J4bberw0ck

My personal fave is Gamble Your Life. Watch and laugh as Oogie Boogie Jr cries!

Testing for unconsciousness when taking critical hits is a toughness check, so it’s mostly relevant when the Fated has lost all their wounds. There are a few attacks from FM characters that trigger toughness checks, too, but they’re rare.

This will be especially helpful on Ivan. Preventing his summoning will be particularly tricky if you can't tell when he's actually trying to summon something.

Personally, I’m very excited for EVS: Handing out any condition you want with Maxine is absolutely amazing, and the triggers are super useful. Give Kira +2 shielded, give Fast to both Beebe and Calypso, or give any number of debilitating conditions to enemies. Fire, poison, slow, staggered, stunned, you name it! The rest of the crew embodies this versatility. Throw people around with the Tidecaller, deal irreducible damage with Kira, control the field with Harpooners, etc etc. They support each other and do great things when they’re all clicking together.

Nooo, my hard-earned electrons!

Personally, I’m a big fan of The Ferryman and Honor Among Thieves for one-shots. The latter has the Fated working for the Ten Thunders, but more as a “business opportunity” than actual loyalty. I also really like Heart of Darkness, because giant spiders that live in your shadow is an absolutely terrifying concept to me. My Fated had a lot of fun with Ghost House too, but I made some changes to that one, so YMMV. If you’re looking to get your Fated out into the wilderness hunting a dinosaur, you can’t go wrong with Jurassic Faux. It’s longer, but might be good for a change of pace if things start feeling stale. Another great one to mix things up is A Stitch in Time. Once your Fated are familiar with Malifaux and how the society works, you can throw them back in time and change a bunch of stuff. Maybe that building doesn’t exist anymore, or they accidentally killed the ancestor of their big bad, causing an even bigger bad to take their place! It’s better for this one to go somewhere in the middle, so your Fated can appreciate how different everything is afterwards. It’s also several sessions long, so just be aware. Finally, take a look at the various one-offs in Wyrd Chronicles. Giant sandworms, amorous Ressers, there are a ton of great adventures there and they’re all free. DriveThruRPG has all the Wyrd Chronicles, and I can probably find some recommendations if you’re overwhelmed. In general, I’d recommend doing a few one-offs to start, then a longer one once they’re comfortable in the world, then a couple more one-offs and your big finish adventure. How are you liking Days Without Accident, btw? I haven’t read it yet. Oh, one more thing! Don’t be afraid to mess with the Penny Dreadfuls as you go. If your Fated really like a FM character, bring them back later (maybe they recommend the Fated for another job, or need to be rescued). The same goes for villains, never throw away a good one that the Fated connect with. The great thing about Malifaux is that death is not the end. People spontaneously resurrect or are brought back by Ressers, or become vengeful spectres. You’ll get comfortable enough with GM’ing soon enough, and your players will be glad to see a few common threads throughout their adventures.

How will the free PDF be handled for those of us who participated in the beta and qualified for it? Will there be an announcement about that, too, or should we expect an email?

Ok, I owe the guys and gals at Wyrd an apology. I was so hung up on the roboctopus idea in my head, I totally missed what Calypso is. It’s a bathysphere, because the real William Beebe was the first biologist to use one. Not gonna lie, that’s really cool, and a bathysphere with crab legs is awesome.

Personally, I’m excited for the pure utility of this duo. - Titania causing problems with her Undergrowth markers? Ignore them, then destroy any that are near you. - Spend 2 activations moving across the board to accomplish objectives, with Onwards! That’s 24” of movement! - Get stuck into melee and be a big fat pain to remove. You have regular attacks with triggers for pushes and extra damage to get around HtK, plus Burning from the good doctor’s attacks if it’s relevant. Or you can heal Calypso to keep it in the fight longer! Long story short, I’m stoked, folks.

Yes! My favorite models from the beta finally make an appearance and they look great! The good doctor and his roboctopus are super versatile and interesting to play, and they present a unique challenge to your opponent. EDIT: The more I look at Calypso, the more I wish it looked more like an octopus and less like a sphere with legs. The Hunter, the Peacekeeper, the Watcher, they're all great looking constructs because they don't look realistic, they're these insane mad scientist designs. Looks like I'll have to convert my calypso to have a big ol' octopus head and longer tentacles.

I am too, and I'm even more excited that Anya isn't just an enforcer or leg-breaker, or "noble wanderer", she's actually the CEO of Condor Rails! It's so rare to see Indigenous/First Nation peoples represented as being in any sort of position of power, I'm over the moon for her. @Jesy Blue has it right with the Shadowrun comparison, and I hope we see some great representation in that same vein.

Yeah, I'm with @Inefficiency_Expert, Anya looks like a lackluster brawler at first glance, but she's actually a damn amazing schemer who can finish off wounded models when she gets the opportunity. As for Sovereign, he does WORK, son!

I'm stoked for the stats and have been since the playtest, but can we talk about that model for Sovereign? I mean, giant mechanical Thunderbird which looks like it'll attach to its base via a bolt of lightning? Amazing.

The Alpinist really cracks me up, and I can see lots of uses for Jessie. ES is getting some great versatiles!

I had a character addicted to Brilliance for a while, so I had her flip a card for each week that she was addicted that we didn't play out. If she failed, every 2 points she failed by increased her Brilliance status by 1. eg, if she failed by 4 points her Brilliance status went up by 2 for that week. It worked out fine for us, but you might want to modify the numbers depending on how much time is passing and how interested the players are in it. Personally, my players knew something was screwy right away, so I wanted to make the choice a bit harder. "You can cure yourself, but you'll lose these awesome abilities", just to see if I could get them to push their luck a bit.

I do too, someday I'll find someone else to be the FM so I can agonize over which one to play... Actually, @Steamtastic Vagabond, that's not a bad idea. I bet plenty of people here have characters they've created which they could send to you. Is there anything in particular you're looking for?

There are a bunch of pregen characters in various penny dreadfuls, I'd start with those. You might need to flesh out a few details, but not too much.

Interesting! I was puttering around with writing up a timeline to take Malifaux from the turn of the century to the late 80's thanks to inspiration from this box. I wonder if this cyberpunk-ifaux setting could have legs for an ongoing setting? Maybe the Fated hang out here for a while, or a new campaign takes place entirely in this time? Excited to check it out!

They really are the whole package, aren't they? I'm gettin' all dreamy-eyed just thinking about it...

I would say you’d want to avoid models which specialize in one particular thing, and instead go for models which can accomplish a variety of tasks. @belorey’s list is a great example, as the Rough Riders can do pretty much whatever you need, and are mobile enough to get where they need to be. They can also move Sidir around to give him the mobility he needs to apply pressure as necessary.

Ha! I said in the announcement thread that I want to run a TtB game based on Tremors now.

Huh, I just noticed how useful Jaws of the Beast is. It doesn't just ignore the from Friendly Fire, you just straight-up ignore all negative modifiers. Manipulative? Engage with the Worm and boost your whole crew's shooting against them.

Yes! Thank you @Nathan Caroland, this is exactly what I've been picturing. Pretty sure I need to run a TtB game that's just Tremors 3 now...

Ok, now that the Sand Worm is revealed, I’m thinking Basse is gonna be really interesting. It adds a new wrinkle for enemies to consider, and it makes your dust clouds a potential threat, rather than purely defensive. Icing on the cake is it’s a beast, so it synergizes with Paul Crockett! I think it’ll take some getting used to to maximize its potential, as it is quite vulnerable once its unburied, but let’s not forget that there’s now a decent amount of healing in a Frontier crew to keep it in the fight. I can’t wait to get some table time with baby Shai-Hulud.

That's very true. We'll have to see what the future brings, but not having to bunch up in a tiny space is pretty dang huge. Between Home on the Range and Pathfinders, the Frontier crew is looking to be a great positioning crew, with more stopping power than the Wastrels.