Guild's 7 Masters.

[Fetid Strumpet]

Death Marshals, according to the stories are men and women who have studied Necromancy in depth in order to fight it, they don't use it in anyway other to enhance their abilities against it. The stories make it sound like they have very personal reasons for an almost pathological hatred of the practice.

[Forar]

Hell, Lucius has an ability that lets him murder agents in the game for his own personal gain.

As much as I enjoy the fluff, I don't see it as precluding some off the wall crew choices.

I mean, it's not like game's have to be on a declared timeline (well, I guess an Avatar being present would set it to some degree, but moving on...), maybe the game represents a conflict that occurred before the doctor had fully fallen to the dark side, as it were.

Basically, this game presents enough off the wall shenanigans that if McMourning leading Guild crews is the thing that tests my suspension of disbelief the most that day, I'm doing pretty well.

Hell, my suspension of disbelief gets more strain riding public transit to the game...

Edit: comparing a fluff based dislike to a mechanics based Negative Play Experience seems to be stretching to me. At the end of the day, if the people you face are fine with that, rock on, but honestly, I'd be very confused if someone flat out conceded a game because I pulled out a particular legal master/figure combination.

Edited May 6, 2013 by Forar

[Piranhamoose]

I think it should be fine for McMourning to take any of the current or future living Resurrectionist models in a guild crew. And if I took the time to set up terrain and flip for objectives, and then to hire my crew, only to be told by my opponent that they won't play against my crew, I'd think that would reflect very poorly on that person in the local community.

[Turbodog]

I've been thinking about Douggie Mac quite a bit with guild. The main idea I come back to is that he takes the "little used" book 1 model, the Nurses, (and sebastian) when he runs as Guild along with Guild Peons like Guild Hounds, Latigoes, and heck, even maybe Guild Guard. His mechanical philosophy is then to "burn out" his crew at the right times using the Nurse abilities. Effectively, he doesn't use his undead creation upgrade when in Guild mode. The Mac-Man himself still keeps his scalpel slinging melee badness going in guild mode (along with things like dissection and/or rancid transplant.)

Anyone have other ideas of how Douggie Mac might run in Guild Mode?

[xKoBiEx]

I think it should be fine for McMourning to take any of the current or future living Resurrectionist models in a guild crew. And if I took the time to set up terrain and flip for objectives, and then to hire my crew, only to be told by my opponent that they won't play against my crew, I'd think that would reflect very poorly on that person in the local community.

Unless the rules for dual faction drastically change from where they are now with 10T, I really doubt that he will get to take everything if he goes one faction or the other in a game. There will be some restriction.

[Fetid Strumpet]

Actually it wouldn't. I make it very clear to those who know me if there are any particular combinations I won't play against. If you were a new player to the group and announced Guild I would inform you of my stance on this issue even before strats got picked.

This is nothing new, refusing to play against a particular master for whatever reason is pretty common in the groups I've seen for whatever reason. Most of the group I was part of for awhile had a "Won't play against Pandora" clause to their games unless they were in tournament prep.

*shrug* doesn't bother me in any case. Everyone's opinion on this is valid. Some people are going to love that he is in guild, totally awesome for them, I very much hope they enjoy running him, as at least it is something different. I currently detest the very idea of it and would not find any enjoyment in participating in a game where a Guild McMorning is running, hence my flat out refusal to take part.

[Jewomie]

I currently detest the very idea of it and would not find any enjoyment in participating in a game where a Guild McMorning is running, hence my flat out refusal to take part.

Admittedly, i only skimmed most of the posts dealing with the McMourning hatered here so i hope i'm not asking you something you've already answered. But i am honestly curious what makes you feel so strongly about it. I'm not bashing you for feeling this way at all. though i am actually quite excited for it. It's just not every day that a seemingly minor tweak has a pretty big effect on someone. Is it a pure fluff related issue, or is it something that i'm just not seeing?

On a different note, i am stoked for this change, and i would have no problems keeping to some of the odd demands here. I never summon with McMourning. It's too risky if you don't already have the card in hand, so i tend to not waste the (0) action. I use him more for his combat and speed. I am convinced after thinking about it a good bit this weekend, that i would seriously enjoy McMourning without a single other Resser model hired. I love the master, but the minions in the Reserrectionist faction are the reason i have trouble sticking with them. A Guild hired anti-summoning McMourning would fit the fluff, and my play style to a T.

Sebastion, Nurses, Rafkin, Mortimer, those things i can see him being able to hire, but the zombies and such are stretching it a bit in my opinion. But we'll see, maybe Lady J figures it out and forces him to work as an agent under the guild's thumb. who knows? or perhaps he will retain some of his more feindish abilities but can't use them in LoS of a guild model?

Or a simple fix (as mentioned) is to have his only summoning spell as a Resser ONLY upgrade, then something like spending body parts to reactivate or ransid transplant or a healing spell even, that is for guild only. There are lots of ways to retain the fluff's credablity and still have McMourning function as a very cool master for both factions.

---------- Post added at 09:55 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:45 AM ----------

I'm betting my group likes this change too, because it means less Colette for a while.

[Claymore65]

As for the Mcmourning debate, I'm personally fine with it. I would love to see some "animosity Death Marshalls" ability on him so you can't take Death Marshalls, but otherwise I am fine with it. Besides, the fluff may make more sense than you'd think. Lucius has always been into some shady buisness, perhaps he learned of Mcmourning's little secret and now wants to use him for missions he doesn't want the rest of guild knowing about (or being accountable for). Having an insane Necromancer who can kill almost anyone with a scalpel has many uses, especially for a man like Lucius who values assasination and subterfuge. I like the idea that he might not be able to take the summoning upgrade. It would make a lot of sense. Alternatively, he could put huge trenchcoats on his flesh constructs to hide the fact they are undead.

As another side note, what does everyone think of Hoffman being Guild/Arcanist? I personally think it makes too much sense that someone with a lot of Acranist connections (and the Arcanist ties special rule) should become dual faction. He already has a relationship with Ramos and the Miners and Steamfitter's Union, so it would make sense for him to take a job for them every once in a while. I'd be fine with taking the whole Neverborn thing off of Lucius if that's what's stopping Hoffman from being Dual Faction. Lucius should be a human with Neverborn connections (like a deal or a magic artifact) in my opinion, I hope they don't completely ruin the mystery of the character (unless he's a tyrant...).

[Jewomie]

As another side note, what does everyone think of Hoffman being Guild/Arcanist? I personally think it makes too much sense that someone with a lot of Acranist connections (and the Arcanist ties special rule) should become dual faction. He already has a relationship with Ramos and the Miners and Steamfitter's Union, so it would make sense for him to take a job for them every once in a while. I'd be fine with taking the whole Neverborn thing off of Lucius if that's what's stopping Hoffman from being Dual Faction. Lucius should be a human with Neverborn connections (like a deal or a magic artifact) in my opinion, I hope they don't completely ruin the mystery of the character (unless he's a tyrant...).

in one of the podcasts (aethervox i believe) they mentioned that the archanists don't have a dual faction, but instead will be getting "something different" but they wouldn't say what.

[i_was_like_you]

I see these new dual faction master rules as opening up whole new factions for people. Previously, I only had Sonnia for Guild. Then along came the Dead Justice box set. Having dual statted models means that I could, at some point decide to actually play a Lady J crew. If they manage to do something similar with Guild Guards as Guild Autopsies, or Guild Hounds as Canine remains, then we get more bang for our buck.

With 10T, the flexibility we've seen in list building is phenomenal. We can take a pool of tried and true models, regardless of faction, and we can have completely unexpected models on the field from one side or the other.

Fluffwise, I don't see McMourning as being trusted enough as just the coroner to do more than requisition a few Guildies for a crime scene, as was mentioned, but the point that was made of Lucius eating Guardsmen mid-game to gain reactivate is on par with, if not more heinous than Dougie killing to keep his secret, or playing with their bodies postmortem.

I say we all withhold judgment until we see both the new stats and any updated fluff regarding the changes.

[Jewomie]

i like the idea of not being able to hire death marshalls. we have to assume that the Judge, Marshalls, and the exorsist would figure out his little secret pretty quickly out in the field. lol

[Fetid Strumpet]

It's a fluff thing. Trying to justify that "Oh he works for the guild, so sure he can lead guild forces into battle" makes no sense in light of the fact that a good percentage of the masters in Malifaux are employed by the Guild.

Nicodem, Ramos, Leveticus, The Viks, Von Schill, etc...

Additionally it makes no sense whatso ever that an agent who, and I'll stress it again, murders guild agents in every story he is in can suddenly be given authority to lead their troops.

Additionally it adds another Melee centric model to the Guild, and gives the guild two, masters who have studied necromancy, and are combat models. Lady J's statistics in the current edition are very heavily Resser slanted, as I'm sure we've all noticed. Does that mean that the new Lady J will have H2W, which has been predominately a resser trait? It's going to be hard to counter the arguments as to why she doesn't deserve to have it in the open beta if it turns out she doesn't, and it will feel totally wrong to me if she does.

Plus I for one just flat out don't like the Dual faction mechanic. I didn't like it in book 4, but tolerated it because it was only one master in each faction, but what purpose do factions even serve any more? To me factions always represented where your true loyalties lay, because in Malifaux EVERYONE has a cross linked thread of obligations and relationships, but that didn't mean that they worked equally for both of them. It just seems that there is too much crossover to me.

Finally it definitively makes dual faction masters better than faction specific models. They have more options, more combinations, more choice available to them than faction specific masters and that to me is backwards. If you are working at dual purposes you should be weaker in those options than an individual who has studied and worked for one of those careers exclusively.

So to summarize, I've NEVER liked the dual faction mechanic, ever since it came out, but I could at least tolerate it when it wasn't wide spread, it looks to me now like some of the factions are going to be comprised maybe even close to half of their masters as dual faction, in which case, why even have factions? McMorning to me is just the absolute most egregious example, he epitomizes everything I dislike about this rumored rules addition, and it makes me very passionate about it, so those are the reasons that I personally will not play against him. I'll be more than happy to help arrange games for someone who wants to play a guild McMorning with another member of my play group, NP. I don't dislike anyone who finds this idea enjoyable, but for the reasons I have advanced I will absolutely have an extremely negative experience seeing a guild led McMorning crew across the table from me. Given that I will not enjoy the game why should I subject myself, or my opponent, who also deserves to have an enjoyable game, to such an encounter. Better to state just at the beginning you are totally cool for liking it, I do not, will not derive any enjoyment from a game involving said combination, and that it will be better for the opponent to find a different partner, or else pick a different Master.

As I said I have a Pandora Crew, and I when I announced NB I would almost always get a request of, "No Pandora", which I complied with with no animosity. Both players should enjoy the experience of the game, and if that won't be the case why play.

Hopefully, as much as I detest this new addition I don't give the impression that people who are very excited for it are wrong. Their opinion is 100% valid, and I'm glad they are going to get to do something they feel works. It is too gigantic a departure from established fluff, and too big a change for an established character for me to swallow.

[fishtank]

Von Schill is EX Guild. Ramos runs the Mine and Steamworkers Union. Not the part of the Guild. Nicodem is the city Undertaker...not a direct Guild employee. Viktoris is a mercenary. Not a Guild Employee. Levi...can't remember tbh. Think he's his own man not Guild though feel free to prove otherwise. McM on the other hand IS a Guild employee. He's also VERY sneaky.

Edited May 6, 2013 by fishtank

[Jewomie]

Of course you're entitled to feel however you'd like to.

I'm not convinced the dual faction mechanic will make them stronger in an individual game. Over all, yes, that is the case, but inside a single game, i just don't really see it swinging a game too much. There are restrictions in place for all the current dual faction models, and i would have to assume this would remain the case in the 2nd edition. otherwise they would see all players flock to the dual faction masters and leave our old favorites behind. (as soon as the second wave or beta starts i'm going right back to Colette and probably not switching again for a good long while)

Obviously this is all speculation at this point, but as we've seen in book 4, i'm positive there will be restrictions when hiring a dual faction. I wouldn't be suprised at all to find that McMourning can't hire anything undead, or even anything that's Resser in general. I would bet (and hope even) that he is super restricted on what he can field.

I do understand where you're coming from, though it doesn't seem so out of character for me. One would have to assume that at some point in his employment he was allowed out of the mogue.

I think a single faction master will end up more powerful due to a lack of restrictions on what they can hire, and if you look at a lot of the masters that are not dual faction, many of them have the advantage of having everything they need inside their own faction already, Ramos, Colette, Lady J, Perdita, Pandora... i could go on, but you know what i mean. and since they have access to everything they need, they will remain higher on the power curve.

I guess, what i mean to say is, these masters don't have to sacrifice anything to gain something else. where as currently, Yan Lo has to wave the ability to hire any Reserrectionist model (save a few) in order to hire from the 10T pool. But when hired as a resser, he doesn't retain the ability to hire anything from 10T. I can see this working the same way. When you hire McMourning into the ressers, he wont be bringing any guild back with him, so they don't really benifit from his semi-departure. only McMourning himself will benefit, and he will only do this when hired as a guild.

am i making sense, or sounding crazy?

[Soundwave]

This is just my personal opinion, but I'd never turn anyone down for a game based on the master they bring. I play the person, not the master. I play a game with a friend. Lists, masters and whatnot doesn't matter - especially in friendly games.

YMMV, of course.

Sincerely,

Your italics abuser

[HalcyonSeraph]

I wish people would stop comparing refusal to play a certain master based on fluff reasons to people refusing to play Pandora or pre-errata Hamelin. Mechanical reasons for refusal, like believing a model is broken, is completely different from walking away from the table because you don't like the fluff around them.

Hell, since Book 2 or so Rasputina has had basically nothing at all to do with the Arcanists, but it would be ludicrous to refuse to play someone's Rasputina crew because of that.

[Fetid Strumpet]

Disagree, I take the fluff very seriously and is pretty much one of the big reasons I play this game. If it does not feel right I deserve no enjoyment from the game. If I'm not enjoying it, there is very little chance my opponent will enjoy it, so why play. Refusing to play for fluff reasons are totally as valid as refusing to play for mechanical reasons, as long as you never make it personal. I am polite, I don't demonize the person, and will be happy to sit the game out if they absolutely want to play that combination and there is another player present. Totally cool, although I won't stay to watch.

This is a matter of personal preference and my preference to never play against a Guild McMorning. You can disagree, totally your right. But I'd be happy to meet you somewhere after the game for a drink.

And with that I'll bow out of the discussion, I've articulated my posts as well as I can, and if you disagree, that's ok. Good gaming

Edited May 6, 2013 by Fetid Strumpet

[CreepingDeath]

I am not sure why people are complaining (whining)

M2E aint out yet. Obviously Wyrd will have the story worked out as to the why and how. No one can really doubt that. If wyrd do one thing right it`s the story well some of it.

As for not playing someone because of what Wyrd are doing and you not being happy about it i`m sure other people will play. As for a henchman not playing that would say to me why are you a henchman, aren`t you suppose to promote the game.... As opposed to how it looks by discouraging people playing.....

[i_was_like_you]

Personally, if I loathed the idea of a Guild McMourning, instead of sitting out of matches because it might give me a negative play experience, I'd just trounce that traitorous necromancer, game after game. Relally show him what for.

It's been roughly a week since the 2.0 announcement, and I am sure we are all already sick of hearing peple's threats of rage-quitting, or their own little variations thereof, all without even seeing what the chances actually look like. Wait until the 31st before leaping to conclusions. Even then, not everything will be set in stone until Gencon's release of stats and rules. I kinda dislike that they're giving us as many previews as they have because it's lead to such wild speculation and knee jerk reactions. I also think they could have waited one more year to put more polish on the project, just releasing the encounter packs in th meantime, giving us a chance to get settled in where we are now. But since Through the Breach is supposed to be 2.0 compatible, they both have to debut together.

[Jewomie]

Personally, if I loathed the idea of a Guild McMourning, instead of sitting out of matches because it might give me a negative play experience, I'd just trounce that traitorous necromancer, game after game. Relally show him what for.

It's been roughly a week since the 2.0 announcement, and I am sure we are all already sick of hearing peple's threats of rage-quitting, or their own little variations thereof, all without even seeing what the chances actually look like. Wait until the 31st before leaping to conclusions. Even then, not everything will be set in stone until Gencon's release of stats and rules. I kinda dislike that they're giving us as many previews as they have because it's lead to such wild speculation and knee jerk reactions. I also think they could have waited one more year to put more polish on the project, just releasing the encounter packs in th meantime, giving us a chance to get settled in where we are now. But since Through the Breach is supposed to be 2.0 compatible, they both have to debut together.

Well, i somewhat agree that it could have waited, but in a different way. What i mean is, it's already going to be next year before it will be official. Even if you buy the cards and the rule book at Gencon, the tourney there will still use v1.5 rules, so it isn't so bad. The only thing i would have done differently so far is to have waited to annouce the open beta until maybe a week before it was available. I say this only because right now all we can do is talk about it, and none of us know anything for certain outside of the tidbits from various podcasts (all of which seem to be ever so slightly diffrent.)

I think they should have waited until May 31 to announce it, and said, "Malifaux 2nd Edition is here, and you are all invited to the open beta testing. you'll find the beta rules below." Then boom. no wild speculation from either the people excited, or the people who are still leary. I mean, sure the beta rules aren't going to solve any lore related gripes, but the technical side of it would at least be tangable.

At this point we have 25 days to go. I am eager to see what we have in store, but i hate to speculate further because there isn't anything official yet. (even though i know i am terribly guilty of it. i can't help it, it's a sickness!) I mean, even what they've told us in the podcasts *could* change between now and the 31st.

But hey, we're all in this together.

---------- Post added at 01:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:56 PM ----------

Personally, if I loathed the idea of a Guild McMourning, instead of sitting out of matches because it might give me a negative play experience, I'd just trounce that traitorous necromancer, game after game. Relally show him what for.

Also... Bring it!

[i_was_like_you]

It's just one part of why I've avoided the podcasts. The threads with written transcriptions are a good start, but I'd have rather had it written from the beginning, or, like your suggestion *boom* here's the beta.

Someone raised a valid point of just how much can the pre-beta or the open beta even change things, if they have to have final product printed and ready for Gencon? Adding to that, I'll go out on a limb and assume they're still using whichever South Korean printing company, so there's the delay of shipping everything over here on a boat. It's a very narrow timeline to work with. Just like they've waited on releasing models with bad sculpts, I would hope they'd wait on releasing a new rules set if it suffered from the same kinds of defects.

Either way, there's no pleasing everyone. I'm sure the rules will be fine, even if they take some getting used to.

[Forar]

So, dozens of posts later, what say we agree to disagree as to whether or not McM working with a Guild crew is fluffy enough.

If it's that big a deal, perhaps we should make a splinter thread where we can all gnash our teeth when Lucius' dastardly Neverborn ties are revealed, but until then the topic seems to be more "the Guild's 7 masters", not "the Guild's 6 masters and the 1 that is technically Guild/Resser but Fetid Strumpet won't play against them as the former", if I'm not mistaken.

;-)

I mean, is there really so little left to say about the possible changes coming to this faction that instead we have to focus so intently on one person's preferences? Unless someone in the thread plans on playing them in the near future, it's kind of a moot point.

[Jewomie]

Well, actually i had planned on trying out McMourning as guild for the first wave of the beta. I'm trying to see how practical it is to focus on a single master rather than a single faction. I had heard rumors (or maybe just theory) that players could use some of these new upgrades to focus on the masters they enjoy and get a little more milage out of them.

Since Colette wont make it into the first wave of the beta, and since i started Malifaux with Lady Justice i thought it fitting to return to my guild roots for the second edition. Even if i just stay until Colette's rules are release.

That being said, we don't even know that the dual faction feature will be available during this wave of beta testing, so for all i know, there wont be a guild McMourning until Gencon. *shrugs*

Don't worry too much though, i might just go back to Marcus for a bit and leave all you Guildies alone. lol

[Stadon]

Disagree, I take the fluff very seriously and is pretty much one of the big reasons I play this game. If it does not feel right I deserve no enjoyment from the game. If I'm not enjoying it, there is very little chance my opponent will enjoy it, so why play. Refusing to play for fluff reasons are totally as valid as refusing to play for mechanical reasons, as long as you never make it personal. I am polite, I don't demonize the person, and will be happy to sit the game out if they absolutely want to play that combination and there is another player present. Totally cool, although I won't stay to watch.

This is a matter of personal preference and my preference to never play against a Guild McMorning. You can disagree, totally your right. But I'd be happy to meet you somewhere after the game for a drink.

And with that I'll bow out of the discussion, I've articulated my posts as well as I can, and if you disagree, that's ok. Good gaming

Serious enough to literally make up new rules because of your feelings? You can say that your entirely self-made opinions are equivalent to mechanical fact that some masters represented a negative play experience, but that doesn't make it true. I can use fluff to justify a ton of different master combinations that should not work at a given time in a given book, are those complaints also equally valid? Can people now no long play Perdita or Lady J because they are in the hospital? Does Kirai auto-win against Hamelin because she takes some Gaki? Can I say that Zoradia isn't a neverborn master because she is not a native never born? No. All of those things are silly and absurd but are all based on an infinitely firmer fluff basis than your idea that McMourning's association with the Guild is unjustified BASED ON FLUFF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN YET. To say that your opinions define mechanics is unadulterated hubris and putting your inflated sense of entitlement over not only the rules but also the enjoyment of people who want to use the rules as written and intended.

[Dumb Luck]

I'm going to stop playing against Austringers as I don't like how they eat my Gremlins. In the fluff.