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What about the little guys?


Silbuster

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Wyrd simply need to decide a models purpose. If Vincent is just meant to be good at killing summons, then his stats and cost need to be such that he is taken in 100% of games against a summoner in keyword. However, if the goal was that Vincent should be the bread and butter of most Reva crews with a little summon killing on the side, then stats and cost should be such that he appears in 80% of Reva crews no matter the opponent's master.

With cheap models, they need a role defined. Are they road blocks? Are they a tech pick for a given strategy or type of scheme? Are they a damage threat that has to be dealt with (i.e. a distraction). Are they a support piece for the keyword? Most cheap minions that no one seems to take have no clear role defined.

Each model needs a role, and tooled for that role. It's probably also worth saying that every one within a keyword needs a slightly different roll so that they are all viable. Some keywords might have similar rolls, like tank beater and "scheme runner" beater.

Once the role is defined then you can gauge how good they are by how often they are taken in given game. Going back to Vincent, if you've decided his role isn't to support the keyword, but is actually purely for killing summons, and is only being seen in 50% of games Vs summoners then he needs a little tweak. 

As a little side note, hybrid roles and jack's of all trades can be good, but they appear to not work at all with cheap models.

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2 hours ago, Math Mathonwy said:

I admit that I'm having massive difficulty following what you're trying to say here. To me it kinda reads like you're just disagreeing on principle since your examples seem to be of ridiculous extremes like "being good in 1 in 1000 pools" or "buff him to be good in all games and broken against summons".

Do you honestly think that I was suggesting something where that "1/1000 pools" thing would be relevant? Or that anyone on this forum wants to see Vincent being good in all games and broken against summons?

Malifaux is unique among minis games in the way that it supports niche models and makes them relevant and therefore I feel that it would be possible to have the huge stable of models that it has and still have them all be relevant choices to some situations. Which is why I reject the idea that there's always 20% useless models and it cannot be helped.

That said, I won't be answering you further as I can't see this leading anywhere constructive due to our massive differences in our base views of the game. Feel free to have the last word.

 

Fair enough :)

Probably one of the only useful things I can add here is a link to Mark Rosewater's take on why 'bad' cards have to exist in MTG, and there's a lot of parallels to Malifaux. It is one of my favourite articles on game design:

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/when-cards-go-bad-2002-01-28

Edit: skip down to the first point, the start of the article is a letter from a fan.

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I do realize that I said that I wouldn't answer further but that particular article is something I feel quite strongly about and I've seen it bandied about in minis gaming circles quite a bit. So this post isn't meant to further engage with @Maniacal_cacklebut rather trying to raise some view points that IMO should be considered when reading the article linked.

Now I realize that you don't specify which parts of the article you find pertinent but I would posit that it's amazingly important to note the vast differences between a card game where an average player owns thousands of cards and a minis game where an average player owns a few dozen minis that they have spent hundreds of hours painting. That's a super fundamental difference that permeates the whole design philosophy behind the games and affects every design decision along the way.

And that's without even taking into account my core belief in the fact that the unique nature of Faux allows for niche models to be competitive in various situations. Which kinda ties directly into what @MrPieCheewas saying about the importance of roles and how they can be used to help in making sure that models are relevant.

This is a bit like that one Sirlin article that was ultra regularly linked to some years ago which, again, is a great article but where a ton of care should be taken when taking the ideas originating from fighting games and applying them to minis games. Thankfully it has been a while since I've seen it being bandied about as a simple uncriticizable truth.

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5 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

 

For example, Vincent is a tricky one to balance because he auto-kills summons. Do you accept that as his niche and balance him around that, or do you buff him to be good in all games and broken against summons?

I'm pretty sure the answer to that question is, taking either path would be a good solution.

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7 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

It doesn't need to be good in all pools/matchups, but it needs to be good in some. Like if you're good in 1/1000 pools, is that enough? Probably not.

I'm willing to quantify this. Models should be useful in 1/4 of pools/matchups at the low end and 3/4 at the high end. To follow up on your later post about bad magic cards, this still has good and bad models, but also every model can be used at least some of the time. I also don't believe there should be autotakes in a game that has back and forth crew selection.

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4 hours ago, touchdown said:

I'm willing to quantify this. Models should be useful in 1/4 of pools/matchups at the low end and 3/4 at the high end. To follow up on your later post about bad magic cards, this still has good and bad models, but also every model can be used at least some of the time. I also don't believe there should be autotakes in a game that has back and forth crew selection.

Makes sense, but some problems arise.

First, what about models that are fundamental to a crew? You could nerf Emissary so that Seamus doesn't take it 90%+ of the time, but then does that just kill off Seamus entirely?

Second, are we talking competitively or casual play? In competitive play, there'll generally be times when something is strictly better. For example, a crew that is a 'dominate the centre' type but is bad at scheme-y pools should probably be played primarily in centre-based games competitively. However, some people prefer to play a master in 100% of games even when it isn't optimal - shouldn't the crew have access to some suboptimal options so people can play it casually?

Third, it doesn't address crowd out. If every model that isn't played at least 25% of the time in a relevant crew is buffed, don't you think some other models will stop seeing play? For example, if you buff Belles to the point that they see play, will Doxies continue to see play? It's a very fine line to get everything on roughly equal footing.

 

And again, I do thing changes are needed. I just think if you buffed 50+ models at once, it will invalidate a lot of existing models. As people have pointed out, we spend hundreds of hours on these models. It'd be a shame to have them made obsolete by power creep via buffs.

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I didn't say 25% of the time, I said 25% of pools/matchups. Seamus isn't competitive in 100% of pools/matchups, so Seamus + Emissary is fine. If a master needs a specific model to function, that's fine as long as that combination falls into the parameters of at least sometimes but not always the right choice.

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Perhaps I'm missing a bit of context.

I get the impression that cheap models were vastly more common in M2E? Were most cheap models played in M2E, or was it that the good ones saw lots of play?

I assume there isn't a bunch of M2E lists we can peruse somewhere...

Overall for M3E, I'm impressed by how almost every model at least has something to offer (even if it isn't always something the crew ends up wanting or ends up being redundant).

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23 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Perhaps I'm missing a bit of context.

I get the impression that cheap models were vastly more common in M2E? Were most cheap models played in M2E, or was it that the good ones saw lots of play?

I assume there isn't a bunch of M2E lists we can peruse somewhere...

Overall for M3E, I'm impressed by how almost every model at least has something to offer (even if it isn't always something the crew ends up wanting or ends up being redundant).

there was a lot of pressure on the meta coming from summoners who were aiming at out-activating you, so these few competitive non-summoners had to take a bunch of cheap models to mitigate that, but it didn't translate into great variety of playable cheap models, at least not on the competitive level of play in the pre-Broken Promises meta (for me the least fun times of M2E). Not to mention that these competitive non-summoners often had more than one copy of their cheap totem (Shenlong, Levi, Collodi). So yeah, cheap models were a serious consideration in M2E, but they were valuable mainly as "pass tokens with stats" (except some really broken ones).

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3 minutes ago, thatlatinspeakingguy said:

there was a lot of pressure on the meta coming from summoners who were aiming at out-activating you, so these few competitive non-summoners had to take a bunch of cheap models to mitigate that, but it didn't translate into great variety of playable cheap models, at least not on the competitive level of play in the pre-Broken Promises meta (for me the least fun times of M2E). Not to mention that these competitive non-summoners often had more than one copy of their cheap totem (Shenlong, Levi, Collodi). So yeah, cheap models were a serious consideration in M2E, but they were valuable mainly as "pass tokens with stats" (except some really broken ones).

I'm guessing that was pretty narrow as well?

Like why take Dandies as a pass token when you can take Mindless Zombies? 

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1 minute ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

I'm guessing that was pretty narrow as well?

Like why take Dandies as a pass token when you can take Mindless Zombies? 

exactly. back then you were asking yourself "what is the maximum number of activations I can get for 12 ss that are left after hiring my best stuff?"

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1 minute ago, thatlatinspeakingguy said:

exactly. back then you were asking yourself "what is the maximum number of activations I can get for 12 ss that are left after hiring my best stuff?"

So I would hazard a guess that M3E may be am improvement in terms of variety, but not quantity?

Of course it is quite reasonable to always be pushing Wyrd to do better.

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My undefeated Seamus list at the very tail end of M2e (got my final M2e tournament win with it) was based around the idea that it had no "worthy" targets for the enemy except for Seamus who was decked out in defensive Upgrades to make him unkillable unless I screwed up.

The basic version was

  • Seamus (Mad Haberdasher, Do You Know Who I Am, Sinister Reputation), 6 Pool
  • Copycat Killer
  • 4x Rotten Belle
  • Dead Doxy
  • Crooligan
  • Crooked Man
  • Necropunk

So a good variety of cheap Minions.

Mah is my favourite Master so I dug up a thread about her in M2e and found these four lists:

Mah Tucket + 5 Pool
 - Know The Terrain (1)
 - Manifest Destiny (1)
 - Do Over (1)
The Little Lass (4)
 - Lead Lined Apron (0)
Francois LaCroix (8)
 - Stilts (1)
Burt Jebsen (8)
 - Dirty Cheater (1)
Gremlin Crier (7)
 - Dirty Cheater (1)
Pere Ravage (6)
Bayou Bushwhacker (5)
Bayou Bushwhacker (5)
 
---
 
  • Mah (Manifest Destiny, Know the Terrain, Liquid Bravery) (7 Pool)
  • Little Lass (Pit Traps)
  • Trixiebelle (A Gun for a Lady)
  • Raphael (Dirty Cheater)
  • Taxidermist (Dirty Cheater)
  • Mech Pork
  • 2 x Slop Hauler

---

Mah - dc, manifest destiny, apron

Whiskey Golem - Barrell Up

Emissary - mah's conflux

2x Swine Cursed

3x Survivor

---

Mah Tucket + 4 Pool
- Manifest Destiny (1)
- Know The Terrain (1)
- Out For Blood (2)
Mancha Roja (9)
- Dirty Cheater (1)
Lucky Emissary (10)
- Conflux of Bushwhacking (0)
Burt Jebsen (8)
- Dirty Cheater (1)
Gremlin Crier (7)
Wrastler (5)
Wrastler (5)

---

Pretty great variety I would say, and for a random sample no less. Though cheap Minions aren't all that massive in quantity (Mah wasn't really a Minion Master back then).

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3 hours ago, Math Mathonwy said:

My undefeated Seamus list at the very tail end of M2e (got my final M2e tournament win with it) was based around the idea that it had no "worthy" targets for the enemy except for Seamus who was decked out in defensive Upgrades to make him unkillable unless I screwed up.

The basic version was

  • Seamus (Mad Haberdasher, Do You Know Who I Am, Sinister Reputation), 6 Pool
  • Copycat Killer
  • 4x Rotten Belle
  • Dead Doxy
  • Crooligan
  • Crooked Man
  • Necropunk

So a good variety of cheap Minions.

Mah is my favourite Master so I dug up a thread about her in M2e and found these four lists:

Mah Tucket + 5 Pool
 - Know The Terrain (1)
 - Manifest Destiny (1)
 - Do Over (1)
The Little Lass (4)
 - Lead Lined Apron (0)
Francois LaCroix (8)
 - Stilts (1)
Burt Jebsen (8)
 - Dirty Cheater (1)
Gremlin Crier (7)
 - Dirty Cheater (1)
Pere Ravage (6)
Bayou Bushwhacker (5)
Bayou Bushwhacker (5)
 
---
 
  • Mah (Manifest Destiny, Know the Terrain, Liquid Bravery) (7 Pool)
  • Little Lass (Pit Traps)
  • Trixiebelle (A Gun for a Lady)
  • Raphael (Dirty Cheater)
  • Taxidermist (Dirty Cheater)
  • Mech Pork
  • 2 x Slop Hauler

---

Mah - dc, manifest destiny, apron

Whiskey Golem - Barrell Up

Emissary - mah's conflux

2x Swine Cursed

3x Survivor

---

Mah Tucket + 4 Pool
- Manifest Destiny (1)
- Know The Terrain (1)
- Out For Blood (2)
Mancha Roja (9)
- Dirty Cheater (1)
Lucky Emissary (10)
- Conflux of Bushwhacking (0)
Burt Jebsen (8)
- Dirty Cheater (1)
Gremlin Crier (7)
Wrastler (5)
Wrastler (5)

---

Pretty great variety I would say, and for a random sample no less. Though cheap Minions aren't all that massive in quantity (Mah wasn't really a Minion Master back then).

Wow, that is a lot of variety!

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On 3/15/2021 at 11:39 PM, Maniacal_cackle said:

One thing worth noting about these cheap minions is that they're fantastic for learning the game, precisely because they're so simple. So I think it worth remembering there is a lot of value in having some models that are good for learning, but eventually get left off the table when you get more competitive.

I think this is part of the problem with 3rd. Complexity = Strength in a lot of cases. 

There isn't any real reason that a model that's easy to learn has to be weak. Straightforward shouldn't mean inferior, unless the design goal is to punish players without mastery of the system.

I think this has hurt a lot of Guild minions. They used to have a lot of strong simple minions like Death Marshalls and Witching Stalkers. Now they're just simple.

 

Edit: I made this post then saw this point had already been discussed. Sorry to dredge it up again. 😬

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5 hours ago, Thatguy said:

I think this is part of the problem with 3rd. Complexity = Strength in a lot of cases. 

There isn't any real reason that a model that's easy to learn has to be weak. Straightforward shouldn't mean inferior, unless the design goal is to punish players without mastery of the system.

I think this has hurt a lot of Guild minions. They used to have a lot of strong simple minions like Death Marshalls and Witching Stalkers. Now they're just simple.

 

Edit: I made this post then saw this point had already been discussed. Sorry to dredge it up again. 😬

On the flip side however it can feel real bad to have to jump through hoops for a mediocre effect, where a simpler model just gets that effect. It can feel good sometimes too. 

I think pre-ES Basse is a good example of the first, where you have like 3-4 Minion that need to use their Bonus Actions to Push a model the distance equivalent to a Walk, and then there are models that just have Nimble. 

For the positive example of that, I would put EVS or Lucius. They jump through hoops to draw 10 cards a turn, but it feels awesome doing it, as opposed to something like Kitty which just draws 4. 

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Lets take Hoarcats.  They're clearly supposed to be a stealth ambush model, and get bonuses for kills.  Make them 2/4/5.  Now they can actually kill things.  No increase in complexity, but they can actually do something.  They might not even be good after that, but they wouldn't be what they are right now.  

Bultungin?  They're a Df 5, 5 wound, 5 stone model.  You just shoot them off the board in one activation.  Lets give them 1 extra wound, and let Pack Mentality work even when it's not their activation (you can safely make that change across the board - maybe lower Mindless Zombies Df/Wp by 1)

You can tweak every single model into a state where there's a good reason to bring it besides "I'm fooling around."  And that's fair.  This isn't Magic the Gathering.  People pour energy into painting and loving their models, they deserve a reason to put them on the board, even if its niche.  Maybe Hoarcats having the role of "cheap killy model" still won't make anyone bring them - but let Hoarcats actually be a threat to kill things when they come.  Let someone with a pack of 3 Bultungin actually feel that they have tough, scary models - even if a competent player can pick apart that pack and render those 15 stones useless.  

Make the model do what it's supposed to do.  If it then can do its job, but its job isn't scoring points, then Gaining Grounds might later change that.  Maybe you revisit it in a few years.  But things like Hoarcats look like they want to kill things, and functionally they can't.  

 

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Looking at the thread, it appears that there is an appetite for using the little guys but no agreement on how it might be practicable to bring this about. Changing the costs or attributes of figures would be too difficult. Perhaps the easiest way would be to try and exploit their primary advantage. Numbers. Via the strategy. For example, there could be an "incriminating evidence" strategy where every figure in your crew, except the insignificant, starts with an "incriminating evidence" token. If the figure carrying such a token is killed, then its owner drops an "incriminating evidence" marker anywhere in base contact with the killed figure. "Incriminating evidence" tokens and markers only incriminate the opposing crew. Hence the only tokens and counters that count towards a player's score are those carried or dropped by his own figures.

1/ At the end of each turn after the first, if there are at least three "incriminating evidence" tokens or markers on the opposing table half, then score one point. Then remove three "incriminating evidence" tokens or markers from the enemy table half.

2/ Enemy "incriminating evidence" markers can be destroyed by friendly figures using an interact action.

3/ Friendly "incriminating evidence" markers can be picked up and converted to tokens by friendly figures using an interact action. A figure can only carry one "incriminating evidence" token.

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@Silbuster something similar sounds like a neat idea. 
Your proposals come with a lot of troubles, though.

26 minutes ago, Silbuster said:

1/ At the end of each turn after the first, if there are at least three "incriminating evidence" tokens or markers on the opposing table half, then score one point. Then remove three "incriminating evidence" tokens or markers from the enemy table half.

Highly rewards alpha striking crews which get a few easy kills on the opponent's side in turns 1 and 2. Those already are a huge problem for non-elite crews. 

27 minutes ago, Silbuster said:

2/ Enemy "incriminating evidence" markers can be destroyed by friendly figures using an interact action.

Doesn't reward non-elite crews, as those die faster than they can remover markers

28 minutes ago, Silbuster said:

3/ Friendly "incriminating evidence" markers can be picked up and converted to tokens by friendly figures using an interact action. A figure can only carry one "incriminating evidence" token.

Models only loose the tokens by getting killed, so they only can pick up markers when summoned. Summoning crews already are considered a problem (those often use quite a few minions in a game, though) 

 

I don't want to sound rude and I definitely like the general idea but your rules for such a Strategy still need a lot of work to actually help non-elite crews. 

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14 hours ago, Harlekin said:

 

I don't want to sound rude and I definitely like the general idea but your rules for such a Strategy still need a lot of work to actually help non-elite crews. 

Yeah. I think the easiest way is to just staight include the cost of the models in the scheme/strategy the war Vendetta or Hidden Martyrs do. 

Maybe something like:

Recruitment Drive. 

Choose up to 25 soul stones worth of minion models in your crew . During deployment put a New Hire token on each of those models. Score one point at the end of a turn if you have more models with New Hire tokens than your opponent. 

 

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31 minutes ago, Thatguy said:

Recruitment Drive. 

Choose up to 25 soul stones worth of minion models in your crew . During deployment put a New Hire token on each of those models. Score one point at the end of a turn if you have more models with New Hire tokens than your opponent. 

Nice idea. Thanks.

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22 minutes ago, Harlekin said:

Nice idea. Thanks.

Yeah. Now that I think about it more, I like it a lot. Mostly because I feel like you're get to utilize more of the map as you try and hide your minions in corners and out of sight. 

Highly mobile crews probably out preform. And the ones with access to cheap tough minions.

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You could, presumable have a Strategy that required you to bring minions at hiring, by having you give friendly minions the strategy markers at deployment (a reverse or Recover Evidence placement that doesn't allow placement on non-minions).  The strategy could then require dropping the marker somewhere or giving it to an opponent, or similar. 

Yes as briefly written above the strategy might potentially favor strong expensive minions, though that would be limited if you need 4-5 such markers for full VP and can only carry 1 per model.  Another possibility would be to allow placement only on minions X soulstones or cheaper.  The insignificant rule should stop issues with spamming most 2-3 soulstone minions, and spamming cheap significant minions might be limited depending on how such a strategy was written.

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I guess this route won't help the 'little guys' much as many of the minions are actually already often seen on the table: Hanged, Sabertooth Cerberus etc.
So, crew composition might not really change much. 

I guess an approach of needing a lot of non-insignificant (aka significant) bodies (similar to the one above) sounds more promising.

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