An interesting question asked about tournaments...vs H/WM

[ukrocky]

Hey guys,

So I'm a regular on a few forums, including Privateer Press and I recently recieved a PM from a chap asking my thoughts etc on the malifaux tournament scene and everything, and it's cummulated in him sending the following PM and I'd like to know your thoughts (the rest of his PMs are below if you wish to see his, my outbox didn't save the outgoing ones, like a pro...)

I've heard some trashtalking of Malifaux as a tournament game, which may not have any basing in actual facts. It has been spoken mostly by folks who have a superficial knowledge of the game. Anyways those voices are also heard when talking about Malifaux as it is so small a community in Denmark.

I'd like to hear the arguments for why the game is a good tournament style game, and why it has a place next to Warmahordes. WM/H is being branded as a game with a strong ruleset, pretty detailed skirmish game rules and low miniature count. It will no doubt help out the fledgeling henchmen arranging events. I suspect the main reasons are super powers are divided between the crew, opposite to the überwarcaster/locks, and the different approach to missions and selecting a crew. But the force of Malifaux could lie elsewhere?

I also have to specifically ask how a faction deals with an anti-faction master, such as Sonnia Criid to Neverborn? Is it simply that the factions are balanced well enough externally, or?

Please quote me where neccessary as it eases my understanding of your reply (ie. which part of my rampling questions you are replying to)

And to round off this PM - thanks for taking your time to reply in such detail and length. It's an enjoyable read.

So the other PM's, in order of the first I recieved;

In your 3x50 points thread you mentioned playing and having success in a Malifaux tournament. I'm curious about this as we have talked about this locally.

1) How well does the game work in an competitive tournament? Are we talking WFB Daemons to Ogre Kingdoms in terms of balance between factions, or are we closer to Warmahordes with a good spread of winning factions.

2) How many resources needs to be dumped into Malifaux to play it tournament style? How many models did you bring to the arrangement and how many did you use per game? The reason for the question is most people I've met talk about Malifaux as a side project of theirs.

3) What worked for you in the tournament?

Thanks

So my reply to this first one was...

Hello, hello, hello.

Ok. Well a quick wee bit about me so you can see

where I'm coming from;

1) I was a MASSIVE wfb 7th tournament player. I

used ogres, orcs and beasts of chaos (old book) to great success for a few years

over here in the UK whilst daemons etc dominated. This included a couple 4ths at

100+ people events.

2) I also play, or have played, H/WM, LoTR, 40k,

malifaux and bloodbowl at tournaments.

So, I'm a massive, massive

tournament player, it's the reason why I play the hobby! So to answer your

points;

1) Well. My ogres beat daemons and I loved the imbalance but it's

somewhere inbetween. It's probably more leaning toward the H/WM side in that

everything is broken and cheesy. As for winning factions well, at the inaugral

GT outcasts took top 3 with myself and gremlins in first, viktorias in 2nd, and

gremlins in 3rd too. Noone really expected this and it hasn't happened

since.

Since then, neverborn have been 'quite' dominant but then again

they are the most popular faction too. I am of the mindset that neverborn are

the strongest faction, having taken 2 more titles with them, as well as

neverborn winning the event I ran, and the one that was yesterday in the south

of the UK. The tournament I was at on saturday, neverborn took top 3, me with

Collodi at 1 and followed by 2 Lilith. There was however no Pandoras or Lord

Chompy Bits there, despite being 8 neverborn factions in 24 players.

The

spread of factions is fairly even, and any faction has a chance on it's day, but

the meta here in the UK is leaning toward neverborn right now, but as said,

outcasts hold the GT so any faction has it's chance. It also depends whether you

hold your tournaments as fixed FACTION, or fixed MASTER. I big up the latter, as

it means more variation, and it also means the richest person isn't at a massive

advantage.

2) Resource wise, I've seen 3 ways of people organising their

tournaments with respect to crew selection;

a) Fixed 35SS Crews. So

people only bring their 35ss, so only 6-12 models needed.

'Side Pool' 50SS

crews. So people bring 50ss worth (8-16 models), and then choose their 35SS

before each game.

c) Free! People bring any models they want that their crew

can use (10-20 models) and choose.

The choosing might seem weird, but you

flip strategy prior to choosing crew. I do reccomend the 3rd, as people tend to

have maxed out their crew, but it also depends on your crew. For

example;

- Collodi at the weekend, I HAVE to have 3 of model A, 4 of

model B and then either 5 or 6 of model C, with the rest being in SS. I don't

get any choice on the matter. So I obviously only brought those 14

models.

- Normal masters. These usually have a few builds. Like my Sonnia

crew has 2-3 builds, that revolve around the same core of 6 models, and then

swap and change the last 2 or 3 models, so I'd tend to only bring about 12

models for Sonnia.

- Marcus, Zoraida and Ressers. These guys are the

heavy ones. The first 2 have such a wide selection in crew choice, as in, they

can pick from anywhere so the can potentially bring 20+ models, but usually the

Marcus player (I play marcus...) has 2-3 lists in their head to choose from. So

one scenario list, one killy list and one 'other' list. Usually revolve around

3-4 models core, and then add another 5ish models in for the list. So again,

looking at 19ish models for Marcus.

Ressers can raise a ludicrous amount

of models, especially Nicodem with his zombies, so Ressers will need to bring

plenty too.

In addition to the crews each player could do with;

- A reference sheet (provided by the TO)

- Tape measure

- Fate deck

- Reference cards for their models

- Preferably a rulebook, and one of the normal books

- Counters for anything their models might drop (so scrap, body, etc counters), as well as objective counters

- Paper and pen (Hugely important for wound tracking if they don't have their model's cards laminated!)

In all honesty, very little.

Wyrd did just release this;

http://www.wyrd-games.net/Upload/Mal...Ground2011.pdf

which is their document on how they reckon tournaments should be run. It's a good start but we've already started tweaking it in the UK.

In addition, if you browse the forum there's a guy called Ratty. If you can find him, he's built some software specifically for malifaux that you can download and it's a tournament organising software, was used at the weekend to great effect.

Malifaux is easy to run, so easy to run, and produces so many varied games with the amount of strategys and schemes available. I mean, in a 3 game tournament you get forced to play 3 different strategies, and 6 different schemes!

I sent him a 2nd PM with what I used in the tournament, but vaguely unimportant, I'll post it up when I get it back.

So, thoughts kids?

Edited May 15, 2011 by ukrocky

[Chucklemonkey]

An interesting question.

I suppose I should start by saying that I am not a tournament player, having only ever played in one, and that was a Malifaux tournament. I do however play both games so feel relatively qualified to discuss the point, although when has that ever stopped anyone on the internet?

I was actually going to bring up this debate again myself, in a non tourny context, because of the following statement made on my local clubs forums.

"I know Malifaux's big right now and I quite enjoy playing it, but it doesn't have the same visceral satisifaction as charging a Dire Troll into someone's 'jack, smashing it up a bit and then throwing it deep into enemy lines, preferably on top of their warcaster."

And I actually think this gets pretty much to the point of the difference in the two systems and the type of gamers they would potentially attract.

So what makes WM/H more visceral? The main thing I can think of would be that it is non alternating activations. In addition, bar the occasional "no you can't do that I have just done some magic/attack" there is no defending against the actions of the opponent in Warmachine. This in theory makes the game quicker. I would argue this, but what it does certainly do is strip out a whole level of interaction between players. Does this make WM/H more viable for tournaments? I can see why it would make the players feel that WM/H is a more suitable game for tournament play.

While I think any game can attract the ones who simply want to smash face, Warmachine offers it in an uncontested way. There really is nothing you can do once that Dire troll charges that jack. Also, Warmachine, despite what anyone says, is a casterkill game, and the game types briefly mentioned in the back of the WM rulebook, to my mind, offer absolutely nothing to take away from that. This makes the outcome of the game easy to understand.

If you are a warmachine player going into your first malifaux tournament, and had been previously been playing malifaux just to kill the opponents crew, you will be left scratching your head.

In one of the games I played at the recent tournament I lost 6 - 4 despite wiping out the opponents crew. Despite the loss, I found the game very enjoyable, cinematic almost, as my opponent's coryphee duet went about trying to complete his missions as those around them fell to the floor. A recent Warmachine player may struggle with this.

To my mind Malifaux has two extra levels of strategy than WM/H. One is the aforementioned ability to defend yourself in a duel. The other being the resource management of your control cards. I'll not go deeply into soulstones here as WM/H players may cry foul because of focus/fury, which I do find an interesting mechanic.

Whilst all of the above are my more specific thoughts on the matter, lets be honest though; pick any two game systems that people end up arguing about, and I would say the following statement is true:

99% of players of game X while stating that game Y is terrible, will never have tried it > 1 time.

How is that for math mangling? (Although it may be the first time I have tried to use algebra since leaving school).

I look forward to hearing other people's thoughts on the matter.

Edit: I would also be interested to hear if you posted a similarly worded question on the privateer forums?

Edited May 14, 2011 by Chucklemonkey

[ukrocky]

No, I haven't posted anything publically on the PP forums as of yet, but I have a sudden urge to pick up one of my 7 dire trolls from my desk and hunt someone's jack down right now, at 4am...thanks. I might post this on PP sometime soon actually, we'll see.

Ahem, I'm gonna post a proper reply to my own thread, this one, when I'm more awake tomorrow, but thanks for your reply, some good points, all of which I agree with.

[Rathnard]

1) How well does the game work in a competitive environment?

IMO, very well. For the most part the crews are very balanced against each other, which is helped in no small part by the nature of the strategies and schemes meaning that killing is not the only route to victory.

In terms of 'power level' there's nothing near the horror that was 7th ed WHFB Deamons vs. Ogre Kingdoms. Some crews tend to be viewed as generally above or below the curve in power level (Dreamer and Marcus, respectively) but player skill tends to have a large effect on this. Particularly broken combos do pop up now and then, but tend to get errata'd out of existance by Wyrd.

2) How much do you need to play in a tournament?

Like UKrocky said, it varies from Master to Master, but also from tournament to tournament. A look at the Gaining Ground PDF will reveal 4 different formats. Fixed Crews is a simple, one master list so no issues there. The TO could make it 2-3 Master w. List although in a competitive sense, you won't need more than two crews and depending on the Master and your skill you could even get away with just the one.

Limited Faction means you'll want some extra models in addition to your 'standard' list and possibly even a second Master, although in some cases the models you want for one Master make it difficult to viably include a second anyway (eg. any of the Outcast Crews).

For newer players it starts getting problematic if you get involved in Single Faction or Open Faction events, where you'll often be facing players with access to one or more factions worth of models. To be honest I don't think these will be all that common, simply because people recognise the inherent advantage it gives to those who have invested more money in the game. Then again, like the limited faction events you can certainly get away with using a considerably smaller collection of models (ie. 1-2 crews).

As an aside, one thing I like about Tournament Malifaux compared to Tournament Warmahordes is that there tends not to be 'hard counters' to certain lists, where you'd put two lists side by side and you'll know exactly which will win the game even before deployment. Some crews have an inbuilt edge against others (eg. Sonnia vs Arcanists), but it's not anywhere near becoming an auto-lose for the other crew. Once again, the nature of the Strategies/Schemes in-game helps ensure that won't happen.

[ukrocky]

Updated my first reply with the bottom bit (from below ressers), anymore thoughts on this?

[dafruk]

Only played a handful of games vs a handful of crews so hardly any experience and I've never played Warmachine/Hordes. What I have done is play a fair number of Warhammer tournaments, which I know you've done too, and from playing in them I can easily say it is a game that isn't terribly well designed for tournaments and yet I still have a lot of fun playing it that way.

Because of how Malifaux games are structured imbalance of crews does not necessarily have the same impact. If you pick the right objectives then you should be able to stand a chance of achieving them even against a force which is designed to kill yours. But that's where malifaux is a bit odd. To look at it you'd say that certain things would walk all over others, but that is thinking in the traditional way of 'I've got to kill their army'. If that isn't your objective then it's somewhat irrelevant as long as you can do what you're given objective is.

Warmachine/Hordes has 1 mission (from my understanding of it) - Kill the opposition Caster (master equivalent). Do this and you win the game. The variety comes from how those casters interact with their force and how that impacts your approach to killing them.

Malifaux says - here's a range of objectives. Depeding on force selection criteria either be flexible enough to achieve all of them in your starting build. Or where only selecting your faction up front, pick the right models to achieve your objective from the faction available to you.

Oh and by the way, you're opponent is trying to do this, guess what they'll take and how you might stop them at the same time.

I can see how WM&H offers a very tight and structured tournament style where everyone is always competing on the same basis. Malifaux is a lot more expansive and the balance is achieved through flexibility rather than necessarily having incredibly tightly balanced crews vs each other.

The downside of the malifaux approach being where people pick the wrong crew they will face situations where they literally cannot win barring a miracle. With WM&H that should never happen because you can never get stuck designing for the wrong objective.

Personally I like the idea of variety in my gaming experience rather than repetition with the only change being the tactical approach of your opponent. But millions of people love chess which is the ultimate in same experience gaming.

So WM&H - chesslike competition

Malifaux - varied competition (can't immediately think of an equivalent game, buying shares maybe?)

[Manicmac]

To me the first few sentences tell me all I need to know:

"I've heard some trashtalking of Malifaux as a tournament game, which may not have any basing in actual facts. It has been spoken mostly by folks who have a superficial knowledge of the game."

Try it first, before you go and bash a system.

I do not play Hordes, or Warmachine but would no more think of saying anything bad of them than I would say something bad of one who played them. Tournaments are something I have played and organized, players seem to enjoy them and have had a good time doing it.

A large gathering of like minded/game system minded people is always a good thing.

I have found that Malifaux lends itself to tournament play very well.

[(TV)]

I played and was on the organizing end for competition for WH, and was very observant of meta for both FOW and Warmachine, have stuff for all. I was one of those guys who played the 200+ man infantry empire block list in late 7th and usually had 3 massacres/tourney XD. Historical wargamer at heart, I guess.

I have have little playign experience with this game yet but once I do I'll be sure to weigh in.

Regards,

TV

[Drool_bucket]

disclaimer: I have never played in a Malifaux Tourny.

Malifaux is a deep, deep game. Line up and kill, or go get this marker doesn't sum it up very well. Every Master does things differently and Minions run the gambit of "what they do."

What this means to me, for tournament play, is that while imbalances might exist, that its the guy behind the cards that matters a lot more.

I come from a 40K background, and some armies just play themselves.

You absolutely can not say that about Malifaux. IMO, the player, which includes both is natural ability at table top gaming, his level of experience with Malifaux and finally the "luck of the draw," add far more to winning and losing this game than any imbalances in model rules, perceived or true.

[Hookers]

If you were forced to play the same crew every match it might be as horrible and imbalanced as Fantasy. Luckily, the game is not designed that way and was never intended to be played that way.

How do you deal with playing against the Master that is supposed to be good against your faction? Simple: do the same. Or pick a Master that is good at the strategy you are given and choose schemes to complement them, and just focus on that rather than trying to fight toe to toe. There are some bad match ups in the game, but generally you can anticipate them or choose minions to help sway it back in your favor. There aren't any match ups that can't be overcome with superior play (yes, even Gremlins v. Hamelin. I said superior play not equal play, so if you are just as good as your opponent Hamelin should win, but you are here to win a tournament aren't you? That's why there are more masters in Outcasts than just Som'er and he doesn't really fair great against any of the other masters in Outcasts, so simply pick someone else if you know that is who you are facing.) Also Sonnia Criid isn't the master designed against Neverborn, it's Perdita.

[CannonFodder]

our biggest issue is time for tournaments. in WM/H we have timed turns 5 min, time ends, you finish you action), or a chess clock (45 min per player, time runs out you lose). If we want to have 3-4 rounds rounds we need to force the game to speed up and that works with in that format, but not malifaux. Last Mlaifaux tournament we had most tables got 3-4 turns done in the 90 minutes. Once we tried custom scenarios that had closer deployments and shooting restriction in the first turn but that lead to imbalance.

I'm thinking of picking up some hourglass timers with 45-60 seconds on it. Basically you get X seconds to do all you actions and when time runs out you finish your action, and can't declare any more. Pick one model in you crew, when activating this model timer rules do not apply. So you can not get screwed with your master & 90% of the companion models usually go with the master. If for some reason you have a crew that has a different model that is time consuming, IE multiple pulse/blasts. This should reduce time people take to thinks things over. Most activations should be take 5-8 seconds to figure out which model to activate, then 15-20 seconds to resolve an attack/actions, the same time for second. extra attacks form triggers continue after time runs out, but if it was your first action it still runs the clock. Maybe with new ability to use soul stone to double the clock on an activation, any models can use this ability.

As for crew selection. I think bringing 2-3 pre-built crews (and hopefully hidden schemes) are required. Judge should have tables preset up before hand. Players with scheme that interact with terrain can place 2 trees\small terrain in opponents deployment zone as it starts to ensure it possible to do.

our LGS can make things go long if we let everyone take as much time as they want. if we have more that 8 players we need 4 rounds and want to be able to get out withing 8 hours.

[ukrocky]

I disagree with alot of what you just said actually Cannon.

The 60 second timer per model doesn't work courtesy of crews like gremlins and Hamelin where they can easily put down 15 models, compared with elite neverborn/guild crews that need to take their time.

Also the 2/3 crews written down, is just a hangover from H/WM. The main thing about malifaux i flexibility, and allowing people to take whatever. As for hidden schemes? Well, announced shcemes are one of the best things possible! Hidden schemes is, IMO, a terrible idea and one that goes against the spirit of the game, unless you want less VPs and you choose to keep them hidden!!

Much like H/WM, games will get quicker as people get used to the game, you just have to be strict with the round timing on each round, and try and make people speed up if you see they are a bit behind.

As for the schemes that interact with terrain, well, it's the judges responsibility to ensure that at least one bit of terrain is on each side of the board, and there should always be at least 2 bits of terrain per board!!

Timing in tournaments is one thing that I am struggling to think of a way round, but it should only influence good vs bad player match ups where the bad player stops the good player achieving their full potential, and even then, the good player should play super quick. One way around this which was brought up by someone was give the players the option of +1TP if they are competent, and thus avoid the bad players early on, but I sort of disagree with this.

[CannonFodder]

I disagree with alot of what you just said actually Cannon.

The 60 second timer per model doesn't work courtesy of crews like gremlins and Hamelin where they can easily put down 15 models, compared with elite neverborn/guild crews that need to take their time.

Timing in tournaments is one thing that I am struggling to think of a way round, but it should only influence good vs bad player match ups where the bad player stops the good player achieving their full potential, and even then, the good player should play super quick. One way around this which was brought up by someone was give the players the option of +1TP if they are competent, and thus avoid the bad players early on, but I sort of disagree with this.

So far we haven't tried the timer trick yet. I find most of the time is taken out by figuring out what to do next so by reducing that it should be ok. as for different factions/crews taking more time per model, i think its feasible to use the timer.

yes gremelins need less thinking per action, but more on the which one to active which neverborn spend less time on selecting which model to activate an more on actions. Don't forget you get to finish you action and triggers when time runs out. so if you spend 40 of your 45 seconds selecting which model you can only get 1 action in time, but if you take 5 seconds to select, you can get the first action done, start the second time runs out and still finish. I acknowledge that master and certain models take long, hence one model per crew has infinite time, which companion models can also use.

I also figure giving each player 1 special soulstone per 5-10 points to spend on double timer. Not an action, its just a player ability, and if they run out they can use their normal soulstone pool.

as for terrain ==> judges should make every table legal for every scenario/scheme, but have had games where another player set up the board for us to play and there was nothing in my opponents deployment zone, and I had to interact with terrain in it.

Crew creation ==> I agree that crew creation & schemes do impact the game a lot, but for speedy tournaments it helps having a couple lists prebuilt. Otherwise you need to have 15-20 minutes extra per game to built lists. by having the list made in advance you can reduce the time to set up, have an idea of what your schemes are. Not necessary written in stone, but each list usually would have 3-4 options and you can pick 2. Don't forget you have the option to reflip a strategy for 1 soulstone. I think its a necessary evil of tournament play.

[Dark Alleycat]

I recently played at the very wonderful,bellingham warhamster ran Malifaux tournament. We played 85 minute games. And almost every time,people were able to make it to through the 4th or better turn. We played a set 50SS worth of models to choose our lists from,ranging from 25SS to 45SS,with a sidebar of summonable minions. There were a couple of things that assisted with this tournament running smoothly,and that was set boards,with set special events on those boards. As well as set strategies for each round. Now this requires a bit more work on the part of the person organizing the tournament,but it made for one amazing tournament.

I havent played more then a couple games of Warmachine/Hordes..so I can't say how it would be in Tournament. I will say I love the commandments on page 5,but the game itself,I didn't have nearly as much fun as I did playing Malifaux. Part of that I think is the group i was using vs my opponents group,since we were both new to the game I know it wasn't an excess of experience on his part lol.And the other part is that,to my mind at least,Malifaux involves alot more strategy in winning then WM/H. With Malifaux,you can literally lose all your models,and still win 8-0,if your opponent doesnt accomplish what he is supposed to be trying to do. With WM/H,there are hundreds of ways to kill your opponents 'caster...but once you have the game is over. I would also disagree that WM/H is more visceral. You say there is nothing like picking up a model and chucking him at your opponents warcaster,and I will agree that is fun. but picture this.Sonnia Criid standing by herself on the entrance into a breach(modified shared claim jump scenario) and against her are two crooked men,3 punk zombies,a necropunk and a wounded rouge necromancy,all surrounding her as the turn starts. Sonnia laughs,blasts a rotten belle with subjugation,turning her into a witchling stalker with her last soulstone,and then uses inferno. The rogue necromancy attacks her and kills her,she explodes and takes everyone within 6 inchs with her.

Or something that happened this last weekend to my son in his first game. He has the ortegas vs a lady justice crew. the fight is centered around the well in the middle of town(another shared claim jump) And after some early victories,he is down to just Nino and Santiago,and santiago is down to one wound. Vs the Judge,a death marshal and Lady justice,also wounded.Santiago walks forward and goes into a Equilibrium style gun kata of firing,shooting off bullets in all directions and hitting everyone in 4 inchs for 6 damage,nearly killing the judge,putting down the death marshal and making lady justice spend her last soulstone ina desperate bid to stay alive.

Cannon,as a curiosity...do you play Perdita? Because that would make that crew overwhelmingly powerful by comparison. Honestly once you learn the game it goes pretty fast.

[ukrocky]

On the timer per activation, what happens in the case of duels, lets say I activate a model that has to do 3 attacks, be it flurry, melee expert etc. and my opponent takes 40 seconds choosing their first card to cheat in...? And again, I don't think it's fair a gremlin player gets 3 times longer to play with his toys than a guild player.

Timing is a difficult one for malifaux, and one that I think will take time to find an answer for.

And NOONE I know takes 15-20 minutes building their crew for each game, 5 minutes tops...

The game where your mate set up the terrain wouldn't happen in a tournament so I don't think 'special trees' are neccesary.

[CannonFodder]

On the timer per activation, what happens in the case of duels, lets say I activate a model that has to do 3 attacks, be it flurry, melee expert etc. and my opponent takes 40 seconds choosing their first card to cheat in...? And again, I don't think it's fair a gremlin player gets 3 times longer to play with his toys than a guild player.

Timing is a difficult one for malifaux, and one that I think will take time to find an answer for.

And NOONE I know takes 15-20 minutes building their crew for each game, 5 minutes tops...

The game where your mate set up the terrain wouldn't happen in a tournament so I don't think 'special trees' are neccesary.

uRocky ==> I don't play perdita, but have played against her. and realize it breaks the format.

As for the time it takes to react, it comes down to a player asking the judge to intervene if you opponent is taking too long on purpose during the resist duels. The basic mechanic of Special soulstones would be usable for blasts/pulses that impact multiple models.

For now i'm just tossing out ideas on how to get a tournament to play where most players get to turn 6. I admit I have not tried these ideas yet. but in the 3 tournaments I played in I'd say 90% of the games only made it to turn 3, which in turn unbalances some of the strategies and schemes.

If you do the math a 90 minute game should be 15 minutes per turn. Given 60 second activations with average 7 models per side. you get that just under the limit. Thats not counting the need to time to go over for last action. I admit it also does not account for eliminated models either, or summoning. I think 60 seconds is plenty of time as long as you plan out your actions during your opponents turn instead of waiting for him to finish before thinking.

as for Flurry, or the ranged equivalent, those are declared action and you are completing the action.

If anyone has better idea on how to get a group to play 3-4 games to completion in 1 day I'd like to here it. I'd rather play 1 or 2 fun games to completion instead of 3-4 games half finished. but to get a good community of player together you need to run tournaments.

[ukrocky]

I never said anything about Perdita

I've now played in 14 tournament games, with various crews, and never once run out of time...?

I know at the recent tournament at Leeds, which was 3 rounds, and it started quite late (10.30ish?) and finished early (5ish?), and noone I spoke to had problems finishing...

I just genuinley think it's such a new system, and once people are used to it then it'll be fine.

[osoi]

I think Malifaux works fantastically in a tournament environment, the rules are well written and clear (especially with the rules manual) and they hold up to abuse and attempts at breaking them which some people will always try and do.

I think a real advantage the Malifaux has over WM/H is that you must play by scenario to win, sure sometime sthe scenario may be to kill your opponents master but if it isnt you dont have to (of course if you manage it good for you as they are powerful piees in their own right). My biggest disappointment with WM/H is that you can play scenario but caster kill still trumps and wil always win.

The gaining grounds document is great and provides a good framework for several differently formatted tournaments, I know for an event that I will be running later this year it will be the main reference document for the players pack but with some minor alterations.

As you choose crews after strategies are flipped I think it is up to the TO to police the start game sequences a bit more tightly so people only have 5 minutes to select crews and deploy. I think it does have something to do with Malifaux still being a new game and for soem there is a level of unfamiliarity with it. In a tournament held locally earlier in the year all of the games got to at least turn 4 even with some pretty new players and a fair few rules queries going on.

[Q'iq'el]

On the timer per activation, what happens in the case of duels, lets say I activate a model that has to do 3 attacks, be it flurry, melee expert etc. and my opponent takes 40 seconds choosing their first card to cheat in...? And again, I don't think it's fair a gremlin player gets 3 times longer to play with his toys than a guild player.

Or, to pinch in with another example, what if you trigger Overpower or something similar? Get to cast again, and again and again... let's say realistically you can milk 3 casting duels out of a good hand if you want - that's 3 full duels to perform within 1 activation, all three involving opponent cheating, opponent deciding on using soulstones, opponent using his defensive triggers perhaps...

And the elite vs. horde crews argument is another thing - if you give time per mini, hordes get advantage, but if you give everybody ample and equal time, you handle advantage to elites.

What can be done to reign the turn duration in a bit, I think, is to timer the duels. If every duel has to be completed within 60 seconds or so, that can add some interesting elements to the cheating mechanic. Of course triggers would require time-outs and the timer would have to reset each time a new duel pops out (as a result of a trigger), but it would still eliminate some of the delays from the game.

[CannonFodder]

Or, to pinch in with another example, what if you trigger Overpower or something similar? Get to cast again, and again and again... let's say realistically you can milk 3 casting duels out of a good hand if you want - that's 3 full duels to perform within 1 activation, all three involving opponent cheating, opponent deciding on using soulstones, opponent using his defensive triggers perhaps...

And the elite vs. horde crews argument is another thing - if you give time per mini, hordes get advantage, but if you give everybody ample and equal time, you handle advantage to elites.

What can be done to reign the turn duration in a bit, I think, is to timer the duels. If every duel has to be completed within 60 seconds or so, that can add some interesting elements to the cheating mechanic. Of course triggers would require time-outs and the timer would have to reset each time a new duel pops out (as a result of a trigger), but it would still eliminate some of the delays from the game.

I'd love to have a mechanic that pauses and restarted properly, but how do you realistically time it at the table without a third person and a stop watch. If you can bring up how to I'd love to hear it.

But I think your missing something with the time per model vs time per player argument. You are allowed to go over time as long as you have declared the action, and you can pick one model per crew to ignore timer. Take the convicted gunslinger, when he activates, you get to declare you actions. (2) Ranged flurry (forget proper name) then you can take your time and go over, Or you can move and take a shot and then let triggers go overtime. The biggest issue he can face is shooting once, getting triggers, then hoping to move afterwards, which the soulstone mechanic can kick in. As long as player don't stall or are indecisive too often it should not impact game mechanic.

I left the one model ignores timer rule instead of Master ignores because in crews like Colette, she does not need the extra time, but the Duet probably would take it.

[remy lebeu]

to steer us away from the timer debate for a moment.....

I play both guild and arcanists (though only played guild so far in a tourney), and i can't say I've seen a problem with fixed faction, you no a little of your opponent going into hiring but not much. this keeps people from getting into a bad match up like fixed crew.

Though fixed guild is an advantage as it is since they have some obvious choices depending upon the opposing faction.

[ukrocky]

The only issue I see with fixed faction over fixed master is that a) It benefits richer players and It depletes variety in tournaments to the extent there's only 5 'armies' compared to the 11+ in any other games system. I love the variation atm of having 20+ masters.

[Ratty]

The only issue I see with fixed faction over fixed master is that a) It benefits richer players and It depletes variety in tournaments to the extent there's only 5 'armies' compared to the 11+ in any other games system. I love the variation atm of having 20+ masters.

I don't believe that is true, though having more models will help, I think you get a drop off in advantage when you get above 2 masters. Yes you could play any of the 5 Masters, but you will probably play better playing the ones you know better, I have about 7 masters now, but I would probably still play either Kirai or Seamus out of them in a tournament as I'm more familiar with them. Having 2 masters is enough to be competitive in fixed faction, you just need two that compliment each other, eg. Kirai and McMourning.

I don't get your number of forces point at all, there are still 26 different Masters whichever way you play it. You still don't know who you are playing any round so you still have to design a crew to face any of 5 masters, but you can avoid really bad match-ups like Gremlin against Outcast, or Nicodem against Guild. But overall you are still all playing different Masters. If anything you will get more variety as people won't just choose a top tier Master (OK I say top tier, it's a bit of a lie, but there are crews that are a bit harder hitting) as their 1 crew. But lets say your playing fixed Faction then you will choose different Masters depending on Strategy and Terrain.

Lets say your playing Arcanists,

• Fixed Crew: If you want to play to your best advantage you will select Collette as she's probably the strongest all round Master.
  
• Fixed Faction: If you get a board with a huge amount of trees and forests you might choose to take Marcus for a round in fixed faction. Next game you might get Slaughter and choose to take Rasputina.
  

IE. in fixed faction you are more likely to see the more specialised Masters less all round Masters being played. A wider variety of Masters being played has got to be a good thing.

GW has fixed army and what do you see, 50% of the players are playing the army that is top of the Meta. EG. Daemons.

Edited May 22, 2011 by Ratty

[ukrocky]

Hmm. I guess, good points Ratty. I think the issue is that over here in the UK, we're all stubborn. Add that onto the fact that all the tournaments ran so far have been fixed master, I am comparing it to nothing much. One big advantage I can see of fixed master is that of list building prior to rounds is quicker, in theory, and thus so more time to play.

One thing I would say is going into H/WM territory again. In some tournaments you take one list, in others you take 3 or 6 depending on how it's run. I've got a 3 list tournament coming up, and I'm not expecting to do well, because I just haven't had the time to practise with all 3. One of my 3 is well practised due to it being used a while ago, one has had a few games recently and one is totally untested.

I can sort of see this happening in malifaux whereby those with the most spare time can practise across all the masters they wish, whereas those that are pushed for time will usually only have knowledge access to one or two masters.

I can see merit in both ides, both in Malifaux and H/WM and I'll certainly wish to attend a fixed faction event but my mind set, courtesy of other systems I've played I assume, is one of fixed master.

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

I agree with Ratty most tourneys are 3 rounds it you don't need more than 2-3 crews and honestly 2 crews... Masters is all you need from each faction to deal with most strategies. I played Zoradia and Pandora in our last one and was the only one that changed masters. I don't think I had the advantage over my opponents by playing 2 masters and they only playing one.

Everyone in the Tourney had access to more than one master for their faction but just solo lists for most of their games. I chose variety because it is the spice of life.

I plan to run Guild in our next Tourney and have all book masters and Lucius but I don't plan on running more than 2 of the masters for the tourney. I could change my mind based on my opponent's faction and based on my strategy but I might create more of a challenge for myself by trying to change play styles 3 times.

I think it is really up to the TO to know if the LGS make up would support a faction based tourney or not. If more players own just one master it might not be a good idea for the TO to do a faction tourney, but if most own at least 2 masters in one faction, which our LGS does or is willing to share, than faction based tourneys are the way to go because they are in the spirit of the game.

Edited May 22, 2011 by Mr. Bigglesworth