Pantoporos Aporos

Hi all, I'm a new puppet wars player thinking about diving into Malifaux soon, since I have so many miniatures that can serve as proxies. I know I can buy individual cards from war game vault, but I found a few cheap wave 1 arsenal decks for various factions and was wondering if buying them would be a bad idea. I know some cards have been updated since those decks were printed, but I'm not likely to play in tournaments anytime soon, and figured I can buy a handful of updated cards if needed. Are there any issues I haven't considered? Thanks, PA

Well, the bad news is that Wyrd is out of metal puppets, so I'm really out a Sorrows and a Moleman. Oh well, I'll figure that out later. In the meantime, I've painted an Ice Golem: It looks a bit better in person, but either way I'm happy with it! It turned out a bit bluer than I hoped, but ended up a good match to the card's artwork. Hopefully I'll post some other painted minis in the next few weeks. And as soon as my laser cut wood hexagons arrive from China, I'll get started on my custom board (and terrain).

Got my Pawn booster packs today, and set out to make a storage solution to the new-to-unstitched puppets that come in each booster. I managed to make something pretty serviceable out of an old cigar box and left-over foam pieces from the unstitched box and the Game Plus foam tray: Unfortunately, my new old stock Pawns #1 booster was mispacked, and had a Silurid and an extra Bad Juju instead of a Sorrows and a Moleman: I suppose it's good news if you want to play with Pandora, but I was really looking forward to the Moleman. Also, I noticed that in the original PW, Bad Juju had no suit requirement for his activation... I wonder why they decided to add a requirement in the PWU playtest cards? Anyway, I sent Wyrd a customer service request, but saw that they no longer support metal miniatures. It's understandable, as these miniatures have been out of print for such a long time now, but I'm hoping that Wyrd are still able to sort this out somehow. We'll see. If the worst comes to worst, I'll just try to sculpt something akin to the missing puppets with Green Stuff and whatever extra puppets seem closest to the job. But that wouldn't happen for a long time. First, I'll paint the ready-to-play puppets. All 63 or so of them!

Since I'm about to start painting, modifying, and otherwise customizing my copy of Puppet Wars: Unstitched, I figured I'd start a "master thread" and keep my nonsense contained . To start things off, here's a foam insert I put together (or rather, pulled apart) last night: It's a 2" Game Plus+ pluck foam tray, measuring 7.5" x 13". It fits the box nearly perfectly, and by using some of the blocks of foam I plucked out I was able to make more protected spaces for extra miniatures (see the top side of the box in the photo). As it is, the box holds all 44 Unstitched miniatures, as well as the metal "multiplayer" expansion. When the 3 metal Pawn Booster packs arrive I'll have to figure out more storage space, but for now this is pretty good. The only drawback is that 2" is a bit too tall for the unstitched box, and the lid does not close all the way. I can live with that, though, especially if it means not worrying about the taller puppets (like Pokey Vik and the Cherubs) getting damaged. Anyway, not bad for an $8 foam tray! --PA

The play test cards that were available for unstitched have him as a master, but even if he were just another sidekick I'd be happy!

I'm pretty sure that it's just a first edition Malifaux one. I got it from Noble Knight games, because it was pretty cheap. They have a lot of used and new old stock stuff, including one of each puppet wars booster (which I got). They do have one limited edition Teddy, but again I think it's not a puppet wars one (and it's pricy: $70).

Yeah, in due time I'm sure that'll happen. Especially since I went ahead and ordered an old school metal Lucius to go along with the boosters (to have an extra master, since Brass Monkey's PDF had a card for him).. Malifaux will happen for sure. Just as soon as my bank accounts heal a bit from this puppet binge

Well, I broke down today and ordered each of the pawn boosters (the multiplayer booster was already on the way), so maybe house ruling Pokey Vik won't be necessary after all. Be that as it may, it's safe to say that I'm hooked! Hopefully this game keeps me busy for the next year or two, before the itch to try Malifaux gets too strong

Good to know we're playing Bête Noire right. Thanks!

So, a week after assembly, I'm happy to report that my spouse and I played Puppet Wars Unstitched a couple of times last night and had a blast! The first game was with the suggested armies (Lady Justice vs Seamus), and I got butchered playing Seamus. The second game we drafted armies taking turns, and it was Pokey Viktoria vs Lady Justice. Much closer game, and I won as Lady Justice, but we both decided that Pokey Viktoria's animation bonus seems a bit underpowered (not a whole lot of outcast models in the base game, and the bonus doesn't work on the Hooded Rider), so we started talking about house rules for Pokey. And here's where my questions to you kind folks start: Have any of you come up with good house rules for Pokey Viktoria? I'm thinking of "reduce the activation cost of all other puppets by 1", instead of reducing the costs of outcasts by 2... Does the Hooded Rider really not get any bonuses from Pokey? That seems so odd, given that he's one of so few outcast models in the box. Does the Bête Noire's "Sense Stuffing" action only work on adjacent puppets? That's how I played it, and it seemed underwhelming. I'm now wondering if it means that she can attack an exhausted puppet anywhere on the board, but then that seems a bit too powerful. I'm curious to hear how others play with these puppets... Thanks, PA

Sounds entirely reasonable (though my thoughts here count for nothing until I've actually played the game). One unrelated note: there seems to be a typo on the Zombie Chihuahua card. An ability is called "flees" when it should be "fleas". It's not a big deal, but I thought I'd throw it out there ;-)

Doh! I just realized that the photos I had seen were of bases stacked inside each other. Well, then, looks like a couple of translucent packs will go on my next order...

Good tip! I actually meant to say "paint 30mm lipped bases", but if Wyrd's translucent bases are lipped, that makes life easier. I thought I had seen a photo of them that showed them not to be lipped, but I may very well be mistaken. I'll check them out, thanks!

So yesterday I finally decided to sit down and assemble the minis from Puppet Wars Unstitched. I didn't think I was going to get through very many of them, since I'd never assembled miniatures before, but a beer or two and a few hours later, I had gone through all 4 sprues (am I using that word correctly?) and assembled all of the puppets! I figured I'd leave this post here, in case someone like me (who is interested in the game but intimidated at the prospect of cutting, sanding, and gluing miniatures) ever stumbles upon this thread. Putting these puppets together is really not as bad as it sounds. Sure, some of the puppets have some tricky bits (looking at you, crow's feet and electrical cord tail), and the Death Marshals are an absolute pain in the ass, but the vast majority of the puppets are very straightforward. And there was very little need for "green stuff" putty: just one puppet's ponytail (Misaki?) that had a large gap to the rest of the head, and a Death Marshal that I did an awful job on. All it took was a lazy Sunday, some tools (a sprue cutter, hobby knife, plastic glue, and very fine sand paper), and some patience. Not so bad at all. Now it's on to find some sleeves for the cards, and paint the bases for the different players, and it's onward to try the game (hopefully next weekend). And I'm really looking forward to painting these puppets!

That's a lot of great info. Thanks! At the moment, I'm just looking for regular bases to use as player markers for Puppet Wars, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I'll be trying my hands at Malifaux in the future, so this information will definitely come in handy...

That's good to hear. Thanks! And that's very good to keep in mind. Thanks, all!

Thanks - "maybe not" is close enough for me I"ll buy a few cheap 30mm bases to paint (so that each player can easily tell which puppets are theirs), and if they don't work, I can always buy the Wyrd bases later. And thanks for letting me know that the bases don't play nice together. I read of people using rare earth magnets for this, and I have a stack of them lying around somewhere, so I might go that route (I also have some sticky tack, but that seems a bit messy for a game night).

Ack, I just noticed that I posted this on the "terrain" forum, rather than the "hobby" forum. Is there a way to move the post?

Newbie with a question here: I'm on the market for a few 30mm bases that will accommodate the smaller bases from Puppet Wars: Unstitched, as I have read that those slot right into 30mm bases (sort of like an insert, I guess). But, and here's the newbie question, do all 30mm lipped bases have roughly the same internal diameter? I know that Wyrd makes their own bases, but those seem to be out of stock everywhere, and are a bit expensive. I've found some 30mm bases (by "Confrontation" or "Kromlech", for instance) that cost $1 to $2 for a pack of 10, so I'm tempted to go that way. Thanks in advance for your help, PA

Gotcha. I meant to say "will come", but wrote "came" for some reason. Busy week at work + posting during short breaks = silly mistakes. But yeah, knowing that they've put one game through kickstarter, and that it will come with preassembled minis, means that it's at least possible that puppet wars will get the same treatment some day...

Fair point, and they undoubtedly know much more than I do about their market and target audience! I'm new to the Wyrd universe, and did not know that The Other Side came with preassembled minis... Good to know! Thanks for the replies, all! PA

That's very helpful, thanks!

I know that I'm probably just talking to myself here, but since some folks from Wyrd seem to read these forums as well, I'd just like to drop a suggestion: From what I've seen and read, PWU is an incredible game. I'm still waiting for my copy to arrive, but everything points to it being exactly the kind of game I'm looking for: a miniature skirmish (lite) game for those (like me) who have never played mini wargames before and want to share it with their friends and family who like board games (and miniatures) but are put off by the prospect of using a tape-measure when playing. If the game is as good as it seems, then it would be a bargain at its current MSRP (and a ridiculous bargain at $55 or so, which is what I paid on another store). More importantly, it would be fairly priced at $100 if only the miniatures came assembled. I suspect that prospect of having to mess with sprues and glues puts off the vast majority of board gamers without wargaming experience, and they (we) seem to be a prime market for this game. But allow more casual gamers to fall in love with the game (and with the Malifaux universe), and the rest of your game line should start selling more as well. So, at the risk of merely talking into the void, why not consider putting out a Puppet Wars Restitched version out? Keep the same rules as the Unstitched version, but sell the minis assembled and raise the cost accordingly. Include a different set of characters in the Restitched version, and people who own PWU will buy it as well. Put it out on Kickstarter and rake in the dough. Use that dough to put out expansions (or add them as stretch goals as well). Just something to consider... PA

Excuse my ignorance, but as a newer-than-newbie player (I just ordered PWU from The War Store, and eagerly await its arrival) I'm curious: which 1st edition PU set would I need in order to get the minis for these missing puppets? Are all of them in the original core box, or are they spread out in the booster packs as well? Assuming that I will like this game (and everything points in that direction, from what I've read), I will probably be itching to get my hands on more puppets... The old booster packs can still be found for (merely) high prices, but the old core box goes for exorbitant amounts on that famous online auction site.