Introducing complete newbies to Malifaux

[wobbly_goggy]

A new gaming club has started up in my city, with most members being role players or board gamers, with a smattering of 40k and Blood Bowl enthusiasm thrown into the mix.
However, as everyone knows, Malifaux is the best game. I know that, you know that, but they don’t know that…yet.
in my previous incarnation as an M2E henchman, I had an easier time of it convincing people to play in the LGS as a bunch of people already had crews or were interested. Here I’m starting  completely from zero (the club and the LGS also don’t get on, so using previous players to help intro is off the table 🙄)

So what recommendations do you have for introducing people to Malifaux?
Crews/Masters? Strats? Schemes? I’d love to show people how much you need to use your brain in Malifaux, it’s not just shootshootkillkill, but simpler strats and schemes might be better? What do you think?
I have Perdita/family, all Bayou masters, Marcus, Kaeris and a bunch of stuff that’s not really viable (Guild/ arcanist faction stuff that I no longer have keyword master for; guard, performer, December etc) and the M2E starter box minis.
What minis would you use?

Grateful for any help, advice or ideas!

[Maniacal_cackle]

I used to run starter events where I get a bunch of sign-ups and get 5-10 people to commit to try the game for four weeks.

There's some old threads on these forums you can search for in Malifaux discussion by me, or I may be able to dig them up later.

I haven't made an updated one for GG3.

The starter box situation is such that I'd possibly ignore the existence of starter boxes if you can provide decks and scheme markers yourself. 

[Phototoxin]

Is Henchman hardcore an option?

[Adran]

3 hours ago, Phototoxin said:

Is Henchman hardcore an option?

Some people use it as way to learn/introduce.  Personally I don't find it a great way because I find it misses the bits of malifaux I like to emphasis,  the building a list for a scenario, and it misses out on the master, which is the draw for some people.  

[Korrok]

57 minutes ago, Adran said:

Some people use it as way to learn/introduce.  Personally I don't find it a great way because I find it misses the bits of malifaux I like to emphasis,  the building a list for a scenario, and it misses out on the master, which is the draw for some people.  

We used it to teach our new players the basics of the mechanics because none of them had ever played a miniatures game before so we felt it was best for them to get down how to read the cards, move, attack, etc. Then we added in masters to those lists and went with a normal pool. 

[wobbly_goggy]

Cheers everyone!
Assuming HH then, are there any henchmen/minis which would work well or which one should avoid (OP/overly complicated etc)?

[Oldwolf42]

I have been running a lot of HH lately to introduce new players to the game. I think it is a good way to show the overall idea and concept of Malifaux. I have learned a few things from hits and misses with crews.

I think you should look at what choices a crew gives and how well it can do the strategy and the schemes, when selecting the models. I suggest:

• Leaving 1-2 soulstone unused, so they get option of using it during play. 
• Put in a second henchman or an enforcer as this gives options for the bomb carriers. This shows how choices during deployment effect the game.
• Adding models with different types of actions/roles (melee, ranged, movement tricks, support,.....)
• Have both a 5ss and 6ss models in the crew. This gives options for the vendetta scheme and shows the idea of hidden schemes.
• If the points allow it, adding an upgrade can show that mechanic. 

All of this can maybe be overwelming for new players, but if you guide them, they will see that Malifaux is more then killing the opponent.

Crews I have used for HH:

Hannah, Librarian, Engineer, Freikorpsman - Very killy and only one set up for bombs, Lot of options for vendetta (both ways)

Carlos, Cassandra, Angelica, Firebranded - Schemey and fast, limited options for vendetta depending on opposing crew.

Jessie, Desper, Rough rider, Huckster -  Schemey and fast, limited options for vendetta depending on opposing crew. I ruined this as I picked the below crew and then there was only one vendetta option.

Carver, Iggy, Stitched Together, Bloodwretch with Inhuman reflexes - Limited option for the opponent for vendetta, as it is 6ss, 6ss and 5ss.

Firste Mate, Bad Juju, Silurid, Gupp - Gives the option for high ss models to do vendetta (yes my opponent got two point on vendette on Juju)

[SpannerRider]

If I might piggyback off of this a bit, I'm in a vaguely similar situation in that Malifaux is not a supported game locally. We actually have two local game stores, one used to run a ton of Malifaux games some years back but when approached about the game I got cold shouldered with a 'the players abandoned the store' and a lot of apathy towards the game. The other LGS is mostly a GW shop, but the folks there are nice and I think would be open to someone showing up and offering to intro a new game if I showed up with enough for others to play.

Trouble is, I'm a total newbie to Malifaux too, and currently my model collection is all Bayou (Mah, Wong, Zipp, Zoraida, and the starter box). I was looking at leaning into grabbing enough of a second faction to be able to lend out models for some friendly games, probably Explorer Society, maybe Arcanist if the starter box is out by the Easter sale. 

Lot of rambling to ask, is there any advice around for a super new player to introduce a game like this? Would getting in some games online until I really grok the mechanics be a good first step? 

[Maniacal_cackle]

1 minute ago, SpannerRider said:

If I might piggyback off of this a bit, I'm in a vaguely similar situation in that Malifaux is not a supported game locally. We actually have two local game stores, one used to run a ton of Malifaux games some years back but when approached about the game I got cold shouldered with a 'the players abandoned the store' and a lot of apathy towards the game. The other LGS is mostly a GW shop, but the folks there are nice and I think would be open to someone showing up and offering to intro a new game if I showed up with enough for others to play.

Trouble is, I'm a total newbie to Malifaux too, and currently my model collection is all Bayou (Mah, Wong, Zipp, Zoraida, and the starter box). I was looking at leaning into grabbing enough of a second faction to be able to lend out models for some friendly games, probably Explorer Society, maybe Arcanist if the starter box is out by the Easter sale. 

Lot of rambling to ask, is there any advice around for a super new player to introduce a game like this? Would getting in some games online until I really grok the mechanics be a good first step? 

I think it is super useful if one player knows the rules well, so yeah would recommend some online games.

Personally what I have done is run starter leagues. I'm actually writing one that uses the starter boxes that I hope to release next year, although not all factions have starter boxes so that is complicated...

But feel free to contact me next year if you need a league pack just tag me on here and I'll post it if it is done by then.

But I find it is really cool to get a starter league as you can get 4-10 players diving in at the same time and learning the game together. Each one I've run has had about 10 people.

[SpannerRider]

31 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

I think it is super useful if one player knows the rules well, so yeah would recommend some online games.

Personally what I have done is run starter leagues. I'm actually writing one that uses the starter boxes that I hope to release next year, although not all factions have starter boxes so that is complicated...

But feel free to contact me next year if you need a league pack just tag me on here and I'll post it if it is done by then.

But I find it is really cool to get a starter league as you can get 4-10 players diving in at the same time and learning the game together. Each one I've run has had about 10 people.

Righto, time to crack open ye old TableTop Simulator, or Vassal I suppose. What do you mean by a league pack, and yeah I probably won't have a chance to kick this off until late next year at best, just trying to get an idea of how to turn the Malifaux engine over locally. Thank you!

[Maniacal_cackle]

9 minutes ago, SpannerRider said:

Righto, time to crack open ye old TableTop Simulator, or Vassal I suppose. What do you mean by a league pack, and yeah I probably won't have a chance to kick this off until late next year at best, just trying to get an idea of how to turn the Malifaux engine over locally. Thank you!

Oh as in scenarios designed to get people playing their first games, guidance on how to deal with ES starter and weird core boxes (ES starter plus Nexus core is possibly the most awkward way to start the game ever), etc. 

The vassal lfg discord is huge:

https://discord.gg/pgVV3cny