Stux

I live in Nottingham! I'm not aware of any scene, I've been hoarding the models for a while but so far just been trying to get some friends in to the game from scratch. I heard the game shop Chimera in Beeston gets some players but that's a bit far from me.

Fantastic stuff! As an Outcast main loving the look of Aionus, and prelease of Ashes and Dust is brilliant. Would have liked the McMourning alt, but $150 is my limit. If I had one wish for an addition though, it would be TTB Hannah. Great model!

If you want the actual cards, you'll need arsenal decks. There are two separate waves of arsenal deck, and one deck for each faction for each wave. This means you may need as many as 4 decks. I believe the arsenal decks are now out of print, though a lot of stores seem to still have them at the moment. I'm not sure which specific models are wave 1 or wave 2 I'm afraid. If you're not so bothered about the actual cards, they are all printed in the books. The 2E Rulebook (not the small rule manual) has the wave 1 rules and Crossroads has wave 2. As an additional note, Shifting Loyalties is considered wave 3 but contains no models from before 2E, so arsenal decks for wave 3 do not exist as they are largely unnecessary.

For either, Iron Zombies are probably worth a look. They're all Anchors, all Constructs for the scrap. Valedictorian seems nice if you don't have access to A&D, though probably too pricey otherwise. Student of Visera should be effective against most factions, Sinew versus Rezzers. I picked up the box this week and plan to give them a go with Levi. Wanted them as options for Karina summons anyway!

Ah I hadn't clicked on the link. Having an alternate cost would certainly be the more elegant solution if thats how the cards were printed. That would have to wait for another edition of the game though, rather than something you could easily drop in as a homebrew rule what with needing a table of all mercenary's alternate costs. Plus there'd be endless debate over which ones should cost more than others!

Generally speaking the mercs worth taking are the models that do something certain factions just can't do otherwise, or really struggle to do, such as Johan. A big problem with the Mercenary Tax for me is that it is more punishing the cheaper the model is. So we end up with a model like Killjoy who is great at 12ss, and still great at 13ss, while Desperate Mercs are alright at 4ss, but pretty horrid at 5ss. I don't think the 1 extra ss really puts anyone who wants Killjoy off hiring him, but at the other extreme it is crippling to the Desperate Mercs. It doesn't feel like the tax is really doing its job either way. In casual games I'd be tempted to waive it entirely. Or perhaps come up with a method that scales better - say adding on 10% to your total spend on all mercs, rounded to the nearest whole number. So Killjoy on his own would be 13.2 (13ss), while Killjoy and a Desperate Merc would be 13.2 + 4.4 = 17.6 (18ss). Those are the same totals as they are currently, but then taking a single Desperate Merc would be 4.4 (4ss), and two would be 8.8 (9ss). That might be fairer? Though I can see the increased fiddly-ness making it unpopular. (PS: I am aware there are other mercs than Killjoy and Desperate Mercenaries )

A fair point, though I was thinking less mercenaries and more in terms of agents of governments or other organizations from Earthside. Earth's international politics will probably get covered in The Other Side, though I'd be interested in seeing how and if it spills over to Malifaux. Earthside Government forces could be cool. I feel it could be difficult to make them distinct enough from Guild though, enough to warrant a whole faction. They could be Special Agents undercover checking up the Guild are doing what they say they are maybe? That sort of treads on 10T's toes though... Perhaps more of a one-off duel faction Outcast/Guild master or something like that rather than a full faction? With a thematic crew of government forces. EDIT: Which of course was more or less your original suggestion!

The status of Lord Chompy Bits is a bit of an odd one though. He is both an actual Tyrant, and a Neverborn. I wonder whether this is just a mechanical oddity, or if it is supported by the fluff that Neverborn work with LCB? It is often said that many Neverborn take forms based on the fears of humans, which sounds very much like LCB's domain. Perhaps this ability of the Neverborn originally stems from LCB? Perhaps even then the Neverborn are either unaware that LCB is a Tyrant, or are unaware that the source of their power to tap in to human fears comes from LCB? Perhaps Lilith/Zoraida or others are aware they are somewhat beholden to a Tyrant, but keep it quiet from the other Neverborn because they know they need the power? Or, LCB is a legit Tyrant who hates Neverborn and the Neverborn hate, BUT as he is for all practical purposes in the service of the Dreamer now he doesn't have much choice in the matter, and its actually the Dreamer that twists the forms of Neverborn using the Tyrant's power somewhat unwillingly. Lots of speculation here! And its quite possible canonically LCB is not really Neverborn at all, him and the Dreamer just got lumped in with them because he needed a faction and it made the most aesthetic sense!

That's basically what Outcasts are at the moment though right? The catch-all faction, with a large number of mercenaries.

I'm not sure I'm totally clear on usage of the Tyrant type on models... It feels like if Hamelin and Shenlong have it, maybe Tara and Rasputina should? I mean they aren't Tyrants as such, but are largely powered by them. Feels like an arbitrarily drawn line at best. Or at least it suggests to me that whether something has the type or not shouldn't be taken as definitive evidence as to whether the character in fluff is or is not a Tyrant.

That would be great actually. I'd love to see that. But what faction would that be? Tyrants? Or rather individuals largely beholden to them. It would take some rejigging of the current system a bit, but bare with me. I'm talking masters like Rasputina, Hamelin, Tara, Shenlong. Raspy can be duel with Arcanists, Shenlong with 10T, Hamelin becomes pure Tyrants, Tara duels with Rezzers and loses Outcast. With the loss of Tara and Hamelin, Outcasts can become a more defined mercenary company based faction, rather than a disparate catch-all faction (the status quo here is a bit of a bugbear of mine). To that end I'd also move Jack Daw to Rezzers. He's very different to other Rezzer masters, but is still a product of the same energies they use so for me it's not that much of a stretch. That leaves us with a need for a few new Outcast masters to make up their losses, plus a few more Tyrant masters to add to the old ones given to that faction. I realise this has turned in to a fantastical wish list rather than something with any real chance of happening