Skill Building For New/Intermediate Players

[Nathan Sells]

A question for the beautiful Malifaux hivemind, what do you do to push a new player's skill level? 
 I started playing Malifaux with a regular opponent about a month ago, and we're both loving the game, but we've reached a stage where I'm winning the vast majority of our games. What would you do to  help level the playing field and build skill level?

Thus far we've been doing some decent post game analysis and we've run through some crew building discussions. We've also discussed playing "open book" such that both our hands are visible and we discuss our tactics; swapping our main keywords to get a better idea of how each others models play (I main Pandora, to her Mah Tucket); we've talked about me playing with a Henchmen leader/soulstone handicap to try to mitigate the skill difference; and, of course, we talked about trying to find other opponents on Vassal. 

Do you fine folks have other suggestions? 

[Jesy Blue]

Play each other's crews.

When you know what you're opponent can do from a first hand experience, it widens the view of your own abilities.

[Butch]

That's what I wanted to suggest too. In addition: if he's then winning the next games you know your crews are a bad match-up.

[Regelridderen]

You could check out the podcast Harlefaux show, they’ve got nice deep dives on both Mah and Dora.

Other than that playing open kimono, and switching crews seem like a good way to go. That aside try out more crews and more factions.

[Plaag]

some people just reach their level of playing and cannot play better

[Adran]

2 minutes ago, Plaag said:

some people just reach their level of playing and cannot play better

Whilst that is true, its very unlikely to be the case if you have been playing for 2 months and only against 1 other person. 

The crew swap is one way to help in two ways. Firstly its often a great help to see someone else controlling the models you are used to, and seeing what they manage to get them to do.  Secondly, I find its useful to see how a crew looks from the other side of the table to get a good idea of what the opponent sees.  (and it also will help to see if it a case that the skill gap is in the players in general, or just the players understanding  of their crew).

Some of it depends on why 1 of you is doing better. If you are a better bluffer, or there is too much information, the  you could try either reducing the scheme pool options, or even you informing the opponent what schemes you have selected, so they don't get distracted trying to stop all the schemes. You try tailoring scheme pools to fit the capabilities of the Mah player if it is that they are struggling to score points (I wouldn't try doing this too long because it could well lead to bad habits, but when you only have small collections it is sometimes the case that some schemes are much harder for you than they ought to be). 

[Nathan Sells]

We'll definitely try swapping our crews, and seeing if that helps. We're playing on Vassal so we've been trying a few crews, to predominantly the same effect. The podcasts are a good suggestion, I believe we've both listened to the relevant Harl'e'faux and Third Floor Wars episodes, but their certainly worth a re-listen as we get more familiar with the game. 

Adran, I love the idea of cutting down some of the elements to focus on specific skills and tactics, and building encounters to target aspects of the game. We definitely both have lots of room to grow in the game and that seems like a good step forward. 

[Plaag]

2 hours ago, Nathan Sells said:

We'll definitely try swapping our crews, and seeing if that helps. We're playing on Vassal so we've been trying a few crews, to predominantly the same effect. The podcasts are a good suggestion, I believe we've both listened to the relevant Harl'e'faux and Third Floor Wars episodes, but their certainly worth a re-listen as we get more familiar with the game. 

Adran, I love the idea of cutting down some of the elements to focus on specific skills and tactics, and building encounters to target aspects of the game. We definitely both have lots of room to grow in the game and that seems like a good step forward. 

these podcasts are not competitive, u must play and discuss games/crews, only your own exp will give u some results; and try to play one competitive crew about 10 times a row, u can see what crew can do 

[touchdown]

One thing that takes a lot of work but is also helpful is replaying turns from Big Decision Points. You encounter and activation and there's 2 or 3 things you could and you know it's important but don't know what the right choice. If you can put in the work of tracking the flips so you can undo them, then play it out with each choice and see how it goes.

[SEV]

2 hours ago, touchdown said:

One thing that takes a lot of work but is also helpful is replaying turns from Big Decision Points. You encounter and activation and there's 2 or 3 things you could and you know it's important but don't know what the right choice. If you can put in the work of tracking the flips so you can undo them, then play it out with each choice and see how it goes.

I agree. This is a great way to learn. You can also solo play, trying to take every EV+ decision for both crew and see how it goes. Also, during friendly game, don't hesitate to allow take back on technical blunders. Malifaux is a hard game to master technically (models interactions, positioning, etc.)  and there's a lot of gotcha moments for beginer. This allow to focu on the strategic play. 

In the same line if you're oponent do a move, you can let him know how you plan to react to that move... Obviously this slow down the pace of the game, but I think it's an enjoyable way to learn.

One last thing. You can play together (on Vassal) against a (patient) oponent, discussing the moves for you crew. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

I find that the best thing is getting a bigger meta/other people to play against.

I have over a 90% winrate locally, and often if I take a new crew against a new player I learn my crew faster than they learn theirs. So they never catch up no matter how many games we play.

I've tried a few other things, but other than taking a large disadvantage or intentionally misplaying, there isn't much to be done.

It is possible the skill gap is too large for them to catch up to you (as you're learning at the same time they are).

Growing your meta and playing against other players will give them a chance to grow without playing you. It also means they will get some wins in, so the losses against you won't feel as bad. And if they play enough games without you, you may find that they suddenly leap forward in skill and beat you.

[Maniacal_cackle]

Although also Malifaux really rewards just putting the work in.

If your friend researches on the forums, uncovers crazy combos that you're not familiar with, etc., they may be able to surprise you with new tactics as well. There's a lot to be said for reading, and even experimenting with turn one in vassal without an opponent. A solid turn one is the foundation of a good game IMO.

[Nathan Sells]

In following all your suggestions we tried a game with swapped masters today and boy running Mah into Pandora is brutal. It looks like at least some of our issues were from our match up so we're going to play around a little with different crews, and maybe try a few different crew makeups/tactics. But mostly keeping this match up on the backburner for a  little. 
 

On 10/22/2020 at 3:40 PM, Maniacal_cackle said:

I find that the best thing is getting a bigger meta/other people to play against.

 In terms of building our meta, while both of us would love to there doesn't seem to be much of a community in our area and Covid measures are making it difficult to build out. That being said we'll keep wedeling our friends and one day they'll join us...one day... 

 

Thank you all for the wealth of suggestions, hopefully it'll help both of us up our game suitably. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

35 minutes ago, Nathan Sells said:

 In terms of building our meta, while both of us would love to there doesn't seem to be much of a community in our area and Covid measures are making it difficult to build out. That being said we'll keep wedeling our friends and one day they'll join us...one day... 

If it helps, for a while it was mainly me and one other guy for M3E, and now we might be one of the biggest metas in the country. Once you start growing it grows a lot faster. Hang in there

[regleant]

I'm coming from a slightly different perspective with my gaming group. I agree completely that post-game analysis and discussing what the concerns were (e.g. "On turn 2, I was afraid you were going to block me out of this charge lane" or "Had you dropped that scheme marker turn 3 instead of charging, you would have scored the point."). Other things:

• Play the same keyword multiple times and make only slight changes, if any. This gets you grounded on what models are actually capable of and stretches them to their limit. I understand that Malifaux is designed to be a flexible game where you play to scenario, but if you don't take the time to learn what your models can do then you'll not be able to score, anyway.
• Read your cards and rules after each game. Especially as a newer player, there are going to be things you missed. You're bound to find abilities that make you think "That would have been helpful had I known!" or otherwise think of creative ways to apply them.
• Have a strategy going into the game. Personally, I assign roles so I know who is going to be scheming, who is my interference, who is my beat stick, etc. I also have a plan to score every single point possible before the game starts, so (ideally) I don't get tilted once plans go awry (and plans always go awry).., I just keep moving forward with what's achievable. Quite honestly, I am terrible at the minutia and "analysis paralysis", and having this 'meta' strategy keeps me on a track. 

 

Combining the 3 items above, this should help him out. Now the problem - if you're winning most of the games now, and you're getting more games in overall, it will be more difficult for him to catch up. Hopefully soon he'll find some hard-counters to what you usually play, which will net him a close victory or two.  This brings me to the last item:

• Don't tilt. One of my common opponents tilts in many of our games, gets visibly frustrated, and loses himself deep in the think-tank. This leads to mistakes on his behalf, and me being the jerk that I am will continue pushing buttons to tilt him more to force more mistakes. (e.g. I'll blow my whole hand to keep one lowly minion alive, just because he's spending all of his attacks targeting this one thing that I normally would have let die. This pushes him into further mistakes).