DuBlanck

Rules consistency and clarity, with a timing chart that actually works unambiguously with the models and abilities. I feel like the game's reputation as "too dense/complex to learn" would go away if the first time you read an ability interaction, you could work out how to use it from the rulebook's sequencing guide instead of an unofficial Discord's council of law technicians. I want a shedload of deep crunchy complexity, but Malifaux having an overly technical rules language grammar that isn't always the same as real world grammar is incredibly tiresome.

Unless Cackle's changed their stance, it maybe bears repeating that Balancefaux is a format suggestion for one sector/circuit of competitive play, not intended to entirely supplant Mainfaux in all tournaments - maybe you'll see a small reduction in 'top-tier' players playing new releases, but the overwhelming bulk will be events that run vanillafaux and attract the celebrity headliners by virtue of their wider player field. Edit: Unless your concern is that some those celebrity gits tend to main only two or three crews for months at a time, crews which won't be new releases if they can't play them in the big tournaments, in which case... fair point I guess.

Why Joss over Golem?

Clouds of spooky mist (cotton wool on a base) can be a good thing to block lines of sight without just obstructing every travel lane with mausoleums and fences. The pauper's pit reanimating- a patch of ground with grasping hands bursting out of the soil (Hazardous: Staggered), maybe Destructible individual hands?

Oh, yeah, it absolutely is. But it is still how I feel about the situation. Whenever I talk to people, I focus on the objective system being actually objective-based (rather than killing with seasoning), and every individual model having a unique contribution to the game's outcome. That's the easy sell. Most of the new entry players I have met in the physical world bought in because they liked a specific crew aesthetic, so I can't just feed them a simpleton crew - we're playing the game because they want to try out their new e.g. Jedza, which means we have to spend a chunk of the game butting our heads against the twenty-four step timing chart and managing Auras and tokens and terrain markers (which are and are not terrain) and and and. I don't want to say "this game is sufficiently corner-case-riddled that I'm going to give you three websites and two Discord servers to do homework on" in the middle of someone's first game. It's manageable, it's just a drag that I, personally, in my opinion, don't feel enthused to teach.

I have been put off doing intro games or demos for folks because I don't want to have to mess up explaining the timing charts, or why this or that doesn't work the way it 'should'. The point about the value of new players is well made - Malifaux is far better suited to casual play than Guild Ball, but it feels like it is drifting into the same territory of being inaccessible to some degree due to the depth of knowledge needed to play it as (ostensibly) intended.

Is that how that works for Pulses? I'd assumed that, absent a declared target, the origin was "this model" - so there is no range or LoS to draw.

I'm fairly sure the program is dead, I'm afraid. They'll make good local bragging rights event rewards?

@Maniacal_cacklechannel name? Are those directly related or coincidentally adjacent? Weak-Keyword Masters tend to be stronger individual models because they are designed/power-budgeted to be good without the help of their Keyword? Which leaves you free to spend Stones on good Versatiles and OOKs. Whereas Masters that are intended to be heavily involved in their Keyword crew, so you effectively pay a 'tax' by taking less-good in-Keyword options to enable the Master?

@Wyrd Dawg there's a small circle that (historically) play at Dice Saloon in Brighton. There's an FB page for Brighton Malifaux too. I am planning on getting back to the table when being outside becomes a less enticing prospect.

Perhaps this is more obvious to someone experienced with Nellie - why Nellie without her Keyword? Just to control the Cursed interactions?

This is, I think, a preferable solution - some sort of free upgrade for hiring multiples. Hire 3 Mages, all Oxfordians get a free Suit. Hire 3 or more Dogs, one Dog is Pack Leader, gains Pack Mentality (+1) always on, and gets Follow My Wag, or Coordinated A Pack, or some other Dog-only version of a medium-impact utility skill (bearing in mind that impact is tempered by Dog-only). Aside, I've noticed that a lot of cheap Minions have a Trigger for every Suit somewhere in their actions, so perhaps this was intended to be some sort of flexibility thing allowing max value output, it just doesn't really work in execution.

Not to impugn your academic rigour unduly, but was that seeing if they were decent models, or finding pools where you would actually take that model in a crew over other options? There's a number of models in this class that are decently playable, but barely ever first choice for a position/role - usually because there's a better model for 1-2ss more. [Edit: I realise I'm duplicating @Avatar of Butter's post here.]

Along the same lines as @regleant, there are a few minions I'd take three of, but I'd strongly prefer keeping the model count safely under a dozen per crew.

From Guild Ball times, there was a lot of constant verbal interaction that negated the need to ask "do you want to clock over?" As said above, players usually already know if they would cheat a duel before the cards are flipped, so if your opponent doesn't announce "no cheat" within a couple of seconds, you can ask, and tap over if there's no answer immediately forthcoming - perhaps 5 seconds of running on the wrong clock. The Other Coast podcast, among others, had a good episode about clocks. Most of the 'bads' can be avoided or significantly mitigated by a talk at the top of the tournament - run the clock while you are active, flip the clock if your opponent is doing a lot of thinking, try not to be a dick about aggressive clock flipping.

I think for meatworld gaming, this is spot on. My distantly remembered experience is that it did, usually, but a significant chunk did not. Caveat - all long before Malifaux Burns. In an ideal world, or flexible online world, I think 2.5-3 hours with an equitable split clock is sensible - it allows an excess of thinking time if needed, but also clearly shows if one player is consuming 70% of the table time. An alternative would be 2.5 hours with 1.5 hours each on a deathclock - there's room for using up more than your 'fair share' of time, but if that is abused, that player will immediately lose the game. The obvious problem for this is that it simply shifts the problematic area away from crews that are complex to play as, onto crews that create excesses of interactive dilemma for the opponent.

I think that circumvents the limitation by specifically supplying and naming the action as part of an ability, but in the process of typing that out I recpgnise there's not much more concrete in one case than the other.

Yes, the Outriders specifies Terrain. The Sputtering Exhaust Aura is not Terrain, though I think there are now models released with Auras that specify that the area is treated as [Something] Terrain - those would potentially proc Outriders.

[By my read of the rule book, I think] "Actions Generated By Effects: the new Action is always resolved after the previous Action is completely resolved, including any “After Resolving” effects, but before any other new Action can be taken" Ophelia2's "Gimme That Back" would pop before Swift Action starts the second Trash Cannon action, meaning that there is no '"this Action" to take, it cannot be declared, so the chain stops/action fails at that point. Edit: Immediate rules lawyer addition - under "Stat Cards" the cards are described as listing the actions a model can take (+ general actions), but the language is minorly different for Upgrades. I think it still tracks that the Upgrade disappears and you no longer can take the action because the Upgrade is no longer part of your suite.

This is also where my mind went to immediately - an easy way to supply themselves with Pillars, using something they might actually have access to. With Performer, that's not going to be Corpse Markers... In December, Enemy markers is a bit too much counter-play power. @Jordon's idea of giving them generic/terrain marker removal also works.

If we were talking about a simpler game, I'd agree with @Adran here, but the 'point' of Malifaux is that is more complex than most of it's competitors, with extensive synergy building and all that jazz - 50 new profiles with this level of individual complexity and interlocking play is not the same as 50 new units in a game where every model walks and shoots and maybe has a special rule. As it stands now, putting aside homework, you'd want/need to play North of 100 games just to face most of the Masters and Titles a single time to get an approximation of their actual table presence. That doesn't factor new impactful models like 33 that can meaningfully change how a Keyword might otherwise play. I think Malifaux is too complex to be a mainly-casual game, but is now getting too big to pick up as a new (or even returning) competitive player. I would definitely like to see something like this - a more workable small-format game, an growth campaign like M2E had, stuff like that.

I appreciate this is true, but it isn't really relevant to the discussion at hand - that of game health versus new releases. If we're going to weight Wyrd's finances as part of the game balance/design discussion, we should be advocating in favour of power creep to sell new OP models and increase market share. The financial side of the business is adjacent to, but not really part of, the discussion we're having.

This is no small part of it, yeah - the uniquely interesting bit of the game is "they declare X, commonly that means Y, confounding variables are Z, therefore I will ABC". Can't do that without somewhat in-depth knowledge of stuff, and counter-countering the main counters seems to be part of the purpose of some of the Title versions. That is why the "just play a strong question crew" doesn't fly for me - if I'm just there to play a decently in-depth game, I can do that with a different system that doesn't take 2-3 hours. This aspect of the "Title's are a problem" is sort of perpendicular to @Math Mathonwy's power-creep concerns, but I think might actually be more damaging to the game as a concept - crew selection in response to scenario is usually what I talk up as one of the best bits of Malifaux (aside from a decent core system), and Titles brutally derail the pick/counter-pick system.

For me it is the sheer quantity of stuff, rather than the specific power-level problems. I've never played in the higher margins where the tightest balance design decisions are particularly relevant, so I'm not grossly concerned with Titles being a wee bit overtuned. I did used to travel for the odd tournament safe in the knowledge that I knew roughly how everything plays though. I can't lay my post-2020 lack of table time at Wyrd's feet, but learning Explorers (a faction people have said repeatedly "they aren't busted, but you must know them well in order to pick them apart") is enough grief without re-learning every Master and a few dozen new mostly-highly-relevant shared models. That's as an old player - I can't guess how intimidating it would be as a new player.

Azimuth from Guild Ball's Navigators has an approximately Pacific Islander aesthetic that might work. Alternatively, Mr Ngaatoro is basically Mr Graves with a ponytail and plank-swap.