WWHSD

I don’t like the idea of alternating initiative in Malifaux. Knowing that you are going first in the next turn reduces the risk of overcommiting a model late in the turn. I’m also not all that keen on games that are won by having initiative in the final turn being decided by a flip that took place at the start of the game.

It does appear that Peon and Insignificant are being combined into Insignifcant. Based on the spoiled M3E cards, The Jackalope is an Enforcer and Insignificant. “Insignificant: This model is ignored for the purposes of Strategies and Schemes, and it may not take the Interact action.”

The changes to the Walk and Disengage actions make me think that a large engagement range is a bigger benefit that it was in M2E. Disengaging turns off a model’s ability to Interact that turn and it looks like models will no longer be able to enter and leave an enemy’s engagement range during the move from a walk. It seems like a 30mm model with a 1 inch engagement range will be able to bottleneck about a 5 inch wide movement lane unless models have some way to push or place around its engagement range. Most models will need walk to the edge of the engagement range (possibly losing some distance off of their walk action) and the use the Disengage action to leave the engagement range.

Messing with the base cost of the model affects abilities that care about model cost (Monster Hunters have one in M2E, summoning abilities, M3E Marcus upgrade attaching ability) and scoring for schemes and strats.

I like the idea that SunTsu floated of each model having it's own "hiring tax" noted on the card. This allows high cost models to have a larger cost increase, and gives Wyrd another dial to fiddle with if it turns out that a particular model turns out to be a go-to model in it's faction even with the out-of-keyword hiring penalty applied.

I looks like maybe everything is Rare 1 by default now. None of the named models have a rare limit mentioned on them.

As others have said, Cojo got buffs comenurate with the points increase. On top of his healh increase, being able to charge more than per turn, and defense increase, his ability that eats scheme markers now turns them into the focused condition. Marcus’s ability to put mutation upgrades on a model has a TN that scales with the cost of the target model, making Cojo hard to get those buffs onto.

In the GenCon demo Marcus crew, Marcus and the Jackalope were the only dual faction models. Everything else was Arcanist. Myranda’s shapechange ability allows her to change in a beast from the same faction as the crew. That seems like a pretty good sign that keywords allow out of faction hiring.

From the models we’ve seen so far, I don’t expect much to change in regards to cost of the models. A number of models kept the same cost as they had in M2E and others got more expensive but appear to have received a rework that makes the new cost appropriate. I think that 15SS is going to be a steep price to pay to bring in a second master. There will probably be a few combos that make it worthwhile but I suspect they will end up being a niche pick once the novelty of bringing two masters wears off .

Mason confirmed that it will be 50SS with a free master and totem and that there is no soul stone cache.

I’m glad you guys have found it useful.

It’s not a rumor. Mason confirmed it on A Wyrd Place. Crews get a master, totem and 50SS. Both the Wendigo and Jackalope appear to have gotten substantial changes. Both seem like they work very well with their master but don’t seem invaluable to the crew. If each faction’s generic totem picks up the Versatile keyword and gets a similar rework, I’d imagine it could be a viable choice.

It's a terrain attribute like Impassable and Blocking. I don't see why you wouldn't be able to define other terrain that way. I could see some wood fences, crates, and a wagon that end up on the tables at my FLGS getting defined as Destructible.

With as many models that have bits that overhang their bases, the rounded edges of the bases, and jostling of models it’s not uncommon in my experience for models that were placed into base contact to have very small gaps between them.

From playing Ramos and needing to have models in base contact, I’ve found that announcing when something has moved into base contact and asking when an opponent’s model finishes a move that might be in base contact avoids a lot of issues, especially since it’s easy for things to get jostled a milimeter here and there.

I’m much less excited about 30mm Ice Pillars than I was about 50mm pillars. It’s also kind of sad that other than Rasputina, it looks like they’ve all lost protection from Horror duels.

The Ice Pillars are Destructible Terrain and they don't go away at the end of the turn or at the model's next activation. I wonder how hard they will be to destroy.

Yup. They simplified the attack stat.

Screening gets easier when the model doing the screening needs to be walked completely around instead of just walking through their engagement range. If I'm reading the walk action correctly you can't walk through an enemy's engagement range. That means that an Ice Gamin with a 1 inch melee creates about a 3 inch circle that enemies need to deal with instead of just avoiding his base when walking. If a model has to walk through an enemy engagement range, they'll need to stop at the edge of it and then take a Disengage action to get out of it. Assuming that Wyrd didn't change how a Push works, Charge needs to be in a straight line. A Walk action doesn't. For the most part, the M3E Charges are shorter than they were in M2E.. Artiee typed out exactly what's on the Rule Reference card.

The other thing that is important to notice about Charges is that you don't declare a target to do it and you don't need to end in engagement range. Models with Run and Gun can Charge away from their target and shoot. This essentially lets them kite a slower model across the table.

It looks like it is probably going to be easier to screen your ranged attackers with your own melee models though. Smaller ranges on attacks also make the straight line movement of a Charge harder to work with.

In M2E the December Acolye's attack is stat is Sh6 and in M3E it is just 6. There were a lot of abilities that cared about whether something was Sh, Ml, or Ca in M2E. It also caused confusion with newer players to have an Sh attack that was not a Projectile () attack, or a Ca action that was, or an Ml attack that was not a Close () attack. The Cover and Concealment rules on the card don't specifically call out either. We'll have to wait and see the rules about determining those things to see if the makes a difference.

I like how the new Charge and Disengage actions use Pushes. The movement bit of a Charge in M2E was essentially a Push. It should simplify things a lot since a lot having those movement types overlay the rules for Pushes. Getting only one attack on aCcharge is nice as well and will probably clear up some timing confusion when things trigger off the first attack of a Charge.

That also would make sense with Walk not allowing you to move out of an enemy's engagement range (even if you didn't start there). That would be really rough if the standard engagement range is 2 inches like seems to be in M2E with 3 inches not being unheard of. I do wonder if it will result in more time being spent measuring the path of a Walk action to avoid clipping an engagement range.

I didn't say that and were going away. The attack stat is just a number now, with no Sh, Ca, or Ml attached. Snow Storm's aura now reduces damage from non- attacks instead of just Sh attacks. The Sh, Ml, and Ca actions caused a lot of confusion when they didn't line up with the symbol that they are most often associated with.