Demo advice

[Huang Da Wei]

Probably more aimed at henchman but I appreciate all input.
Going to reapply to be a henchman again but now I am in China.  I have to consider a lot of the people will have never played any type of board game, plus we have the added problem of the language barrier. I am going to keep things very simple to start with, henchman and 2 crew of the same type. Learn the basic shooting/melee/interaction and card flipping. Then move on to bigger games for those with much more interest. With post only just starting to arrive again I am so far stuck with just Sonnia and Von Schill crews which is not a bad thing.
What do you do for schemes and/or strategies ?  2x2 board to start with small amount of scenery? anything else I need to consider?

[muraki]

When I try and bring people in who've never played this type of game, I stick with a 3x3 board but put minimal terrain out there (just enough that they have to move in angles, but not enough to really block any of their shots if they moved a bit), and maybe start them a bit forward (tho standard now is pretty good).  I start with henchman lead crews (1 hench, 1 enforcer, 2 same named minions, but 1 hench + 3 minions would be good too).  I usually start everyone with 2 soulstones (really just so they can get more cards when their hands stink), and like to do harness the ley line for a scheme and turf war for a strategy (I think I usually do both, but I'd be fine just doing harness).  Any interact heavy scheme / strat would be fine.  I just dislike how the 'into to malifaux' demos are all about killing when that's only 1/2 the game (tho sometimes the funnest part, ha).

The only things I'd mention is, since you have so few models out, power curve, bad type match ups, and SS cost differences are really apparent.  At gencon I ran demos of Chompy + 3 alps v Judge + 3 death marshals and the chompy side was usually wiped by round 3 (even with a few soul stones tossed in his direction to balance things).  So if you have limited models and you know one side will end up being a little underpowered, I'd take that side on the demo, cause who cares if you get wiped by a noobie.

[Ogid]

Henchman Hardcore is quite good for that (check it in the GG0 or GG1), it has some carnage (Assassinate and  Vendetta), but it forces to think as you need to kill 2 models to score, keep your leader and your vendetta target/objetive safe; and it also has an interact-focused part worth half of the points of the match (Explosives). The extra rules also help to balance the low SS game (no third action for leader, no summoning, reduced hand, reduced max cache...) and being just 4 models helps to keep it reasonably short.

If 2 new players are going to play versus each other, then you should try to offer 2 crews as balanced and easy to play as possible; if it's you versus a newbie then give him the best crew unless you are confident you may hold back while playing. And I'd use a 3x3 board, no reason to modify that.

[Huang Da Wei]

Any suggestions on an easy crew to run with for simple demos?  I have a ton of models incoming but it will be a while with the lock downs.
I would like to go with colourful and away from all humans too. Possibly a couple of gremlins in some form or another.