so what brought you to Malifaux?

[harbinger]

and no not the breach

Before I got into playing Mali I had seen the books and few minis on the shelf for quite few months but not paid much attention to them. Even after the store owner recommended I take a look at it because couple others was talking about starting to play. Mostly because the minis I saw was resser and Im not into the undead thing.

One day was chatting with a old gaming friend on the phone (we now live half a state away) and he mentioned he missed a homebrewed game I had come up with years ago. It was a simple western/gunfighter game that used poker cards as the mechanics. He then mentioned he saw a mini game using similar but lot more complex rules using cards called Malifuax.

Naturally next time was down at the local BM store I picked up the book to leaf through just to see the rules. I was about 30 mins early for a WM game, so set down in the gaming area just to skim thru the book. Hour after the WM tourney started (which I missed out on because was so enthralled) I was at the counter buying the book, a deck, and 2 starter crews.

So what dragged you in?

[G. Footman]

im a longtime 40k and WFB player, I liked the smaller crew size with Malifaux, games (usually) go quicker, the main thing that drew me though were the syle of minis, how they looked, and the settings, that's usually what gets me with miniatures games is if I like the setting, and the minis

[Forar]

Previously I'd never played a miniatures game, aside from using figures in my Rifts/D&D 3E/4E games. A pair of friends picked it up mid last year, and brought me onboard at the start of this year. A few months later, crews were being ordered, books, bags, decks and whatnot were being obtained, and not long after the battles had begun in earnest.

[Ciaran]

I've been a gamer since '83. I did a LOT of RPG stuff, and discovered WFRP first out of the GW games. I played GW stuff, mostly 40K from about '94 to '04 on and off. This includes a period of time that I worked for them.

I moved back to NC from California, and found a comic and game shop (a necessity for me!) and saw the book sitting on the shelf. Over the next month I would pick it up, flip through it, and put it back down. Finally I realized I was hooked, bought the book, got Perdita and Zoraida, and ran with it.

[DaveZee]

I have played all sorts of miniature based games - from WHFB to Mordheim to Heroclix to Wings of Glory to Warmachine/Hordes. Each one has their special appeal. I think Malifaux has a great combo of Mordheim sized forces, cool theme and interesting game mechanics. I am looking forward to getting my new toys in the mail on friday, and getting some built and maybe painted for SoCal Smackdown in a bit less than a month.

[Iamwyrd]

I was big into gw games and infinity. But with the three price increases and the lack of customer care I took a crap on all my gw stuff (not really, sold it all on ebay). Then stuck with infinity. One of my good friends works at my lgs and was reading the book 1s fluff and he knew I loved to read so he said to give it a read. He lent me his book a powered through the fluff and started reading the rules and fell in love. I was tired of all the chance of dice rolling and the lengthy set up of gw. So I went back to my lgs wallet spilling money everywhere, all over the malifaux items.

I bought Rasputina as my first crew. Then I joined the forums and heard about the henchmen program. I fixtures this would be my chance to get this game going at my lgs. So I picked up Seamus, (dead hookers can draw in even the hardcorest of gw players) and began my trial of becoming a henchman. When I was inducted into the henchman ranks I started demoing the game spreading the awesome that was malifaux.

After about three weeks we had about 10 people who played which was good enough for me. I started running tournaments and it just kept expanding.

Sorry about the random tangent I went on. But the fluff alone got me into malifaux, the models and the gameplay was just an awesome compliment and drove it home.

[Ozz]

What got me into malifaux was simply Rob (13th warrior) joining my gaming club with 5 or 6 amazingly painted crews and persistently demoing for 2 - 3 months, and eventually i played a demo game, and loved it. Then i borrowed his books and loved the fluff (and the picture of the dreamer sat on LCB's shoulder, and learning that was a model) and i was sold. So everything basically, the fluff mostly, but i loved the game as well before i bought anything:)

[dunce002917]

I was playing Infinity and Warmachine.. then our group stopped playing Infinity (one of us "broke" the game) and concentrated on warmahordes.

Then we started seeing people playing Malifaux in our FLGS. The models caught my eye and having a small skirmish game appealed to our group. So we looked into the book (book 1) and the website and fell in love with Lady Justice... and since then my small Death Marshalls crew box grew into most of the Guild, a Ten Thunders box on the way and just received my Levi crew.

Safe to say I'm hooked. Plus, the small army size forces me to paint models I put on the table.

[Sholto]

The review on the D6Generation podcast.

[Dumb Luck]

Warhammer 8th being utter garbage and the Som'er Teeth Jones model.

[Cats Laughing]

I am part of the WarmaHordes crowd at the FLGS, and occassionally we try other games (Hell Dorado, Infinity, Anima Tactics, etc...), especially those with low buy-in levels. Malifaux fit the bill and when the FLGS brought some in a few of us decided to give it a spin. I thought the models looked pretty cool and eventually settled on Rasputina over the other boxes available (I think Ramos, Lilith, Perdita and Viks) because she seemed to me like Khador (ice witch) with arc nodes (ice mirrors) and her model reminded me a lot of Death from the Sandman comics. No overly booby and cute as all hell.

Anyway, my first game ended up being against one of the local early-adopters (who has since become our Henchman), in which he used Seamus and we had a lot of fun fighting over a treasure hunt/claim jump. In someways it almost completely mirrored the story in book 1. And I was hooked. I now have multiple crews for each faction but still love my baby Raspy.

[Murray]

I was playing 40K at a convention in Sydney and between rounds I went for a wee walk and one of the stores had these cool steampunk models (ramos and crew) and on the way back to the next round I picked up two starter sets, the first rule book and 2 fate decks.

That was it really.

[Spoonfunk]

I was watching Beasts of War and they had a segment that was showcasing new products. One of them was Malifaux's models. later on when I was looking through a distributers catalog I noticed a big two page spread. So I went down to the FLGS and picked up my Nico set, Perdita and the book. Been playing ever since...

[ttsgosadow]

Some guys at my local gaming club tend to try out a lot of games. I am/was a big Warhammer player, and never really understood why they played games like Helldorado and some pirate miniature game. Most of these games are short lived, as they are either discontinued, or after the initial release are very badly balanced.

I noticed them playing Malifaux for quite a time, and one of the clubmembers mentioned really wanting to introduce it to other players. I tried a game, playing Viktoria vs Raspy, ending in a dramatic draw where all models where dead. Loved it! Then played another game with Sonnia vs Pandora, and noticed that the rules are really good. Even though we made so many mistakes So, after reading through almost the entire pullmyfinger wiki, following the forums on my rss, I am now into the game with Sonnia, and there's a rulebook, cards, Lady Justice and Colette on order.

Also love the fluff and would love to get better at painting, something I just can't put myself to for Warhammer, having to paing 100+ models for just 1k pts games (I play tyranids and empire...).

[Borzag]

What brought me to Malifaux? THESE GUYS:

I'm a huge sucker for all things Goblin-y (it's what got me playing WoW for a couple of years), and Id' been eyeing off the minis for a while. Then I saw a few rumours that someone was building a game around it.... and then I saw their sample stat cards.

A few reads of "Whoops!", "The Other White Meat" and "Deliverance" had me sold

Of course once I got the rulebook I found far far more there than I was expecting, but at the end of the day I'm all about the little green good ol' boys

Cheers!

Borzag

[Pinocchio]

Was a GW gamer since '99, but then they turned out to be the Nazi's of the gaming world, i escaped their grasp and then played Warmahordes. Stopped collecting warmahords at the right moment (when they went for the same pitfall as GW, "bigger is better" so battle wagons, colossals, etc.)

I came across Malifaux at Salute 2012, wasn't a fan of the Macabre setting at first, but it was the mechanics of the game that really got me, but the biggest one is the use of playing cards instead of dice. That was a breath of fresh air.

I then read the fluff and that was hook line and sinker. Over 12 masters and 3 henchmen later, i am now the aspiring puppet master my lgs loves today.

[Kalkris]

When I first was exposed to Malifaux, I was at my lgs playing Magic. It was pretty neat to see the contents of the boxes since I was (and am) totally into the Steampunk style of things, but being that I wasn't a wargamer at the time (having spent a lot of my cash as a younger-'un on GW stuff and never having played even a single game with them), I passed them by.

Fast forward a few months, when a henchman who lives nearby was thinking to teach interested members of my college's gaming club how to play Malifaux. I figured, since I wasn't paying for it and I was interested in the aesthetics and setting of this game, I'd give it a go. I did, and was hooked from then on.

If you'd like, I have a story that sort of details the rest of my goings-on on the Writing board. It's called Fresh Ham, and it does tell the story pretty well, IMHO.

~Lil Kalki

[Pierzasty]

So here I am, happily playing Infinity, when someone sneaks from behind and brains me with a Leveticus box...

No wait, that's missing a few details.

I'm a long-time wargamer with long breaks thanks to GW's horrible policy. I rediscovered miniature gaming with Infinity, and was astounded. Coming from the times of 40K, Warzone and a few GW specialist games it was a whole new world. Still, I told myself that I was in it for the tactics, that I got through the shiny addiction, blah blah blah you know how it goes. After about 5000 points (a large battle in Infinity is 300 points per side) of minis across 3 factions I admitted that yes, I did like the models.

I think what first drew me to Malifaux was a photo of an awesomely painted Rasputina in the oath thread on Something Awful. OK, that's Raspy from Malifaux. What's Malifaux? Hmmm, animated teddy bears and zombie prostitutes O_O nah, not for me.

Then I found some people playing in my LGS. Bah, those overthought combo-systems, card gimmicks, that's Warmachine in miniature.

Still, I was kinda drawn to the experience of a combo-based game, to the gimmicks, especially since I wouldn't have to spend as much money as 40K requires. So knowing how cheap it is to buy whole armies from retiring/resigning ex-gamers, I put up an offer to take some prettier Malifaux minis in exchange for mine. Ramos, Colette and Raspy, I think.

Fast forward to 3 weeks ago, I'm trying to unload a pound of resin from Ramshackle Games, they're ugly, exactly not my style, and I wanted them gone from my shelf. I was giving them for free to "good hands" - my only requirement was to see them well-painted and played/cared for. I was surprised to hear "I know that's the wrong faction and all, but wouldn't you want to care for a Leveticus starter I got here?" "Sure mate, send it in!"

So now I still have next to no idea about the system itself and I'm sitting on a pile of steampunk zombies and what's supposed to be one of the trickier masters in the game.

I promised myself not to buy into another game until I paint a tournament force from each of the sectorials I have (i.e. all 9 of them), but the shiny tempts me... And my shelves full of mostly-unpainted models mock me. Help? ._.

[Ryu]

After I moved to a new area and searched for a LGS the closest one had Malifaux prominently displayed on their webpage. It got me intrigued and now here I am!

[Sybaris]

I started gaming about 23 years ago, playing warhammer 40k initially but delving into all sorts of games since then. Small skirmish games always appealed to me but...that strangely has nothing to do with how i found Malifaux.

I have a soft spot for succubus demon types. I don't know why it's just it. As such, once the miniatures were nice, i collected a slaanesh demonic legion, and designed rules for many other games to go with the succubae theme, enjoying the "tempting" of the other player and using insidious ways.

I was always on the search for beatiful miniatures, even more so if they had a daemonic trait, so this lead me to browse small but great miniature companies sites. I had stumbled upon Wyrd's miniatures a few years ago (before Malifaux), and i found the miniatures to be great, but i didn't click with the victorian mood. Years later i was looking for another large daemonic character and totally randomly went to see wyrd's catalog. Bam...Nekima.

And then i wanted to know how this game was played

Edited March 9, 2013 by Sybaris

[Aloki]

Honestly? Everything about it.

It uses a unique and understandable mechanic, the fate deck. The setting is interesting, and the models are fabulous.

Horror, steampunk, western? Three of my favorite things

[therat]

Like many others here I got into the hobby via GW minis, starting with WHF 5th edition and playing until 8th; I dabbled in 40k 3rd edition, played 4th and 5th. I still play 40k, but when the fantasy crew at my lgs transitioned to warmahordes, I stopped playing fantasy and stopped attending game day at the lgs because I don't really like the warmahordes minis.

One day one of the guys at the lgs asked me to bring him a piece of terrain he left at my place so he could build a display board. So, after a few months of not attending, I dropped in and said hi. Expecting to find everyone playing games I was uninterested in, they were playing some malifunky thing and used a deck of cards instead of dice. Less than a week later I had an extended Dreamer crew (the box, daydreams, teddy, and madness).

[Mattyjudo]

After kicking a nasty long term drug habit I've found that I need to keep my mind very busy, so have got into a lot of different hobbies. I've been heavily into martial arts and cycling for some years but still felt like I needed something more to help fill the gap that years of addiction had left. Was chatting to a work colleague and she mentioned that her son had started playing a weird sci-fi game that I recognised from a brief dalliance with GW in my school days as 40k. It got me thinking about my time as a young tabletop gamer and how engrossing I'd found the hobby. I then realised that getting back into it would be just the kind of immersive experience I needed - all the hours building lists, reading tacticas, modelling, painting . . . and maybe even having the odd game

Walked into my local GW but, at 32 years of age, I felt ****ing ridiculous. No offence to GW or anyone who enjoys their products but I really didn't feel like it was for me. So I started looking around for other systems, eventually came across Malifaux and really dug it. Funnily enough I find that it's the slightly camp, tongue-in-cheek vibe that makes the game feel more grown up (and thus suitable for an old man like myself) compared to the po faced self consciousness of most game's settings. Probably why I play Gremlins lol

[Solidus]

Top hats, undead hookers, and no dice.

I've played VOR, chain mail miniatures, confrontation, blood bowl, and warmachine. For the most part I was really only playing those games to have something to paint (well not blood bowl anyway). Most of those have come and gone, for the rest I just got tired of all the auto includes and caster kills no mater what the scenario. The small model count, simple to learn rules, individual schemes/ strategies have kept me wanting to play even after the newly painted model high has worn off.