Jump to content

Marcus - is he really one of the weakest masters?


graeme27uk

Recommended Posts

I do not think that he is the weakest per say but he is very hard to run right I think. He cannot be the main focus of your attacking. He is much better as a "support" master I think. He really cannot go to the front line and take/give a beating but if done right he can move about really well and affect a game greatly. Plus all his options are just great.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

he is one of the best masters in the arcanist faction

he is extremely average when compared to the rest of the masters across all factions

in malifaux, you can't judge a master based on the master themselves, the collective is what crew you can bring with them.

eg. Rasputina is actually quite powerful if observed by herself... but her choice of minions results her in rather being crappy compared to what other masters can bring.

Marcus and Ramos beats Rasputina simply by having better minions/crew to accompany them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have never had a bad game with Marcus (that is I have won some and lost some) but every game has been interesting and never one sided, and because of that the games are so much more dynamic and fun, I have yet to play him in a tournament, but I do plan to fix that very soon

With all the options he has to make his crews and the fact he's a mixture of speed and attack power means he can fill a lot of rolls every turn

---------- Post added at 08:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:15 PM ----------

Though... I really do wish he could have 3 (0) actions instead of 2...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On Pullmyfinger, it states that many players consider Marcus one of the weakest masters in the game. Is this true or is there something that most players are simply missing?

What is his avatar like?

You can straight out disregard anyone saying he is underwhelming or average. The balance differences in the game are not big enough to warrant such strong wording.

What sets Marcus back, as far as wide adoption among Maifaux players goes, is the way he builds his crew. There are other masters that suffer from crew-building related issues as well (Zoraida to a degree, Nicodem most certainly). The thing is, rather than hiring from his own faction and sharing models with other Arcanist masters, he hires cross-faction and uses few Arcanist minions if any.

When you build your faction, you naturally go for the main master and secondary master (for those Strategies your main does poorly with). The secondary master, from necessity, should be complimentary to your first master, but you save a lot of money if both can share minions. The problem with Marcus is, he doesn't seem to have such a pair in his own faction (but then, I'd also say Arcanist masters are generally rather individualistic and the entire faction suffers from this problem).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeh it's pretty much rubbish. Malifaux is all about speed, and he has it in bunches; he also has access to a fantastic minion selection (including the amazing Night Terror) as well as a choice of Kaeris for heavy lifting. Importantly, and people often forget this, Arcanists have the joint best (with Neverborn) faction schemes in the game as well as fantastic master specific schemes (Marcus' scheme is excellent).

All things considered, he's in the 'masters that are capable of winning games in the right hands' category, which is as good as any non-Neverborn Book 1 masters get.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As Q'iq'el said, it's not so much that Marcus is weak (he's pretty solid himself, with only one or two "clunker" rules,) as it's more that players just starting out with him are very likely to build a "Frankencrew".

Marcus' crew selection is pretty massive. Being able to hire any Beast, along with the usual allotment of Arcanist and Outcast minions gives him a huge amount of flexibility. Unfortunately, that also makes it much more difficult for players to narrow down the field of models to ones that are particularly synergistic/effective/useful, and as a result you can make some pretty awful crews with him.

The first year or so of playing Marcus for me was trying out all those different crew combinations, just to see how each component worked. It was an interesting experience, but also a frustrating and relatively painful one. I became exceptionally jealous of a self-contained, "builds itself" crew like Colette's. *wink*

Once you get comfortable with his rules, and you build a crew you like, Marcus can do very well. He's one of the faster Masters in the game, and he's one of the two Arcanist Masters that can easily build a crew to secure objectives, which is a pretty potent advantage in Malifaux.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just to add that deveral things have happened to support Marcus since book one. The arrival of Night Terrors and Kaeris coupled with an expanded understanding of how Malifaux works (the importance of speed etc).

These things have combined to change the perspective on Marcus.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I picked up Marcus a few weeks ago, and all the games I've played have been really close or I've won. Being able to hire Shikome's, Waldgeists, and Night Terrors are great. Myranda though... ugh. I've yet to have her pull her point value. She looks great on paper, but pulling off her tricks can be tough and card dependent. Kaeris is a much better model for 1 more SS.

Night terrors move across the board and grab objectives. I run 3 because Night Terrors are such good models...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information