Two crews to help teach malifaux

[Sybaris]

Well here are two 35ss crews i intend to use in order to teach malifaux to my friends. I'd like your point of view relatively to the "fun" aspect of playing against them.

Crew 1

Lilith

Nekima

Young Nephilim

Young Nephilim

Terror Tot

Terror Tot

Terror Tot

A flay crew with growth potential, but i am not all over growth lists, i'll just let it happen in the game as it goes, because i want to use the speed of the crew rather than cluster in the first turn(s) for blood counters.

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Crew 2

Zoraida

Doppleganger (primary mimics: Zoraida Wp and Stitched's gamble)

Stitched together

Nekima

Terror Tot

Terror Tot

Terror Tot

This crew is less physical, but can affect the opponent's Wp rather than just Df. Nekima supports the Tots, but they are mainly there for objectives and speed.

Thanks for any tips

[nilus]

Are these crews that will play each other, or are these just what you will take against his crew?

[micahwc]

I have used the first one before. It works fine. Playing against Lilith, Nekima, and several young nephilim with auto-flay is not what I would call "fun" though. It depends on how new the other people are to the game. In my experience this sort of list can actually be fairly competative, even without abusing the growth mechanic. Young nephilim have a ridiculous damage spread with flay, and diving attack makes them pretty awesome.

As far as the second list, a WP 10 gamble your life is not what I would want to face as I learned how to play the game. Unless you give the other people some awesome combos as well, I think it would be really unfair.

I think for a beginer game, I would run Lilith with a mix of young, tots, and a mature. Nothing else.

[Sybaris]

@ Nilus: To answer your question, they are to be played against by whatever crew the new player want to try.

@ micahwc: Thanks for the imput. I originally designed those crew with the "combos" in mind to show that such synnergy is possible in malifaux (and sort of encouraged). But yeah i can surely tone that down for the "real new" players.

[CN the Logos]

I don't think it's necessary to remove all potentially nasty combos from your demo set. Obviously, running a Dreamweaver Train on someone during their first game is unsporting and not likely to attract new players, but your idea about demonstrating model synergy is good. What I would do, however, is put together a second (or third, or fourth) demo set that has a similar level of power for the new players, and let them use that rather than making them just pick something on their own. While letting the newbs pick whatever crew they like for their first game sounds friendly, I'm thinking of the possibility that they'll be so new to list building (in Malifaux or altogether) that they'll throw together something that is too hard to learn with or just not fun for them. If you have three or four crews, you could potentially cover a variety of playstyles and allow the new player to demo the game with a crew that may not be his or her first choice, but plays similarly to it and is balanced with the other demo crews. Of course, you'll have some people who really want to learn with something off the wall, but at least this way you've given them options.

Of the two lists you have there, I'm more partial to the Lilith one, mostly because that's the master I started with and I know she's good without resorting to anything totally crazy that would leave a new player confused and irritated, but I wouldn't use the Nekima auto-Flay trick unless the newb has something similar in his/her demo crew. If they don't have something like that, the Mature Nephil is fine. I'm tempted to suggest a Rasputina list for the other crew; my girlfriend and I learned the game with Rasputina and Lilith, respectively, and the matchup is pretty fun. Plus Rasputina's crew provides a nice mix of ranged and melee strikes, spells, and other support abilities that a new player could learn to use without getting too lost.

Hope that helps. :1_Happy_Puppet2:

[Sybaris]

That's encouraging. Only reason i have Nekima sneaked in every list i make is that she's my favorite Wyrd thing , but i can wait of course until people are ready to face such combo.

I'll indeed have about 4 or 5 crews for people to choose from (other than those two), if they don't have their own.

Some of the new players have never been into miniature gaming, so i'll go real smooth at first, but others are experienced GW loonies.

Victorias (with ronins, female convict gunslingers and/or other outcast chicks)

Rasputina (with her themed ice stuff)

Lady Justice or Perdita (but not with the ortega family)

Ophelia gunners (just gremlins and blackpowder)

Colette and crew (certainly not for beginners)

[Dustcrusher]

My current favorite demo setup is Lady Justice (new player) vs. Seamus (me). Without starting a new debate, I feel Lady J's starter (plus Scales, maybe, so she's not wasting stones) is a good match for Seamus's starter with enough of an edge to Justice that I don't have to completely hold back.

Once my Viks crew is up and running I'm going to try them vs. Rasputina. I think most of your crews (other than Colette) would work fine for demos. Colette's crew is for eye candy: "in case you're worried about model quality, check these out."

In another thread, Nilus suggested running smaller games for first demos. I've been going over potential options for 12-15 stone games- basically a master and 2-3 minions. Might be worth consideration for your tabletop newbie friends.

[Sybaris]

Doing lower SS games sounds certainly like a good idea.

For some really uninitiated to gaming (which were of course dragged in by colette and co.), i think a small match with a couple of minions on each side could be good. Masters can be complicated to handle. But then i run the risk of having a "bland" game which is not quite exciting.

[ChefsDad]

With regards to smaller games, my friends and I went a couple of weeks playing 15 SS games, and that was quite fun.

So:

Lilith

Young

Terror tot

Terror tot

Terror tot

Zoraida

Silurid

Silurid

Silurid

?

[Malersatz]

The Vik's box set, while labeled inefficient by the net for progression with them, works good for demos in the sense that there is not a lot of model synergy outside of between the masters themselves and then again with the ronin and gives good opportunity to demonstrate most aspects of the game. With just a bit of pre-game explanation this gives a new player options for things to try without getting too over the top in complexity. I like your Lilith list and really all you would have to do to play against a beginner is keep the flay trick as a proverbial ace to utilize only if in a tight spot or as an "example" sparingly during the game.