Looking to get into Malifaux, need serious help.

[CiDevant]

So my friends have roped me into playing this game.  At first I wasn't interested but now I really want to play badly.  I'm a veteran wargamer but this smaller scale stuff is kind of throwing me off.  I'm having some issues making up my mind on what Faction/Master I should go with.  I don't plan on buying everything thing for a faction but I would like to have some options.  Ideally, I would like to just buy a crew box set and enough extra mini's to play at a 50 soul stone level but I know how these things go and that I'll likely need an extra couple models for options.  At most I'd like to be looking at two crew boxes plus one loose figure.  (aka around $100)

 

I'm really only interested in a handful of masters and I was looking for some advice based on what my friends are playing.  My one friend is playing as Rasputina.  My other is playing as Pandora, The Dreamer, and he is planning on buying Jakob Lynch.  From what I understand there are some hard counter picks that could be made?

 

If I had made the first faction pick I think I would have gone with the Arcanists.  My first major question was if you could field the same faction and or master as an opponent?

 

After that I had questions about masters.  I am basically torn down the middle between The Guild and the Outcasts. The underlined are what I'm really having trouble deciding between.

 

From the Guild I really like Lady Justice and Sonnia Cried.  C.Hoffman and Lucius are also pretty cool.  Perdita and Lucas I'm lukewarm on, and I have Zero interest in playing Dr. McMorning.

 

From the Outcasts I really like the Viktorias.  Basically they're the reason I'd want to play the outcasts.  I could also play as Misaki or Von Schill.  Tera I'd put on the lowest rung I'd consider.  The rest I have no interest in.

 

My main questions were mostly interested in what sets I liked synergized best.  I was also wondering if you could field a master in another crew?  Or have two masters in the same crew list?

 

Lastly, my friend lent me his 2E rule book.  What character is the girl on page 25?  I can't seem to figure out who she is.

 

Thanks for any help or advice.  I've been doing a lot (too much) reading and it's caused a sort of indecision paralysis.

 

Oh, my last last question is, are the Silver and Retro Fate Decks plastic?

[Alcibiades]

Welcome to the wonderful world of Malifaux. I started playing about a year ago and absolutely love the game.

Easy answers first. The girl on p. 25 is Rusty Alyce, Leveticus' Henchman and an Outcast.

Given the size restrictions which you impose, I would heartily recommend Sonnia and Lady J. While Stalkers work best with Sonnia and her flame shenanigans, they are a pretty good model and their ability to remove conditions makes them invaluable in many match ups, although Lady J has a great action for removing conditions. For a little extra support I would add a Witchling Handler (if you can find one), a Hunter, Austringer and a Pathfinder and his traps and maybe some extra Stalkers. There are a couple more models I would want in my collection to face the Neverborn. Something that buffs up Will Power like the Guild Lawyer is very handy and the Brutal Effigy helps keep your Master in the fight a bit longer.

I started with Sonnia and keep coming back to her. When she works, she works well and is a ton of fun to play. Had a nice win with her earlier today against a Resurr Yan Lo crew. Sonnia was blasting everything and summoning Stalkers from the burning corpses of her enemies. Poor Yan Lo forgot about her Pyrokinesis Ability and wandered into her blast range, much to his regret as he was quickly reduced to a pile of ashes and a new Stalker....lol...

Good luck and have fun. Hope this helps.

K

[Dirial]

No, you cannot field two Masters (outside certain Scenarios).

 

Yes, you can absolutely play the same faction as your opponent. The fluff encourages it at times.

 

Hard counters are not a thing that happens a lot in this game. It's pretty well balanced, all in all.

 

To the question of synergy:

Lady Justice and Sonnia synergize pretty well, because Sonnia's crew is awesome, and Justice doesn't care much what she runs. Justice crew is pretty strong, too. 

Viktorias and Von Schill are very good choices, too. There won't be that much synergy, but on the plus side, most models you'd buy would be Mercs and thus be playable with whatever you buy later. I'd recommend Lazarus and Vanessa as add-ons.

 

Finally, have you found THIS?

 

Welcome to Malifaux!

[Phinn]

Hello CiDevant,

 

first of all, I would strongly recommend choosing the master that you think is the coolest and not to try to counter masters your friends play.

 

There is a lot of things that you have to take into account.

• Strategies - Strategy is a task that you and your opponent have in common. At the start of the game you will determine which 1 of possible 5 strategies you will play.
• Schemes - A Scheme is your personal task. At the start of the game you will generate pool of 5 out of possible 19 Schemes that you will choose 2 of.
• Terrain - Gaming board with a lot of Terrain with Soft/Hard Cover trait will help a lot against Crews that focus on shooting for example.
• Deployment

Even though I do not think that hard counters in Malifaux exist, some matches will be harder than other. For example Gremlins tend to have low Will Power, so Actions that are being resisted by Will Power will give Gremlins hard time. But thanks to huge number of possible combinations of Strategy, Schemes, Terrain, Deployment, Encounter Size, models that you can bring to battle... you can always win.

Also... you wouldn't like if someone would try to hard counter your master, would you? Doesn't sound like a lot of fun.

 

As I understand it, the faction that you like the most is the Arcanist faction, right?

I would recommend you to look at Crew Boxes that are currently available at Wyrd Webstore - Crew Boxes. Choose one that you like the most, read about models that the box contains at PullMyFinger website and post questions in the forum, because there is allways a lot of people that are happy to share their opinions and ideas about their favourite Master.

Also if you are interested in the Arcanist faction, there will be a new Arcanist Crew Box comming out this month - Troubleshooters - Toni Ironsides Box Set.

[PositronMike]

In addition to what has been mentioned above I will just add that there is no issue with you playing the same faction or master as your opponent. So if you want to go with arcanists that will not be an issue even though one of your friends has already got an arcanist master.

[paradoxstorm]

Another route to picking a master is to read the fluff in the big rule book and Crossroads and see which master(s) "speak" to you.  In this game the only "wrong" master is one you don't enjoy playing.  

 

To some degree all the models within a faction have some synergy with other masters, some more than others, so you shouldn't have to add too many models to field a credible crew.   

[CiDevant]

Thanks for all the replies!

 

I'm going to go with the Lady Justice and Sonnia sets to start.  I'm really interested in buying a Fate Deck.  Is the Silver set plastic?  If not what about the Retro deck?

 

Thanks for pointing me towards the wiki.  I've been looking it over all night.

[Phinn]

According to some posts I found on the forum and reviews on websites that sell them, Arcane Fate Decks are 100% plastic.

[CiDevant]

Again thanks.  I can't wait for these models to arrive.