Rufess

I think it is to prevent we attaching LLC on it. A Slippery model with Incorporeal and Armor could be a hug trouble to melee crew.

Xmas version of Marshal crew, which the Jury checking the list of bad children and Death Marshal putting them into present box, meanwhile Lady Justice beating people with a candy cane.

Updated my original post with more detail. The Attacking model will only cheat if necessary.

It is a huge but interesting question. I don't know how to calculate it so I wrote a script to simulate it. I ran 10 million time for each following cases and calculate the average damage(missed attack counted as 0), and the result is: Not cheating damage: With neither trigger: 2.89 With Critical Strike: 3.72 With Puncture: 3.43 Cheating damage: With neither trigger: 2.93 With Critical Strike: 3.76 With Puncture: 4.60 Here is the code I wrote for the test. Everyone is welcome to check if I had made any mistakes or if want to test with different parameters. What my code does is basically: set the Attacking model at stat 7 and 3/4/6 damage. set the Defending model at stat 5. both models draw 6 hands. both models flip for the duel if the Attacking model is winning the duel: the Defending model will always cheat the highest card in its hand. if needed the Attacking model will try to cheat the second high card in its hand, if it is not enough to win the duel, it will instead cheat the highest card. If the Defending model is winning the duel: then both models will cheat in the highest card in their hand. the Attacking model will always cheat the damage flip to higher if able.

Had few games with Ulix2 now. My biggest hot take is: Don't use him as a melee beater. Don't get me wrong, his melee is very impressive, but not his defense. He can heal a lot with Old Major's and Bo Peep's aura, but he will also take a lot damage as return. Try to keep distance from opponent's main beater, and commit him only for good chance and big reward lately in the game. Luckily his range is just as good as, if not better than, his melee. It basically ditch a hand from opponent since most don't like Adversary on their models. And if they somehow let you put out the Adversary, it is a big boost to survivability of you Pigs. I like to activate him early to shoot 3 times, just to pressure on opponent's hand. And regarding Bacon Beeline, pushing a Piglet to do 2 damage + 1 burning on an enemy or two is good enough as a bonus action, the growing part is just the icing on the cake. I mean you should definitely stone for it if you see a chance, but it is not something you should spend multiple hands and stones to accomplish. It is a tool to help you achieve the goal, but not the goal itself.

I assume you are asking about Anya1. I yet don't have much experience of Anya2 so I can only answer regarding to Anya1. Anya is very fragile as a frontline master so the Emissary can be a decent bodyguard for her. Though it means Anya has to hand out with the Emissary and cannot max out her mobility. Or Emissary can stay with other models of the crew while Anya doing her stuff. So I think it is a matter of playstyle and personal preference. As for the gameplay, the most easiest thing to forget I found is the Hostile Work Environment. So try to remember the ability, and you will be surprised how many enemy actions she can shut down. Also don't feel bad when you find yourself need to send Anya for scheming. Anya is one of the best masters scheming and anti-scheming.

I start liking to use Start boxes for demo game recently. Good balance between inner synergy and complexity. But if a new player has a strong desire to play a specific master he likes and I know beforehand, I will make a crew with streamlined card to ensure a fair game with the Start box crew. Something like this: As for the Strat and Schemes, I tend to use customized version. Since the originals are designed for larger scale and hence require more Actions. Using those directly in demo game could result in both players using all their Actions for scheming and not fighting at all. My demo pool is: Break the Line*: Using only one 50mm Strategy Marker starting at the center point, pushing 2" instead of placing 2", and scoring VP if the marker is completely within the opponent's half. Reset Marker position every turn. Encouraging players to go to center, rather than flanking and avoiding each others. Teaching the importance of model positioning through engaging to stop Interact Action and stopping the Marker with meat shield. Assassinate: No change from the original version. It is the fighting scheme to encourage players to start fighting. Spread Them Out*: Require 2 Scheme Markers away from each others 6". It is the scheming one to teach that the game is not only about killing. Though it is still relatively harsh to accomplish with a 4 models crew without marker placing tech. I am looking for a replacement for this scheme. All demo games uses Wedge deployment, start scoring from turn 1 and last for 3 turns. So far it works quite well to introduce the basic idea of Malifaux to new players as well as helping them to extend to larger scale without trouble.

The greatest threat from Obliteration is burying your models. Buried model is not within Jedza's Fragility of Life aura and hence can be removed easily. Their main way to bury you is by the Glimpse the Void trigger which has a TN 14 Wp duel. Given that most of Seeker models have relatively low Wp, I would strongly suggest you to save all your 11+ hands every turn to pass the trigger.

The greatest strength of Anya imo is her adaptability. She is a master who can move fast, do scheme and anti-scheme, beatdown and control. And hazard shenanigan is only one of her many things. So if you find hazard terrain cannot win you that game, you can always try to play her in other ways. That says her hazard shenanigan is not that weak too. Inside Syndicate keyword she has access to 2 different hazard terrains(3 if you count Geode Marker, but it is less reliable). Which means 2 points of ping damage from action/move(Union Buster). Corvis and Winston can also drop Scheme Marker in melee as well as moving enemies around. If you want more, Tannenbaum or Austera&Twigge is always a good option. And do not forget the Hostile Work Environment. Enemies near Anya cannot be healed by other enemies' action. So the opponent has to use either passive ability or pulse/aura action to heal their model, which usually heals less than single targeting action. And again, try to play Anya in different way based opponent's crew. Playing the hazard game is super strong against Augment or M&SU, but is less efficient when facing Infamous or Nephilim, or completely useless to Urami.

Very true. I always be confused with creating and dropping.

Just beware a marker cannot be created nor dropped on top of other marker. It also means Misaki cannot drop Shadow to a spot if Titania already created an Underbrush there.

Rule of Cool is always the first priority to pick a crew, means that you should choose the crew appeals to you the most. Especially we are having a new wave of master title that gives a different playstyle to every master in the game. Picking a single Faction is not as important as it was back in 2E. Thanks to the keyword system, you can always jumping into a new master by buying 2~3 boxes, but not the whole Faction. You can have couple keywords in different Factions and still have fair game against others who play single Faction, as long as you are not playing in fixed-Faction tournament. Another direction is to pick masters according to the pairing in the new book. Wyrd is releasing new contents in the format of 2 master plus a new model that can be used with both masters. Picking masters in pair can make the most use of the new boxes. The pairing in the masters you mentioned: Molly & Nekima Pandora & Colette Zoraida & Jedza Toni & Anya As for playstyle, I believe Nekima matches the "Charge and Destroy" the most. She and her keyword are all mobile melee attackers, who can travel a long distance and kill an enemy in an Activation or two. They are fairly squish for sure (otherwise they would be too overpower), but the new version of Nekima is somehow helping this issue. You can choose between the beater Nekima and the Supporter Nekima based on the matchup.

I don't have much experience in Wong, but I think Fluffernutter is an important part of the Glowy engine. Bo Peep is also a nice add-on in the keyword to help unpacking, healing and building up Glowy as well. I would put the Starter box near Sammy in the priority list, and it goes up if you want to dig into another Bayou keywords.

They had the Limited version Tanuki during last year Black Friday sale, so you may be able to buy one this year.

I do agree that tournament is a better place than causal play to collect data for balancing. But then I also know GAMES came to the end because they had gone too far on the competitive scene. The frequency of errata could change how players play the game as well. During the open beta of M3E when models were changing on a weekly basis, players tended to call for a nerf instead of learning to play against when encountered strong models. In another game where it takes turn to playtest every faction in monthly basis, players from other factions just randomly yelling "OP pls nerf" instead of actually playing it. These maybe a bit too extreme as examples, but I believe there is theory can be found in common. The period between errata should be long enough for players to overcome the knee reaction and actually play and learn the problematic models. Discussion can help for sure, but it is not much better than theorycrafting. Not that I am a competitive player so the top tablers can just ignore my comments here.🙃

The only terrain trait that allow models moving vertically up and down along is Climbable. If the Pylon Markers would lose Impassible trait, then a model could just walk inside and remain staying in the table surface without gaining Ht/Sz, hence could be base contact with other objects in the same surface. Just like Lamp Marker from Lamplighter, model can walk through or stay over the marker, but cannot block LoS from others to the marker unless it is Sz 4 or greater. Since models drawing LoS to the Sz 4 Lamp Marker can ignore other object with Sz 3 or less.

Cannot found the pictures now, but there were 4 sculpts, Sonnia, Seamus, Titania and a lady with a big bird, shown in last Gencon. I guess the last one is an Arcanist because of faction of 4 suits, but cannot match the sculpt to any master.

Gators without a doubt are solid for their cost. But given that Zoraida can only cast Witch's Brew at most twice a turn, it makes more sense to me to cast on high cost models. First Mate comes to mind first. He is already good enough by default, boosting his stat can only make him better. Adze can be situationally useful with Mv 8 as well. Just beware the +1 Sz can make the model more harsh to hide.

Not sure if here is the proper place to continue the discussion since Som'er the no title is, well, not a title. But imo he is still competitive in certain strategies, Recover Evidence for example, even with the changes on summoned models and strategy marker. As for the title master, I am surprised that people not sold on Meecha-Mah. I think she is just as good as her origin version, in a different direction. The only single point the origin winning out is Careful Planning. And it will not be a problem after Wyrd giving a similar one named Darefule Planning to Meecha-Mah in next errata🙃.

Had several games that either side or both sides of players lost all their soulstones after started the game. The issue randomly happens that cannot figure out any pattern, nor unable to reproduce on purpose. But it does happen on both Android and iOS.

Made 2 sample cards to show the outcome. I see your point. And yes it is difficult to draw the line in between "important attributes" and "niche attributes". Like the attribute "Anti Summon" in the above examples is quite similar to Blindfighter, that only has impact on like 1 game out of 10s. I think the different here is would it ruins the game if you had missed that attribute before game. And that why I would like advices from others to help me out on the keyword I am not familiar with, since it requires enough experience to work out.

I am recently preparing the first local tournament after Malifaux Burns Expansion. Since the number of masters has been doubled and there are couples of new players joining the tournament, I am planning to make a deck of Reference Cards as an entry gift, to help the new players understanding their opponent's crew in a minute. In every Reference Card there will be a single version of a master along with his/her keyword printed, followed by a list of attribute tags that the opponent should play attention for, in 2 tiers. For instant the cards of Lady Justice will be like: Lady Justice ⚠AoE Condition Removal ⚠Extra Attack ⚠Healing ⚠Advance Movement Anti Bury Anti Summon Anti Undead Offensive Bury Lady Justice, Death-Touched ⚠Advance LoS and Range ⚠Anti Bury ⚠Anti Healing ⚠AoE Healing ⚠AoE Duel ⚠Offensive Bury ⚠LoS and Range Terrain [Blocking, Destructible and Impassible] Anti Summon Anti Undead The tags started with ⚠ representing the primary/core attributes of the master and keyword, which is highly likely happen when facing against the keyword. Other tags mean the attributes are possible/capable to do so, but in a lower chance/less reliability. The problem is I am not familiar with every master and keyword in game, not to mention all the new titles. So I could use some help on filling out the tag list of each keyword. Here is a list of tag that worth the opponent look at. You are feel free to add/merge/split any attribute as needed. Please note that, imo, the list should only include those attributes that will affect the opponent's game plan to keep the total count minimum. It is alright that a player does not know the opponent can draw a bunch of card, however it can cost him a game if the player does not know the opponent can discard his hands. Action Control (Obey and similar effect) Activation Control (Mood Swings, Pass Token related effect, and etc) Advance Charge (Blade Rush, Diving Charge, Frenzied Charge, and etc) Advance Defense (Manipulative, Protected, Serene Countenance, and etc) Advance LoS Advance Movement (Fly/Ride with Me, Leap, Nimble, Onwards, and etc) Advance Range Anti Armor Anti Healing Anti Resistance Trigger Anti Summon Armor AoE Duel (effect of "models within range must pass a TN X Y duel of Z") AoE [X] (AoE Healing, AoE Marker Removal, and etc) Blasting Bury Attack Condition Removal Damage Reducing (Dark Deception, Flaming Body, and etc) Deck Control Defensive [X] (Defensive Bury, Defensive Condition Removal, and etc) Extra Attack Extra Activation Force Movement Hand Control Healing Irreducible Damage Marker Removal Model Replacing Mv Attack Offensive [X] (Offensive Bury, Offensive Condition Removal, and etx) Scheme Marker Dropping Scheme Marker Removal Shockwave Stat Increasing Summon Sz Attack Terrain [X] Terrain Removal Terrifying

Like this, but then should Distracted affect simple duels in similar manner as well?

I think we are doing well in the new book. Some excellent titles and a solid faction model that would show up frequently. Brewmaster and Ophelia are the strongest title in Bayou regarding power level, to a degree that way too good. I think they would be played over the original versions most of the time in the current GG. Ulix and Mah are the best designed title imo, both in the sculpt-wise and the rule-wise. Ulix does bring new direction to the keyword but not overshadowing the old himself. Mah otoh is not as exciting as her sculpt, but I still believe she and her machine will have equal table time as the original version. Som'er is the Parker in brown. As the only marker-oriented master, I believe he will become our single best choice in certain pool. Zipp is a tough one. I can see the difference and the options he brings to the table, but I so love the classic Zipp that I don't see myself playing the Dread Pirate. It is more the matter of preference than power level.

I am not quite sure on relying triggers that are not built-in and under a bonus action which requires to remove a marker. I think I would just bring the Steward to look after Dashel. I have no doubt the Executioner and Mounted Gard are performing good. I am more wondering Rifleman and Sergeant. Especially the Sergeant who can make Dashel charges 8", a bit too costly though. Also any OOK or versatile model that I should look at?