Looking for help

[Kaine]

About to buy the book and two small skirmish armies so myself and some friends can learn the game.

Is it possible to play with just the contents of two boxes, and which two boxes would make the best purchase to learn the game.

Thanks

[Fool]

Lady Justice and lilith box sets are very easy to learn...and fun.

Welcome to wyrd.

[Neverborn403]

Yes for the most part you can play the crews right out of the boxes, not so much with Lilith's without the Nephilim models for the "Grow" and "mature" abilities, it sort of requires you to own some replacement models. Rasputina is a pretty good box in my opinion to start with as well

[nilus]

Seamus is also a good starter box. Any guild really. Sonnia Crid is probably the hardest and even she is pretty easy to use.

Welcome to the forums

[Kaine]

Whats the Ramos box like, from looks alone it probably appeals to me most, Lady Justice and Seamus boxes also look good.

[goblyn13]

Ramos box runs a bit heavy (about 27ss) and would be best to build one of set of three spiders as a swarm and the other set of 3 as individual spiders. The box works great.

[Kaine]

Ramos box runs a bit heavy (about 27ss) and would be best to build one of set of three spiders as a swarm and the other set of 3 as individual spiders. The box works great.

That doesnt mean much to me (dont have the book yet) are yo saying the total pts cost of the models in the ramos box is a bit higher than the usual boxes ?

Just noticed the hag boxed set looks quite nice as well, so probably narrowed it down to 4 choices (will buy 2 of them, maybe 3)

Ramos

Hag

Lady J

Seamus

[goblyn13]

Ramos box set includes as follows:

Steamborg is 10ss.

In addition to the steamborg there are 6 spiders, these can be built in the following configurations:

6 individual spiders

1 arachnid swarm, 3 spiders

2 archnid swarms.

With Ramos abilities, it would be best to build it as 1 swarm and 3 spiders.

That way you end up with this:

10ss -- steamborg

9ss -- Arachnid Swarm

3ss -- spider

3ss -- spider

3ss -- spider

In this case you don't bring all the individual spiders into the game. In a 25ss game, its best to do it this way:

1 steamborg

1 swarm

1 spider

then that leaves you with 3 soulstones left over, plus 2 soulstones from Ramos' cache

Ramos can then in game, build spiders (that's why you have two extra). This also leaves you the option that you can collapse the swarm into individual spiders and blow them up individually (spider-bombs are cool )

Or you can build a few extra spare spiders and then build them up from individual spiders into the swarm. This is why Ramos' box runs little heavy.

[Fool]

That doesnt mean much to me (dont have the book yet) are yo saying the total pts cost of the models in the ramos box is a bit higher than the usual boxes ?

Just noticed the hag boxed set looks quite nice as well, so probably narrowed it down to 4 choices (will buy 2 of them, maybe 3)

Ramos

Hag

Lady J

Seamus

Those are the two I would pick.

[AntiZombie]

Of those 4 you picked i would definiltly recomend the lady J and Seamus boxes for learning. They keep things simple and are good beginner starters. The other two boxes can be a little unwieldy if you dont have a good grasp on the game and its tactics.

[n0signal]

Yeah, I would go with Justice and Seamus too; not only are they both good solid Crews, but they're altho thematically "fluffy" fighting against each other.

[Wombats]

One thing to consider is you can choose models freely from within your faction - I run Ramos's spiders with Rasputina a lot, they heal themselves and benefit from her armour buffs.

So having crews from the same Faction can be good as it increases your model selection - a good example is Seamus' crew lacks hard hitters which Nicodem's Punk Zombies have in spades.

I started with Ramos and did okay...he requires a bit of thinking as to whether you should be building more spiders or supporting your crew.

The Steamborg will be your favourite model in no time.

You might actually miss out on some of the complexity of the game if you stick to beatstick Masters like Justice, Lilith and the Viktorias.

Having said that, they are a lot of fun both to play and to bring to a sudden halt

I'd only advise strongly against Zoraida, she's a great master but her crew seems to trip itself up a little in the hands of new players.

Activation sequence often sees the Silurids all act together leaving Juju a little vulnerable - he likes to turn up towards the end of the round so no-one can hit him.

Ronin just came out for the Viktorias, if you like the models you should consider them, I just ordered them for a mate and am considering whether he can order his own or not

You'll likely fall in love with whatever Master you choose first.

There are four which will burn you as they don't function without some deep insight: Somer Teeth Jones, Leveticus then Zoraida and Pandora to a lesser degree.

[Kaine]

Thanks for all the info.

I'll go for LadyJ and Seamus i think, and might stretch to Ramos.

Is Malifaux 1v1 or is there a way to play 3 players ?

[n0signal]

There are four which will burn you as they don't function without some deep insight: Somer Teeth Jones, Leveticus then Zoraida and Pandora to a lesser degree.

Heh, these are the three masters that I play; and yeah you're right, I always advise new players to stay away from them and pick them up as a second master if possible. I meant to pick up Lady Justice first (back in August/Spetember), but due to there being no stock available anywhere at the time I picked up my other fave-looking Crew - the Gremlins... I then spent the first few months getting my arse handed to me repeatedly!!

[Wombats]

Thanks for all the info.

I'll go for LadyJ and Seamus i think, and might stretch to Ramos.

Is Malifaux 1v1 or is there a way to play 3 players ?

3 players works beautifully, especially when learning.

The rules are simple, the complexity is in learning your opponent's crews.

So seeing 3 crews go at it increases how much you learn.

The missions scale well, if you pick Assassinate or Slaughter just sort out if you want to target the guy to the right...or let them try and kill both crews/masters and give them victory points for both!

Only thing that caught us was if two players flip the same card for initiative, all three players re-flip. Can often put the leader at the bottom and mixes things up nicely.

[krusty]

also considered the vikis, its a pretty straight forward box as well as almost any guild box...

and like wombats said, 3 players works great (actually one of the things i like alot about the rules is that it can support any number of players if you really want it to)

just be sure you dont get stuck in the middle of your opponents!

[Kaine]

Thanks again for all the help

If i've narrowed it down to these three can someone give me a couple of lines on how each of them plays ? (thanks)

LadyJ

Seamus

Ramos

I think i understand Ramos is a summoner or twinker, able to either summon more spiders or boost those in play.

[Ropetus]

Lady Justice is a melee beatstick, arguably the best master for that role in the whole game. Her crew is all about physical damage, both melee and shooting. Their spells are mainly about enhancing their melee abilities even further. This crew should be very straightforward to use and easy to learn the rules with.

The Seamus box is great at board control. The Belles have a lot of ways to distract and control the opposing crew and Seamus has some fear effects to mess with the opposition. They are fairly speedy and can take a lot of punishment (Seamus can even bring back killed Belles) but are very limited in ranged attacks, only Seamus can shoot (but he has a nasty gun). This means they will have to enter melee, but its more like "use your tricks to separate a victim and gang everything on the poor thing". His crew is also very good for learning the game.

Ramos is entirely different to the other two. He does not like to enter the fighting himself, but stay behind the lines from where he buffs his minions and summons new ones. Although Ramos has some attack spells as well, mostly he relies on his minions do the fighting, as he is abysmal in melee and quite fragile if the enemy gets to him. Ramos takes a bit more from the player to be efficient than the other two, but should be nothing overwhelming.

-Roope

Edited February 20, 2010 by Ropetus