New player, half decided on faction, but what about 3E

[EnkiduHiisi]

So I have been looking at Malifaux for ages, never really got into it because there isn't anyone in my local area that I know that plays it. And all the local stores the store finder says sells Malifaux minis, don't sell them anymore.

I bit the bullet and said screw it, I'm going to get into it and try and find people that play. But this leaves me with a bunch of questions as well as options. I'm not a power gamer I don't care if X is underpowered or overpowered I'm more concerned with is it a fun unit or does it play like a sack of bricks. So I'm decided on Resurrectionists or Neverborn. So since it's a new game for me I'm not sure on play style and I'm going to go with things I like the look of and want to paint, and I will learn to like their play style or I will just have some nice centerpiece minis.

For Resurrectionists I'm looking at Reva or Tara, but in 3E Tera is changing to be single faction, not an issue as I love her design. But I'm really curious about the Night Terror minis, do they fit in with either, or do they have a better suited leader? I love bats and I love their design, when I get the money I will be getting a kit to paint at the very least. On the Neverborn side of things Titania is the main one that is of interest to me, but for the specific minis I love the Waldgeist minis and the neverborn emissary, as well as the Amphibious Assault kit, and of course Nekima, both her more exposed and her alt sculpt look like great centerpiece minis. I already got the Avatar version of Pandora because I want to paint it, so maybe starting with Pandora would be an option.

So the questions are, should I focus on any one master at the moment? Is 3E coming out soon enough to justify holding back on getting stuff just to get the aged up version? Do night terrors, Waldgrists or the spawn mother and gupps easily fit into any of the starters? Lastly, is there a more up to date store finder?

Sorry if this is a lot of questions that have answers elsewhere, I've been reading some of the threads in the Resurrectionist and Neverborn forums but none of them seemed to match my question, as well as my general noob related questions. The only local store, that won't take 2 hours of bus hopping to get to, only really has older Malifaux minis, all the avatars and what I'm assuming are first edition versions of the starters as they look different, so I'm more or less limited to the webstore. Also, no offense meant but the 2E starter doesn't catch my fancy for either faction in it, none of the minis in it really inspire me to want to paint them, compared to say Titania.

[Adran]

Hello and Welcome

Its good advice to pick things you like the look of to start with. Its easier to put models you like the look of on the table and have fun with them.  If you have some war game experience you probably have at least some idea of play styles you don't like, so its possibly worth taking a quick look at the beta rules for the crew you picked just to check its not your worst rules nightmare.

Whilst the rules for M3 are due out this summer, not everything is getting new sculpts and even those that are may take a while for them to be released, so I wouldn't wait.  But I would plan my purchasing based on M3 rules, so Amphibious assault is going to be Bayou models rather than Neverborn for example so is not a good choice if you're going to pick Nekima or Titania as your master to start with.

I would suggest starting with 1 master and learning the game with them, and once you think you're happy with the game rules then you might want to look at a second master.

 

The new edition has focused on Master keywords, and models generally have a keyword to align them with a certain master. They can be taken with other masters of the faction, but with a slight price increase.   Night Terrors are in the same keyword as Molly. Waldgiests are Fae (Titania) and Swampfiend (Zoraida). If you picked Zoraida as your master she can hire Waldgiests and all the models in the amphibious assault (Because they are also Swampfiends, so can be hired by Zoraida even if they don't share a faction)

The Emissary is Versitile, which means it isn't aligned with any one master, but can be hired by any master of the faction without the additional cost. And in the last edition tournament pack (Gaining grounds) they said that Avatar models are legal proxy for the Emissary, so you can use your Avatar Pandora model as the Neverborn Emissary.

If you go with Nekima, then I would expect her to get a new box fairly quickly, because it will contain her totem which doesn't exist yet. . (I'm not sure what else will be packaged in with it, which might make it annoying to plan on buying). So if you did decide on her as your master, it might be worth waiting to find out what her new sculpt will look like.

The Old metal models are as useful as the M2e Plastic models in many cases (Although the totems were packaged separately from the crew boxes) so if you like the sculpts you can get those older models.

[EnkiduHiisi]

Thanks, I have a fair amount of table top wargaming experience, less so in skirmish titles, but I was going off the rules that were showed on the website, the 2E stat cards they show off, and I'm a fairly flexible player so I'm not super worried about finding an army I don't "like" the play style of.

Ok, so the rules are coming a bit sooner then I expected, I honestly didn't really look into 3E since I wasn't sure what the timeline was like. Some of the goblins I can get behind as they look silly fun, so the fish people getting moved over gives me more options.

So with the new rules, it sort of focus that masters list options to their own type regardless of faction, and then their own faction. With the way the rules on Tara's card are allowing her to take the void creatures, that's sorta getting applied to the masters I take it for their own creature types.

Ok, so for Nekima waiting may be an option, but in general there is no way to know who's getting an update and when it's coming. I would assume some of the more fae creatures don't age so they may be on the lower end of the priority to update.

So the 3E rules are available for free I take it, until they get their own cards with all the info at least? I just don't want to get the old metal models and not have any rules I can use for them. Truth be told I will probably order one of the starters next month, when I have money, but now I know to look into the 3E rules to see what fits me more.  Looks like I got a lot of reading to do still.

Thanks a bunch for the help.

[Adran]

If you head over to the open beta forums you can download the latest beta files (including the cards). These are probably very close to the final rules. The released Cards will be free to download as well when M3 comes out. .

Crew hiring is based on the faction you pick and the leader you pick, so a little like the rules on M2E Tara, in that you can hire any model that is in the faction you pick, and you can hire any model that shares a keyword with the Leader you choose.  I would say the "feel" of the master is relatively similar as you change edition, the way they actually play might change hugely, so for example, Tara has become a summoner, able to bring in new void creatures during the game.

 

As far as I know, whilst they are updating sculpts, its because they think its cool. So whilst the Dreamer update does have him becoming a teenager, and if they do a new Von Schill sculpt it will probably include the injuries he suffered during the story line events of Nytheria. its not just an "aging" thing. I would imagine the new masters will be a relatively early release, and then Crew boxes that don't work anymore (or contain models that don't match the Masters keyword anyway) and then they will start releasing resculpts. Titania is a relatively new box, less than 2 years old, so its less likely to get a resculpt.

Other than the statement that they will digitally release the rules for free on release, I don't know what the plan is about new cards. I expect they will repackage the boxes they send out with the up to date cards, but exactly what the mechanism to sell is I've not heard.

[EnkiduHiisi]

Yeah, I have been reading through those, and I think Tara may be a bit much for a starting point with the heavy use of burying, it seems like general model knowledge would serve her best. I'm leaning more towards Reva, also her being mounted is really neat. So from what I read, assuming I'm understanding this right, versatile means it can be summoned by any master. So while Reva will get the most out of her own unit types, and I plan on getting some drauger for her, I would be able to include the Dead Rider as well since he's versatile. Correct? I'm not sure the soul stone total of her box, or the extra units but it seems like an idea to add him in, move some drauger or lampads in or out of danger, as well as push things closer for Reva's ability to remove burn from units.

I take it Reva is a fairly new box as well, just from her placement in the store if that means anything, so it's not like she should be getting something new any time soon.

A question of the Misses. I really like the alt Miss sculpts, Miss Anne and Missfire specifically. How often does that sorta model come out, just one a year or so at big events? Are their releases something you can plan your wallet around, is the big part of the question, lol.

[Adran]

Reva is also about 2 years old.

Versatile models can be hired by any leader of that faction without having to pay the extra tax.  So Reva can hire the Dead rider at no extra cost (just the 11 ss on the card). She could hire Night terrors as they are n the same faction (resurectionists) as you announced, but because they don't share a keyword with her, each night terror would cost 6 ss to hire, rather than the 5 on the card.

The Reva Box contains Reva, 2 Corpse candles (hired for free if she is your leader), Vincent (9 ss) and 3 shield bearers (6 ss each) meaning if you bought her box it would cost 27 ss. You can buy upgrades (1 per model), and up to 10 unspent soulstone can be converted to your cache and used during the game. So if you really wanted you could use the Reva box in a 50 ss although you would have to buy every model an upgrade to not waste SS, and its not really a good idea to upgrade your corpse candles, because they are likely to die and be resummoned (which wouldn't be with an upgrade)

 

A new Miss models is released every Gencon, and is generally available for free then if you spend $100 (either at Gencon, or at their online store during gencon). They are also available to buy at some of the other sales, and may be free gifts/ promotions throughout the year.  

[EnkiduHiisi]

Awesome, thanks. I will look more into the specific units and the upgrades, and take any further questions over to the resurrectionist board when I get them.

One thing that I must have missed in the rulebook when I was going through it, the suits in the attack effects. Those take place if you have that suit in your final total for the dual correct? When I read through it before I didn't notice a section talking about that, I'm assuming I missed it, but that seems like the logical way for that to work, and I was just wondering if I was correct on that.

Thanks for all the pointers and clarifications. I think that about answers my noob questions, as far as I'm aware at least.

[Adran]

I think you are talking about Triggers. (Section on Page 12 in the main rules)

When you calculate your final duel total you can declare 1 trigger that you meet the Suit requirement for. (page 10 of the rules breaks down the time when the declare trigger step is in a duel) If the trigger has a time it will happen at that time, if there isn't a time it defaults to after succeeding (which will happen after you have finished the rest of the action). So you're close to right, with the important thing you missed was that you are limited to 1 of the effects happening.

 

[Gnomezilla]

One note on the night terrors: those were one of the few models my playtest group hired out-of-keyword. The aura of concealment proved to be an effective deterrent against shooty crews and non-damaging ranged attacks like debuffs. Yes, sniper models ignore concealment and often selected the night terror to eliminate first, but it meant the rest of the shooters didn’t snipe the rest of the concealed models or the rest of the debuffers slow/distract/stun the concealed models. Moreover, debuffer models rarely if ever ignored concealment, so they had to scrounge for a positive flip to ever get a chance to effect models in the bubble. And even fewer models have attacks ignoring line of sight, so sticking a large base model in front of the night terror yet within the aura left the big base with concealment and the night terror untargetable.

[EnkiduHiisi]

Ok, yeah when I did another sweep of the rule book I found it. So I wasn't too far off with just general knowledge from the rest of the book.

As for the Night Terrors, I didn't realize their aura would work against debuffs, I haven't really read through enough things to see how most work, I just assumed it was just for the attacks. So their usefulness seems fairly high, although I don't know if they would fit mechanically into a Reva group. But that is some interesting uses for them I will have to keep in mind, thanks a bunch. I'm still probably going to pick up a box when I have a decent crew started just for painting sake.