How did you pick your first master?

[psychogeek]

Collodi's concept got me into the game, but he wasnt out yet. Also after learning how picking a master works I wanted to be sure i liked all of the other faction options... i didnt... 

but then i found Hamlin and fell utterly in love with the diseased rats. problem was, he also wasnt out. I read all the outcast flavors and i loved Levy's story and how he looked like a really cool "mechromancer" character. He was in plastic so i got him! ..... much to the dismay of my other friends.......

[zFiend]

This "Malifaux" game had just come out and I really wanted to try it, so I convinced one of my friends to try it with me. Supplies were pretty limited at that time and he took the Lilith starter I wanted so I took the smelly Gremlins.

Gremlins, my silver medal.

So you resolved to make them a faction and also used your best jokes in their rules?

And give them a small little boost called dumb luck.  

[Justin]

This "Malifaux" game had just come out and I really wanted to try it, so I convinced one of my friends to try it with me. Supplies were pretty limited at that time and he took the Lilith starter I wanted so I took the smelly Gremlins.

Gremlins, my silver medal.

So you resolved to make them a faction and also used your best jokes in their rules?

I take offense to that, sir!

"The Shirt Comes Off" and, it's sequel, "Sir, Please Put It Back On" were my best jokes.

Anyway, I'm glad I did. I really enjoyed gremlins. In general I think aesthetics are the best way to pick. You can learn to play a model, you can't learn to appreciate the looks of one you don't like.

Edited September 25, 2015 by Justin

[psychogeek]

This "Malifaux" game had just come out and I really wanted to try it, so I convinced one of my friends to try it with me. Supplies were pretty limited at that time and he took the Lilith starter I wanted so I took the smelly Gremlins.

Gremlins, my silver medal.

So you resolved to make them a faction and also used your best jokes in their rules?

I take offense to that, sir!

"The Shirt Comes Off" and, it's sequel, "Sir, Please Put It Back On" were my best jokes.

Anyway, I'm glad I did. I really enjoyed gremlins. In general I think aesthetics are the best way to pick. You can learn to play a model, you can't learn to appreciate the looks of one you don't like.

I will agree to the aesthetics. do you like the way they look? cool! like their story? cool! like their rules? cool! all things that contribute.

[Bengt]

I picked Viks on aesthetics from what was available at the time, not having read the rules or tried the game. It was really a toss up between them and Rasputina though and once I learned more I found I liked more of the Arcanist masters than Outcasts, so that's where my buying has gone so far.

[EnternalVoid]

For me?  My first real master was Zoraida *Poked around with proxies at first as our group was starting at the time*.  Her Alt I think had just came out and I picked it up.  I was not really big into the Neverborn metal line as there was a lot of them I was not very fond of which led to me using some conversions for a while.  But I am a bit myth, legend, fairy tales, and such person so Zoraida won me over on the fact she was a bayou voodoo Baba Yaga.  Did not like the lack of top on her Alt so I did give her some more clothing.  After that I just sort of expanded with time.

[Kirby]

For me, two friends of mine had started playing Malifaux and showed me the Crossroads book.  I liked Leveticus's looks and story, and his thematic crew has a very necropunk style to it that I love.  Two weeks later they surprised me with the Leveticus starter crew, and I've been an Outcast since then.  

[Akodo Harid]

I was waffling between Ressers, Outcaste, and Neverborn at the time and a few friends got me a McMourning metal box and paid to have them assembled and painted. So I've been playing McMourning since. I did recently pay for a Viks box to give them a try and have slowly expanded my collection so I can stop borrowing their Rafkin and Belles.

[hippodruid]

My wife humored me and went with me to our local store one fateful day.  The manager showed us something that was picking up popularity at the time, a game called Malifaux.  I immediately fell in love with Marcus and his crew box for the aesthetic and the idea, and it is a love that has endured through five books and a new edition.

She, on the other hand, fell in love with miniatures because of Malifaux, and is now avidly collecting everything she can, including many copies of her first master.

[zeeblee]

I didn't actually pick my first crew box.  Wyrd sent me the Sonnia Criid box as a part of my Through the Breach rewards pack.  Fortunately I loved her plastic look far more than her metal look (back in my Warhammer 40k days I often looked to Malifaux for proxies, and her model never appealed).  But unfortunately my true aesthetic loves were not in the Guild faction (though again, plastic Sonnia and crew are wonderful).  So when it came time to actually buy my own stuff I pounced on the pink Dreamer box (which I still need to build!) because I love the nonhuman/otherworldly horror/Little Nemo.

Now I'm just working on completing my horror collection with Lynch (tentacle monster H. Darkness/Illuminated!), Widow Weaver, and Collodi (demon puppets!).  Also, after running a Through the Breach session with a Gremlin antagonist I ended up falling in love with their humor aesthetic and picked up Ulix (and plan on getting most of the rest).
 

[Sklertic]

Me and my friend started playing 1.5 and I decided I would just pick a crew box solely on the look of the models, and deliberately didn't read any rules before I had done so. I ended up with Hoffman and lost my first 15 matches, but I had a blast learning the crew while doing so

[daniello_s]

Not to sound too sexist but my general approach to my first master was:

- boobs - checked

- katanas - checked

= I'm going for Viks

 

[Masquer]

In 1 ed. I started with Nicodemus because I was in a particular mood, I've always loved movies like White Zombie and The Black Cat, he was a natural fit to that.

Coming back to Malifaux in 2nd edition was due to playing a little mobile game called Wicked Lair, it's "Abyss" dungeon and creatures reminded me of the Neverborn and sparked my reinterest. That Lucius was now dual-faction made it all the sweeter.

[bertmac]

Looks.

Fiery killer with mechanical wings - check.

Fiery demon constructs - check.

2 people in dusters with guns everywhere -check.

 

Did make sure i could use two other models i liked the look of on pullmyfinger, then picked up willie the demolitionist and the rail golem.

Edited September 27, 2015 by bertmac

[Patzer]

I liked the aesthetics and theme of Leveticus' crew. It was a toss up between him and Ramos. 

[charlarino]

I'm a fan of Gothic hammer horror, naturally I was drawn to the resurrectionists went to originally buy seamus but he was out of stock, so my first master ended up being Nicodem. Now I'm happy owning him Seamus and McMourning and just filling out their crew boxes with minions and mercenary's that I feel fit the theme. To date I haven't looked at a single models rules or how it works prior to buying it, its all purely based on asthetics and the game designers seem pretty good at making the model do what you expect it to do.

[Pallas4]

Dreamer.

Why? Because a little boy in pyjama in a dark city was too fun to resist (even the plastic death marshalls in Guild...). :3

After playing a lot of masters/factions, it's still my favorite master.

[santaclaws01]

Dreamer.

Why? Because a little boy in pyjama in a dark city was too fun to resist (even the plastic death marshalls in Guild...). :3

After playing a lot of masters/factions, it's still my favorite master.

Same for me. Spent awhile looking at all the crew boxes available at Origins and the Dreamer's box stood out to me the most. Mostly Lord Chompy Bits also played a large role in that decision.

[BloodBought]

Thus far, the thing that has decided me on where to start for both of my miniature wargames have been aesthetics.  I look at the boxes and ask myself if I can see myself using the models for other purposes aside from JUST for playing that one miniature wargame (such as if I was to start DMing games again) and if the answer is yes, then I go ahead and pull the trigger.  As a result, I just couldn't pass up Jakob Lynch as my first master.  Between the looks of the various Illuminated and Huggy (in spite of his weird tadpole appearance), I was hooked.  As it's turned out, he's also so far been the master that still seems to play the most effortlessly for me as his combination of indirect buffing via card control and his ability to directly impact the game when necessary seems to mesh very well with my natural play style.

[Sackville]

I saw the Mei Feng flowchart, saw her model, and basically snap bought her when my brother and I decided to try the game. I got Ramos next, and then counted all my robots and decided to move into Levi.

[Dogmantra]

Given that you got me into the game, you already know, but I thought I'd write it out anyway :3

I didn't always used to be a Gremlin player (shock! horror!), I meandered about while learning, I played Rasputina, Lady Justice and Ramos in my first couple of games (thank goodness I learnt over Vassal!) and felt like Guild was probably where I was at... But then I looked at Outcasts. I looked at specifically one Outcast. With no shirt. Von Schill became my first love, not just because he could take his shirt off, but also his Augmented Jump was the first abilty I'd encountered that let you charge while engaged and I have always and always will be a sucker for running straight into battle. So the Freikorps it was for a while, until I finally looked through the Gremlin stats, having initially discounted them as "ugly" (a stance I have since changed my mind on). I was drawn to two things: 1. Bayou Two Card and 2. "This action must declare a trigger if able". I thought they were both hilarious and amazing and super interesting mechanics to play around. So I picked who seemed like the most straightforward master available at the time, and went with Som'er. He remains my main master, tho recently because of the aforementioned love for charging, I have been playing a lot of Mah too, and feel like they cover pretty much all the bases I want from Gremlins.

[Clement]

I originally started with a dreamer crew because facing down all kinds of bad guys as a little boy in a nightgown and his LEGION OF HORRORS amused me.  After I did the 1st edition Chompy Yo-yo about 60 times though I wanted something more interesting.  None of the other Neverborn masters really interested me, so I switched to Nicodem.  I *loved* how attrition heavy he played.  Ended up buying the whole faction.

 

[Cats Laughing]

Metal Rasputina was that cute goth girl Death from the Sandman comics, in a fuzzy tophat.  How could I say no?

[Go Canucks Go]

When I started to hear about all these Skirmish games I stumbled across Malifaux, loved the whole Steampunkwesternhorror theme plus as Warhammer 40k, Warmachine guy its nice to play with small amounts of models. Looking at crews I liked the Zoraida/Collodi Swamp theme with puppets. Picked up the boxes and by the time I got them completed and tried game the plastics came out lol. I currently Run Hamelin and Seamus but would like to get back to my roots one day.

[Absolution Black]

Seamus huh?

Well with the success of necroing this thread, ressers seems a perfect fit for you!