New Player, trying to decide between Outcasts and Arcanists

[Longstrider]

Hey all. I'm absolutely new to Malifaux (going to play a game on Monday, and I want to decide on a starter crew to assemble before then!). My store in Canada just started stocking it so most of us are new to the game, and during the academic year I'll be in England where I know there are a few more experienced players, so I'll be starting with people of my skill level and in a couple of months be with people who've played longer.

I'm trying to decide between Arcanists and Outcasts as a faction. In terms of fluff I like the Arcanist resistance schtick, but I have a soft spot in a lot of game backgrounds for Outcast types. I've bought or borrowed books 1 and 2 and the rules manual, so I'm not sure if there's something in book 3 that will change everything fluffwise. In particular, if there's anything about Kaeris or Ramos I'm all ears.

Anyway, I've spent a LONG time on the Pullmyfinger wiki and browsed through every page on the Arcanist subforums, so I thought I might as well just ask for some advice.

It seems to be Malifaux is broadly comparable to Warmahordes and M:tG in the way you build lists - you're looking to construct engines and combos depends on quite a few rules. This is fine, but I'm also not terribly good at it.

With that caveat in mind, are the Arcanists a faction that will let me build some relatively simple lists? For a Warmahordes example I really hated playing Circle because it was just too much mental energy that I had to put into it. I would put Khador on the opposite end, where you can make a list that generally does a couple of things and will either succeed by doing those things or fail while trying to do those things. I confess, my favourite minis game these days is Infinity, because I can mostly take what I think looks cool and then rely on looking at the table to give me ideas on what to do.

Now, if there are Arcanist Masters/Henchmen who can do that, who are they? I'm not terribly set on a style of master, but I would definitely like to pick something that demands... more forest and less trees, I suppose.

In terms of models I like, Kaeris is the top of the list, but I don't know anything about her fluff other than her blurb in book 2 and, from what I gather, her play style seems to focus on doing light damage to many weak things. Also since she's a henchman I couldn't take a totem with her, so I'm thinking she might be better suited to a second leader later? Alt Rasputina is a cool model, so I could go for that, or maybe Ramos?

One other consideration is that I generally tend NOT to like big models - I know for a lot of people they like having a bunch of big things or a showpiece, but for me the hassles of transportation leave me leery of stuff that won't fit easily into a regular infantry slot in a KR multicase. So for Ramos, say, I'd be more inclined to take Joss as a beatstick instead of a Steamborg, or SPAs instead of the LSPA.

The last thing I'd like to mention is that it would be nice to start with a Master that will be somewhat non-frustrating to learn with, but will remain viable onwards. I'm quite happy with losing a lot if I can learn along the way - when I got back into Warmahordes briefly after V2 I lost about 16 games using one caster until figuring out how I was best able to use it, and then proceeded to quite a decent record. So I can stick it out.

If you got this far, thanks for reading this, and I'd appreciate any advice.

PS If I go the outcast route, I'd mostly be looking at Ophelia and a few other Kin/Gremlin models, but I suspect that would leave me really limited, if we flipped an objective that I couldn't handle with her. Von Schill looks fun too, but I'm not a HUGE fan of the model.

TL; DR

1. Is there any relevant fluff for Kaeris or Ramos in Book 3? I know it's not important to everyone, but it often helps me out to know what the pieces are supposed to represent in the story.

2. Given what I understand about how objectives are chosen, does a particular master have the ability to handle most things that might come their way?

3. Which masters scale up in terms of game size well, alongside scaling broadly, in terms of still being interesting after many games?

4. How simple are they? From what I understand, Malifaux list-building usually looks to build an engine or a combo with lots of interactions between many models. I'm not terribly good at that, and so is it feasible to build a list that consists of somewhat more autonomous figures that can pull their own weight?

5. The last thing, is I'm not a huge fan of large models - carrying them around and assembling them is often more trouble than it's worth for me, so I tend to stick to infantry sized figures. Are there any that rely on some large based hitty miniatures to do well that I should avoid? I suspect Ramos or Marcus might?

Edited July 12, 2012 by Longstrider

[Iamwyrd]

1) There is fluff in Ramos in boom three, but its mostly focused on the situation ls regarding avatars. Like Sonnia is mentioned alot, as well as Nicodem, and some others. As for kaeris im not sure its been a year since I've read it so im a little cloudy on it.

2) Strategy and masters. Imo all masters have strategies their good and excel at while they have ones that are tougher for them to handle. That's why schemes (mini objectives) are used so the masters can try ti balance out their short comings.

3)I play Arcanist as my second crew starting to overtake my Ressers and becoming my first crew. Like you Kaeris is a lovely model, she is by far my favorite henchman model. As far as repeat playability with Arcanist goes (as a matter of fact any master) its high, no game will feel the same unless you bring the same list over and over again. Being able to create your list after you get your objectives really let's you change the playstyle so you can complete your objectives.

4) Not entirely true. Yes there are a lot of masters who require/work better with certain things. Ex. Perdita works great with her family members but I've played her with stuff people would normally bring with Sonnia Criid. So yes certain masters work better with specific models. As for Arcanist the only thing I recommend is constructs with ramos, he "needs" them to help further his abilities. Yes I've seen him without constructs, but he excels some much more with them.

5) Kaeris imo is your girl then, she can run with an entire infantry sized army and succeed. Ramos can as well, but the steamborg and large sp arachnids are excellent imo. Rasputin can as well but I usually always include snowstorm after the increase in her wounds, and snowstorm is a BIG model and beautiful nonetheless.

So hopefully this helps, welcome to malifaux and feel free to post any questions here and im sure they will get answered.

[Barnaberible]

If your going for Arcanists Kaeris is a pretty solid start. Shes pretty straight forward to play but has some more complex tricks to keep her interesting, leading a crew as a henchman she has limited hiring capabilities so you wont be swamped with model choices to start with, you can use her as a henchman when you upgrade to another master and she works well with all the arcanist masters and her box set contains the gunsmiths which are certainly useful in other crews (fire gamin less so). She can take certain totems (check out the crew creator on the mailfaux website) and as for low damage, well she puts on burning counters either herself or with the gamin and then immolates them, great fun!

Ramos is more of a support summoner to start with but his avatar is awesome, Ive never got on too well with Rasy but shes a slow spell casting model and I would stay away from Marcus and Collette to start with as Marcus is difficult to get the best out of and Collette is quite complicated.

As for outcasts, I dont play them but the Vics are a quite straight forward Melee crew and you get models in the box that can be used with other crews as mercs, Von Schill is a rootin, tootin, shootin hard ass and also works well with other crews. Gremlins I cant comment on (but they do look great fun) and I would stay away from Levi and hamelin to start with as they are also quite complicated (and nobody likes Hamelin).

I guess the best advice is to chose the one you like the look of / play style of best. They all have strenths and weaknesses

[Longstrider]

Thanks guys. I think I might go with Kaeris then after all, and maybe get a small Ophelia crew as an alternative.

[dgraz]

If you choose Arcanist, there are models that can be used with any master. For example, if you start with Kaeris, her box comes with the gunsmiths.......the gunsmith fits well with just about every other arcanist master....marcus, rasputina, ramos....a little less so with collette.

SPA's or Joss could find a home with most masters. Yes there are a few that may not go far....like ice gamin working only with raspy, but there are many choices that will cross masters.

If you choose outcasts, they have strict hiring restrictions. They work really well with their chosen set, but can't borrow from other outcasts....Gremlins being the big thing there - you couldn't buy a Von Schill box and an Ophelia box and have any of those models crossover.

Not necessarily a bad thing....if you think you'll be doing lots of competitive games later then the OUtcasts are a viable choice because the masters are so vastly different.

---

Just to correct two of your assumptions from above....first Kaeris can either do lots of little damage to many or do massive damage to one. If she picks one model to target, that target should go to heaven.

While it is true that Kaeris can't take a totem if she is leading a crew, she doesn't necessarily need one...plenty of masters see play without a totem at all.

[Longstrider]

Hey again,

So I had my first game tonight, though we stopped around an hour in while the store was closing. There's a number of questions we still need to figure out, but that will come in time.

I used the Kaeris box - a gamin + Iggy, and played against a Rasputina box + EoP. It seems to me that this crew can just keep cranking our relatively reliable damage with the gamins/Iggy and Kaeris burning afterwards, while the gunsmiths went for the objectives. I lost a gamin now and then, and Iggy was close to going down too, but with how our strategies panned out it seemed to work well enough.

Now that means I've committed to Arcanists for now, so I'm going to get some more games with this box in this week, and then maybe look at picking up Ramos in the next month. I'm thinking altRamos, a pair of alt Arachnid blisters, magnetised, and Joss (I don't really like the Steamborg), and then a Toolkit and Student for totems for the two of them.

I just really would like to be able to get some sort of totem - the EoP was pretty cool for Rasputina. Here's hoping book 4 has a useful totem that can be hired for Kaeris when she's the leader.

[Greenman]

But, if you really like it, I am fairly sure you can use the essence of power with Kriaris. Painted up nice and flame-ey it would even match nicely.

---------- Post added at 12:51 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:49 AM ----------

But, if you really like it, I am fairly sure you can use the essence of power with Kaeris. Painted up nice and flame-ey it would even match nicely.

[Longstrider]

Unfortunately, you can't. Or at least, Kaeris can't have a totem when she's leading her own crew; she can get one if she's paired with another master.

And on that note:

So I've now got the Kaeris box, Iggy, Ramos, 3x SPAs, the Toolkit, and an EC.

I played a game at 35SS with Ramos, the toolkit, Kaeris, Iggy and a pair of Gunsmiths with a bunch of stones left over. I had some pretty real problems making Ramos useful though - if I wanted scrap counters he couldn't move, and if I moved he couldn't make anything because there wasn't really much in terms of scrap counters to be accessed.

Am I missing a very big trick at this juncture? I suppose I should have started Ramos further forward than I did, so his summons could actually get into range before being picked off, or maybe I was just using the wrong models for the objectives?