Walking Away from the table... am I the only one that considers this?

[Sliver Chocobo]

I think the original poster issue is the one I have as well. There are some builds that work well against everything! Alp Bomb for one. Or even the lure spam, not sure on that one since I havn't looked into it as much. Why should a faction be allowed to have a build that is universally good when everyone else is forced to adjust to every other master in order to compete?

Couldn't have put it better myself

[jty3]

I definitely understand the sentiment, too, that sometimes certain lists can be a negative play experience, regardless of if they are balanced or can be beaten.

[011121]

Book 2 masters (with the exception of Hoffman) exist on a different competitive plane than those from the Book 1, with a few notable exceptions (Pandora, Viks, Perdita maybe). Henchman aside - though Collodi and Von Schill are very scary in their own right - the Dreamer, Kirai, Hamelin and Colette all represent a superior breed of master. I don't want to turn this into a Book 2 versus Book 1 argument, but it's hard to deny that the power curve was shattered when Book 2 dropped. Book 1 presented a range of relatively balanced masters (relatively), Book 2 bypassed power creep in favor of power blitzkrieg. I can't imagine it was intentional. I really do hope it is somehow rectified with a concentrated, dedicated Book 2 v2 reevaluation.

That said, I still love the game ... I just wish Book 2 masters weren't so unashamedly dominant, both competitively and casually. It's difficult to explain the current balance landscape to new and potential players without sounding like a blatant apologist. I still do, but I'm honest, and I tend to include the summation, "Wyrd will do right, they always have in the past and I have faith. They listen to their players, admit mistakes and have shown a remarkable willingness to introduce changes based on community feedback. It's what makes Wyrd such a great company, and Malifaux such an excellent game." I don't say this just to sell the game as my group's officially unofficial pseudo-wannabe-Henchman. I actually believe it.

Out of curiosity do you think the avatars are an attempt to brig the book 1 masters up to the book 2 level? I haven't seen the 3rd book so I have no idea.

[TroyPerez]

I've noticed that a lot of the avatars of stronger masters are not really that much more powerful, yet avatars of book 1 masters who are considered weak got improved. This may be an attempt to bring balance to the game. But back to the alp bomb build, it doesn't even make sense that this isn't fixed. From a profit viewpoint why make an army that wins really easily? It means that the competitive tournament players only ever have to buy one army to play. If things were more balanced and they played like other masters more models would be sold cause they would need more builds to adjust to different masters. Wyrd is losing money buy allowing such an efficient combo to exist in their game!

[Fetid Strumpet]

The issue is even if that is true, which I'm honestly not certain of, is that the crews that are most competitive like the Dreamer, Colette, and Kirai are all fast enough to have generally staked out a winning position by turn 3. If the Dreamer comes in and wipes out your whole crew bar your master and maybe one other model on turn 1 I fail to see how Ramos getting a kick-butt avatar he cannot start the game with changes matters. Or if Kirai has managed to get a solid, but not insurmountable, position of the game by the end of turn three how manifesting your avatar is going to help all that often.

Nix in his discussions on the Gamers lounge with his local players even hinted as much. The Book 2 masters, perhaps the exception of Hoffman, are all crew synergy masters. They are precisely as good as they are because they have a subset of minions that work very well for them and their abilities make their minions capabilities that much stronger. In fact that was one of the reasons Nix stated he didn't particularly like the Dreamer's avatar, solely from a competitive standpoint. By the time he can manifest he already has won the game, so why spend the stones at the beginning of the game and go through the steps to manifest if he doesn't have to? That being the case even if the other master's avatar's were supposed to "balance book 2" by the time you can get them out you've usually either, A: Already lost, or B: will now be counting on your Avatar to turn the game around for you, starting on your back foot.

I personally think the reason in general that the book 2 Master's Avatars don't look quite so impressive is because most of the Book 2 Masters are so devoted to their intended crew's synergy that to deny that synergy is counter-productive.

[Hatchethead]

Out of curiosity do you think the avatars are an attempt to brig the book 1 masters up to the book 2 level? I haven't seen the 3rd book so I have no idea.

I own Book 3, but I haven't had time to really delve in and examine the avatars on a case-by-case basis, nor have I had a chance to play even a single game involving an avatar. I feel an answer would be woefully premature, at this point.

[Dark Alleycat]

If your staying outside of 2 inchs,your doing 1-2 damage tops. you arent engaging me in melee range,thus you aren't making me deal with terrifying.

Which means that I can use any and all of the varied options at my disposal to blast your very squishy alps all to hell.

Ok let me put it this way...when I face an alp bomb,this is what it looks like.an insidious madness,a doppelganger,and 9 alps. The insidious madness gives a negative flip on the terrifying check that the dreamer sets you up for. The doppelganger helps insures that the dreamer gets to go first so that you can give that negative. the 9 alps are planted around your crew so that when you activate,you die. if you live,you make a terrifying check with a negative twist so you cant cheat it. sometimes with multiple negatives. that first turn you have 3-4 negative flips on 3-4 terrifying checks.

So I would say I am facing at least as nasty if not nastier alp bombs then most. To top it off,all of those will be in defensive stance that first turn. If you spread your guys out,Chompy pops up,kills the single person and gets out. If you clump up to keep yourself safe from chompy,the alps plop down.

And ya know what...there are solutions for all of this. Does it take a few hours of consideration to do it,but you can do it. So this is the Alp bomb I have faced,how about you all post up your versions and I will tell you how I at least would dismantle it.

[IronChief]

And ya know what...there are solutions for all of this. Does it take a few hours of consideration to do it,but you can do it. So this is the Alp bomb I have faced,how about you all post up your versions and I will tell you how I at least would dismantle it.

Going back to the original thought, do you just walk away from the table? Regardless of whether a particular combo is beatable, if there are army builds out there that are totally unfun to play against, why would you spend your hobby time playing against them? And by extension, isn't it poor game design to put players in a position of not taking the most competitive lists because they want their opponent to have fun?

[Hatchethead]

I don't walk away, but I'm instantly annoyed. I suddenly have to work much harder for the victory then my opponent has to work for the win, and I find that irritating. The same can be said of any "bad match-up", but against some crews, there are often fewer good match-ups than bad.

[Dark Alleycat]

Going back to the original thought, do you just walk away from the table? Regardless of whether a particular combo is beatable, if there are army builds out there that are totally unfun to play against, why would you spend your hobby time playing against them? And by extension, isn't it poor game design to put players in a position of not taking the most competitive lists because they want their opponent to have fun?

For me? I only walk away from the table when I have tried everything I can and the game is lost,but that is purely to ensure more time to play again. I actually have to thank Genetic for this. I played against Leveticus V2. It should be pointed out he is the only card out there with a V3 and there is a reason for that lol. anyways...I was very discouraged and Genetic wouldn't let me quit the game because he wanted to ensure he got the points for the tournament. But thanks to that I don't walk away without a fight,no matter what crew it is.

But I totally agree that no one should be given hell for not wanting to play against a certain master or list in a fun environment. I just recommend to people to try anyways,because sometimes things will click and you find a way to deal with what was scaring you and thus make you a better player.

[poulpox]

I totally agree that no one should be given hell for not wanting to play against a certain master or list in a fun environment. I just recommend to people to try anyways,because sometimes things will click and you find a way to deal with what was scaring you and thus make you a better player.

Nicely put

[nilus]

Nicely put

Ditto. I can understand people being put off by a list or master. But I feel a lot of people on these boards have read some posts and have decided something is broken without ever experiencing it themselves. You'll never learn how to beat it if you never play it.

Honestly in my community I have been actively encouraging some of my players to bust out these broken combos so we can work through them and see what we can do.

Its especially troubling that people are giving up considering there is a brand new toy box full of models that most people have not even touched yet.

[Necromorph]

think we ought to cultivate support and perseverance ("I have that crew/faction, and I find the Dreamer hard, please help me to beat him!") rather than pessimism and bitterness ("This is impossible, and I'm giving up!"), which makes Dreamer's opponents flee and Dreamer players feel bad for liking that particular crew.

This is pretty much how I feel with my Hamelin crew. Every time I bust him out, my friends will give me s**t for weeks about "that game with Hamelin" where I completely stomped them. The problem is, you can't NOT do that with some masters. If you don't use the basic abilities of the master, then you're sandbagging and losing on purpose, which isn't the right way to go about it either. As a dremaer player you could...not drop your whole crew turn 1, you could not prime all of your models with terror 12 and defensive before you go in, but you will, again...be sandbagging.

It sucks because I was drawn to Hamelin and his fluff from the moment I opened book 2 last year, but now I feel bad every time I put him on the table and just end up pissing my friends off.

[Sliver Chocobo]

I agree with most of what Necromorph says, but the problem with the Alp bomb is that it kills your model by letting them activate, giving them slow and taking most of Wd away, the rest of Wd are taken away when they try to attack the Alps or walk away from them. It's this part I don't think is fair. You can't attack or you die and you can't run or you die

[mpangelu]

I had a horrible experience in a store a buddy of mine went to with me when we were on vacation. It was just him and I playing, he picked up the dreamer because he actually loved the story of the dreamer, he didn't know anything about how he played, and didn't care. I loved the look of Collodi and was excited to play with him. So we managed to get a game going on a board and were starting up and some douschebag walks up and goes, " Oh who is playing who?" I told him who was playing who and he looks at me and goes ok, so in your face first turn and then looks at my buddy and goes playing the assh*le list... And then just walked away. Like really what was the point in that?

My local game group doesn't pull these rediculous list of 6 alps or the lure combo because we play for fun, but it is also that sort of combinations that keep us from wanting to go to tournaments.

Point really being, just cause it is out there, doesn't mean you or anyone should assume everyone is going to use it. And you shouldn't hold it against your oponent for actually enjoying a master.

[edonil]

I agree with most of what Necromorph says, but the problem with the Alp bomb is that it kills your model by letting them activate, giving them slow and taking most of Wd away, the rest of Wd are taken away when they try to attack the Alps or walk away from them. It's this part I don't think is fair. You can't attack or you die and you can't run or you die

This sums it up...large number of Alps (4+) seem to punish the opponent for playing the game. I have nothing against the Dreamer, I think it's a neat concept...but the Alp bomb is a problem.

[Dark Alleycat]

I think it would actually be a very simple fix. Just make it so you can't take damage from the same ability from multiple sources.

[paradox]

This is pretty much how I feel with my Hamelin crew. Every time I bust him out, my friends will give me s**t for weeks about "that game with Hamelin" where I completely stomped them. The problem is, you can't NOT do that with some masters. If you don't use the basic abilities of the master, then you're sandbagging and losing on purpose, which isn't the right way to go about it either. As a dremaer player you could...not drop your whole crew turn 1, you could not prime all of your models with terror 12 and defensive before you go in, but you will, again...be sandbagging.

It sucks because I was drawn to Hamelin and his fluff from the moment I opened book 2 last year, but now I feel bad every time I put him on the table and just end up pissing my friends off.

The problem with Hamelin (as well as Pandora and the Ortegas) is that the GAME is alternate activation of single models with action points, but these models break that. Being able to activate multiple models sequentially is INCREDIBLY powerful, or being able to continually take actions.

Not only does it make the game drag for the other player (they are actively sidelined by your model selection) but it also tends to allow the player to tear the opponent a new one, only further exacerbating the activation deficit.

That's the worst thing about Hamelin. The game is just SO BORINGLY LONG! There's 5 min of me activating, then 30 min of slowing getting chewed down, marking damage, and slowly pulling models off. Then not being able to retaliate meaningfully.

I don't feel that Wyrd has properly gauged the power of the ability to break this part of the game format, hence these issues arise.

[Omenbringer]

That's the worst thing about Hamelin. The game is just SO BORINGLY LONG! There's 5 min of me activating, then 30 min of slowing getting chewed down, marking damage, and slowly pulling models off. Then not being able to retaliate meaningfully.

Similar to the Mark 1 Haley turtle in Warmachine.

I am anticipating several of the models from Rising Powers to recieve some rebalancing in the future (though we may want it right now, it is generally best to patiently and intelligently adjust models so you dont end up with constant revisions and huge errata sheets).

As Paradox implies above, models that deny your ability to "retaliate" or "pack activate" are super powerful in a skirmish level game where every model and activation does really count.

[Necromorph]

Yes, I agree Paradox, in specific reference to the Alp bomb. However, I don't think that many would disagree that the Dreamer is probably the best (top 3 for sure) master in the game, and he can easily crush most opponents if played by a decent player with a well rounded crew...alps or no alps. That psychological impact of having an entire crew of hard hitting models drop in your lap turn 1 still applies to a standard dreamer crew, and it is still very effective with the bury/unbury techniques. The sheer power and "mind-f**k" ability of the crew is still going to be a factor when it comes to people "not enjoying the game".

This of course is the same issue with Hamelin and Pandora, but for different reasons. Those crews are mentally demoralizing to play against. They make you want to throw up your hands and quit because they indirectly beat your opponent by hurting them while denying the opponent the ability to do anything about it (i.e. being insig. and bully, or taking wd on wp duels you have a snowball's chance in hell of passing...constantly). Taking Wd's or losing models when you can't do anything to stop it is frustrating...and thus not very fun, leaves a sour taste, and makes people not want to play against those masters anymore.

[Soundwave]

Never considered walking away from any game, especially not right after deployment. Only reason I'd do it would be if the person on the other side of the table was overly obnoxious, not because of his/hers list.

[Fetid Strumpet]

WARNING: WALL OF TEXT AHEAD. Begin evasive maneuvers.

Jonas: Mainly in that I haven't played against him, so I have no direct knowledge of his capabilities. Further, from the reports I've read on him and the Battlereports I've additionally read he seems to work incredibly well with his crew of machines, but if you knock Hoffman out it doesn't kick the teeth out of his entire crew. Kill Kirai and you kick the Teeth out of her crew. Kill the Dreamer (early enough,. . . it could happen) and you kick the teeth out of his crew. I'm not certain of Hoffman.

I agree with Omen. The fact is, and I've said it before, is that direct synergies win this game. Not incidental synergies, Direct synergies that directly contribute to victory. In the current environment the Ortega's ability to alpha strike is strong, solid, good, and totally within expectations. In a book 1 environment... I could see how it could be conceived as perhaps too strong. I know Lalo doesn't like the CCG analogies to be made to miniatures games, but in Malifaux's case, at least in a design standpoint, it has to be.

Malifaux's rules system and victory conditions are very elegant and fun. The way the model's interact to form crews and how those crews are used to play and win the game have almost a direct parallel to how CCGs work, and so at least in my own postings, I refer to it.

Think of constructing a CCG deck. You can't just toss in a collection of good cards into a deck, and play it with any hope of winning against any opponent other than someone else who did exactly the same thing. The path to victory, assuming equal skill levels on both sides, relies on directly building a deck that takes its resources and turns those resources into a machine. Every part needs to be tuned and honed so that when the deck plays and gets going the individual pieces, no matter how good they were on their own, becomes greater than the some of their parts. As Malifaux's unique take on all the powers it has given to its minions easily compares to this mechanics.

This is why we can look at CCGs for at least a little inspiration on what is very powerful in engine driven games, which in my opinion is what malifaux is. The most powerful things in CCGs? Speed and Control. From my perspective these are the things that over all the CCG's that I've played have ALWAYS been the most powerful tools available to the players, and these are the always most prone to letting unintentional power through playtesting.

Let's look at why this is.

First Speed. If you can accomplish what you are trying to do very fast you achieve multiple strategic objectives. Firstly, and I think most importantly, you take the initiative. Defense does not win. Defense is a zero-sum strategy. You cannot hope to win if you cannot go on the offense, at best you can hope for a stalemate. So if you can come at your opponent faster than he can come at you you achieve several things. Firstly it allows you to chose the field of engagement. If your assets are fast enough you can examine the situation and more those assets into the position where they will be able to achieve the most good, to hit him in the weakest spot possible with the strongest force possible at that point. This forces your opponent to lose tempo and because of this forces him to react/I] to you. This also has the almost paradoxical consequence of giving you more time.

Malifaux is a game of resources, and one of the most important resources in the game is activations. From the very beginning of the game you have a finite number of total actions you can do, limited by the amount of models you bring and by the amount of actions they have. Therefore anything in the game that allows it to use the most efficient use of those actions becomes incredibly strong. This is why abilities that give slow and paralyze, especially if they deliver those states in addition to something else, are so very powerful. It is also why death, the earlier you can inflict it on an opposing model, is exponentially better the earlier you can inflict it. If I kill your model on turn two I am depriving you of all that model's unused actions for the rest of the game, and the earlier in the game that is, the better it is. Examples we can look at for efficient killing are Chompy and the Ikiryo.

Firstly both are Melee experts so right from the start they bring extra resources to the game in terms of a possible (6) extra melee attacks per game above the "standard" model. Next they almost never have to use any of their own actions getting into position or maneuvering into position to spend actions on their intended function, which is to kill things. Their threat range in both cases is enormous, so they will almost never be limited by being forced to make the choice between attacking a sub-optimal target or doing nothing. It can happen, but usually doesn't. So their attacks often do deliver significant advantage above and beyond a model who is awesome in combat but can't get into the best position all the time. I'm far more scared of the Ikiryo than I am of a flesh construct, and the reason is while the flesh construct has the potential for much higher dmg than the ikiryo, he can only project that power in a very limited sphere. He has to get to a target worth taking out, and then expend resources doing so, once he has done that the process starts over, and if there are objectives to achieve outside of just killing things he now needs to spend resources to get there. Which means that anything which is slow in this game is exponentially sub-optimal than something that is fast. The faster you are the more YOU choose when and if you engage, and how you will do so.

If you have a crew of melee monsters who can get to a point to deliver their force swiftly you will have more activations to efficiently use those actions to do what they were meant to do, kill models, which once dead give you time to spend your remaining activations on fulfilling any non-combat objectives. So what can we take from this. Speed DIRECTLY contributes to victory.

Second Control: First of all, and I think most important concepts to understand for the long term prospects of any gaming company is this, Control mechanics are a razor-sharp double edged sword. In my experience players LOVE to be able to inflict control on their opponents, this is not a universal rule, but it is true about 90% of the time in my estimates. Conversely, No one likes to have control exercised on them! No one. Ever. It is not fun to be unable to use your assets, or have your choices in how to use those assets restricted. Now in some cases a limited amount of control is beneficial to the game, as long as it is available equally to all players. The issue comes in when you give too much control over to one element of the game. Case in point by going back to examining CCGs, in this case the color Blue in magic.

Blue in magic was the color of control mechanics, it was the one that had counterspells, and resource manipulation. It effectively shut down whatever your opponent was trying to do, and more efficiently utilized it's own resources to achieve it's ends. It might not have had the most powerful direct dmg spells, or the fiercest creatures, but what it did have it utilized better than any other color did. When you played against blue what you did was severly hampered, so you would often waste tempo and resources in achieving very little results proportionate to what you put into it.

So if you can dictate how your opponent can use his assets, as well as if he can use those assets you have a more significant advantage then the statistics on your own assets would otherwise indicate. The biggest example of a control master in the game? Pandora. Pandora firstly has a massive advantage in that she is an extreme mix of Speed and Passive and active control. That is what she does, and is the reason why even though I think she's in the running for the best master in the game I will without doubt call her the most UNFUN master in the game to play against. (See there is that no one likes to be controlled thing rearing its head)

Pandora exemplifies why too much control in one place is exceptionally bad design. First of all her passive control abilities. The worst offender of all is The Box Opens. This ability to me, in its current form, is the most egregious example of shoddy design in the whole game. It gives too much for too little. The Box Opens states that all models within 12" of Pandora loose any immunities to WP duels. Just by existing in the game Pandora radiates an approximately 25" Diameter circle where any abillites or talents you might have paid SS points for in the cost of models brought to the game is completely ignored, and Pandora doesn't have to expend a single resource or effort to achieve this. She just has to exist. Now I know the argument that would come next is "Well she needs that Talent to work. She'd be underpowered if she didn't have it.". To those who hold this viewpoint I sympathize with why you believe this but my response is this: You are flat out wrong. Pandora doesn't need that ability to function. If her design intent was to make her solely dependent on Wp duels to succeed then she should be granted some form of ability to punch through WP duels, wether on her, her totem, or a minion designed to go with her, but she didn't need that ability. It is as powerful as it is because it requires her to expend nothing and doesn't require her to be used at any particular point in the tempo of the game. That is a massively strong example of passive control. She expends no resources of her own, and strips your assets of effectiveness.

Added to that is her ability of Expose Fears. This is a remarkably efficient use of passive control. As we all know in order to even go after Pandora with an ability you have to win a Wp > Wp duel with her, with no range limits, to even be able to target her. This sets up a duel which becomes a point of failure in your attack scheme, and she doesn't have to expend any resources to use it. A similar, and in my opinion better, example of this kind of ability would be Pitiful which was a Book 2 innovation. Pitiful states that if the model hasn't activated this turn you must win a Wp > Wp duel to target them. This is a much better design example of control, because it costs you something to use. It costs you tempo because if you wish to remain under its aegis you must activate later in the turn, or use one of your limited pool of actions to reactivate it during your turn. So Expose Fears is better than Pitiful but we can accept that, but, and here we see how synergy makes the whole greater than the sum of it's parts, it isn't operating in a vacuum. It combos with two other abilities inherent on Pandora. The first is Fading Memory which states that every time you win a Wp duel with Pandora she gets to push 4". Think about it carefully, because this ability is a perfect example of the blend between speed and control. Speed because Pandora will be tossing out Wp duels willy nilly and everytime she wins she gets free movement. This works great in an offensive sense, which wins games, but also in a control defensive way as well. In order to attack Pandora you have to target her with a Wp duel and if you lose your attack will not only miss, but now she will be in a different position. She very well could now be out of the range of what ever you were trying to do to her which means that in order to continue to project force onto her you have to spend even more action point resources getting back into range. What did she spend,... nothing. Couple this with her Emotional Trauma ability and you have not only given her a free move, wasted your resource, will have to spend additional resources to attack her again, and to top it off you take dmg, draining another resource from your pool. A perfect storm of minor abilities adding up to be greater than the sum of her parts.

But that's just her passive control. Her active control is just as bad, but as it is late and I've already constructed the great wall of text I'll leave that for another discussion.

The point I'm making is that if you have a crew that directly synergies with the other parts of the crew, and if those synergies make an engine greater than the sum of it's parts, you are going to have every advantage in the game of Malifaux. Currently there aren't that many Masters in the game that offer that, and those that do are a significant cut above their peers.

[Dark Alleycat]

you remove C hoffman you dont kick out all of his teeth,just almost all. And yes,if Pandora alone could ignore immune to influence,it would make things alot more balanced to play against her,and much less like having your genitals trapped under a burning couch and nothing but a rusty butterknife in your hand.

[Hookers]

[ame]

[/ame]

I really wish I had gotten in on the first page of this one

[Wulfen]

Ditto. I can understand people being put off by a list or master. But I feel a lot of people on these boards have read some posts and have decided something is broken without ever experiencing it themselves. You'll never learn how to beat it if you never play it.

Honestly in my community I have been actively encouraging some of my players to bust out these broken combos so we can work through them and see what we can do.

Its especially troubling that people are giving up considering there is a brand new toy box full of models that most people have not even touched yet.

I was trying to find a way to answer this without coming across as an attack on you, which I clearly don't want. I can't get too harsh with a fellow Guild player.

But I really can't understand your -and others'- viewpoint that the combos aren't the problem, the forum and the internet are the actual problem. Speaking for myself, I find this a bit ridiculous. I've played against this and other combos several times, mostly with Guild. I'm certainly no genius, but neither is the Neverborn player across from me. I have yet to find a real answer, other than taking Hoffman and at least giving myself a chance against the Dreamer's antics. But the Alps hurt me just the same.

As to the toy box comment, well, let's be honest here; we've not had sterling luck with the previous two boxes, have we?