WWHSD

The Hard Worker Upgrade has a "Shadows in the Steam" effect that allows friendly Foundry models to ignore pulse effects and markers when drawing LoS. Does this affect more than just establishing if LoS exists? If I understand the rules correctly this would prevent pulse effects (like Howard Langston's "Steam Cloud") from providing cover.

Howard Langston is the name of Arnold Schwarzenegger's character in Jingle All The Way. I'm not sure if someone at Wyrd is just a huge fan of that movie or if it's the long way around for a Terminator reference. Or maybe we are just supposed to bellow "It's Turbo time!" when Howard scurries into combat.

As a point of comparison, Ramos needs to spend at least 3 points to bring a construct to kill to be able to summon anything first round.

That's how it works. Depending on the cards you have in hand (and your willingness to spend soulstones) you can bring out two Gamin and Banasuva in the first round. Most summoners can't bring out summons that fast.

Hmmmm...I forgot that it's the player whose living/construct model gets killed that gets to choose which marker to drop. Would it make for a better game for the Ramos crew to trade in Howard for three Steam Arachnids? They lose the ultra-killiness of Howard but give Ramos more potential for scrap and more activations.

I've got my initial batch of Malifuax models painted up and want to play. I figure that a 35 point match between my two boxes is a good way to start. I'm not looking for the strongest crews that I can make from each box, I'm looking for something balanced. 35 point Rail Crew: Mei Feng with Vapormancy, Seismic Claws, Arcane Reservoir Kang with People's Challenge and Hard Worker Emberling 3 x Rail Worker 35 point M&SU: Ramos with Under Pressure, Arcane Reservoir Joss with Bleeding Edge Tech Harold Langston with Imbued Energies Brass Arachnid How are those two crews going to match up? Without having played the game before it looks like they should be fairly well balanced. Ramos's summoning will be off to a slow start due to having to wait for something to die to get a scrap marker to work with. It seems like the Rail Crew will have an early advantage but once things on either side start dying the M&SU squad will be able to start picking up steam. Is there anything that I should tweak to get better games between the two crews? I know I should be shooting to fill 1/4 - 1/3 of the board with terrain. I currently have no terrain. Is there a decent site for getting 2D terrain that I can print and cut out? I've seen a bunch of print and fold buildings but I'd like something that's easy to store and toss out on the table. My local game store has a lot of terrain available and I'll probably just use that when I want to play on a fancy looking board. I'll try and enlist one of my kids to help me learn the game but if I can't talk them into it, are there any tips for playing solo?

This is my first foray into a miniatures game that requires much in the way of assembly. I just finished assembling and paint the Ramos box with some extra spiders and an Electric Creation. I've also assembled (and am just finishing painting) the Rail Crew box. Should I expect most of my future purchases to be as difficult to assemble (and figure out how to base) as the M&SU and Electric creation or is the Rail Crew box more representative of the average models in the game?

Henchmen Hardcore usually prohibits summoning. Her Shapechange ability is a summon. I'm not sure if that ability was a factor in your choice ot not.

Bundle of Holding has a Malifaux PDF bundle available for the next couple of weeks. The PDFs can be downloaded directly from Bundle of Holding and they get linked to your DriveThroughRPG library. $14.95 gets you: M2E Core (version with fiction and stat cards) M1.5E Core Rising Powers (1.5E) Twisting Fates (1.5E) Storm of Shadows (1.5E) $27.85 (or more) gets you more 2E books: Ripples of Fate Shifting Loyalties Crossroads https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Malifaux

A couple people have mentioned using a tray. In other games I will typically use one but it seems like it wouldn't work as well in Malifaux. I'd think that I'd want to keep my collection hidden from my opponent until I reveal the crew that I chose. Am I not giving my opponent an advantage in their crew selection if they know that when I say "Arcanists" what I actually mean is "Some combination of Mei Feng's box, Ramos's box, Johan, Carlos, Electrical Creation, and Soulstone Miners"? If I did have a large enough collection that knowing what I can choose from doesn't really provide any insight to my opponent it seems like it would be a little unwieldy to toss it all on a tray and hope that nothing gets knocked off of it during a game. Or are people not really using the trays for their models, just for all of the other BS that needs to be carted from table to table?

The lack of standardized tokens probably makes quickly identifying them a bit trickier.

X-Wing was kind of the first minis game that I spent much time playing so that's probably why I fall firmly in the "if there aren't tokens on the table, how do you know what's going on?" camp.

I was fully intending to have everything covered by tokens that get placed near models. Is that not the way that most people play? It seems like a lot of things will get missed if you have to constantly ask your opponent which models have which conditions.

I'm trying to figure out what I need to gather up as my "starter kit" before I head off to my first event. Is there anything that I'm missing? Any suggestions for what to use to track the various conditions that need to be tracked? - Tape measure - Fate deck - Rule book - Current version of Gaining Grounds - Cards for models and upgrades - 10 x Corpse markers (30mm) - 10 x Scrap Markers (30mm) - 10 x Scheme Markers (30mm) - 4 x Blast marker (50mm) - Something to track wounds - Something to track conditions that might be inflicted by your crews

Sorry, I meant does it make sense to take Johan and Joss instead of Howard and either Johan and Joss.

Lots of great ideas here. Thanks for sharing the pictures.

What is that you've mounted the spider on?

Is Joss+Johan usually worth leaving Howard in the box?

After assembling my Brass Arachnid I glanced at the card a sawthat it uses a 30mm base. It looks like it would be tricky to fit it on a 40mm. Any hints to get it on the right sized base?

I'm not much of a painter but I'm trying to get reasonable looking paint jobs on my Malifaux minis. I don't mess around with a bunch of highlighting to layers. I throw on a base coat, slather in shading ink or minwax, and then maybe touch up a few spots that got too dark. I usually use Army Painter Barbarian Flesh to paint skin. I am about start working on my Rail Crew and realized that I don't think I want them to look like a bunch of white guys dressed up for Halloween. I also want to avoid making them offensively yellowish. The only people that are yellow are suffering from jaundice or are living in Springfield. What's a good (and low skill way) to make these models' skin look like it belongs on an asian character?

I've had good luck with getting my own mats mat with www.pixartprinting.com. Printing a 3x3 vinyl banner with your own art on it runs around $15. The mats I've order have turned out nicely. The heavier mousepad material mats are nice but for what you pay for those you could have 3 or 4 different mats printed on vinyl to give you a bit of variety. They are cheap enough that I'm tempted to get one with a bunch of terrain printed on it permit for quicker setup that's more portable than having to lug around a box of terrain and set it up. The trick will be coming up with a terrain layout that's fairly balanced for both sides using the various deployments zones.

I've finished assembling and am about halfway through painting my first Malifaux purchases. I'm looking for advice on what to add next to give me some options on what I put on the table. I've got M&SU box, Rail Crew box, a pack of arachnids, and an Electrical creation. I'm considering getting Johan, Soulstone Miners, Carlos, or possibly the Ironsides box. Carlos and the Soulstone Miners both look like the could be a lot of fun, Johan seems like he beefs up what I already own, and Ironsides gets me a third master, a solid support piece in the Captain, and the mages bring some ranged attackers to my melee heavy model collection. I haven't played a game yet so I'm just guessing at what I'll need in my toolbox. What do I need to look at adding to my collection next to have the tools to deal with most schemes? Am I on the right track with the models that I'm looking at? I'd prefer purchases that make the two masters I have work better instead of branching out more but am not totally against getting a third master if the box is full of stuff that everyone will use (like the Ironsides box). I'd like to focus on getting some depth and flexibility with Ramos and Mei Feng instead of spreading my attentions.

You're rotating masters but are you doing the same with the rest of your list? Do you have a few combination of models that seem to end up in your crew when certain scheme show up regardless of which master you are bringing?

To people that have pinned the spiders (I just had to look up what that was to see if it was exactly what it sounded like, it was); did you use the tips of the feet or the bottom of the body?

Thanks for the advice. Doing something other than just painting bases and maybe using a some sand or flocking isn't something that I've really given much thought to. I'm more interested in Malifaux for its gameplay aspects than I am for modeling but I figure that I should get my feet wet with the hobby bits instead of just throwing gray plastic on the table.