Analysis Paralysis

[Ebuhuel]

After playing miniature games long long ago in a galaxy not so far away I stumbled in my journeys over Malifaux. A miniature game without dice you say??? My doubtfull mind got captivated about the idea. I disliked miniature games cause of dicerolls messing up my plans time and time again. Rolling ones was my expertise. In those days I figured that a solution was easy, lets play a game which needs low rolls. Problems solved you would think, nope this guy start rolling 5 and 6's. That basicly sucked all the fun out of miniature games for me and I started a crusade against dice to rid the world of them all. This in history of my life is known as "The great pause.".  

Back to current day, Malifaux, no dice....awesome!! What is it about? Hmmmm Steampunk, horror and western..... AWESOME. Just my kind of setting. I ordered the corebook and went through it like a bunny running from a coyote. Loved the story, going to give the podcast a go later on. But now i need your help if willing. How do you choose a faction? There are so many cool stories and factions to go with those i have analysis paralysis cause of too many cool options.

Do any of you guys and gals have any tips for a new player who can't buy everything all at once?

[thatlatinspeakingguy]

9 minutes ago, Ebuhuel said:

Do any of you guys and gals have any tips for a new player who can't buy everything all at once?

Find a better job.

[thatlatinspeakingguy]

And seriously: you haven't said much about your preferences, so it's hard to give you any specific advice. The differences between factions are mainly (albeit not exclusively) aesthetical, so if you prefer certain playstyle it is likely you will find it in every faction. The initial choice usually depends entirely on the rule of cool.

[Ebuhuel]

4 minutes ago, thatlatinspeakingguy said:

And seriously: you haven't said much about your preferences, so it's hard to give you any specific advice. The differences between factions are mainly (albeit not exclusively) aesthetical, so if you prefer certain playstyle it is likely you will find it in every faction. The initial choice usually depends entirely on the rule of cool.

ah thanx, the info is helpfull enough. I already opened the jobsite but thruthfully i kinda like my current job 🙂 I know my question was a bit open but until now i am doubting between guild lady justice, neverborn pandora or the dreamer or wong from the bayou until i open the book again, then options arise... 🙂

[thatlatinspeakingguy]

1 hour ago, Ebuhuel said:

ah thanx, the info is helpfull enough. I already opened the jobsite but thruthfully i kinda like my current job 🙂 I know my question was a bit open but until now i am doubting between guild lady justice, neverborn pandora or the dreamer or wong from the bayou until i open the book again, then options arise... 🙂

ok, before you open the book again: Lady Justice is a melee-master with combat oriented crew. Neither glass canons nor tanks, they're perfect for people who enjoy straightforward brawl. Pandora... I haven't played against her yet, so I don't want to say something inaccurate; her playstyle is certainly unique, she bring some debuffs, control and ping damage. Dreamer is a summoner with melee-oriented crew of, mostly, scary glass-canons; his models have an ability to remove bad cards from your deck permanently, which leads to a snowball effect. As a small boy accompanied by huge monsters he is definitely a  strong contender in the coolest master category. Wong - another one I haven't played against, but probably another brutal crew with Master excelling in AoE damage.

[Scatterbrain]

4 hours ago, Ebuhuel said:

ah thanx, the info is helpfull enough. I already opened the jobsite but thruthfully i kinda like my current job 🙂 I know my question was a bit open but until now i am doubting between guild lady justice, neverborn pandora or the dreamer or wong from the bayou until i open the book again, then options arise... 🙂

As far as being easy to learn the game for beginners, Lady Justice has a reputation as being quite straightforward. Whereas, Pandora is generally thought to be a bit more complex, so the initial learning curve could well be steeper. Summoners, like Dreamer, have an extra dimension to get your head around. I haven't heard any opinions about where Wong sits on the difficult to easy to learn for a new player continuum, but blasting the other player's crew sure sounds like a lot of fun.

As for the equivalent of rolling 1s in dice games, there are plenty of times your Fate Deck will ruin your day in Malifaux, especially when the Black Joker makes an appearance. 😁 In those games, the opponent could never force you to roll a 1, or see ahead of time what your next result was going to be, or reduce the likelihood of your rolling a 6. But in Malifaux, it is possible for various opponents to do all sorts of nefarious things to your Control Hand and Fate Deck. In my first game against Youko Hamasaki, my Control Hand was reduced by one card for the whole game, I had to discard randomly determined cards at points (losing some good cards), and the other player got to view my Control Hand a couple of times. Meanwhile, he had the Red Joker in his own Control Hand, used it to cheat for Initiative, then immediately activated a model that picked up the card on the top of his Discard Pile. So while you avoid dice, you may be inviting being thwarted by the numbers on an even greater scale! 

[MajorUndead]

2 hours ago, Scatterbrain said:

As for the equivalent of rolling 1s in dice games, there are plenty of times your Fate Deck will ruin your day in Malifaux, especially when the Black Joker makes an appearance. 😁 In those games, the opponent could never force you to roll a 1, or see ahead of time what your next result was going to be, or reduce the likelihood of your rolling a 6. But in Malifaux, it is possible for various opponents to do all sorts of nefarious things to your Control Hand and Fate Deck. In my first game against Youko Hamasaki, my Control Hand was reduced by one card for the whole game, I had to discard randomly determined cards at points (losing some good cards), and the other player got to view my Control Hand a couple of times. Meanwhile, he had the Red Joker in his own Control Hand, used it to cheat for Initiative, then immediately activated a model that picked up the card on the top of his Discard Pile. So while you avoid dice, you may be inviting being thwarted by the numbers on an even greater scale! 

That's true, but you also need to take into account that you only shuffle your deck between each turn (of if you empty it during a turn), so you can't get black jokers or low cards all the time. The good & bad cards should even themselves out during a turn.
You can even try to count of many low/moderate/high cards you & your oponent got this turn, to have an idea of the probabilities for an upcoming duel.
So while it's true you'll get some bad flips here & there, at least you shouldn't get only bad flips all the time 🙂

Whereas with dice it's going to be fully random at each roll 😄

[Rathnard]

For what it's worth, Wong cam do alot of AoE damage, sure, but that's just one part of what makes him so useful. He's also phenomenal at buffing his in-theme crew (in short - free suits and extra actions for everyone) and can dump scheme markers just about anywhere he needs them. There's alot more to what he does, but thats the basics. 

Having said that, he's not the simplest master to learn. It takes practice to get the most out of what he does. So unless you're really keen on his playstyle, he's not who I'd recommend you'd learn the game with. 

[Ebuhuel]

Thanks for the input everyone

[Sol_Sorrowsong]

I think Aesthetic is the biggest starting point. Get some cool models, paint them up, and find a game. A little searching can give you a basic overview of each crew's modus operandi, which is important more if there is some playstyle that you dislike more than enjoy so you know what to avoid.  Finally, as any hobbiest knows, once you get one, you'll find another you like, and in this game it is generally a good idea to start within the same faction. Models between keywords do get used by others sometimes or you can even take both masters in a list. Some synergize better than others, but since your top picks so far seemed to include 2 neverborn models, I'd choose one of them to start with.

[LeperColony]

On 3/9/2020 at 2:56 AM, Sol_Sorrowsong said:

I think Aesthetic is the biggest starting point.

100% agree with this.  It doesn't matter really who you learn the basic mechanics on, so if you have access to a group that already plays then just get a demo in with any crew (I suggest the demos be done at crew box level though, and not 50 stones).  But once you've done a demo game and learned the basic underlying mechanics, from there just look at the master art, grab whoever calls you, and start collecting that keyword.

[diki]

Some considerations:
What models can you easily access? (maybe less of an issue if you are in the states) I would check your local game stores.

If you are trying to save money but still have some options - I would look at the versatile models in the factions you are interested in. If you find a faction with lots of versatile models you want you can buy the core boxes for a few masters and those versatiles to probably be able to make a playable list more cheaply than if each master requiers you to buy a large amount of their keyword.

Neverborn is cool (and what I currently play) - but I think they are generally considered a very killy faction. You win this game by scoring points, this often requires you to drop markers which Neverborn doesn't excell at. That said the strategies and schemes just changed so 🤷‍♂️

I played Wong when I first starting playing - it gave me a slightly unbalanced view of how easy it is to use triggers as most of his models can add suits of their choice with their special glowy tokens. On the one hand its a nice mechanic but it requires a slightly unusual playstyle that might not set you up well for other crews. They are very schemey though.