How did you get into Malifaux?

[Phinn]

Hello

I am just wondering how did you get into Malifaux. Also, do you play any other games and if so, which ones?

I used to play WFB (Rest in Peace) when I was little and then fell in love with Mordheim, but when I was like 15 or so I suddenly quit.
After watching gradually more and more painting tutorials for well over a year I decided to start with the hobby again. After a 13-year hiatus, that is. Went to a LGS, asked about Mordheim and found out that there are no active players anymore, BUT... but there is this game called Malifaux. Candy, Mysterious Effigy, The Kin Box Set, Gracie... and I was hooked.

So, what is your story?

[Durza]

Played 40k for a while,  then moved and found a store nearby. My brother went around there a lot and picked up Malifaux,  I thought I didn't need to pick up another game but after watching a couple of games where people were attacking or killing their own models to deny points or to get around abilities and defenses I picked it up and haven't looked back. 

[Joel]

I was at Maelstrom Game one January to watch the WFB Masters event.  At the same time other systems were playing their Masters events in the same venue.

I pootled around the store and picked up a quirky looking game that I thought might be fun - Puppet Wars (original metal).  On going back upstairs with my purchase, a friend saw it and asked me if I'd ever played Malifaux.  He began to enthuse about it - telling me about crews and fluff and the world and I got interested.  I was hooked by his enthusiasm as much as by the info itself.  I watched as he played a demo game of it and it looked good. I wandered into the area where the Malifaux Masters was happening and I saw...Giant Teddy Bears! Killer babies! Chompy Bits!!

That was it!  Back down to the shop! I bought the rulebooks, a fate deck and the dreamer crew box and I never looked back.

Malifaux soon took over from Fantasy as my main game, and I converted my clubmates too.

the rest, is history.

[SurreyLee]

I hadn't gamed since Comprehensive school and had just finished rugby due to injury and was looking for something to fill my time. Space Hulk had just been re-released (2009) and I thought some gaming would be the answer. I couldn't get a copy as it had sold out. I didn't fancy painting a GW size army so a bit of internet research led me to Malifaux, a small skirmish game with steampunk setting looked right up my street. A small model count (technically, we all buy it all....right?) and a less swingy card mechanic really sold it to me. 

I purchased a Lady J crew from a local person on Ebay who, in guilt at getting out of the system, gave me details of his friend to play. So I turned up for a blind date with some really cool models in tow and i've been playing since, a small hiatus in 1.5 aside. 

I've just been to my second UKGT and have also been lucky enough to co-host 2 30+ player tournaments. 

 

[DefyingReality]

I used to be a player of 40k and dabbler in other games, but a dislike for some of the "evolutions" in the game in 40k and life getting in the way lead me to drop the hobby about... six years or so ago. 

Fast forward to last year, living in a small town without much to do, and a new hobby store opened up. I latched onto Warmachine first and hardest, because yay big stompy robots, but there was something about this other game the store had that several other regulars played that kept catching my eye. Dark Victorian aesthetic, some funky and unique game mechanics, fascinating background and setting -- I had to try it. Once I did, I was hooked good and deep.

[Four_N_Six]

A friend and I were talking about playing a miniatures game and had a few options.  Infinity was the other final contender, but we'd heard it takes a lot of terrain and hoped to be able to play at home more than the game stores.  So we gravitated to Malifaux for that, the price, and we both really like the models and fluff.  Fluff definitely drew me in heavily.

[Paradigm]

I actually hadn't played miniature wargames at all growing up, but then halfway through college a friend of mine persuaded me to join his 40k Kill Team Campaign over the summer. It was pretty fun, and I had expanded up to around 1000 points worth of models by the end of the summer so that I could play a team tournament with another friend. By then I started to lose interest in 40k as I felt painting dozens of identical models was a huge chore. Tired of feeling like some sort of hobbyist industry worker, I played less and less.

About six months after first getting into 40k, another friend was talking about Malifaux. He said that he had just quit Warhammer Fantasy and picked this new game up where you only needed around ten models (yeah, right...). I wasn't all that enthusiastic at first, as I was already regretting spending so much money on 40k only to lose interest. I first decided that I would pass on starting Malifaux, but the same friend who first convinced me to get into 40k was really hooked on the idea. After watching them play a demo game (Lucius vs Nicodem) my resolve crumbled and I ended up buying the Misaki box. I started out with the idea that I would only play thematic crews, but after losing time and again against my more experienced friends I fell into the slippery slope of adding more models to be able to compete. By now I own most of the Ten Thunders faction and I'm travelling all across the country to play competetively. My Malifaux carrier started out a bit shaky, but by now it's basically become my biggest passion at the moment. It's a really great game, and I'm glad I actually picked it up.

[tehluhlah]

I played Warmachine from the beginning, when there weren't enough models out for it to be more than a skirmish game. Switched to Confrontation when Warmachine games started getting huge, but I turned into more of a painter than a player. Hadn't really paid attention to Wyrd until they started sponsoring a speed paint at Gencon. Qualifying round was a Nurse and the Final round was Lilith, liked the models enough to check out the game. Been playing it since  

[Wolfpact]

I eyed Malifaux when it was new - but at the time had no real options for opponents to play a minis game. 

Then, as my oldest nephew - who might as well be a son to me, really - got older, he became a fiend for 40k lore and developed my taste for strategy games. Now, we both loved Deadlands (I'd run Reloaded games for him and a couple cousins), and frankly full-scale battle games felt both really expensive, and more than either of us were ready for. But he really wanted to become a tabletop minis gamer... so I remembered Malifaux. Bought us both Crews for his birthday this year back in the summer, bought the younger nephew (who doesn't live nearby) a Crew as well, and have been slowly infecting our gamer cousins with the game at family gatherings, mainly as a long-term-cheaper replacement for Magic as our go-to gathering game.

[Ludvig]

I played all the GW games to varying degrees for 10+ years, moved through PP and then back to Blood Bowl. I saw Malifaux played at my local store a few years back so I read all about it and fell in love with Lucius & Guild Guard. Now I only play Malifaux and boardgames because of adult responsibilities.

Edit: I did start Infinity at the same time as Malifaux but it didn't really stick.

[goth]

Introduced to the hobby in 1998 by AD&D and WarZone: Mutant Chronicles, turns out I'm very into making terrain.  The last game I got out of was Flames of War (2013), I sold my armies and terrain when I moved (drove) across the US for a new job.  I went 2ish years just painting random eBay minis and terrain and selling them.  Then I moved again, and after setting up my painting desk, started blindly making hyper-realistic medieval 28-32mm terrain... but soon wanted to paint miniatures again.  Went on eBay (in July 2015) to look for some cheap minis and found a blister of 1st ed Collodi for $3 shipped and a blister of Marrionettes for $5 shipped.  Halfway through painting them I looked up the game on Wikipedia... then reddit... and I was hooked.  I wanted to start playing this game!  Got another Collodi, Marrionettes, and cauldron Zoraida for super cheap... Then realized how beautiful the plastics were and got Sorrows.  For the next 6 months I special ordered Malifaux minis through a local game (no wargames, not even M:TG) store.  I probably had 35 models painted at 90% before a local player contacted me on forums and said they play at a store here.  I showed up one weekly game day and watched two people play the second half of a Pandora vs. Zoraida game.  They put me on the group's email list and I showed up next week with a silly crew that SUUUUCKED but was the result of 9 months of naive theorycrafting.  Since then I've been absolutely loving this game and its card mechanics, had no idea it was so competitive/ranked, or that the players would be so cool.  Cheers y'all and thanks!

[Guslado]

I had played GW games a lot as a kid, but was never really aware of the tabletop gaming world outside of GW games as the internet wasn't really a thing yet. Fast-forward about 15 years and I move to a new city where I can't find work in my previous career (I was an actor in Chicago, I ended up in Houston due to the wife's job), so I somehow end up running a GW shop. This brought me back into the tabletop gaming world in full force (although at the time on the miniatures front I only played GW games as I got a sweet discount on them)--I started meeting up with some of the other managers in the area weekly for board gaming nights.

I loved working for GW, but had to leave after a while because the schedule for a one man shop is rather grueling and the work life balance was becoming untenable. The summer immediately after leaving the employ of GW, I made plans to go to Gen Con 2013 as my in-laws lived in Indianapolis and it seemed like a fun way to get my nerd on and visit my wife's family. Prior to going to Gen Con I was hanging out with a friend who I had met through my shop and saw some cool models he had picked up for a game called "Malifaux"; he didn't know how to play yet, but the models looked really cool so I made a mental note to check out the game while I was at Gen Con. Gen Con 2013 is when M2E dropped, so it turned out to be a great time to demo Malifaux for the first time. I played a quick demo at the Wyrd booth and really liked it, so I ended up scheduling a full game demo with a Henchman on the next day. After playing that full game I was hooked! I immediately went to the Wyrd booth to pick up a copy of the rulebook and a crew. Sadly they were completely sold out of rulebooks at that point, so I left empty handed (I decided not to pick up a crew because I had already blown my Gen Con budget and figured that I should have the rules before I had the models).

Once I was finally able to get my hands on the rulebook and a Children of December crew a few months later, I started playing locally and have been going full-tilt ever since!

[JoeJones]

I've been gaming for a long time, starting with strategy board games (Axis & Allies, Risk) and role-playing games in the late 80s. I picked up Battletech in 1990 and dabbled in Blood Bowl in 1992, but I never really was hooked by tabletop miniatures gaming. I painted a couple minis for use in D&D or Shadowrun games, but just one-off models for my characters.

When the clix games came out, I started playing a bit of a Mage Knight and Heroclix, and was hooked by Mechwarrior Dark Age. I started to enjoy the way even those simple miniatures games played, but I had no interest in assembling or painting minis.

In 2006, the manager at my LGS decided that Warmachine was the game for him, and he convinced his regulars to start playing also. I was less than enthusiastic at first, especially since I was not interested in the hobby side of the game, so he tried to get me to buy a prepainted Cygnar starter. The aesthetic of the set didn't appeal to me, but I saw a box on the shelf with an angry Russian(ish) woman on the front and knew that the Khador starter would suit me. I ended up playing Warmachine for a number of years - though I rarely if ever painted any minis.

By June 2015, I had drifted into and out of playing Warmachine regularly, and I just wasn't that interested in continuing to play on a regular basis. A friend of mine was looking into Malifaux, and tried to convince me to start playing. I looked over the starters: Seamus looked cool, as did Lilith and Pandora, but I didn't necessarily care for the other models they came with. Then, I saw another starter which caught my eye, featuring an angry Russian(ish) woman with ice powers and slow-moving yet powerful constructs..... I was hooked. I picked up the Children of December box, Acolytes, & Hoarcat Pride, and had painted (poorly) all of them within a week....

I've been playing regularly ever since, and since I started, I've painted several times more Malifaux minis than I painted Warmachine minis in the ~10 years I played that game.

[Gnomezilla]

I was peripheral to RL gaming for a long while. I liked pen and paper RPGs but something always seemed missing in the play, Euro-boardgames I loved when I found them but it was difficult to set up a dedicated play group, but minis were strictly my husband's gaming outlet and I didn't mix with them. Then in 2015 the game store needed someone to work a few shifts, and I got that job. A henchman came in, a henchman set up a casual group, a player asked me to itemize the pre-order so it was valid for an FLGS promo. Gracie came in with the special order, we all grinned at the sculpt. I watched cards flip, and couldn't work out the odds in my head as I could for the dice games, and was intrigued. I wandered over, I saw something incredibly creepy, I backed away.

Three months later, and I'd learned not all the models were creepy horrors, and I had decided there was space enough for one minis game in my life as long as my husband didn't already claim it. A few days on pullmyfinger produced a short list of playstyles I liked (complicated, support, extra or moveable AP). Then I cross-referenced it with all the possible giant stompybots (I love clockworks). Then I was puzzled for a day or two since this clearly indicated a male-and-constructs crew and what place was there for me within it, for if there were giant stompybots I had to have a representation on the table as well. Then I read about the Malifaux Child and its master synergies and got the inkling of a Great Idea.

As it happened, that henchman had all of Guild, so while he was setting up the demo I mentioned that I'd like to try out Hoffman, if he still had that crew. To this day I am not sure which of the girls he whisked off of the table on the Guild side, but am grateful he bit his tongue long enough to set up an utter wargaming newbie with one of the most complicated crews which existed at the time. My husband, in shock that I'd picked a minis game at last, assembled and painted that first crew box and a Malifaux Child to match, and dug out a clockwork mini he'd gifted me awhile back--a brass arachnid, in metal. Then came the second one, half of a Ramos box. Howard Langston languished on the sprue for weeks. I began to feel very guilty about cutting into my husband's hobby time with complicated minis instead of annoyed at the backlog, and resolved to assemble and paint the next ones myself. So, on the first of January, 2016, I sat down with borrowed sprue cutters and plastic glue, Ryle's sprue, and a box of steam arachnids which had been clipped off of the sprue and bagged already (???). Now my second box is painted, my third box (another half-box, McMourning for Guild) is in progress, and a handful of others are painted also.

[Xavian and Deathgrip]

My parents introduced me to warhammer as a kid, believing that the painting could help me with my terrible fine motor skills. I chose Lizardmen. Unfortunately I never actually painted anything, and I think my parents sold the hundreds of dollars of models they got me. One of my brothers quickly became attacked to the hobby, but has since quit due to an obsession with what is "cool". A shame honestly, he was very, very good at painting and when you talked to him about it he would drop all attempts at being cool and geek out. He started with Greenskins in fantasy before switching to Grey Knights, and he was more interested in the hobby aspect than the playing. His paint jobs were amazing, some that he did, even though he was only 14-15, looked like the kind of models that you would see in the army books. We've since drifted apart, far apart. My other brother never really got into the painting, but has the many of the books. Both of them switched to 40k, and they even gave me the Tyranids rule books because they knew I liked the aesthetic, even if I didn't care about the painting. I always wanted to play a game of it though. The first time I played was this year with a guy I first met at my old high school who I met at game-quest, my local game store.  

Since then I have developed a tendency to go on what I call "wiki-binges" which are a single minded obsession with a single media (Gears of war, killer instinct, casltevania, Blazblue, Tvtropes, Destiny, RWBY, Shadowrun, etc.) Honestly it's unhealthy and makes it hard for me to study. 

However one day one my way back home from volunteering at the local SPCA I stopped at my local game store (although they specialize in used games), which I always do on the way back in case they have one of the old castlevania games, another series that went from wiki-binge to something I care about. I noticed a pair of steam arachnids at first, and noticed they were for something called Malifaux. After few minutes of bumming around I noticed the rulebook on the bottom of the shelf with board games, and I picked it up and started flipping through it. The designs were pretty good, although nothing jumped out at me. I later came back home and looked around at it. Before forgetting about it because my current wiki-binge was Hearthstone (I played Druid and Paladin). After growing tired of Hearthstone's grind I started just looking around at things. One of the things that I looked around at was Malifaux, where I found out about Divergent Paths, and was instantly entranced. I love community events (although the Saxxy awards were rather lack-luster this year...) I later found out about Vassal, a way I could play without a repeat of what had happened with Warhammer. Finally I could play a tabletop game. 

I am doing my best to try and force it from my mind though, at least when I am supposed to be studying (I like the look of the gameplay, so I am intrigued about trying it out.). Or listening to a lecture. Or talking to someone. Or...

I have a few mental disorders. Nothing that prevents me from functioning though, which is good. 

Well that got depressing really quickly.

[Dogmantra]

Way way back in the ancient time known only as "2013" (wow was it really that long ago???) a playful forest spirit named @Astrella asked if she had ever told me about a game named Malifaux. She explained that the game was currently in open beta for the second edition and that she liked the first and that I might like the second edition. This was around the time that I was still part of a little community on a Mumble server and some people were picking up Warmahordes, which I hadn't cared for. I was intrigued by the deck, immediately thought s and s were rad, and of course I said I would play! We played a few games over VASSAL, and I liked it a lot. For whatever reason, partly lack of a faction I really really liked (Von Schill was my main man back then, but no real interest in any other Outcasts) but also partly other games, we didn't keep at it.

Fast forward a while, and my competitive games of 2013 had mostly faded - Bloodline Champions was dead (RIP BLC long live Battlerite), I was starting to slow down on Puzzle Strike, and we played a bit more on and off. I discovered that actually despite the fact I assumed I'd hate Gremlins because of the aesthetic, I actually love them a lot (I literally read Bayou Two Card and the Bayou Gremlin's gun and decided there and then it was my faction). We played some more, but not particularly often.

Then in the summer holidays of my second year of university, I knew there was a game store that did Malifaux nearby. I back up to stay with my parents for a couple of weeks, but my PC was still at home, so I didn't have many games. What I did have was VASSAL and I got super into the idea of Malifaux. Astrella and I played a whole bunch for those weeks, I started designing a custom fate deck which I still haven't finished, and before i went back, my dad took me to a local store to him and I bought my very first physical minis - the Som'er box, OF COURSE.

 

Now it's about 16 months later and I'm still playing weekly at the local store and I'm doin my gremlin thing. I also recently started a second faction physically which is something I told myself I would never do lol

[koronuslight]

Friends came back from Gen Con when Malifaux had first come out. Been playing ever since.

[melmouse]

I had avoided tabletop until this game.  I fell in love with the figures and the variety of crews.  I'm still getting the hang of the game but i have at least 3 crews to paint and assemble.

[Lizzy Lovecraft]

I've been playing Dungeons and Dragons most of my life, and when the 4th edition rules came out, I found I suddenly needed miniatures, since it had gone battle-map.  So I went to my local game store to pick some up.  I wasn't a big fan of many of the Reaper line of figures my store had, but the friendly LGS salesman asked if I was interested in Malifaux.  I said, "What's that?"  He said, "A tabletop skirmish game that uses cards instead of dice." To which I said, "Like Warhammer, but without dice?  Meh.  I can't afford the Warhammer game, and if I wanted to play cards, I'd play Magic."  He said, "Just check out the mini's."

As a precursor: In 2007, I started playing D&D Online.  World of Warcraft was everywhere, and I like to go against the grain.  At this time, I had been listening to a lot of the violin/cello band Rasputina, so I named my first character (wizard/rogue) Rasputina.  BTW, I still have that toon.

So then, when I saw her box; a woman in an animated pose, wearing a furry top hat and goggles, followed around by ice mephits and a golem (this was when metal was still predominant), with the name Rasputina, I HAD to have her!  She was my RPG sorcerer mini for awhile, but then I decided to check out the rules for this game she was from.  I bought the rules only guide, talked my friend into getting Perdita, and we started teaching ourselves the game.  (I actually gave another friend Rasputina's crew a while later to get him to play.  Which worked.  Only, I had to grab Seamus to make up for it.)

Since then,  I've collected a "modest" collection of models, learned to paint (poorly), listen to all the podcasts, think about the game all the time, and get mad if I can't play Malifaux at least once a week.

[Akodo Harid]

I've played Dungeons and Dragons and like Lizzy, 4th edition got me to buying a lot of minis. I was never happy with unpainted ones but I never knew where to start. But then a friend starts up a Necromunda league and invites me. We're mostly using our own models in the correct scale, but I remember painting for the first time at that point. Was a lot of fun.

So naturally, when the league ended and my friends introduced me to Malifaux I was hooked. I was waffling between Misaki, Von Schill, and Viktorias as my first crew when my friends purchase me a metal McMourning crew that I played with exclusively for a full year before jumping to my first love, Outcasts. So, now I'm playing Parker and Viks exclusively and loving life and even stopped purchasing commission paints to do it myself.

I'm nowhere near as good as my friends at painting, but every model brings me closer and closer to what I consider table ready. I was thinking about buying old models to give them a new paint job, but I decided to keep the work I've done so I could visually see how I improved. Also, I'm incredibly sad face that my friends ho got me INTO the hobby just stopped playing it seems, but I've found new companions and plan to make this the year I train for and do  NOVA.

[Absolution Black]

I was told there was pudding.

[-Loki-]

I grew up playing GW games with my brother. I started when I was, I think, 9 with Titan Legions. Eventually we moved over to 40k, and played that for about 12 years. We met many people who played at high school, with one of those becoming a good friend and my most regular opponent. Eventually I started studying, and got a full time job, and it all sort of just dropped due to other priorities. One day walking to work something triggered the memory of playing 40k and I decided to load the GW website up at work and have a look at who things had changed. I was blown away by all the new stuff - especially Tyranids which I always like as an army but disliked the models. The new stuff was great. So I dragged my brother and friend back into it, and we played 40k again for about 6 years. We got in at the tail end of 5th edition. We played 6th edition happily enough. 7th editions quick release and massive changes didn't go down well with us.

By that time we'd already mostly moved over to Infinity. We'd grown tired of the poor balance and insane Australian prices GW charged, having been tipped over the edge by their embargo stopping UK retailers shipping to the southern hemisphere. There ended up being a priority of only buying what was good, and generally we liked the models that were 'bad'. So we went looking for another game and wound up finding Infinity, a skirmish game, so fewer models. The balance was fantastic, which meant we didn't have to make the choice of buying a bad model or a pretty model. That took over as the primary game. I don't think we've even played 40k in a few years, let alone bought anything for it.

However, I kind of wanted a fantasy fix. Swords and magic and blackpowder guns. I remembered Malifaux from when we originally went looking for another game but settled on Infinity. Enough time had passed that it was into M2E. I loved the new plastics, and spent time cajoling my friend and brother into it. My brother grabbed a crew pretty quickly, and for a time it was just the two of us, getting the odd game in when we didn't feel like playing Infinity. It all ramped up at the start of the year when an FLGS ran a slow grow, and I was determined to have a fully painted crew by the end of it. After that, I was only really thinking about Malifaux, and Infinity had fallen aside. I expanded my Neverborn to include every option I'd ever wanted for Lilith, Pandora, the Dreamer. I got the pre release of Titania. I've been working away on my Gremlins. I've put together a Malifaux table and I'm planning a second.

Now, I've finally managed to get my friend into it. He's bought the Hired Swrds set and a few extras and is eyeing Hamelin. Now, Infinity and Malifaux share an uneasy alliance. When we decide it's a gaming weekend, it's a toss up between the two. Lately Malifaux has been winning, mostly because it's more relaxed. I don't feel as mentally drained after playing a game and often feel like having a second game, which is really rare with Infinity.

[Joel]

17 hours ago, Absolution Black said:

I was told there was pudding.

Have you not had yours yet?!?

[Absolution Black]

3 hours ago, Joel said:

Have you not had yours yet?!?

Nope, I gave up..

It involved me filling in a requisition form and attaching a picture of my empty bowl showing the non pudding.

plus the shipping from the US would kill me.

[Butch]

I always wanted to start a skirmish game some time ago. This march a friend told me he was starting Malifaux and if I'd like to join. So I grabbed the opporunity.