Factions Balance and choosing some masters

[MrBabash]

Hello guys!
I'm going to play Malifaux (I tried a pair of games in M2) and was wondering how is the situation.

First of all, I'd like to know if factions are balanced. I read Neverborn are difficult to master, and yet they aren't that good. What about the other factions?

It looks like it works with keywords and not factions now, but if I'm choosing a master, should I go with the faction I like more? I mean, if I collect more of the same faction I can hire different models even if they don't share the keyword but they are still in the same faction. Or is this irrilevant because you only use your keywords anyway?

Lastly, I'm listing the masters that I like, so maybe you can suggest me something about them (how difficult/good are them, if they need a lot of boxes to play, the gameplay and stuff):

- English Ivan

- Lord Cooper

- Jack Daw

- Pandora

- Euripides

- Nekima

- Zoraida

- Molly

- McMourning

I even like the Bayou but I'm afraid models are too small to paint and collect.

 Ps: I still got a m2 Lady J crew, so I guess I can learn the game with her.

Thank you in advance!

[Maniacal_cackle]

Faction strength isn't really something that's easy to break down.

Easier to break down is the broken crews tend to be the new ones. Stuff like Damian, Tull, Perdita 2, Shenlong 1 with Koji, von schill with yannic, etc tend to be the strongest if you want to be super competitive.

If your meta isn't super competitive, you'll find most things pretty well balanced and you can play whatever.

[MrBabash]

37 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Faction strength isn't really something that's easy to break down.

Easier to break down is the broken crews tend to be the new ones. Stuff like Damian, Tull, Perdita 2, Shenlong 1 with Koji, von schill with yannic, etc tend to be the strongest if you want to be super competitive.

If your meta isn't super competitive, you'll find most things pretty well balanced and you can play whatever.

Yes, actually I'm going to play with just a friend (and probably two others), so we would be not more than 4/5 totally newbies.. No tournaments here, no competitive meta and stuff. I just wouldn't like to invest money on a bad faction/master, and for bad I mean it is totally undertone and you have to struggle for a single point. And maybe it/he is even hard to play.

[Adran]

1 hour ago, MrBabash said:

Yes, actually I'm going to play with just a friend (and probably two others), so we would be not more than 4/5 totally newbies.. No tournaments here, no competitive meta and stuff. I just wouldn't like to invest money on a bad faction/master, and for bad I mean it is totally undertone and you have to struggle for a single point. And maybe it/he is even hard to play.

There are some crews that you might find hard to play, but that is a relatively personal thing (an example is Hamlin that some people find very easy to play, whist others struggle with trying to get him to do what they need to do whilst doing all the other parts of his crew). I don't think there is a crew out there that you couldn't win a game with against people of similar abilities to you. There are a few cases that may have one side facing an uphill battle to do well, but that can be a feature of table and game set up as much as crew choice. 

Learning with Lady J is a good idea, she can be relatively straight forward, (the game plan of using your great sword as much as possible is certainly a valid option) and when you have an idea of what you like, tehn look for keywords that are better at that. 

Factions are still quite important, so if you like more than 1 keyword from a faction, its useful, it lets you get more use out of some models (mainly versatile, but out of keyword hires is perfectly fine to do). If you only like 1 keyword, then most keywords can play all the games, but aren't going to be the best at some of them. 

 

 

 

[MrBabash]

7 minutes ago, Adran said:

There are some crews that you might find hard to play, but that is a relatively personal thing (an example is Hamlin that some people find very easy to play, whist others struggle with trying to get him to do what they need to do whilst doing all the other parts of his crew). I don't think there is a crew out there that you couldn't win a game with against people of similar abilities to you. There are a few cases that may have one side facing an uphill battle to do well, but that can be a feature of table and game set up as much as crew choice. 

Learning with Lady J is a good idea, she can be relatively straight forward, (the game plan of using your great sword as much as possible is certainly a valid option) and when you have an idea of what you like, tehn look for keywords that are better at that. 

Factions are still quite important, so if you like more than 1 keyword from a faction, its useful, it lets you get more use out of some models (mainly versatile, but out of keyword hires is perfectly fine to do). If you only like 1 keyword, then most keywords can play all the games, but aren't going to be the best at some of them. 

 

 

 

Thank you so much! Might I know, if I'm not asking too much, your opinion on Ressers, Neverborn and Bayou?

[SEV]

Imo Neverborn and Bayou have some of the best master to learn the game, respectively, Titania and Mah.

In resser Prof VS is also a good option. 

[MrBabash]

1 hour ago, SEV said:

Imo Neverborn and Bayou have some of the best master to learn the game, respectively, Titania and Mah.

In resser Prof VS is also a good option. 

I think I'm going with the Bayou! Are they good/balanced as faction overall? If I decide to collect their models and stuff

[Adran]

8 hours ago, MrBabash said:

Thank you so much! Might I know, if I'm not asking too much, your opinion on Ressers, Neverborn and Bayou?

I'm assuming you are asking in terms of starting/ learning.  It's going to depend a bit on how you are learning,  but here are some rough thoughts from me.  Firstly I would probably happily take any keyword to an event and feel I have a chance of winning several games. 

At the core of malifaux it is a game about movement and positioning,  and last time I checked neverborn had the most positioning tricks in the game. Euripides is probably hard to get the card advantage understanding to get the best out if the old ways,  lucius needs a good idea of when and what actions you need, but otherwise I think the masters are ok to get a basic idea  

For bayou I'd behappt with most masters to learn with, although somer tooth Jones is a bit of a strange one, he's quite hard to work out what you want to summon, then he uis hard to face because of the replacement effects, but then as people learn the game better he falls away quite a bit.

I don'tthink that the figures are really that small when compared to any other faction, yes, there are probably more size 1 and they may have slender limbs, but over all I don't think they are really more detailed than others, so not really any harder to paint. 

I think all ressers are probably fine to learn with. 

[MrBabash]

39 minutes ago, Adran said:

I'm assuming you are asking in terms of starting/ learning.  It's going to depend a bit on how you are learning,  but here are some rough thoughts from me.  Firstly I would probably happily take any keyword to an event and feel I have a chance of winning several games. 

At the core of malifaux it is a game about movement and positioning,  and last time I checked neverborn had the most positioning tricks in the game. Euripides is probably hard to get the card advantage understanding to get the best out if the old ways,  lucius needs a good idea of when and what actions you need, but otherwise I think the masters are ok to get a basic idea  

For bayou I'd behappt with most masters to learn with, although somer tooth Jones is a bit of a strange one, he's quite hard to work out what you want to summon, then he uis hard to face because of the replacement effects, but then as people learn the game better he falls away quite a bit.

I don'tthink that the figures are really that small when compared to any other faction, yes, there are probably more size 1 and they may have slender limbs, but over all I don't think they are really more detailed than others, so not really any harder to paint. 

I think all ressers are probably fine to learn with. 

Thank you so much for your time! Last question, are they good in terms of competitivity?

[Maniacal_cackle]

17 minutes ago, MrBabash said:

Thank you so much for your time! Last question, are they good in terms of competitivity?

They won the world series last year, although there were some oddities there.

Overall I'd say pretty much any faction can be competitive except at the very top tiers.

[MrBabash]

50 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

They won the world series last year, although there were some oddities there.

Overall I'd say pretty much any faction can be competitive except at the very top tiers.

Sounds good! I don't think I will ever hit something that competitive (where I live, nobody plays Malifaux, thats why Im starting with a friend and we're alone). So, I'll just pick the faction that looks better to me!