Maniacal_cackle

One thing that would be really good is more card manipulation instead of card draw:

• Adversary
• Positive flips (like Pandora's new defense stat)
• Blind cheating off the top
• Well-versed ability (I was so down on this ability and now think it is amazing design)
• Leverage for positives (pass token issues aside), etc.

I'd like to see more design for expending resources to manipulate your odds without guaranteeing like cheating fate. Although just straight positive flips are a bit boring, particularly if you don't need to do anything to make them happen.

For example, if it was determined that the Experimental keyword needs help with TNs... rather than give them card draw, it would be so neat to allow them to use poison to help with TNs by increasing their duel total or giving a positive flip to a simple duel or similar.

Well... After seeing Madness in action, there's been a lot of support for Balancefaux in some of the competitive scenes 😂

'Draw 18' Shenlong, 'delete your master' Damian, and 'deal 20 damage' Tiri all seem to be riling some people up xD

That said, there's currently a divide between people who would rather just see Madness content banned (which I'm calling "SanityFaux"), and going all the way to the Balancefaux format.

So if you see those names floating around, the difference between SanityFaux and Balancefaux is that Balancefaux also bans the Malifaux Burns versatiles.

4 minutes ago, Azahul said:

 

 

I think the existence of A Por El! is a significant component in what tips Perdita's card draw over the edge. Every card drawn, no matter how weak, is potentially another full AP (and maybe another card drawn...).

A card is potentially:

• A heal
• A focused attack
• A focus
• A card draw

Once you get her engine running xD

So yeah I think we both mean the same thing - a crew that gets card draw AND other powerful stuff is pushing it, or can do really efficient stuff with that card draw.

7 minutes ago, Azahul said:

Is Tiri actually in the same league? I haven't played Nomad yet, been putting all my attention into Architect since that seems like the more interesting puzzle to solve, but I look at her and one the surface she doesn't scream "uncapped card draw". She's more like "Draw once per activation if you are able to get the set-up"

A big difference with Tiri is she can do this without interacting with the opponent. Infamous at least is only ever card cycling, and Transmortis... Well, they were nerfed even with having to interact with the opponent

I'm not ready to call Tiri OP, but I certainly don't like the trend of adding a ton of card draw on top of a very powerful crew.

7 minutes ago, Azahul said:

 but that the effects that draw you cards are ones originally designed with the idea that they cost you resources to do, though I tend to feel like the card draw is a bit stronger and the effects a bit weaker in that instance.

The entire game is sorta balanced around the idea that card limitation is a factor. Card draw inherently breaks this after a point. Eventually with enough card draw, you're cheating every or most important duels. Then flips are much less relevant to the game.

Fun to be the one getting to just always do your thing. Not so fun to be on the receiving end, and a bit miserable when both players are doing it IMO.

Just played a game of Tiri, and we kept being disgusted by the card draw there as well.

Uncapped card draw is something they should be super cautious about IMO.

I was against Perdita, who had better uncapped card draw... So it really feels like the game is becoming a race of "draw tons or be irrelevant." Which just makes for a miserable game when the flips don't matter because everything important can be cheated.

For the Koji Shenlong combo, worth noting it has a few variants depending on matchup.

The simplest version is just "totems run away scheme running with Koji and avoiding the fight" in which case you may 'only' be drawing 4-6 cards a turn. But 8 stones for that many cards is pretty established to be wildly powerful.

On 1/8/2023 at 5:14 AM, Adran said:

Yes it can remove any marker 

Just to build upon this as it isn't immediately obvious:

Some markers specifically prevent removal. The most common form of this is strategy markers. Clear the path cant remove a strategy marker as they have a special rule that makes them immune to general marker removal.

For any other markers that dont specifically prevent it, Yan Lo choose a path may remove them.

The affected models are the models moving so they each get to be affected once.

So I believe all of them can come along for the ride.

14 minutes ago, Nexus 2023 said:

What was that list? Sorry to be a pain I went through all the threads I thought but didn’t see any definitive lists. Probably missed it. 
 

I don’t get many opportunities to actually play so most of my hobby is painting and theory. 

Mostly doing this from memory, but your core is three botanists and some models to make web markers so you can grow them. So I think people included nightsilk creeper and archivist.

And... That's 34 stones? So basically room for one more model of your choice and maybe some upgrades. Or potentially two cheap models!

Often the existing players move on after a nerf, and often the answer in Malifaux is "try it out and share your results!"

That said, I'd try the old Nexus 2 plus botanist build on carve a path and see how that goes.

With McMourning 2, he doesn't have as big of payoffs for poison and has some incidental poisons 2s throughout his gameplan, so often feel like I don't need poison stacking (and if I do, Sebastian as another source of blood poisoning seems so important I'd take him over Rafkin every time).

With McMourning 1, the payoffs for stacking poison are bigger, but then sometimes I just wonder if I want to hire his keyword at all. And again, you probably don't need *so* much that the slight efficiency gains of rafkin are worth it. I'd just hire Sebastian again.

They have two nearly identical roles, and Sebastian has significantly more upside.

4 hours ago, Adran said:

That's lazy counting!

On the assumption the ability to hire neurotoxins means you have greater poison synergy ( which appears to be the criteria) the list presumably goes 

McCabe,

Maxine

Molly

Marcus 

Mei Feng 

Mcmourning 

Mah tucket 

Misaki

 

I can easily see mcmourning above Mei, even though he has more effort to hire neurotoxin. 

( I also assume you didn't count McCabe, but I think he is most commonly referred to as McCabe, so if you are counting Dr Douglas Mcmourning as an M, I'd include lucas McCabe, but I wouldn't count Lucius Matheson.  I don't know why but, there are some masters that are first names, even when we know the surname,  and others that are surname based even when we know the first name)

( but then I'd still argue that if you wanted to build a poison themed list, experimental is the best of those 8 keywords to do so, even if it is missing easy access to the strongest poison based ability, neurotoxin 😉). 

How foolish of me, this is clearly the true list!!!

13 minutes ago, Da Git said:

An issue I have with Noxious is his basically lack of a bonus action. What do Forgotten want with a corpse?

The only thing I can think of is Molly's Forgotten Knowledge, but is there anything else?

Occasionally i've wished for a way to make a corpse to enable wyrd combos like Bete Noire as an OOK...

But Noxious to enable Bete is not really what I'm looking for xD If he had fly with me AND corpse making it'd be super sweet, and I'd play him in most molly lists (well, maybe... Dead rider and manos would maybe still be better).

I suspect the corpse is there for the Nephilim half of his keyword.

Most of this video is not about Balancefaux, but 1/3 of it is so it seemed like a good place to post:

I list some positives and negatives about many different formats, and give advice on when I think they are best applied for optimal experience.

On 12/23/2022 at 11:44 AM, BimVooDoo said:

Don't you consider bringing to the list the Noxious Nephilim? I used it in a couple of crews along with Sloth and the flight + fast makes him a good beater, also you can draw a couple cards with him the first turns, also provides you with a easy corpse to give focus with GST. 

My struggle with the Noxious is he is a slow lumbering model (max speed of 10 inches before triggers or assistance), and with df 4 dies very easily.

I'd prefer models like Archie, Dead Rider, or Manos for mobility.  For slower moving models, Valedictorian, Anna Lovelace, Madame Sybelle, etc are probably more appealing to me.

That said, he is one of the only severe six models in faction so plays well with focus.

7 hours ago, Aeschere said:

The Noxius Nephilim seems like a great addition, unfortunately, I don't have the model (yet). I will certainly consider him when I do. Just not sure who to swap out to make room for it.

Due to the above I wouldn't rush to buy it, but it is a fun option and if you like playing in keyword it is worth having.

There are 7 masters that start with M in the game, and TWO of them have better poison synergies in their crews than mcmourning 🤣

Somehow theres only three neurotoxin models in the game.  One goes with Molly, one goes with Marcus.

And the third... is Mr Ngaatoro with an M 🤣

Poor McMourning is the fourth best M at using poison in the game

16 hours ago, SEV said:

Why is judge in your core? 

Risk of reason for card draw I think.  Plus a min 3 attack to hit things when they unbury.

7 hours ago, grrrfranky said:

So what does a Lady J title list look like? I've been playing og Justice for a long long time, and got the title box for christmas, so thought I should give it a go. Am I playing mostly in keyword with occasional lashings of pale rider and guild steward or is there a wider spread of versatiles?

Competitively, there seem to be two camps.

One goes for stuff that can attack buried stuff with Death Marshal recruiters (potentially comboed with guild mage and domador for a surprisingly durable setup).

The other goes for pale rider and 33 and just tries to kidnap things.

Personally for a casual list I'd probably take a middle road. I also like Judge with Domador to risk of reason for cards and then heal up if I fail.

Yup, only one of each reliquary since they aren't plentiful 

(Per side, so your opponent can have one if both playing the model)

On 12/1/2022 at 10:47 PM, ProrokLebioda said:

I'm in Szczecin, Poland. Couldn't find any players.

 

Maybe it's a good idea to work on demoing Malifaux locally...

@trikk do you know anyone in that area?

9 minutes ago, SpannerRider said:

Righto, time to crack open ye old TableTop Simulator, or Vassal I suppose. What do you mean by a league pack, and yeah I probably won't have a chance to kick this off until late next year at best, just trying to get an idea of how to turn the Malifaux engine over locally. Thank you!

Oh as in scenarios designed to get people playing their first games, guidance on how to deal with ES starter and weird core boxes (ES starter plus Nexus core is possibly the most awkward way to start the game ever), etc. 

The vassal lfg discord is huge:

https://discord.gg/pgVV3cny

1 minute ago, SpannerRider said:

If I might piggyback off of this a bit, I'm in a vaguely similar situation in that Malifaux is not a supported game locally. We actually have two local game stores, one used to run a ton of Malifaux games some years back but when approached about the game I got cold shouldered with a 'the players abandoned the store' and a lot of apathy towards the game. The other LGS is mostly a GW shop, but the folks there are nice and I think would be open to someone showing up and offering to intro a new game if I showed up with enough for others to play.

Trouble is, I'm a total newbie to Malifaux too, and currently my model collection is all Bayou (Mah, Wong, Zipp, Zoraida, and the starter box). I was looking at leaning into grabbing enough of a second faction to be able to lend out models for some friendly games, probably Explorer Society, maybe Arcanist if the starter box is out by the Easter sale. 

Lot of rambling to ask, is there any advice around for a super new player to introduce a game like this? Would getting in some games online until I really grok the mechanics be a good first step? 

I think it is super useful if one player knows the rules well, so yeah would recommend some online games.

Personally what I have done is run starter leagues. I'm actually writing one that uses the starter boxes that I hope to release next year, although not all factions have starter boxes so that is complicated...

But feel free to contact me next year if you need a league pack just tag me on here and I'll post it if it is done by then.

But I find it is really cool to get a starter league as you can get 4-10 players diving in at the same time and learning the game together. Each one I've run has had about 10 people.

3 minutes ago, TeddyBear said:

I think I'm lost (be patient, maybe I didn't understand), what is the difference between playing the widow and two wicked dolls and playing the latter, with lady yume?

that you have the bonus to immediately kill a doll (for one scrap) and once during the activation of the widow that she will summon two stitched do you look at two cards?

You get to look on one of the places,  and that could be Widow Weavers start of activation place so you can see cards and know if you need to stone or filter a weak etc.

For me what I like about Lady Yume is all the little value adds- look at cards on place, unbury an alp and injure someone into made to kill, card draw, etc.

I don't know that she is great but I enjoy her.  It does feel like models like Candy might be better, although candy's healing doesn't feel as relevant to the crew.

My first advice would be to try out your list!  The best way to test a list is to play it.

Second advice would be if you're upgrading Archie, try him with Whisper or GST and see which upgrade you like more.

Third advice would be if you need another model to try out, maybe give Manos a go. He does a lot to complement Molly's playstyle, although he isn't as good this GG.

P.S. Rogue necro is a monster with McMourning 2, so you'll want it on the table eventually even if you don't like it with Molly!

Although if Wyrd came out and said "we have errataed all the Malifaux Burns content we thought needed an errata", I would 100% change my position xD

But only hitting ~10 cards feels like the job isn't done.