Waldo's Weekly - Title and Registration

[Kyle]

Hey Wyrdos,

This week, Waldo found a stack of nametags in the warehouse. Now he’s commanding everyone to call him Sir Waldo Remington III, Prince of Impshire, Master of the Nine Hells, and Lover of Dogs.

So, while we take a deep breath in preparation for saying Waldo’s new name (and hope that he doesn’t add more to it in the future), let’s talk about what’s next for Malifaux, as well as take a little peek into the upcoming Starter Box for The Other Side.

Last October, we released Malifaux’s 8th Faction, the Explorer’s Society, and their Faction book. This year, we’ll be adding something a little different, but will have a major impact on how Malifaux is played, and how crews are built.

Surprises, secrets, and crew building are all major themes in Malifaux. In the previous edition, we added special upgrades for each Master to provide them with specialized tools that slightly adjusted their gameplay. In Third Edition, we’re taking that concept a few steps further. In the upcoming Malifaux book, we are going to be releasing titles for every single Master in the game. Each new title will include new actions, abilities, and playstyles for that character.

So, what are titles, anyway?

You’ve already seen some titles in Malifaux, such as Chiaki’s “The Beacon” or Izamu’s “The Armor”. While these titles are mainly used for flavor, the upcoming titles for each Master completely shake up how that Master (and crew) will play on the battlefield.

When declaring Masters, you’ll continue to state that Master’s name to your opponent, but you won’t say which version of that Master you’ll be playing. Your opponent will have to consider other factors and make their best educated guess on which Master you might be bringing out for the fight, which will make their crew building that much more interesting.

Let’s take a look at one such Master title that will be released in the upcoming Starter Box for The Other Side (which includes models and stat cards for BOTH games!).

Compare this title card to Sonnia’s existing stat card and you’ll quickly see the variances in play and function for her in a game. Sure, she still burns everything down to the ground (as we love Sonnia to do), but how she does it will depend on which Sonnia will be played.

Now take this overall concept and imagine the possibilities with every single Master in the game. Not only will these variances create new playstyles, but it also makes some existing Masters that are more easily-countered see more play. Every single Master will be getting this treatment with the upcoming book release (and more, but that news will come in another Waldo’s Weekly!).

But before we go, we wanted to also show how Sonnia will play in The Other Side. Whether she’s commanding her own Guild company or lending some help to another Earth commander, Sonnia will be a force to be reckoned with on the 4x6 field.

The Other Side’s Starter Box will be releasing at Gen Con later this year. In it, players will have enough models to create two small introductory companies to battle against one another in The Other Side (or to be used to build upon existing Allegiances). Additionally, every single one of those models in the TOS Stater Box will also be playable in Malifaux as versatile Guild or Resurrectionist characters.

Waldo will be covering some upcoming Malifaux titles in upcoming Weeklies, so make sure to stay tuned!

To read up on other great Guild models that will be in The Other Side’s Starter Box, head here for the Gatling Gunners and here for the Guild Mages!

[muraki]

Oooooh finally a release date for the ToS starter box! I know what I'm getting at gencon this year!

[Pallas4]

I'm calling my bank. This summer I'll spend a lot in minis... I think. xD

[Nathan Sells]

They laughed when I picked up Sonnia. They said "She's weak Nathan, if you want to burn things play Kaeris". WELL WHO'S LAUGHING NOW!? 
(it was always me, Sonnia's great)

[trikk]

AWWWW LAAAWDDDDDDDDD


WHY IS GENCON SO LAAATEEEEE

[Fetid Strumpet]

Kinda interesting. Has the potential to turn super solo masters, or keyword ambivalent masters into crew dependent or keyword boosting models, based on the new aura on Sonnia.

 

[Math Mathonwy]

Every Master already in the next book? Holy carp! That's like, what, 60 new Masters or something in that ballpark? Sheesh!

I do like the idea but am a wee bit concerned about balance. That's a gigantic shake-up.

I do like the different take on Sonnia quite a bit, though. A lot is different yet it is still definitely Sonnia. Should play quite different with her keyword as well.

I wonder if the TOS Starter replaces individual Guild and Resser starters.

[Thatguy]

35 minutes ago, Math Mathonwy said:

Every Master already in the next book? Holy carp! That's like, what, 60 new Masters or something in that ballpark? Sheesh!

I do like the idea but am a wee bit concerned about balance. That's a gigantic shake-up.

Yeah, I missed that my first time reading through it. I'm pretty stoked to see the the game basically double in playstyles.

 

 

[ooshawn]

new sonnia looks STUPID FUN to play. good shit wyrd! More variety is good. you all are doing it right

[the tick]

Cautiously...optimistic?

[wizuriel]

One really cool thing with this is they don't need to use the most recent fluff with the Masters and can use historic titles.

 

Hoping we can see McMourning work with the guild again or Lynch with neverborn.

[NoisyAssassin]

Alt titles that change a master's faction would be sweeeet opportunities. But also potentially nightmares to balance. But sweeeeet!

[Fetid Strumpet]

Don’t see how that could work with the current way stuff is announced, you announce faction, then master, reveal if using second master, reveal crews and titles, only whoopsie, that second master I declared, it’s illegal, and the faction I announced is different because my title card is a different faction from the one I declared, and the second master I hired is in.

[fire5tone]

4 minutes ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

Don’t see how that could work with the current way stuff is announced, you announce faction, then master, reveal if using second master, reveal crews and titles, only whoopsie, that second master I declared, it’s illegal, and the faction I announced is different because my title card is a different faction from the one I declared, and the second master I hired is in.

i could maybe see keywords changing but i dont think factions will change at all

[Mr. Crows]

Wow did not expect something like this so soon on the heels of GG2. Very exciting! By "the new book" do they mean a new M3E Rulebook or something else?

 

[NoisyAssassin]

51 minutes ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

Don’t see how that could work with the current way stuff is announced, you announce faction, then master, reveal if using second master, reveal crews and titles, only whoopsie, that second master I declared, it’s illegal, and the faction I announced is different because my title card is a different faction from the one I declared, and the second master I hired is in.

Not sure how this would be any different than declaring, say, Ressers, and then revealing that the master you picked was Von Schill. They're both illegal declarations. You'd just be restricted to titles that are legal for your declared faction (which would make the title declaration relatively predictable if only one of them was legal in your faction). 

Not at all saying I think it's likely we get new/dual factions on titles, but the rules structure doesn't disallow it.

More likely that a currently dual faction master would get a title that's available to only one of their current factions (to address complaints of X is better in Y faction - give 'em a new option only available in the one that's considered subpar). Still not betting on this happening, but I could see it. 

[the tick]

46 minutes ago, Mr. Crows said:

Wow did not expect something like this so soon on the heels of GG2. Very exciting! By "the new book" do they mean a new M3E Rulebook or something else?

 

Previous editions of the game had a regular cycle of expansion waves with a book that accompanied each wave.

[muraki]

3 minutes ago, the tick said:

50 minutes ago, Mr. Crows said:

Wow did not expect something like this so soon on the heels of GG2. Very exciting! By "the new book" do they mean a new M3E Rulebook or something else?

 

Previous editions of the game had a regular cycle of expansion waves with a book that accompanied each wave.

Yeah, I almost consider Explorers 'wave 2' (or wave 1 if we want to start counting at 0) even tho i know it's a faction book like the original 7 at the start of M3e.  It still fits into the m2e 'yearly book with new models/masters/upgrades/etc vibe.

[Adran]

1 hour ago, Mr. Crows said:

Wow did not expect something like this so soon on the heels of GG2. Very exciting! By "the new book" do they mean a new M3E Rulebook or something else?

 

They typically released a book each year with the new models in. 

Edit- must refresh before posting

[Da Git]

Glad they announced this with plenty of time. Looks like DZ is going to have lots of fun with the app in addition to the multiple masters changes... Good luck!

[marius]

Wow, sounds great but also a huge amount of work.

Well done to the team, I hope the fluff continues to be great

[JamesFlames]

Excellent news! I cannot wait!

I notice that Sonnia has a 30mm base for M3E and a 40mm base for ToS. Is this deliberate? Will there we some sort of basing solution, or do we need to do some magic ourselves? I seem to recall that 30mm lipped bases fit quite neatly into 40mm bases, so some sort of magnetic base solution sounds fairly straightforward to build.

[Paddywhack]

9 hours ago, JamesFlames said:

Excellent news! I cannot wait!

I notice that Sonnia has a 30mm base for M3E and a 40mm base for ToS. Is this deliberate? Will there we some sort of basing solution, or do we need to do some magic ourselves? I seem to recall that 30mm lipped bases fit quite neatly into 40mm bases, so some sort of magnetic base solution sounds fairly straightforward to build.

Yeah - you can fit a 30mm inside a 40mm and just have a double edged base. She'll be a bit taller, but should be easily doable.

[muraki]

9 hours ago, JamesFlames said:

Excellent news! I cannot wait!

I notice that Sonnia has a 30mm base for M3E and a 40mm base for ToS. Is this deliberate? Will there we some sort of basing solution, or do we need to do some magic ourselves? I seem to recall that 30mm lipped bases fit quite neatly into 40mm bases, so some sort of magnetic base solution sounds fairly straightforward to build.

I assume you'll have to do some magic yourself.  ToS champions tend to be on 40mm bases so I was figuring there'd be a bit of a size diff between the 2 games (is why I'm totally buying 2 copies of this starter!!!!). That said ToS bases arent the same malifaux lipped ones due to needing to slot into those combined bases, so a 30 mm base can definitely stand on a 40mm tos base without a lot of issue (now if it looks good. That's a diff story).

[retnab]

Yeah in TOS the smallest base sized used for solo mini Fireteams is 40mm, 30mm is only used in Squads, I'm curious to see how they get around that here.