Coming back to the game and have a faction question

[Tweak]

I am coming back to malifaux after a very long time away from the game, haven't played since the days of broken Hamlin and Pandora. After participating in a henchman hardcore, which was awesome, and now I'm back in.

So I'm looking through the factions and have four that seem enticing:

Outcasts

Gremlins

Ten Thunders

Ressurectionists

For each faction I'm wondering what the main weakness of each is?

I've spent hours going through pullmyfinger and still can't figure that out

[Tweak]

So besides looks what define the factions?

[Fetid Strumpet]

Trends, common abikities or lack there of.

With all the cross faction hiring and special hiring rules there isn't reall strong faction identity anymore. I don't mean it's gone, just isn't as strong as it was.

Ressers tend to be low df, low wp, high wounds with hard to wound. Masters tend to have the ability, in some way, to summon more models, and though extra ap via the experts or nimble are rare, they are even more rare in the Ressers as off the top of my head only Izamu has it natively, and Mort can buy ca expert for 2 SS and an upgrade.

Gremlins tend to be very high DMG high variance models.

10t tend to be stat bricks with access to free focus.

[Tweak]

So if you had to sum up the factions general strengths and weaknesses what would they be?

[Sklertic]

Outcasts are very independent in their compositions, which is both a weakness and a strength as the incentive to get ALL the models is low.

Resser likes to summon and flood the opponent in models. They have an average statline though, so many of the models die fast too.

Gremlins I have no experience with, but they look like their trick is to do high dmg while being weak themselves.

Ten Thunders have great minions and good stats, but have low synergy compared to other factions.

 

 

These are just my 2 cents, not the holy bible of faction knowledge. If I were you, I would just buy the crew that looks cool to you, and then worry about the rest at a later date. Best way to get started imo.

[Hateful Darkblack]

It sounds like maybe you're looking for something specific. Can you tell us more about what you want? Asking about the strengths and weaknesses of each faction may not get you helpful answers since there's a broad array of possible answers.

[Adran]

In all honesty, you can't work it out because there isn't a general weakness to a faction. You can try and atribute "strengths" and "weaknesses" and common attributs to the factions, but typically you'll find at least 2 of the 7 masters don't fit that patten, and you can build yor crew to completly avoid the "percieved weakness" if you want.

 

You could say the guild is slow and high on Sh damage, but when you use McCabe, Luna and Hounds with the badge of speed, they are faster than anyone else. You can also build a decent list that doesn't have  single gun it it.

 

Outcasts are a hodgepodge. They come from all over, any mix of them can actually work together really well as long asd you don't mind the strange story that will explain why the Viks are working with a pile of Rats and some of Oblivions creatures....

 

Gremlins tend to be a little more random, using their own wounds to fuel things like extra AP and Extra damage. But thre a several masters that don't really do that, using Ulix or brewmaster

 

Resurectionists largely follow the dead route, and can possibly summon more models. 3 of its masters are very strong summoners, but 3 can only summon if you take certain upgrades.

 

Ten thunders are sort of a mix of the other 6 factions, with most of the masters allowign you to bring in models from outside the faction. This can mean that the master you pick to play has a larger effect on your crew than most other factions. (at least in the way I play, other will have different views)

[Hateful Darkblack]

Outcasts: great activation control, good ranged attacks, a little summoning. Extremely varied. Weaknesses vary wildly by Master: Viktorias are vulnerable to direct attack, Jack Daw and Von Schill can get overextended, Tara has a lot of turn order fragility, Hamelin can be shut down by Condition removal or pulse/blast damage, Leveticus falls apart if you send scheme runners to eat his Waifs.

 

Gremlins: great ranged attacks (high damage / low Sh score), great healing, some summoning. Weak against Wp attacks.

 

Resurrectionists: great summoning, resilient models. Mostly melee, lots of support. Often have slow movement, and Condition removal almost always helps against Resser Master. Not much ranged combat. Generally the best way to beat them is to attack their summoning engines rather than try to fight the summoned models as they come out.

 

Ten Thunders: Highly varied. Many Upgrade-manipulation tricks. Often high-stat, medium-to-high cost models. Half of the Masters will be sad if Hans shoots their Upgrades off, but other than that, no many universal weaknesses.

 

But I suspect there's another question the OP is heading toward. Tweak, what other questions do you have?

[Tweak]

Well basically as I said before I used to play back in 1st edition.  I picked up crews based on how they looked as the sole determiner.  I ended up with mcmorning, Leveticus, Pandora, and Dreamer.  When I went to tournaments I had a really hard time doing well as the only faction I could declare was neverborn and I didn't have all the options that would have allowed me the flexibility to deal with the multitudes of strategies and crews out there.

 

Coming back into the game, as I haven't played since the second expansion book came out with Hamlin, at which point Pandora had been made unfun to play against.  I am hoping to avoid the crew ADD for a little while at least and focus on a faction to avoid the issue with tournament flexibility.  

 

My problem is picking a faction as the four I listed have elements that I really like.  For the most part I love the feel of gremlins, all of the hillbilly abilities and the amazing character that faction has.  That being said back when i used to play they had pretty much 2 ways to play them.  Straight gunline or Somer.  So I am curious how they have been expanded into to.

 

I do not understand what is Ten Thunders the faction about besides the initial dual faction releases.  Their core minions and that new master coming up seem to be solid in most every area. The models for samurai are awesome, they make me think of the first fight scene in suckerpunch.  They didn't exist when I played so I am completely unfamiliar with them.

 

Outcasts have alot of cool models but I pretty much hate von schill and his freikorps.  They don't look good to me and they were not fun to face back when I did play.  I do love the look of Tara, plus the bury mechanic is hilarious, and the other masters all seem solid.

 

Resurrectionists have sweet models like the belles but the lack of range firepower is very similar to neverborn.

 

I'm basically trying to gauge what makes these factions different besides appearance so I can pick one to dive into.

[Fetid Strumpet]

I think you are favoring an idea that was at the heart of 1.0 and was done away with in 2.0, that is the balance being done faction vs faction. That is not the case any longer. 2.0 put the balance focus on master vs master.

While it might not be ideal, it is certainly possible to go to a competitive event, and play the same master in every game and still do well, or win. And not in a "well it's possible that if I flip this coin 100 times it will come up heads everytime" type of way. A static crew would have issues, but the masters are all capable of doing any scheme or strat well.

I really don't think you need to be as fixated on te faction strengths and weaknesses. I'd just pick one that you love a master or two in, and then ask what models you'll want to cover the various schemes and strats that come up.

[Tweak]

I appreciate all of the advice.  I had not realized that it was a different type of balance now, instead of faction based more master based.  

 

I guess knowing that, are there any match ups that become more faction based like back in the day?  For example maybe a specific type of model to face certain masters or anything?

[Fetid Strumpet]

Well, officially you won't know what master your opponent will face you with. The only information you will know Is the faction. There are some models that are good in general against factions, Kang vs Ressers is an example, but that is all based on generalities. The new batch of Resser models in wave 3 for example are all living and don't have hard to wound, so counting on silver bullet models is a recipee for disappointment.

[Tweak]

I'm not looking for a silver bullet. I have memories of the 1st ed hard counters. I'm having trouble believing they are completely removed

[Fetid Strumpet]

There are match ups that are perhaps more difficult, but nothing resembling an auto loss.

If you built a Seamus based terror list you aren't going to be happy to see Raspy.

If you bring a incorporeal list you won't be happy to see Sonnia.

But even those examples might shift the favor to one crew, but it's not an auto loss by any stretch, and honestly the more you focus on one specific play, the more susceptible to counter play you are.

[Dirial]

I once lost pretty hard to a well-played Kirai crew with my Sonnia, and I have lost against Pandora with her, too. Although those crews struggle a lot against Ms Criid in general, it never felt auto-win for me.

 

I wouldn't be afraid to encounter Von Schill with Sonnia, either. He takes out my best trick, not my whole bag of tricks.

 

That's the way counters usually work in my experience.

[Tweak]

That's really awesome to hear. I'm starting to think I should just ignore all mark 1 experiences and act like a fresh game.

[zFiend]

That's really awesome to hear. I'm starting to think I should just ignore all mark 1 experiences and act like a fresh game.

 

That sounds pretty good.

[Tweak]

Now if only the following crews didn't all lok awesome :

Brewmaster

Ophelias

Collette

Shelong

tara

Mah

Seamus

What advice do you all have if aesthetics doesn't narrow down to one crew?

[Dirial]

What advice do you all have if aesthetics doesn't narrow down to one crew?

 

That's the most difficult question of all. Advice based on what?

 

 

Brewmaster

Ophelias

Collette

Shelong

tara

Mah

Seamus

 

I've marked the crews that aren't even available yet, so unless you want to wait, you'll have to decide between Ophelia, Tara and Seamus. Ophelia has the most capable out-of-the-box crew of those 3 and is on par with Seamus for beginner friendlyness. I find Seamus to be the most enjoyable and characteristic of the 3, but that's just me.

[Fetid Strumpet]

Seamus is my favorite master, and he is much better this edition as compared to last. Ophelia is just straight up good as well. Either would be good.

Tara is good as well, but she is arguably one of the most complex masters in the game, and her rules are a tiny bit wonky, but she's still really good and her non-nightmare edition box is either already released or being released really soon.

[zFiend]

Seamus is one of my favourites too. He is good to start with but he the better you get, the better he gets. He's awesome like that.

[Tweak]

All of the advice has been amazing. It's come down for me to gremlins as I have a bunch of free old sculpts available to me or Tara