feel free to post here or message me on our facebook page!

A key thing to remember is that her blasts are just shy of 8". She gets a 2" walk off the target and 150mm which is 5.9" so if you are 8"+ apart, she cannot reach you. Period. I use an 8" stick to measure now when I'm trying to do that. Alternatively a buddy of mine recently got a "Sonnia" blast template for measuring (https://www.etsy.com/listing/504316960/malifaux-magnetized-sonnia-criid-blast) so he can verify how his models might get caught. Another thing to note would be is Papa present or not? If Papa Loco is in there crew, then you need to play way more aggressive and/or cagey then if he's not. HtW mitigates a lot of what Sonnia can do if she's by herself. But to damage flips on her is a pretty big deal. It means you have to cheat aggressively to get her on negatives even with HtW, and I feel is second biggest adjustment to how to deal with her beyond learning how to cope with No More Masks. I've had really good success with Yan Lo into Sonnia, not so much with anyone else I tried Mei Fang, but Sonnia can blast off melee, so that's not a feature. Yeah she may not want to be there always, but if you're turtling up, it could very well be worth it to charge in and blast 3 times. Spreading out and getting her isolated seems to have worked the best for me. Crime Bosses seem like they could be solid counters. They're HtW with a really solid heal and can't be lured by the belle that is most likely there with the Domador. Fuhatsu is strong, as he's Armor 2 and HtW which basically forces the Sonnia player to focus or use papa if they want to capitalize on his def 4. Even on Ca9, they get to a 22 on a 13. You just need to get to 12 to force the negative, which takes an 8 (puts them on a straight + HtW). With his armor, she needs 3 hits at severe to take him out, assuming you don't stone. And can heal. He's very much theorycraft for me right now, but the last 2 times I've taken him out for a spin, he's done far better than I would have expected.

Gamer’s Armory in Cary, NC hosts Malifaux Casual Play game nights every Thursday starting between 5-6 until closing. I will be available to give demos or entertain any other Malifaux related questions or requests on a fairly open schedule. Contact me to set up a game or otherwise ask questions: email: r.flynn@thirdfloorwars.com Gamer’s Armory 683-F Cary Towne Boulevard, Cary, NC, 27511 919-238-4817

Very true though their purpose is a bit counter to the concept. Lotus Eater wants to consume those markers, not let them linger. Not saying you can't order of activations it, but if you need to activate the lotus eater earlier to heal it or reposition and pop aggressive stance, that's one less marker for the "combo". Katanaka doesn't care about markers other than to draw cards from. Still a solid option, just a different application. I really like Lotus Eaters and have been looking at them lately more and more. The couple of times I've run them has been solid. They are pretty decent into Lilith for denying schemes and surviving longer than they should, thanks to Lilith being 5WP. Nekima's AP is normally wasted on them, so it works out ok. They are surprisingly fast. I just have been moving away from models that are under 7ss lately in 10T. I need to bounce back the other way for some testing. I've just been having a lot of success with 7 activation crews that are more elite. Also, a note on saturation, the bubble only triggers once regardless of how many bubbles. So a marker dropped by two crime bosses or a boss and an eater still only gets 1 card. So if you are thinking of brining multiple auras, space em out to prevent overlay and maximize coverage.

Love the shell on Genbu! And I highly endorse the Illuminated package. Gwyn can carry strangemetal shirt and give her illuminated brethren armor 2. It's insanity. Plus giving her badge of speed and fasting her with the emissary allows you to tag a couple of targets then come play, tying them up with a pretty tanky model and opening them up for min4 reactivating illuminated

I recently ran Shenlong solo in a tournament and I can say that 1st round against Titania, this was nuts. My opponent couldn't spam markers because of Crime Boss, but he had to put down one or two for his abilities, which meant card draw for me. There's not a huge amount of marker schemes, but the ones that do exist are perfect for this tactic. Guarded Treasure, Inescapable Trap, Dig their Graves and Setup all require some pretty nominal marker placement. Shenlong not only disrupts this heavily, but with the crime boss absolutely brings in some card advantage into an already high card advantage crew.

So my two cents, I use brewmaster a fair bit. And I appreciate the lack of interest of Yasunori or terracotta. I'm not a fan of TW at 6ss honestly, that's a hyper competitive slot. I still use and love it, but it's not anywhere near an auto-take, which I suppose was the whole point of the increase. A few points: Hidden Agenda Hidden Agenda is far and away better on a ranged attacker. Doesn't really matter who it is, actually. But my favorite target is Gwyneth Maddox. I know she is proxy bait right now, so I'll offer a secondary in a moment, but let me ramble a moment, hehe. Gwyneth has 3 solid things she can do that plays well into your crew. Her rigged deck can help you fish for suits (like the lure for the Oiran) or just high cards in general. Something I've been doing lately is leaving low cards on the top after using her Hit Me so that I can shoot into a melee and know who is flipping what. She can drop a scheme marker at range which is excellent in the current environment. And she heals on being missed, which combined with Swill, makes her a quite attractive tank. Not to mention her reposition works awesome when you can swill targets AND brilliance them. Or spread the love If you did want to run the bubble, she definitely can enable that. Otherwise, Sue is a great model for Hidden Agenda. He draws a card every turn, has a min3 gun on positives that Sh5 is much less worried about when swill is around, and has a great anti-cast aura that can really be useful. Looking at the more long range, you really only have Hans, as he's the only upgrade carrying sniper, abd Brewie does help his mobility a bit. Fingers Fingers really feels like a waste of 10 points for me. I know he's amazing. He really is. But he dies to a stiff breeze and one of the moves lately in the game overall has been slightly higher min damage. This makes fingers a huge liability as losing a 10ss model to three AP is just HURTFUL. He has next to no offensive capability, which would be find if his defense tech was strong enough to make up for it. It's not. I know he's reckless, but that only goes so far. I think I'd like him more if the defensive trigger was built in somewhere, but as it stands, you have 9wds and soulstones between death. 8 if you recklessed already that turn. Chatty and Don't Mind Me are great, as is I Saws it First... but you can take a Lotus Eater for 6ss and get better defensive tech, a pseudo chatty (not as good, but it does work), and a 0 action scheme marker pop (or just start of activation). And both of it's attack actions are good. Yeah you go to Df5, 7 wds with no stones... but it's a 6ss minion. Rather than a 10ss hench. On a min 3 model, it still takes 3 AP to kill a lotus eater. And if you have aggressive stance up, it could take far more than that. Especially if Brewie is reducing willpower from his poison. We just have so many tools right now that can do similar things, maybe not with the efficiency, but with utility. Yamaziko is INSANELY good right now. You have to be careful not to overextend her, but WP7, Stubborn in a game where we are seeing more and more lures and repositions targeting willpower is NICE. She's nimble, loves getting fast, min3 with blasts... her only downfall is that darned Df4. But she's SIX STONES. It's totally worth it! Just be careful who you stick her in against. Another thought here is that we have access to 10T bros and Yokai and even Charm Warders. All three are 5ss, all three provide great utility in different areas and you can take 2 of them for one fingers. 10T Bros scheme better. Yokai kill WAY better. And Charm Warders provide some nice utility and defensive synergies while still being able to scheme, albeit not as easily as Bros or Yokai. Anna Lovelace, Taelor, Bishop are all 10ss and while they are much more kill oriented in general, in brewmaster they bring a lot of tools he doesn't already have access to. Especially if you're running 3 oiran as basically scheme runners or pseudo-tanks. Hell, even Sun Quiang might be a better pick and again, is cheaper. Again, not trying to say Fingers isn't good. But I just feel is far superior in gremlins, where his abilities are so much more rare and sought after, and he has more things to help mitigate his defenses, like stilts or dirty cheater. Emissary I am probably going to take a lot of flak for this, but I don't really like the emissary with Brewie. I know, I KNOW. He's AMAZING... but... aside from the push and fasting models with an upgrade, he's just a ranged ca beater. A good one, but that's really it. His 0 action is cute to trigger with Brewie's new upgrade for poison damage, but we have the ability to delete models off the table. Literally. Why spread around poison for the cute trick when you can just swill a target and remove it? Here is where you get the whole, but yasunori thing... yes. With Yasunori and Brewmaster, Shadow is basically stapled on because you want a Fast charging Yasu with the ability to obey him for murder murder murder. But if you're not going to do that... Brewie has a lot of interesting options that suddenly become very viable when you can put anyone on negatives. My favorites to look at are: Obsidian Oni - 0 heal for a low card and their ranged cast is further than emissary's with a better damage track, assuming you can get that straight flip. Which when casting onto negatives, actually happens a lot. Obsidian Statue - if your opponent doesn't have anti-armor, this guy is just a pain in the butt though and through. His spew lava is great utility, same range as Emissary and he has a couple of phenomenal 0's. (bonus, he also works well with obsidian oni!) Illuminated - This plays on the bringing of Gwyneth. The Gwyn/Illuminated package is really really good. Especially when your opponent is on negatives. I would flat out remove emissary, fingers, and an oiran to pop in Gwyn with 2 illuminated. You aren't styming your Oiran at all, as 2 focused fast minions is still nice. And now you have 2 armor 1, regen 1, self-healing, min 4 beatsticks that are thirsting for the Swill to go out. Drugs and Alcohol... bad combination. Izamu - I know this is a weird one, but bear with me. Izamu's biggest problem is survival and mobility. Brewie fixes both of those problems. Your opponent on negatives makes him MUCH tougher (especially if no anti-armor) and you can reposition him easily. He's min 3, can cycle cards when cheating damage, and has 3 attacks a round base. If you're not going to bring Yasu, this guy isn't a bad choice. Ototo - Now 10ss with his upgrade, his quintessential problems mirror Izamu's. But oh my god when you can mitigate those problems. His 0 action to pulse a slow duel when his targets are on negatives is MEAN. Especially when you are now going to pummel one into the ground and leave the other 2 unable to really do anything. Again brewie fixes his speed problem, and increases his survivability by proxy. My biggest problem with Ototo is honestly his WP4. He basically needs to have Servant stapled to him. But at 11ss, straight swap for fingers and running tab, he can bring some serious pain and AP efficiency to a crew that already messes with that. I have a few more thoughts, but that's enough for one novel!

So some old information from Yan Lo posts of yore. I feel most of it is still relevant, but there have been some game changers since Wave 5. As to the above, I was still learning Malifaux's intricacies and feel I have far more to contribute and several updates. If anyone would like to see my thoughts or commentary on Yan Lo's evolution, I'll put something together and post it. I still play Yan Lo as described in the linked post, but with a lot of changes and more wisdom to how to play the game. But it should be a decent starting point to get the brain juices going.

Yeah, only you still get to use a 0 action which could be awesome.

You know I always forget that when talking about it. Then I read the card and go "oh right, that's so much more awesome!" roflmao

So like several people have already said, I don't run Yu a lot in shenlong anymore. I used to run him constantly, but I find that I don't need to share styles that often, which is Yu's biggest draw in my opinion (next to giving shenlong fast). I've begun to tailor what I bring to the faction. If I'm facing neverborn and expect a lot of condition shenanigans like a pandy or something, I will bring Yu for being able to cycle low river style for more condition removal, for instance. Laugh off is a great ability and with crime bosses, he's a solid take against rezzers to make a heavy list that has a lot of healing and can't be repositioned easily. I feel right now I have three main "build outs" of shenlong and that affects yu taking as well. If I intend to be playing a more defensive game with having my opponent come to me or meeting midtable, then I take misdirection, wandering into high river and yin. No Yu here, as my goal is to first turn position, second turn dive Shen in to tie up what needs tieing up and or heal what needs healing. Shadow is preferred for the upgrade healing swap and card fixing. If I'm going to be playing an aggressive get in your face build, I'm going to take misdirection, wandering and yang. yu is here because I'm going to immediately cycle wandering post initiative and give shen fermented river. I sometimes take an obsidian or high river (now) to get a point of burning on shen, then bop him with my peasant to get a poison. Then dive him in hard to try to take out a priority target before swapping to high river style. Being able to charge twice potentially depending on target selection is pretty insane when you can ditch a card for 3 attacks. My more support build and I may just take servant, wandering and yang, and just swap around as needed. yu is going to be optional here depending on my opponent's faction and the scheme pool. I find yu can hang back and just be a style bot for strats like ours, supply or symbols, then repurpose turn four or something like that to get fasted for a 21" walk into a 0 interact with stored focus. This is great for getting last minute points on covert, surround or just flat out scoring undercover. I've been able to score search by just 0 interact, walk interact. He's a very versatile last minute squeeze play. Take prisoner is super easy with him. Or if I'm trying to lock down melee beaters, pushing them away 10" and slowing them with yu is better AP efficiency then using shen, who could be healing or blitzing down another model or just tanking a few. With the more emphasis on slightly tankier pieces, he's a good candidate for smoke grenades (assuming no one else needs them) and just do board control and let him score points. He ply's amazingly well. He can push people into setup, trap or dig range... the utility of him in any list, much less a shenlong list, cannot be understated. It just comes down to how you feel about those 11 stones. Personally I think models like Yamaziko and Gwyneth are outclassing him a bit. Yama gets emissary pushed and she has nimble, fast and 2AP. 16" vs 21" but she also can charge, deny charges and costs like 1/2 the points. She doesn't have near the utility, but you get a whole other hire to help fill that out and 2 activations in the process. Gwyneth is just a tankier model overall, and while she doesn't bring a ton of utility, she brings that ranged scheme marker drop as well as card fixing and some clutch repositioning when needed. It's not a guarantee, sure, but being able to shoot and brilliance someone then come play... that usually goes off. and she's only 8ss. Freeing up some much needed cache. At the end of the day, I don't think it's a "wrong" or "right" choice so much as a "do I like this or not" question. The one exception to that and the only time I never at least consider Yu is in a killing pool. For 2 more points you get yasunori. There's not even a question here. 3-5 attacks at min3 with to the attack and a 10" flying charge? or 1-3 attacks, min 2 no twists and no charge? Yeah, sorry Yu. Benched for that kind of round.

I think the assessment is overall solid. Though if Show of Force wasn't appealing for moving to the center, I find it interesting you picked a scheme that requires you to be near the center. I do think search is a solid take in ours, fairly easy to straddle the lines, so to speak, especially for 10T Take prisoner is made for 10T in my opinion, so I think you're definitely right for going towards that. Guarded treasure is another 10T favorite, and recover evidence can be surprising solid depending on crew comps. Brewie doesn't need to be engaged at all. I think bubble brewie is cool if you can get it off in 10T, but he works much better as a swill bot to make our already solid choices more capable. As to your opponent's choices, I would say Lilith and Pandora are a more likely pick than Titania. There's not a lot of scheme marker shenanigans here, and while she's not a bad pick, Ours actually encourages a bit more scrumming, which leads me more to the Lilith category. All three are solid choices though, so good mindset there. Crime Bosses are money against neverborn. Dopple/changelings with Lilitu is a thing and beckoners are actually decent picks now. And of course if you're looking at the autumn knights... there ya go. Anna is solid tech too, but I feel NVB doesn't ride the incorp train to heavily, and we have some other models with solid casts that might fill her role, but she's never really a bad take. So long story short, yes, I think you're looking at things the right way overall. My only possible counter to your line of thinking is that I find that Mei Fang either wants to strike out and be a nuisance or bubble up, and I'm not sure I would take her into ours because of that. If I really want to reach out and touch someone, I feel Misaki is a stronger play into nvb because she can be WP8 with servant and they have some nasty casts. She's not tied to her crew so you can play the ours game with the crew, and just mess with your opponent with a harrier Misaki who laughs at lures or places or pushes. And I wouldn't really play a bubble up list in ours. Even a Vent Steam one. Shen is a great pick though and Brewie is always solid.

How'd the game go? Who did you end up picking?

I like the ideas here! Makes me want to test it out