Help from Henchmen please - Game store owner just requested I join Wyrd Henchmen

[Caiti-Erin]

Hello everyone!

My name is Caiti. To date I have played 6 games of malifaux. My local games store is absolutely desperate to get more girl gamers involved as well as drum up local interest for malifaux. SO they asked me to become a Wyrd Hench(wo)man. 10/10 100% absolutely super keen.

But I have only just started out and the rules are still a little foggy to me. There aren't many (any?) players where I am so simply playing the game won't be enough.

Can any henchmen help a girl out? How many crews did you have when you started demos etc? How did you get good enough knowledge?

[psychogeek]

Hey Caiti!

I am glad you are looking to join the program! So when starting you will need two painted crews to even apply for the program. These can be two master boxes or two small crews large enough to demo (2-player Starter Set counts). When I demo, I prefer to have two crews of a Henchman and 2-3 minion models, usually duplicates of one kind of model. I try to make the crews different enough that it's aesthetically obvious there are two sides (I don't like using perdita's crew vs Lady J's crew). This is why I like the starter set so much. 

As for game experience, no one is perfect with the rules. As long as you can explain the core of the rules clearly then you should be good! The biggest factor here is if you don't know the answer to something are you willing to look it up? By playing to the game you will learn the rules more over time as you run into the situations that you need to look up rules. 

Any Henchmen wanna pipe in with their experiences?

[Ludvig]

Wlecome to Malifaux!

I began playing before I became a henchman so I didn't have your exact situation. I did however only have one faction and that was super boring to demo with so I bought into another for that. Two crews that you know create an interesting game is perfect. I'm a bit obsessive so I read the rulebook from cover to cover a couple of times before I even started playing the game. Henchmen don't need to know every interaction by heart but a good familiarity with the rulebook will help you find answers a lot faster during games. There are also very good little sheets you can print out from the wyrd site with stats like duel difference and such that is useful to jog your memory. At the end of the day, just being helpful, friendly and providing the models to let people explore the game is your main goal I would say. Except that you will want to be sure of the basic rules of course.

If I was in your situation I would start with getting two crews with distinctive looks that you feel like you really want to paint (starter is also a good option). From those crew boxes I would create demo crews with just the minions and henchman. Masters tend to dominate too much in small games. I would play a couple of test games against myself or another player with those crews to learn basics by heart. You will also find specific interactions that are likely to crop up so you can learn how those aprticular cases work. If you can quickly answer the likely questions you will seem like you know all the interactions by heart  

Table top games are not always mechanically exciting (especially to people with limited prior experience) but if you can make them look and feel gorgeous you have a good chance of getting people hooked. Build a two-sentence narrative that gives your players the setting for why these particular models are doing what they are doing. In demo games, I normally use a shared strategy from the basic book and one pre-selected scheme for each side so players get that they are trying to fulfill different goals.

 

I hope that is somewhat helpful, I realize that I answered some questions you never asked. Which crews do you already own? Which crews do you love the look of?

[Caiti-Erin]

Thanks for the help!

I own and have painted my Pandora crew + Teddy. I am yet to paint my Primordial Magic, terror tots and widow weaver. I also have the Viktorias crew but have not painted them yet. My fiance has the Marcus crew which he hasn't painted. I am looking at the McMourning set for this because it is very different aesthetically and I find it quite quirky.

I have been told my painting skills are good for a beginner. Malifaux being my first game of this format, I haven't had experience painting before.

I would decorate the bases entirely differently for whichever second crew I applied with. Perhaps a desert theme.

With all this in consideration I have decided to go for it, maybe after a few more games. Is there any advice you can provide for the application process or the role itself?

 

[Ludvig]

Applications are super easy. Write why you want to be a hench and answer one rules question. If you're the only one in a large area I cannot think of a reason why they wouldn't approve you, you are basically promoting Wyrd at no cost to them and helping grow the family/customer base. 

Differentiating bases between factions is good toset the sides apart. I would also use different colours for your different crews.

I notice you have kept a very limited palette on you neverborn which is a really good thing to do to keep crews together. I would stay away from that teal and purple for your outcasts and choose something entirely different so that crew looks as striking and coherent. 

Your painting looks very promising, good work! I'm not sure which techniques you are using since I'm viewing the pic from a phone but keeping contrasts high between different colours always looks good (light blue vs dark purple in your case). Within each colour it is also common to do a base layer, highlight and shade (look those up if the words mean nothing to you, youtube is brimming with good painting tutorials). I would also have a look at an "additive colour wheel" to help with picking colours that contrast nicely. 

It is customary to not flock the sides of bases, it makes it easier when the measurements are really tight and it just looks right to me.

 

As far as henching goes I would try for a few demo nights where you pair friebns off against each other and act as a judge and then host a growth league. The rapid growth format is in one of the official play documents available at Wyrd's resource site.

I took over an already active community so I didn't have to build one from scratch. Some shared activity on a fixed day each week and a facebook group for friendly chatter and setting upgames has helped us get a core gang of people who have close gaming relations and almost always show up. On top of that we have irregulars who shoe up when they can but I always know that if I can't make it to a certain monday game night I have a few *enforcers who are super friendly and willing to help new players out.

* to keep the game analogy between us being henchmen and Wyrd staff masters.

[Mouseketeer]

Heya!! Think I saw these crews at Cancon recently? 

The henchman thing isn't super hard, it's more about facilitation games and hobby and events and stuff... it's more about getting enough games in to be able to introduce players, explain rules and mechanics and the like.

2 crews and an application is the easy bit (the ones you've painted so far looks great!) 

Fortunately you've got a really supportive (wider) Australian community, so there is always plenty of people to bounce ideas off and ask questions and stuff

Mouse

[Caiti-Erin]

Thanks Mouse.

Yes I was at cancon with Tim (Liability). Got absolutely wrecked but I'm okay with this.

I've started working on painting a second crew. Will update with photos when done.

[Mouseketeer]

I thought I recognised them! That weekend wrecked a lot of people, so you were in good company (I'm still recovering, lol).

Keep us posted with the new crews and the henchman progress!

Cheers,

Mouse 

[Caiti-Erin]

Please excuse the shit quality photo. But look at the dramatic difference in painting skills. Still a while to keep improving though. I thought his loin cloth NEEDED to be "made from an old nurse uniform".

[Turelio]

I've been a henchman for a few years now. It's quite fun. You get to meet a lot of people in the community, which (Especially in Australia) is really friendly. As people have said above, no one knows all the rules perfectly, and can forget. I still do it from time to time. But if you are willing to double check, and discuss it with the other player/s, then it usually works out well. I've found with demo crews as well, less is more. If you're starting a new game, you don't want to be thrown in the deep end with a dozen models all with different abilities. A few one each side lets you get your head round the game easier. If you can make sure models can act independently (They don't need tricks from other models), that usually makes it straight forward as well. I saw a crew recently that a friend had built for another player getting back in to learn the rules again. Everything was based around "Justice runs up and hits stuff", "Nino shoots stuff", and didn't rely on models enhancing other models, so they were all useful no matter what got taken out of action. 

[Caiti-Erin]

I'll definitely consider that when adding to my collection of dudes/dudettes. 

Does anyone recall how long the application process takes once I send the form in?

[Turelio]

When I got approved it took a few months,  but I believe it's quicker now.