Waldo's Weekly - "I am the Key(word) Master!"

[solkan]

2 hours ago, Tors said:

Pretty sure thats the first Time i heard somebody declare depleted problematic. I Think you mean Illuminated?

Yep.  My apologies to the Depleted, I got them mixed up with the Illuminated.

2 hours ago, Tors said:

I am not sure whats worse, i don't think any of this options is ideal. I would have liked for Lynch and company to stay Dual Faction and just be balanced like other infaction must haves.

I don't think staying with the M2E cross-faction distribution was considered feasible, when trying to rebalance the masters and their hiring pools.

Cross faction masters went from a random amount of masters with the majority Ten Thunders for M2E

• Lucius - Neverborn/Guild
• McCabe - Guild/Ten Thunders -
• McMourning - Guild Ressureactionists -
• Tara - Resurrectionists/Outcasts -
• Yan Lo - Ressurectionists/Ten Thunders
• Misaki - Outcasts/Ten Thunders -
• Mei Feng - Arcanists/Ten Thunders
• Brew Master - Gremlins/Ten Thunders -
• Zoraida - Gremlins/Neverborn
• Lynch - Nerverborn/Ten Thunders -

Number of cross faction masters per faction:

• Guild - 2
• Arcanists - 1
• Neverborn - 3
• Ten Thunders - 6
• Outcasts - 2
• Gremlins - 2
• Ressurectionists - 3

to almost entirely two per faction in M3E (Arcanists and Neverborn have 3)

• Hoffman - Guild/Archaists +
• Lucius - Guild/Neverborn
• Jack Daw - Resurrectionists/Outcasts +
• Yan Lo - Resurrectionists/Ten Thunders
• Marcus - Arcanists/Neverborn +
• Mei Feng - Arcanists/Ten Thunders
• Zip - Gremlins/Outcasts +
• Zoraida - Gremlins/Neverborn

That's a more even spread across the factions, but that happened by adding four new cross-faction masters and only keeping four of the old ones.  Without Marcus, it'd actually be even at two cross-faction masters per faction.

Number of masters per faction in M3E:

• Guild - 8 - 6 from M2E and 2 new/promoted models
• Ressurectionists - 8 - 7 from M2E and 1 new master (to replace Nicodem)
• Neverborn - 8 - 6 from M2E and 2 new/promoted (1 of those is replacing Lilith)
• Arcanists - 8 - All existing masters
• Outcasts - 8 - All existing masters
• Ten Thunders - 8 - 7 from M2E and 1 new master
• Bayou - 8 - All existing masters

That's six new masters, to balance out two masters getting removed and the removal of cross-faction imports.

I think it's indicative of the commitment to these changes that the story background telegraphing the faction shifts was getting published one to two years before the edition.  

[-Loki-]

21 hours ago, Tors said:

Lilith, Collodi, Spawn Mother,  Silruids, Gupps, Barabos, 3 Knights become 1... seems like Neverborn had way to many models

Silurids, Gupps and Spawn Mother are still available to Zoraida through Swampfiend. Guess they just didn’t want them with other Neverborn masters.

[Tors]

Yeah they are, as Shikome are avaiable for guild McMourning at the Moment. I would guess nobody would consider them guild models through...

6 hours ago, solkan said:

I don't think staying with the M2E cross-faction distribution was considered feasible, when trying to rebalance the masters and their hiring pools.

And thats were our opinion differ i guess. 

I play and played various Tabletops for 17 Years now, I am no stranger to the changing of editions and well aware there are cuts to be made. But still, i think it's reasonable for me to be a little bit upset if a few hundert bucks of models (and assembling plus painting time) drop put of the possible rooster. 

And this doesn't get better just because they aren't fully useless, as i just can declare different factions, or pick a specific Master/Henchmen or buy new models. I don't yell bloody murder here or condemn wyrd and malifaux, but this change wont win my sympathy either.

[Tors]

9 hours ago, Adran said:

I must admit I've never quite understood that level of faction loyalty that people will only play that faction so even if the entire crew switches to a different faction they wouldn't play it. But several people seem to have it so each to their own. 

It's as thedeadclaw said. For casual gaming night it doesn't matters much which faction i declare, but even there is a difference. Lets say my opponent declared TT while declare neverborn and the scemes&strategys favour a brawl in the middle. Experience says TT aren't usually a fan of damage reduction and multiple tough Models, so Lynch and friends become a favourable crew pic. Add in a few things to counter Yasunori, maybe Barabos and so on. Now i can't declare Lynch with NVB. And if i declared TT i can't add Barabos and need a different model Pool to answear various questions.

If the prerequisite is "i want to play Lynch" Faction changed doesn't matters much.

But if it is "i want to play a serious match of malifaux" the declaration of factions and specific model pics in hinsight of s&s and opponents faction matters a lot.

It isn't much a question of Faction identity (Through i am a sucker for Fluff and Love the guild).

[Adran]

8 hours ago, Thedeadclaw said:

It's because if you want to play the crew in events it's hard to play competitively with just one crew and if you have that vs. a full faction of models you'll do better with the other faction as your declared faction for the event. It's not a problem for me but like. It does suck a little for people who don't play X faction for their minis to switch there.

I wish this was true, but I think that in M2E this isn't true. A lot of players I know do pick just 1 master and build a crew to make that master do well, and have won major tournaments that way. Of course if you are the sort of player that prefers to go in events with a larger pool and don't like playing just one master, then that won't be as much fun.

We'll have to wait and see if it stays the same in M3

There almost certainly will be the need for new purchases, but that's likely to be the case what ever situation you are in.

 

 

 

[ashtroboy]

Well this is a bit annoying as my beckoners, depleted and Mr Graves are no longer Neverborn, what do I do with these figures? 😔😔😔

[yool1981]

1 hour ago, Adran said:

There almost certainly will be the need for new purchases, but that's likely to be the case what ever situation you are in.

New purchases are fine. The main issues are:

• To be "forced" into them by major changes in the ruleset.
• To have minis (often assembled, based and painted) unusable because you don't want to get into the faction they end up in.

There are actually some changes I am very happy about. As an NB player, I found the Gatreauz Bokors quite cool to add some voodoo vibe to my Zoraida crews. My dream has come true and I will happily purchase and paint them. I only wished Sammy Lacroix was Swampfiend also :p.

As the themes are reinforced, I keep NB and Arcanists as tournament / exhaustive collecting factions but I may dabble into other themes I've always liked without liking the faction as a whole (in Outcast, I like Viks, Freikorps, and Hamelin, I am neutral to Tara and Bandits and I really dislike Daw and Levi).

So all in all I find the themes very motivating and they help set up achievement goals for my painting schedule.

However, some changes hurt a lot, especially in NB as both my bases and paint jobs are decided and executed per faction (so my Lynch crew will never fit in TT if I play them one day). Additionally, I anticipate that Versatile models will be needed for crew variations (and possibly competitivity). This means that any TT Versatile model I buy and paint for Lynch will have to be bought and painted anew if one day I decide to get into TT.

[Jesy Blue]

15 hours ago, touchdown said:

I do wonder if he's going to have any upgrades to expand his hiring pool. Horseman still exists as a keyword so it seems likely there will still be some 4 horseman upgrade.

The thing with that is going to be Yasanori is now Horseman.... so now there are some scary scary options.

[Adran]

34 minutes ago, yool1981 said:

New purchases are fine. The main issues are:

• To be "forced" into them by major changes in the ruleset.
• To have minis (often assembled, based and painted) unusable because you don't want to get into the faction they end up in.

There are actually some changes I am very happy about. As an NB player, I found the Gatreauz Bokors quite cool to add some voodoo vibe to my Zoraida crews. My dream has come true and I will happily purchase and paint them. I only wished Sammy Lacroix was Swampfiend also :p.

As the themes are reinforced, I keep NB and Arcanists as tournament / exhaustive collecting factions but I may dabble into other themes I've always liked without liking the faction as a whole (in Outcast, I like Viks, Freikorps, and Hamelin, I am neutral to Tara and Bandits and I really dislike Daw and Levi).

So all in all I find the themes very motivating and they help set up achievement goals for my painting schedule.

However, some changes hurt a lot, especially in NB as both my bases and paint jobs are decided and executed per faction (so my Lynch crew will never fit in TT if I play them one day). Additionally, I anticipate that Versatile models will be needed for crew variations (and possibly competitivity). This means that any TT Versatile model I buy and paint for Lynch will have to be bought and painted anew if one day I decide to get into TT.

You have made life hard for yourself with your own imposed paint scheme. That doesn't make the issue any better, but it does mean that for you there are added problems that won't exist for the majority of players. 

I do agree that people are probably going to want some versatile models and possibly some out of theme models for variation and competitively. The goal seems to be less overlap between crews, but there will probably still be some.

Ultimately if you feel minis are unusable in your situation, then they are unusable for you.

 

 

[madaxeman]

I'm very, very dissapointed to now find that if I want to play with some of the hundreds of Wyrd models I've bought over the last few years under this entirely new edition of the rules I might have to use them with cards with different coloured edges to the ones I have been used to using.

This issue is most painful when it comes to the vast majority of the figures I own, most of which I rarely if ever use mostly because either I became bored with using them, because they proved to be nowhere near as effective/fun to play as I hoped when I bought them, or because the meta moved on and once-great models became less and less effective in recent years as the huge roster of models and rules of the game teetered out of balance and the core engine and game mechanics began to creak under the increasingly impossible to follow incremental layers of new models and rules.

Despite the fact that these effectively redundant bits of plastic, all of which I bought at great expense, spent hours painting and which have not seen light of day for (in some cases) literally years might actually be much better and fun to play under the new rules (and that those same new rules should hopefully be easier and more streamlined leading to a better overall game balance and game playing experience), I cannot help but think that surely it would instead have been better to leave the factions and mechaics essentially the same so these 90%+ of my collection comprising these effectively deep-storage-packed models could continue to enjoy their restful slumbers at the back of the cupboard instead of being forced onto the tabletop?

But no - the gurus at Wyrd do not want us to do this. So, the dreadul reality is that I might now have a chance to again deploy and use these models. But to do so i will need to use cards with different coloured edges, or even - horror of horrors - buy a few more new models in order to use these existing models in totally new crews with new play styles and new tricks and fun stuff to try out. This is nothing short of an utter life changing disaster of incredible magnitude, it is utterly ridiculous, and I for one I would much perferred to have left all of my long-unused models languishing in the dark than go down this new route which we are being forced to do.

Personally I cannot see why Wyrd didn't just take the obvious option of sending someone round to my house to take a detailed inventory of my collection, including the thematic basing conventions I have chosen to adopt, and use that as a foundation for all of v3. That would have been much better for me.

Whilst I accept that it may have caused challenges for some other players, and perhaps hindered Wyrds business model a little by reducing their future revenue potential to around $80-100/year from me, certainly as a customer I would at least have felt a much more valued part of the Wyrd community - a spirit which is sadly being lost all too often in these harsh modern times.

🌧️

[yool1981]

21 minutes ago, Adran said:

You have made life hard for yourself with your own imposed paint scheme. That doesn't make the issue any better, but it does mean that for you there are added problems that won't exist for the majority of players. 

I do agree that people are probably going to want some versatile models and possibly some out of theme models for variation and competitively. The goal seems to be less overlap between crews, but there will probably still be some.

Ultimately if you feel minis are unusable in your situation, then they are unusable for you.

 

 

Is that so uncommon for players to have painting themes and/or bases specific to a given faction?

Around here it is quite common... When you look at the galleries on this forum it seems to be frequent also.

21 minutes ago, madaxeman said:

I'm very, very dissapointed to now find that if I want to play with some of the hundreds of Wyrd models I've bought over the last few years under this entirely new edition of the rules I might have to use them with cards with different coloured edges to the ones I have been used to using.

This issue is most painful when it comes to the vast majority of the figures I own, most of which I rarely if ever use mostly because either I became bored with using them, because they proved to be nowhere near as effective/fun to play as I hoped when I bought them, or because the meta moved on and once-great models became less and less effective in recent years as the huge roster of models and rules of the game teetered out of balance and the core engine and game mechanics began to creak under the increasingly impossible to follow incremental layers of new models and rules.

Despite the fact that these effectively redundant bits of plastic, all of which I bought at great expense, spent hours painting and which have not seen light of day for (in some cases) literally years might actually be much better and fun to play under the new rules (and that those same new rules should hopefully be easier and more streamlined leading to a better overall game balance and game playing experience), I cannot help but think that surely it would instead have been better to leave the factions and mechaics essentially the same so these 90%+ of my collection comprising these effectively deep-storage-packed models could continue to enjoy their restful slumbers at the back of the cupboard instead of being forced onto the tabletop?

But no - the gurus at Wyrd do not want us to do this. So, the dreadul reality is that I might now have a chance to again deploy and use these models. But to do so i will need to use cards with different coloured edges, or even - horror of horrors - buy a few more new models in order to use these existing models in totally new crews with new play styles and new tricks and fun stuff to try out. This is nothing short of an utter life changing disaster of incredible magnitude, it is utterly ridiculous, and I for one I would much perferred to have left all of my long-unused models languishing in the dark than go down this new route which we are being forced to do.

Personally I cannot see why Wyrd didn't just take the obvious option of sending someone round to my house to take a detailed inventory of my collection, including the thematic basing conventions I have chosen to adopt, and use that as a foundation for all of v3. That would have been much better for me.

Whilst I accept that it may have caused challenges for some other players, and perhaps hindered Wyrds business model a little by reducing their future revenue potential to around $80-100/year from me, certainly as a customer I would at least have felt a much more valued part of the Wyrd community - a spirit which is sadly being lost all too often in these harsh modern times.

🌧️

11

This would be funny if it was not so condescending...

You really think that the changes of faction are motivated by game mechanics and fluff only? You think that there is absolutely no strategy to push you towards purchasing things to make your existing stuff valid again. Is this critical to the game state to make Lynch or Tara change faction? I don't think so, especially since you are changing the game rules anyway.

How do you get value from older players that typical have 1-2 factions and don't overextend to others (many of the players I know are in this case, except for the hardcore ones that own everything)? You mess with their collection and fragment it so that they feel compelled to buy more stuff.

Is this proper that the last book of M2E vastly increased some of the hiring pools of some masters before seeing them shrink in the next book? I cannot believe that M3E was not being created when Broken Promises went out.

These are just very distasteful sales practices.

[Tors]

You have to love this forum. Sarky remarkes? Gets moderated and "reminded" to discuss propperly. Try to voice your opinion in a balanced manner without attacking someone? Be ridiculed by a condescending wall of text. No wonder this tend to be a circle jerk of the same 5 users.🙄

[madaxeman]

25 minutes ago, yool1981 said:

Quote

You really think that the changes of faction are motivated by game mechanics and fluff only?

Not "only". But at least "partly".   

Quote

You think that there is absolutely no strategy to push you towards purchasing things to make your existing stuff valid again.

These are just very distasteful sales practices.

I'm absolutely sure there is exactly such a strategy on the part of Wyrd. It's one of the two main standard business models for every miniatures-led gaming company I can think of. The other approach is to make rules changes that render all of your existing stuff non-legal or non-viable.  Of the two I feel that latter is far more distateful, and without adopting one of these approaches I'm pretty sure that the companies concerned would go to the wall or cease to support existing systems entirely. 

Quote

How do you get value from older players that typical have 1-2 factions and don't overextend to others (many of the players I know are in this case, except for the hardcore ones that own everything)? You mess with their collection and fragment it so that they feel compelled to buy more stuff.

I suspect the Wyrd marketing team would want to swap ""..a good proportion of them become re-engaged in the system and the new rules mechanics and gameplay possibilities, and are as a result motivated to choose to.."  for "..they feel compelled to .." - but otherwise I think you've absolutely nailed it. 

 

[yool1981]

2 minutes ago, madaxeman said:

Not "only". But at least "partly".

We agree on that.

2 minutes ago, madaxeman said:

I'm absolutely sure there is exactly such a strategy on the part of Wyrd. It's one of the two main standard business models for every miniatures-led gaming company I can think of. The other approach is to make rules changes that render all of your existing stuff non-legal or non-viable.  Of the two I feel that latter is far more distateful, and without adopting one of these approaches I'm pretty sure that the companies concerned would go to the wall or cease to support existing systems entirely. 

Other possibilities are:

• You reinforce themes and make them self-sustainable and balanced in a majority of strategies/scheme configurations so that there is an appeal even for older players to dabble into themes previously not owned. I think/hope this is part of the current Wyrd strategy and one I wholeheartedly agree with (and will support by buying a few new themes out of my traditional factions :D).
• You make new models and new minis. You risk a bloating effect though if it is not handled properly.
• You make new minis for old models. You generate fewer sales than other strategies, especially if your previous minis were good enough. You can "force" the purchase by selling sets/bundles/crew boxes including new models along with resculpts of old ones as Wyrd has done for M1E -> M2E but this is also a very distasteful sales practice imho...

11 minutes ago, madaxeman said:

I suspect the Wyrd marketing team would want to swap ""..a good proportion of them become re-engaged in the system and the new rules mechanics and gameplay possibilities, and are as a result motivated to choose to.."  for "..they feel compelled to .." - but otherwise I think you've absolutely nailed it.

I am glad we agree

[madaxeman]

29 minutes ago, yool1981 said:

I am glad we agree

Of course... !

Seriously though, I - and I'm sure almost everyone else - have absolutely loads of models which I've bought and painted up but never, ever use.  Boredom, lack of effectiveness, change in the local meta, or being superceeded by new better options at their points level are all reasons why stuff doesn't get used. And sometimes my painting is a bit crap and I'm embarassed to put the stuff on table too 🙂 

In M3E I am 100% sure that I will still have loads of models that I will never, or hadly ever use. All that will change is which ones I no longer use, and the "why" of why they won't get used. 

Boredom and lack of effectiveness are things that a new version 'should' address. The meta will also inevitably change, and the shift in game balance towards more tightly themed crews appears to have been specifically chosen to address the 'better options at their points level' issue too.  

M3E does admittedly bring in a new reason as well - "faction changes mean I need to buy more stuff if I want to keep using this model" - but on balance I think I can live with that if it helps keep Wyrd in business and keeps Malifaix alive as a system. Otherwise all of my models will end up unused.

[Adran]

1 hour ago, yool1981 said:

Is that so uncommon for players to have painting themes and/or bases specific to a given faction?

Around here it is quite common... When you look at the galleries on this forum it seems to be frequent also.

I've seen the topic come up a few times on this forum, and read suggestions on it, but none, I think, quite as extreme as yours sounds to me.

I am assuming you have come to a solution on cross faction (and merc) models for M2e. From what we've heard there are less cross faction instances. What is less noticeable from this list is that other than masters/totem there appear to be no duel faction models so hopefully in the long run it will make your basing easier.

 

<Modhat>

This forum is for people to post their views, both positive and negative. As Tors said, I'm going to ask that we make sure we discuss properly in a manner that doesn't demean other users.

I expect people to be upset by change, and they should feel able to express their feeling here. Please don't ridicule or demean other people. </Modhat>

[yool1981]

17 minutes ago, madaxeman said:

Seriously though, I - and I'm sure almost everyone else - have absolutely loads of models which I've bought and painted up but never, ever use.  Boredom, lack of effectiveness, change in the local meta, or being superceeded by new better options at their points level are all reasons why stuff doesn't get used.

If I paint a mini with more than the 3 basic colours required for the tournament playability, I play with it :p. Otherwise I consider I lost my time unproductively (and being a father of 2, my time is very dear to me).

So my solution to play everything I paint is to have a variety of masters to avoid boredom and play with less optimized stuff if I face a less experienced player.

16 minutes ago, Adran said:

I've seen the topic come up a few times on this forum, and read suggestions on it, but none, I think, quite as extreme as yours sounds to me. 

When I played WMH I had one colour theme for Trollbloods & one for Circle.

When I played WH Battle I had one colour theme for Chaos Warriors, one for the Empire and one for Wood Elves. If I had to mix Wood Elves with Empire it would look odd as the colouring themes were different.

It's just the same philosophy here.

13 minutes ago, Adran said:

I am assuming you have come to a solution on cross faction (and merc) models for M2e. From what we've heard there are less cross faction instances. What is less noticeable from this list is that other than masters/totem there appear to be no duel faction models so hopefully in the long run it will make your basing easier. 

I play NB & Arcanist so I don"t have cross faction colouring issues in M2E. I have 2 arcane effigies though, one for Arcanists and one for Neverborn Collodi.

The cross-faction themes actually make life a bit more complicated but for future purchases, it can be anticipated and accounted for.

[WWHSD]

2 hours ago, yool1981 said:

Is this proper that the last book of M2E vastly increased some of the hiring pools of some masters before seeing them shrink in the next book? I cannot believe that M3E was not being created when Broken Promises went out.

I don't think Wyrd knew that they were going to change editions when book 5 was released. I thought I had heard that they were pretty far into having book 6 and its models ready to go. It's possible that if Aaron was still around that we would have gotten book 6 instead of a new edition.   

[Scatterbrain]

22 hours ago, ashtroboy said:

Well this is a bit annoying as my beckoners, depleted and Mr Graves are no longer Neverborn, what do I do with these figures? 😔😔😔

Wyrd hopes you will buy the Jakob Lynch box and run Beckoners, Depleted and Mr Graves in Ten Thunders, in addition to playing in Neverborn. Then, realize you want to add Mr Tannen and Gwyneth Maddox. Following that, they further hope you might decide to add Yasunori and the TT Effigy and Emissary. Oh yeah, the Dawn Serpent is versatile, that could come in handy. Oh, and you might need more ranged support for certain games, so the Fuhatsu and Samurai are givens. Those Obsidian Statues are awesome minis, throw in a few of those, and who doesn't want to run a giant flaming wheel with a disembodied head? The Wanyudo is a decision that makes itself. But, what to do with the other miniatures that come with the Wanyudo?

Well, since you already own so many versatile TT models by that point, picking up the Yan Lo box becomes an obvious choice...

A lesson in the Sunk Cost Fallacy. Ask me to tell you why I decided it was a good idea to buy so many Resser models on an expensive tangent after deciding to play Arcanist Marcus. Wow, I could use all of these Beasts with Test Subjects McMourning. But McMourning is going to need Rafkin, and the Little Gassers, and the Emissary, and... 💲💲💲

[Bakuriel]

At least Wyrd isn't current day Blizzard... otherwise they might cut back on malifaux, cancel tournaments at Gencon, focus the majority of their attention on jetpack unicorn, and port the other side to a mobile game.

[ashtroboy]

3 hours ago, Scatterbrain said:

Wyrd hopes you will buy the Jakob Lynch box and run Beckoners, Depleted and Mr Graves in Ten Thunders, in addition to playing in Neverborn. Then, realize you want to add Mr Tannen and Gwyneth Maddox. Following that, they further hope you might decide to add Yasunori and the TT Effigy and Emissary. Oh yeah, the Dawn Serpent is versatile, that could come in handy. Oh, and you might need more ranged support for certain games, so the Fuhatsu and Samurai are givens. Those Obsidian Statues are awesome minis, throw in a few of those, and who doesn't want to run a giant flaming wheel with a disembodied head? The Wanyudo is a decision that makes itself. But, what to do with the other miniatures that come with the Wanyudo?

Well, since you already own so many versatile TT models by that point, picking up the Yan Lo box becomes an obvious choice...

A lesson in the Sunk Cost Fallacy. Ask me to tell you why I decided it was a good idea to buy so many Resser models on an expensive tangent after deciding to play Arcanist Marcus. Wow, I could use all of these Beasts with Test Subjects McMourning. But McMourning is going to need Rafkin, and the Little Gassers, and the Emissary, and... 💲💲💲

Lols - i guess i shall be dashing Wyrds hopes, I will probobly keep the Beckoners as they are painted , and the Depleted and Mr Graves will make their way to ebay.  Thankfully i didnt buy the Alt Graves and Tannen, which based on the box and everything still gives the impression that they are dual faction, but oh well.  Time to tidy up my NB lists and look at Nekima as a possible Master. Most importantly I shall be holding of any new purchases till M3E is releaased.  

 

Apologies for the randon rambling that is this post lols

[Gnomezilla]

Dashel got most of the existing guardsmen in the split from Lucius, now I know. So Lucius is getting the new box? Hopefully a little more Neverborn flavored than the last.

*elsewhere, a steamfitter (?!) is operating a chain-hoist as hanging scales, weighing a steam arachnid and then a mobile toolkit*

On 12/13/2018 at 12:04 PM, solkan said:

*Points at Avatar Ramos going full Dr. Arachnid* 

*Points to headlines about Ramos being arrested as the head of the Arcanists*

It's clearly discrimination against arachnoid automata.

It is my headcanon that in order to conceptualize an avatar, one had to be in Malifaux in the time between the two major events which created and destroyed them. If someone even tried to describe it to an onlooker later, if the onlooker was new enough, the mental image formed would be ‘emissary’ no matter what the description. So ‘Dr. Arachnid’ would become lost knowledge.

On the other hand, I can certainly see everyone angry with the arbitrary and oppressive Guild’s arrest of the workingman’s hero venting their sympathies by putting spider themes everywhere, separate from the M&SU symbol (using that without paying union dues earns a short sharp visit from Ironsides’ buddies). Web graffiti chalked on walls or strung with scrap wire, extra legged automata more popular in the workplace yet most unfashionable among the hoi-palloi, spider brooches, that sort of thing.

[solkan]

1 hour ago, Gnomezilla said:

Dashel got most of the existing guardsmen in the split from Lucius, now I know. So Lucius is getting the new box? Hopefully a little more Neverborn flavored than the last.

*elsewhere, a steamfitter (?!) is operating a chain-hoist as hanging scales, weighing a steam arachnid and then a mobile toolkit*

It is my headcanon that in order to conceptualize an avatar, one had to be in Malifaux in the time between the two major events which created and destroyed them. If someone even tried to describe it to an onlooker later, if the onlooker was new enough, the mental image formed would be ‘emissary’ no matter what the description. So ‘Dr. Arachnid’ would become lost knowledge.

I don't Hoffman so much needs to care about what regular people would think if he showed up on official business with mechanical spiders.  This is probably all about what Criid's group would do if those constructs showed up at work.

Going off of the descriptions in M2E not cross referencing the TTB entries, Ramos is credited with the arachnid swarms, and "Arcanists" with the Mechanical Spiders.  That's the sort of thing that you'd expect the Tattler to sensationalize.  God knows where they got a bulk order of giant mechanical spiders from, but that's what it implies.

The Medical Automaton and Mobile Tooolkit sound like the sort of pre-existing design that was being used in the area and people just brought along due to familiarity, and presumably would explain why Hoffman would have access to those.

As far as the living go, Hoffman had regular contact with Ramos during the course of his official business.  Hoffman's doing such a good job for the Guild he got his department promoted.  I thought I read somewhere that the MS&U was supposed to be a tool for the Guild to keep the miners under control, and that's probably what it looks like.

 

[Mason]

20 hours ago, solkan said:

I thought I read somewhere that the MS&U was supposed to be a tool for the Guild to keep the miners under control, and that's probably what it looks like.

Nope, the M&SU formed independently from (and in spite of) the Guild, and currently exist as their primary political opponent in Malifaux. The Arcanists are the third "secret" branch of the M&SU (after the Miners and the Steamfitters).

[Mike Wallace]

3 hours ago, Mason said:

Nope, the M&SU formed independently from (and in spite of) the Guild, and currently exist as their primary political opponent in Malifaux. The Arcanists are the third "secret" branch of the M&SU (after the Miners and the Steamfitters).

But if I were part of the Guild trying to divide the M&SU and its Arcanist members, I'd start planting the rumors that the Guild created the Union. Then I could just sit back and watch them paranoid themselves to death. 

All things serve the Guild.