How to Git Gud?

[ebolazaire]

Malifaux is a game which is at the same time the easiest as well as the most complex skirmish game that I am currently playing - which to be fair is probably one of the reasons that I enjoy the game as much as I do.

I'm still fairly new though and still have lots to learn, to that extent could everybody post one or two tips that you found helped your gameplay or helped you get better at Faux?

 

I'll start off with 2 of my own:

1. Have a plan - when building your list have a plan for what each model is supposed to do to score you point, align your hires to the strats and schemes.

2. Abandon your plans! - Bad Things happen and not all plans will survive contact with the enemy. If you hire something with a specific task in mind, be willing to reassess and not fixate on the original plan. This is hard for me, as I have a tendency to plan beater X to engage / kill something and if that doesn't work I waste time trying to force it >.<

[Adran]

1 -Remember the VPs.

This isn't really a war game, killing doesn't get you the win. I've lost games because I got carried away with killing when I could have won them if I just went and did the simple thing to score points.

2 -Know your crew.

Having a plan is very good, but knowing how to make the most out of what is on the table, and what you can reasonable expect each model to achieve is vital. Even just knowing which card in your hand you'll need to save to pass a simple duel (such as leaping) helps get the most out of the models. Spend some time reading the actions and abilities, and if possible try and imagine situations when you can make best use of them - they may never come up in the game, but it does at least let you know what you might be looking for.

[Sol_Sorrowsong]

33 minutes ago, Adran said:

2 -Know your crew

1 - K.I.S.S. (Keep it simple, stupid.) Continuing off Adran's point, the best advice, and I'm still trying to take into consideration, is to know what each model is usually going to do in a turn. Generally, my minions and enforcers have one main purpose 80% of the time. Remembering the cost and reason for doing the thing, and when I want to be doing the thing can save a lot of time looking at cards or thinking of cute moves. KISS and move on. 

[nomoredroids]

Each model usually only gets 10 Actions, or 15 if they're a Master/Leader. Don't squander them. Inversely, know what it means for an opponent to lose their actions. Turn 2/3 specifically, if that model has already activated they're only going to get 6/4 more actions. Think about if their action economy is really worth spending multiple activations and actions from your own models to remove 4 of their actions. Lets say each turn that Murder Bot is going to kill 1 model. Lets say it does so at the start of Turn 3. You assess the situation and figure that you'll lose a model on Turn 4 and Turn 5. It looks like it's going to take you at least 6 attacks to kill it. That's going to cost you the same number of actions as the actions you'd lose. Is there another benefit to attacking Murder Bot? Is it worth VP (or denying them to you)? Is Murder Bot achieving something else that makes it particularly dangerous for the game? Is a piece key to your strategy in danger? If so, and only if so, you should consider spending those actions to remove it. 

Focus fire. There's no benefit in Malifaux for wounding something. If you've got models put on the offensive, don't spread out their attacks; concentrate on a specific point of the board and bring things down. Every model you remove reduces the opponent's effectiveness, but when you spread attacks across multiple enemy models you're reducing your own effectiveness and cost the opponent nothing. Exceptions include pieces like the Rogue Necro and Marcus who can Pounce or spread damage as a function of their attacks. That's not really what I'm saying not to do. If you can spread damage like that, without spending actions to spread it, it's in your best interest to do so.

Force the opponent to waste their actions doing what YOU want them to do. Stay on the offensive, get in his face. This allows you to deal with problem pieces other than by killing them. Tying down 10SS models with 5SS pieces or by presenting tasty targets that you have a means of keeping out of trouble is a better option than thinking the only way you can deal with an opponent is by murdering everything on the board. Forcing your opponent to respond to your moves means that you're in control of the table. 

You're going to lose pieces. Decide before you start which are expendable and which aren't. Know how to expend them to your greatest benefit. 

Malifaux is like 30% Card Management. Know when it's critical to cheat and know when it isn't. If you both flip low and you're on the defense, toss that moderate in to force your opponent to cheat in something higher. Know that cheating on the Defense is almost never going to work out (that's just how the stats work), so you should only do it if you're forcing the opponent to cheat higher. Don't cheat Severe after flipping Severe. You've only got so many of them in your deck, it's a bad idea to spend two getting a result that isn't going to change the game overly much. Know this: If your hand is empty and your opponent's isn't, you're at their mercy. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

1. Action efficiency. Learn it, know it, love it.

2. Card management. Learn it, know it, love it. Including ways to 'cheat' on card advantage (such as stacking focus to get to see more cards without drawing them).

3. Give each model a range of roles for a game (I'm hiring Archie because he can be a crooligan beacon, go on offense for schemes, take out enemy scheme runners, and provide backup as a beater. I'm hiring this crooligan because it can plant an explosive, then harass the enemy's objectives or just bog someone down, etc).

Giving only a single role to any given model is too easily disrupted, but giving no roles to a model means you have no plan. Having a list of roles for every model really helps me deal with crises (oh, shit, they killed my primary beater. Who in the crew can pick up the slack?)

4. Protect your schemers. Most games are won or lost based on whether or not the schemers are able to do their job. If you just throw your schemer at an objective, someone is going to kill it (well, against certain crews). You need to clear the field first. If your opponent has models with 18" threat ranges, make sure they're either dead or not within 18" of where your schemer wants to be before you send it in. If your opponent's whole crew has 18" threat ranges, maybe pick objectives that don't rely on your schemers, or use beaters as scheme runners (Dead Rider spending his 5th turn scoring points is not a waste of Fate Tokens. It can win the game).

5. (EDIT). All models have 'scheme runner' as one of their roles. There is no shame in your master spending the last turn of the game going move, move, interact. Sometimes it is what you need to do to win. You definitely want to assign your primary scheme runners, but don't forget that every single (significant) model can help score points.

[ebolazaire]

By @Ezuma in the Titania thread : "Expect to lose a lot, but try to learn from each loss and with each action always think 'how does this help me score?'"

 

I just felt this was great advice for the game in general

[Bort]

I don't feel I have near enough experience to give tips.  But I can give 2 things I keep doing wrong.

 

1.  Don't get caught up in the moment and just react.   This is a trap I fall into time and time again.

Opponent does something scary to me early on with one of his models. I immediately activate and deal with this thread.

This is wrong for 2 reasons.

• It totally distracts me from what I was planning on doing, and forcing my activation sequence.
• The thread already did what it was going to do. It activated, and is done.  (Obviously with exceptions where other models give it more actions).  Point is, I probably don't have to deal with it immediately. I can deal with it later in my turn when the timing is much better, while I can instead put pressure where I want to.

 

2. Soulstones CAN prevent damage at critical times.  This is an obvious one... but one that I have definitely not mastered yet. I tend to fill up my force total with models, taking very few or 0 SS cache. 

 

[Kharnage]

The biggest thing I would give as advice, is understand what your opponent is capable of with his pieces. Once you get used to a keyword/crew, you can tell people what you do, but can you tell what other people are likely to do? If Pandora hired the Hooded Rider, you can expect Pandora or Candy to be much further up the board than their walking AP would dictate, and you need to play around that fact, either hiding in concealment or lying in wait, as the situation demands. Dreamer's going to play with a stacked deck by turn 3, you need to either be willing to play around that problem, or fight him early so you can have decently even odds. If the enemy's got execute triggers, try not to run out of cards. Yan Lo will become an unkillable jerk by turn 3, etc. Basically, once you can tell me what your foe's crew does, you can tell me what you can do to adapt to it, purely from a playstyle perspective. Know thy enemy. 
I realize "Have an encyclopedic knowledge of all models and crew comps, and create responses for each" is daunting as a concept, but it's a big part of being competitive.  

[Mycellanious]

I agree with what everyone is saying, but something I'll add is

1. Try not to tilt. Bad Things Happen, but the person who keeps their focus wins the game. I've had games where Lady J murders 20ss worth of models at the top of turn 2, but by focusing on what I need to do to score VP I managed to pull out wins. Dont let a bad turn, or a bad flip, or a good play from your opponent shake you, and often times staying confident in the face of loses CAN shake yout opponent. There is nothing worse than when you think you are begining to run away with it, and your opponent says, "I still feel confident," because what trick does he have uo his sleeve?

2. Malifaux is a game about trading, trading resources, trading models, etc. Due to the hand mechanic of the game, each player gets to choose 1-2 things that are definitiely going to happen per turn. Similarly, because it uses a deck of cards, everyone's hot streak must run out, and every bad luck streak must end. I came into Malifaux a perfectionist and hated when any of my models died, but eventually I realized that Malifaux is fundementally a game about trading pieces, and whoever makes the most efficient trades wins the game. Its ok to throw away a model, if the resources your opponent put into killing it allow you to gain an advantage elsewhere. 

3. Press the Advantage, because of the finitie amount of cards in the deck, some model somewhere is going to have a good turn. Sometimes its Mei Feng popping off and killing 3 minions, and sometimes it goes to a Raikworker's focused attack. Identify where your luck went to this turn and press that advantave. 

4. Conceed when necessary. Similarly, someone somewhere on the board is gonna have a bad turn. I almost never cheat in defense any more, a card cheated in offense is worth much more than one cheated in defense, not just because damage perminantly sticks but because ties go to the attacker, so a 10 used in defense is worth less than a 10 used on offense. I use my models hp as a resource to save me cards and cost my opponent actions. 

 

[Legislat]

Try to not overcalculate. It is much better to lose and then analyze your game and understand why than try and think of a perfect move every time and finish your game in the middle of turn 3.

In short - lose. Lose a lot. 

[Morgan Vening]

On 1/28/2020 at 1:19 AM, nomoredroids said:

You're going to lose pieces. Decide before you start which are expendable and which aren't. Know how to expend them to your greatest benefit. 

I'd expand on this to read "You need to consider EVERYTHING as expendable.".

That's not to say you should be throwing away models, especially Masters. But if you're able to trade the loss of your Master to take enough resources away from your opponent that you're given free reign, or they've overcommitted and aren't going to do anything with the models they've got tied up in bringing down that Master, then it's a fair trade. Outside of Assassinate being in the pool (or it being needed for another Scheme), there's no benefit to your Master being alive at the end of the game. 

I know I've lost way too many games by trying to keep alive "important" models, that if I'd just let them die, I could have used the resources elsewhere to score the points needed to win me the game.