New Player - What to Purchase after 2 player box

[facie]

I learned to play at Origins last week and fell in love.  I just got the 2 player starter box.  I'm wrapping my head around how the soul stone points work.  I'm not asking about faction advice per se, but would love to know what leaders would work with the starter models.  My thought is to buy two basic crews, round them out with the starters and play my buddy.  Once we get our heads around mechanics, I'm sure we'll go full in with building squads. 

 

What would folks recommend to go along with the two starter squads.  

Thanks!

[Amdor]

(0) "Welcome to Malifaux!"

Well, if you want to go fully thematic the starter box is Witch hunters vs Nephilim, IIRC (don't own the starter myself). That would indicate Sonnia Criid and Lilith, so The torch and the blade box for Sonnia and Mother of monsters box for Lilith.

But we're talking about mechanical effectiveness, so those two aren't the only choice. Luckily the models are generic enough to not be useless in pretty much any crew, especially the two henchmen, though this has the drawback of not having crazy synergies with anyone either. I'd still stick with Guild and Neverborn, since you can only bring two models as mercenaries in other factions (thus wasting half the starter box). Can't advice you further than that since I'm not really a Guild or Neverborn player.

[Adran]

welcome. There isn't a right answer. There is a right for you answer. 

The starter box is designed to teach you the mechanics of the game through a series of simple games, introducing new mechanics game by game. So you can go with that to learn, and look for crew boxes later. (Each side has a henchman that is allowed to lead in smaller games, but as you go to larger games can be hired into the crew rather than lead)

Not all crew boxes are of equal points so when you do get 2 bare in mind that just fielding everything  doesn't automatically make a balanced game

Also its a game of Objectives, and some models are good at one type of objective but rubbish at others, so some games might seem unbalanced. 

 

The Starter box minions are all mercs, so you could use some them with any crew so if you had a crew that you liked the look of, you can go for that. 

They are Guild and neverborn, so if you went for a crew from those factions, then you can use all the models from the starter box in your crew. 

Thematically the Guild crew are witch hunters, so the obvious master is Sonnia Criid, and the Neverborn are Nephlim, so the obvious master would be Lilith

 

[Gnomezilla]

Runner-up choices in those factions: 

McMourning as Guild: half his box cannot be hired as Guild, but he works well with the Guild starter also and they all fill out his list up to playable size, plus the Medical Malpractice list just looks cool on the table together. Downside: his box is the worst box for expanding further into Guild--it's a better jumping-off point for Ressers. [Which didn't stop me getting it early-ish in my Guild career, because I wanted mad science  on the clock! Fun! Effective! A row full of models no other master of mine can hire.]

The Dreamer as Neverborn: he has a play style which boosts minions to stupidly effective, and bloodwretches are minions. Who needs to learn hand management when you're drawing that many cards? Downside: Dreamer's box, like those of many summoners, is low on usable soulstone value and you'll need extra purchases of nightmares to get a full size crew even with the starter.

Lucius as either faction: Why choose? Another minion focused master, who will do more for the bloodwretches than the orderlies thanks to wanting to be closer to the action than Dreamer. Downside: needs his errata cards for Lucius and The Scribe, freely available in the January 2017 errata download on this site or orderable from print on demand service wargamevault. Also wants to buy Generalist Upgrade Deck Two sooner rather than later, as his box also gets a tremendous boost from that.

You'll want both Generalist Upgrade Decks soonish to buy improvements with some of your soulstones. Guild wants to buy them out of order and get Two first, and Lucius doubly so. Other factions are fine with buying the unnumbered deck 'one' first.

[facie]

Thanks!  Right now, I'm focused on just learning the game and mechanics (as opposed to building combos), so sounds like that's the way to go.  

The notion that every single leader for your declared faction is available to you in a tournament is a bit intimidating.  It get that it makes the game interesting and more chess like for veteran players, but man it's not new player friendly at all! 

Bigger picture, assuming I build off these two factions, are they competitive in the overall meta?  From what I'm hearing on podcasts and reading on the web, it seems like all factions are very viable and it comes down to the schemes/strats and one's ability to play to them in a given match up.  Is that correct?

 

[santaclaws01]

2 hours ago, facie said:

Thanks!  Right now, I'm focused on just learning the game and mechanics (as opposed to building combos), so sounds like that's the way to go.  

The notion that every single leader for your declared faction is available to you in a tournament is a bit intimidating.  It get that it makes the game interesting and more chess like for veteran players, but man it's not new player friendly at all! 

Bigger picture, assuming I build off these two factions, are they competitive in the overall meta?  From what I'm hearing on podcasts and reading on the web, it seems like all factions are very viable and it comes down to the schemes/strats and one's ability to play to them in a given match up.  Is that correct?

 

Yeah, all the factions are fine overall. You're not going to gimp yourself by going into any of them as far as competitiveness is concerned.

[facie]

Thanks!  That's what I was asking.  If I start spending money on Neverborn and Guild, I don't want to figure out after a hundred dollars or more that the faction isn't competitive at some level!

 

 

[Nikodemus]

All factions are competitive, but each faction has its share of more and less competitive models. So for example Gremlins are really good, but if you only play thematic Brewmaster and Mah Tucket, you might struggle a bit.

[durrati]

Also, keep in mind that although all masters are available to choose when playing a game / tournament does not mean you need to have access to all of them to be competitive.  You would be far better of learning to play a couple of masters well than trying to learn them all. If you pick the right couple of masters you should have a decent chance in any game. For instance, the two masters I use for Neverborn are Pandora and the Dreamer. I enjoy playing them both and they both are effective at different strategies / schemes. So there is no combination of s & s that between them they can not have a decent crack at. 

My advice would be first pick a faction - if you are expanding from the starter either Neverborn or guild are your best best - agree with your friend who takes which. Then pick a master based on the fluff - some are more effective than others but non are that bad. Play some games with that master. When you see how you are getting on with that master you will be learning its weaknesses and therefore have a clear idea of what second master and other models to buy. Then learn the game using those two masters and branch out from them latter.

Or, just look at the masters that catch your imagination and buy them - give em a go, jump in the deep end, don't worry about a clever plan. Have fun, experience bad things happening and make your mind up from there. Very few masters are that far behind the others in effectiveness, Malifaux is a well balanced game.  

[Adran]

17 hours ago, facie said:

Thanks!  Right now, I'm focused on just learning the game and mechanics (as opposed to building combos), so sounds like that's the way to go.  

The notion that every single leader for your declared faction is available to you in a tournament is a bit intimidating.  It get that it makes the game interesting and more chess like for veteran players, but man it's not new player friendly at all! 

Bigger picture, assuming I build off these two factions, are they competitive in the overall meta?  From what I'm hearing on podcasts and reading on the web, it seems like all factions are very viable and it comes down to the schemes/strats and one's ability to play to them in a given match up.  Is that correct?

 

I would say that all factions are competitive if you want them to be, and all Masters can be competative. Some are a little harder that others, but none are useless.

There is no need to have all masters for a faction. Most people will player 1-3 masters from 1 faction and learnt them really well. There are only a few people who will turn up to an event and actually think about playing all 8 masters. For most people, they will do better using the same master every round of an event than using a different master every round of an event. 

It just means that you don't really know what your opponent is going to do from their faction announcement. So don't let it stress you out, infact I'd suggest that to start with you don't even think about it. Turn up to the game and plan to play a master regardless of the game. When you have worked out what does what well, then you can think a little more about which master you want to use to do certain missions

[iamfanboy]

In fact, owning ALL Masters is kind of a bad thing playwise - too many models and too many options tend to overlap, leading to situations where you THINK one model can do something when in fact it can't.

Two or three Masters per faction is what I've been recommending to people - that way you've got some choices if a Strategy/Scheme mix is bad for your main Master, but you're not overwhelmed by the decisions available, and you don't have to memorize a TON of rules.

There's also this to read if you get further into the game, have mastered some of the basics of play, but can't quite figure out which models do what:

I should... I should signature that.