Which Master to chose

[Wimmlo]

Hi,

I'm new to this hobby and i've got to take a decision: 

Which Master should i play? 

I know, I'm not the only one with this problem and there are many threads with this topic and the website pullmyfinger and so on. But it is very confusing for an absolute newbie to getting started. 

There are some criterias to chose my master. Btw i dont like the idea of collecting a whole faction because every master seems to be well rounded and offers a whide personal hiring pool. 

So the aspects for my decision are:

The Master/ hired models should be...

- easy to understand. Im not a fan of dirty shenanigans which are disgusting to use and no fun and not  transparent for the opposite players.

- I want a fair and close game, so i do not need to win every game by overwhelming my opponent andto drink their tears  ;-)

- outperforming my enemy through attrition via summoning, endless hordes or action control is not my style 

- randomness is okay, makes the games unique 

- i like versatility, especially the master but it hasn't to be. Just want to play different schemes and victory conditions without much preference for just a few ones. 

- relatively small hiring pool. 

 

So, i hope u can help me and give me a small selection of ideas.

Btw I'm from germany, so please be gently to me and my grammar mistakes;)

 

Thx 

[Ludvig]

In some matches there will be strong incentive to have more activations than in others so a few cheap models are never wrong. Almost no master does schemes with their own actions, there are cheaper models for that. Some masters give out actions to other models however, would that kind of support feel fun or complicated?

Aquenaton has probably listed the most straightforward masters. 

 

[Wimmlo]

It's not only the killing i want. I can play warhammer for that. Giving others models actions is absolutely okay,  but dont like the scenario of overwhelming my oppponent: "Hungry burger uses his hunger cry to summon hot dog man. He instantly activates and charge your cuty pies. Did i mention, that he Hates cute pies and that triggers the pizza murderer and so on " 

 

So maybe i wrote it a bit complicated. I like a transparent game that doesnt get more and more complicated during the turns 

[Ludvig]

Killing is one form of controlling how many VP the opponent gets in the game. You need models to score most VP even if it is entirely possible to get all your VP from applying conditions and markers onto enemy models. 

You can play and try to not kill anything at all but it is a lot more challenging than killing a few key damagedealers or extra capable enemy scheme runners. This game is information heavy, if you try too many fancy tricks in your first 10-15 matches you are likely to get severely out-scored. Another common rookie mistake is going in too hard for killing and forgetting your schemes. Against newer players I have won games with a good margin while not killing a single opposing model and finishing with 2/10 of my original models still on the board. Against more experienced players I can usually barely scrape out a win if I try to not kill. In some matches the game objectives themselves will make killing a lot more risky since your opponent can,score poins when you kill their models. In other games the objective itself is to kill the opponent but only opponents of a certain station or in a special place on the board. For those missions you will want something that actually attacks the opponent for damage. Killing missions always want you to kill the enemy models one or two per turn so you don't get the 40k leafblowers trying to table people turn one because that is likely to lose you the game.

All that being said there is no way getting around that certain matches will reward killing and killing is the only non-complicated thing a master can do. Had you said you were ok with complexity but hated killing you would have gotten very different suggestions.

Lady Justice and her crew don't need to kill enemies, they can bury them in another dimension to temporarily remove them from the game. Pandora is a master with very strong control options, she parlyzes enemies so they can't take any actions and her crew causes passive damage when enemies fail certain duels nearby. She is not as straightforward though.

Brewmaster also deals in control instead of killing.

Lucius can place scheme markers and give ap to other models. He has a lot of potential to win while the enemy completely decimates his crew but he is not straightforward because wanting your own models to die and actively killing them isn't very straight-forward.

Collette is very flexible, she also gives her crew access to free actions. She can be used with killy models to kill or she can play a decent control game. She definitely likes schemey schemes.

Tara can run a list with her void wretches where she makes the opponent slow so they don't have time to complete their stuff (slow takes away ap). She also manipulates the void/paralell dimension to take both her own and the enemy models off the table and pop them back out somewhere else. She does however have a killy henchman great for taking out key enemy pieces and I don't think she is as easy to get a grasp of as the straight-forward masters.

Zoraida is a voodoo witch who applies debilitating conditions on enemy models and can take ap with the opponents models so she makes your own model do something stupid.

 

I may be missing some obvious control masters here but that gives you an idea. Feel free to ask more specific questions or ask a bout a master you like the look of. I wasn't sure how well you knew the base rules so I kept it simple.

 

 

[Wimmlo]

Okay so every master and his crew got his own complexity and can be played in different ways. 

 

Maybe i list some masters which i like from the style and u help me picking. 

Dont forget, i prefer versatility, transparence, little summoning, no shenanigan Horror, buffing > debuffing and fun for everyone xD

Im disgusting, I know :-)

 

Lucius: a mysterious politican, woh gives out Orders? I like that he seems to hurt his own people for a little benefit, but dont know if you need many many troops or if he plays very combo heavy. 

 

Rasputina: her shooting angels through her ice demons sounds interresting 

 

Seamus: undead hookers and a victorian style. But dont know much about hin.

 

Marcus: beasts are always cool. Brutal monsters who are controlled by a Mage. Sounds very simple and Lovely. But he can hire every beast from every faction Sounds brutal for the Wallet.

 

Wong/zipp: random goblins. Unpredictable and funny. 

 

Collodi: always liked creepy horror puppets. 

 

Hamelin: love the story of hamelin and the model box looks nice, dont know how he plays. Guess Rats are weak and just scary in sheer numbers. 

 

Mccabe: a bizzaro indiana jones. He can be dismounted? 

 

Reva: she can be dismounted tool? Model looks nice. 

 

Parker Barrows: a lonely cowboy gangster. But absolutely dont understand him, he sounds complicated. 

 

Shenlong: asian style. Its new and tasty.

 

 

 

 

Okay i see it's a lot i like from style and models. Maybe u can give me a hint which one fits best with my wishes and why. 

 

Thx for helping this noob xD

[Ludvig]

Most of them can change their playstyle a little with upgrades but I eill try to give you the basics.

Lucius hurts his own models for soulstones and gives ap to his minions. He is very good at doing marker schemes because he makes everyone near him able to interact in combat and has a few tricks with markers. He can cross hire mimics and guardsmen between factions. You preferably want models of the minion station with him. Minions are generally the cheapest models in the game generally costing between 3 and 7 ss so if you want to spam something it is usually minions. In most matches you want a few heavier pieces at 9+ ss. I play Lucius a lot and I rarely have more than 8 or 9 models which is pretty standard.

Rasputina blocks off parts of the board with 50mm impassable markers and causes paralyze on enemies. She also does magic blast damage which she can shoot through her ice buddies. Pretty much damage and control over your enemy.

Seamus csn jump between terrain and has a high damage gun. He can summon one belle (very limited keyword) each turn. His themstic crew (the belles) lure enemies to you so your brutal models  deal with them.

Marcus is very adaptable. He can hit hard himself and control enemies by turning thrm into beasts and taking actions with them or debuffing them. He also buffs friendly beasts. The hiring is mostly a problem if you are collecting a faction. If you are only going to have one master it doesn't matter if the models are technically from different factions.

Wong does insane blasts and is random.

Nrver faced Zipp but people seem to find him extremely annoying. He flies around and does... something.

Collodi can either buff minions around Itself or steal buffs from cheap minions to become a strong control piece. Puahes around and is very hard to tske down.

Hamelin mostly uses the rats to ensure the entire enemy crew has activated before he starts using brutal beaters to decimate the opponent. You can play him a bit "nicer" and not take super beaters. He can obey models to take ap (obey works on both friendly and eney models). The rats don't do damage but puts on a disease that accumulates, you then have attacks to do damage equal to the disease value on the enemy model. A lot of his crew is immune to conditions.

McCabe starts on his horse, if the model dies he dismounts. You can also dismount of your own free will. He chooses upgrades at the beginning of the game that he then throw out to models in his crew. He isn't super strong himself but buffs his crew in various ways. He is very versatile in which models he can use and do well and he can play in Guild or Ten Thunders.

Reva can attack through corpses that models drop when they die. She also summons floating corpses to attack through. She is very much about causing damage. She cannot dismount, she has twice as many wounds as McCabe instead.

Parker is considered complicated. He has some cycle with soulstones and upgrades do to tricksy stuff. He controls mostly I think, doing some damsge if needed. I have faced him twice and am still not sure how he works.

Shenlong plays with conditions and upgrades on himself. He get different actions depending on the upgrade and consitions like burning or poison that arebusually bad are good for him. He can support his crew or deal damage depending on upgrades. His buddy Sensei Yu is a potent buff piece.

[Jesy Blue]

9 hours ago, aquenaton said:

McCabe is the scene on Pirates of the Caribbean 2 when they have only two sabres for 3 people. Expect to be throwing help to a model to then pass it back and forth.

Best description ever!

What you want to do is find the master model, or any model in the game, that you find the most appealing.  the model that draws you in and makes you want to put it on the table, the narrow your choices from there.  alternatively, it may be a rule you like... I fell in love with the Fates Intertwined rule on the Viktoria's when I started.  Once you find the model/rule you love, go from there to build your crew.  Every crew is capable of winning, but not every crew will draw you in personally.

[thatlatinspeakingguy]

15 hours ago, Wimmlo said:

Hamelin: love the story of hamelin and the model box looks nice, dont know how he plays. Guess Rats are weak and just scary in sheer numbers.

Hamelin is exactly a master you DON'T want to play according to that:

On 15.11.2017 at 9:04 PM, Wimmlo said:

- I want a fair and close game, so i do not need to win every game by overwhelming my opponent andto drink their tears  ;-)

- outperforming my enemy through attrition via summoning, endless hordes or action control is not my style 

;-)

If you like versality, little summoning and prefer buffing over debuffing, I would recommend Shenlong. He starts every encounter summoning a single Peasant, but that's all about it. He is an epitome of versality. He is exactly as good as a master as you are as a player, which translates into fair and rewarding game experience for both you and your opponent. He can both buff your crew and punch faces if that's necessary. The only characteristic from your list (versatility, transparence, little summoning, no shenanigan Horror, buffing > debuffing and fun) that he does not fit into is transparency - he has so many options during his activation that people who are not very familiar with him tend to forget about some of his tricks. And, btw, I hate an argument "don't choose Shenlong if you're new, Shenlong is a complex master to play" - complexity is the reason people play Malifaux over, let say, Warhammer!

[Ludvig]

Yeah, everything in this game is complex and a non-lethal playstyle is more complex than killing. 

Just stay away from Hamelin, he is a massive thorn in your opponents side.

[Adran]

In my opinion all the masters in the game can be played competitively whilst meeting your criteria, but Hamlin is probably the one that is most likely to summon a large swarm of relatively unimportant things, because they just happen around him. 

Its hard for me to say what is easy for you to understand, but all the masters cards are avalible on the website, so you can see what they say and do. Whilst upgrades will change them, you don't have to hire any upgrades if you don't want to. All malifaux models have some degree of "Trick" to them, so it might be s simple as Perdita suddenly relocating to a different place at the start of her activation, or Lucius switching places with another model and then making that model take 2 extra actions, and what extremes you consider dirty shennigans is something only you can say. 

Your best bet is to Pick a Master you like the look of, and like the rules for, and play that master until you feel you understand the rules of the game. The you can  decide if you like that Master or not. Any master can be used to play in almost any style. 

[Wimmlo]

Okay, thats a lot of information. I thank you for the patience and useful tips. Seems i have to start with the master i prefer mostly from the model design and play a few matches to see if he fits in my playstyle. 

I cut it down to Lucius, Rasputina, Marcus, Seamus or Wong. 

Which one of them needs a minimal collection to work well in the first few games? Read that 50 Bugs is the common playground? 

 

Thx for the help! 

[Ludvig]

1 hour ago, Wimmlo said:

Okay, thats a lot of information. I thank you for the patience and useful tips. Seems i have to start with the master i prefer mostly from the model design and play a few matches to see if he fits in my playstyle. 

I cut it down to Lucius, Rasputina, Marcus, Seamus or Wong. 

Which one of them needs a minimal collection to work well in the first few games? Read that 50 Bugs is the common playground? 

 

Thx for the help! 

All of those are playable, I think Rasputina, Marcus and Seamus get really good boxes. Not sure on Wong but I'm not a fan of Lucius' box. It's playable but has less synergy than the others. Players who have access to lots of models and want to win a tournament will likely not use most of Lucius' box when playing Lucius, with the other masters you will see most of their box on the table. If you aren't looking to win tournaments but just enjoy a friendly game Lucius will also do, I love his playstyle!

Yes, the game is balanced around 50ss games. Smaller games are good for learning though, 50ss takes a long time if not familiar qithyourcrew.

[Jesy Blue]

Yes, Lucius' box is not good, and as a starting master he is difficult as his play style is nuanced and complex; would not recommend to start.  also, they errataed his card a ton, so before you start looking into reprints, get a grasp of the game first. 

Marcus is one of those holes you fall down because his hiring pool is so deep.  You'll use most of the box all the time, then just keep adding beasts to your collection, making your lists really versitile.

Rasputina and Seamus' boxes you'll completely use all the time. Wong box you can use or ignore completely depending on what you're doing as there are many, many.... many gremlin tricks.

I'd recommend Rasputina or Marcus, as they are both Arcanists.  I find it easier to start a second crew when you already have the basic tools of the same faction already, and since you're interested in these two, starting one, then the other later on, would be easier on you.  Then once you have a handle on the game, you can branch out to Lucius and see what things he changes.

 

[Butch]

I think one importing question is missing. You should also ask: which faction to chose

As Rasputina and Marcus are both Arcanists this might be a faction worth considering. If you like most of the models that should be a good choice.

In a Malifaux game you first chose your faction and when the setting of the game is determined you chose your master out of this faction and hire your crew. Normally you start with one master, learn the game and get used to some models. After that you will develop in a second master from the same faction etc.

So before chosing a master I recommend first to shose a faction you like.

[Ludvig]

@Butch 

The original post specifically mentioned a strong aversion against collecting a faction so any master would be a oneoff. Lots of players play like that, one master in a themqtic crew and then another independent of faction.