Data Sphere

http://www.malifaux.com/

So, Malifaux. What is this?
I have no idea but apparently there's a need for this thread, and I could use one too, as I got a free starter lately.
Malifaux is a skirmish game, with often less models per side than Infinity.
The game is diceless, rolls are replaced by flipping a card from a standard 54-card deck. The trick lies in the cheating system - each player has a hand of cards that can be drawn from instead of flipping one from the deck(?) - this is called "cheating fate" and is very handy when you absolutely positively want this test to pass (of course, your opponent may do the same for his defense roll). And if you have utter shit on hand, you can be sure that at least it won't crop up in random flips. This mechanic gives a very thematic, gambling feel to the game.

Setting
Malifaux is set in an alternative reality where magic exists, but is in decline. The most powerful mages, sorcerers and other practicioners of mystic arts gathered to create a portal to another world to supply their dwindling powers somehow. What they got was access to Malifaux, an abandoned city with traces of unknown para-science (like techno-necromancy) and demonic influence, and deposits of soulstone, mineral serving as an excellent reservoir of magical energies, fueled by residual energies of death. Long story short, soulstone is rare, regulated and one of the most strategic substances on Earth, especially since it allows access to the strange new technologies. Mages/governments/robber barons keep an eye on it and try to regulate its transport and use. Dark magic and soulstone smuggling is rampant, and the demonic being from Malifaux's side of the portal have come back.

The feel is one of Wild West + Steampunk + Magic + necromancy. Kinda Deadlands, with more clockwork.

The factions:
Guild - Pseudo-government of Malifaux, supposed to regulate & control soulstone. Ruthless and authoritarian.
Arcanists - Independent practicioners of magic, soulstone smugglers, and anyone who's roughly respectable but doesn't bow to the Guild.
Resurrectionists - Necromancers, ghosts, and other enthusiasts of death in various forms.
Neverborn - the demonic denizens of the plane of Malifaux, feeding on negative emotions. They killed the city's inhabitants twice already and want to do it again.
Outcasts - the .

And there's the new faction:
Ten Thunders - An ancient ninja clan that infiltrated all the different factions of Malifaux. Their masters can either be played as Ten Thunders or as part of their original faction, opening up versatile troop choices.

Ah, so that's what they are. I know next to nothing about Malifaux, so I appreciate the help.
Also, please beat me with a rail if I buy a new starter before either a) painting a whole sectorial, or b) painting 300 points (no cheating!) in each of my current sectorials ( / MAF / Shas / / JSA / / Corr). I'm trying to contain my addiction to shiny things.

Nominally, it's my second miniatures game, but I've only have a few games under my belt. It's been a while since I picked up any new miniatures, but I had been collecting from the Arcanist and Outcast factions. I've been painting my Infinity stuff to pretty much the same standard from when I started, but with Malifaux, I had been trying to paint to a higher standard. The VonSchill starter was the last minis I had purchased.

I've kept up with the rulebooks, and I like the fluff for the most part, but the Avatars of the third book didn't interest me and the Ten Thunders in the last book, seems to want to upset the cart, that was rolling along nicely.

I like the models; I own a handful. I'm not sure that I would enjoy the game play. There seems to be many special rules.

Gameplay in Malifaux is very scenario focused. It's possible to win the game even if all your models are defeated.

Wait whaaat? I know the main Levi tactic is to have your master die as often and as messily as possible and I know Colette often wins having 1-2 models left on the table, but you can get tabled and still win on objectives?

Yep, that's how they take care of their balance issue, you set up the scenario, figure out each sides objectives, pick your crews, and then set up side objectives. I guess you could say it is a very story driven system, as it seem there are a lot of "what the f**k, are THEY doing here?" engagements.

Darkeldar wrote:Yep, that's how they take care of their balance issue, you set up the scenario, figure out each sides objectives, pick your crews, and then set up side objectives. I guess you could say it is a very story driven system, as it seem there are a lot of "what the f**k, are THEY doing here?" engagements.

A lot of people ignore the sequence of setting up a game, which causes the "what the hell?!" reactions you see from time to time. I don't play nearly as much as I used to and pruned back my collection to just the Rasputina and Ramos crews, but I like to throw some cards down when I fancy steampunk style gaming.

Have to say that sonce Wyrd stopped doing previews of the minis and just show the pictures & CAD renders, interest has waned a bit around my way. I also think they've gone a bit too fast with the expansions and could do with easing back a bit.

Still, an enjoyable evenings gaming when I do play.

Kitsune wrote:

Darkeldar wrote:Yep, that's how they take care of their balance issue, you set up the scenario, figure out each sides objectives, pick your crews, and then set up side objectives. I guess you could say it is a very story driven system, as it seem there are a lot of "what the f**k, are THEY doing here?" engagements.

A lot of people ignore the sequence of setting up a game, which causes the "what the hell?!" reactions you see from time to time. I don't play nearly as much as I used to and pruned back my collection to just the Rasputina and Ramos crews, but I like to throw some cards down when I fancy steampunk style gaming.

Have to say that sonce Wyrd stopped doing previews of the minis and just show the pictures & CAD renders, interest has waned a bit around my way. I also think they've gone a bit too fast with the expansions and could do with easing back a bit.

Still, an enjoyable evenings gaming when I do play.

Yes when they started just showing CAD renderings I lost interest myself.

The game needs to be very scenario focused. Straight up fights, it's the worst balanced game I've played.
I loved the game when it first game out, but then the novelty of the characters and combos wears off and the game got very boring.
For a small skirmish game it takes a long time to play. 2 hours.
Plus, the game is driven to very particular lists, much like constructed deck games. Once someone figures out the latest power combo, that's all you'll see over and over and over again.
I haven't touched the game in two years, but one of the main reasons O got out was because of the massive amounts of FAQ and errata required to stay up to date.
Imagine a video game that needs a patch every time you log on.

A thing to add about Malifaux: While it is a skirmisher with usually <10 models fielded, it's among the more expensive ones if you intend to play it RAW or in tournaments. Reason being that you play an entire faction, and get to announce your master after both factions are known. Think of it as tactical counterpicking similar to Fighting games/Mobas; if you intend to stand a chance, you better have a full roster to choose from.

Pierzasty wrote:Wait whaaat? I know the main Levi tactic is to have your master die as often and as messily as possible and I know Colette often wins having 1-2 models left on the table, but you can get tabled and still win on objectives?

Imagine, for example, that your opponent's schemes (that's what the Victory point conditions are called) require interacting with certain board markers and killing a specific model of yours, and he has no significant models left to interact and you killed that model yourself to deny him Victory points. It's doable, and I've seen it done.

As for the patch mentality, I agree with Magno. Wyrd tends to drastically overnerf anything perceived as strong. Certain arguably OP Masters (Dreamer, Hamelin) got nerfed from top tier to sub-mid tier, due to key mechanics getting the shaft. I recommend upper-mid tier masters for beginners in Malifaux; those masters are unlikely to get that treatment while still remaining competitive.

And those upper-mid tier masters are...?

I'd love it if someone wrote a short analysis of each master and their archetype.

I've been playing Malifaux every wednesday for about 2 months now and I've settled on the Ten Thunders faction. I haven't experienced the problems some of the previous posts are writing about, but I guess in my local gaming club we do play more nice and don't just go for various power levels.

A few pictures of my main crew, Mei Feng and her mining minions!



This was also my first attempt at painting OSL.

Heres mine



Crew Mistress (many many painting mistakes on her)



Detail of the lady & big chap at the back




I also have a Ramos crew, but ran out of painting steam about halfway through it.



Conversion detail shot



I really should go back and improve the painting on Ramos coat at some point.

I can recommend the Wiki for a general overview, but do note that it is officially endorsed by Wyrd, and will therefore try its hardest to make it even the most subpar pieces palatable.

Here's my analysis of each master's playstyle:
Guild
Lady Justice: Brute force melee master. Easy to play, not difficult to master. Is fairly resilient and can buff allies by killing stuff. Designed as a soft-counter to Resurrectionists.
Perdita Ortega: Fast, hard-to-hit but fragile Gunslinger. Has some defensive tricks, and can deliver alpha strikes by activating simultaneously with other Ortegas. Easy to start with, requires some finesse to get the most out of her. Designed as a soft-counter to Neverborn.
Sonnia Criid: Combat mage focused on nuking. Not terribly difficult to play. Rather soulstone hungry. Designed as a soft-counter to Arcanists.
C. Hoffmann: A machine focused master. Incredibly weak on his own, but incredibly resilient with constructs nearby. Moderately difficult to play. Favors missions where you don't have to spread out your forces.
Lucas McCabe: A mounted master focused on crowd control. Can be customized with a stache of magic items. Incredibly fast, and can deliver alpha strikes with his black sheep. Can't say for sure how difficult he is for beginners, but he doesn't seem like a bad choice. Can be played as either 10Thunders or Guild.
Lucius Matheson: A resilient henchman (henchmen are mini-masters that can either be played on their own or recruited into another master's force) focused on buffs and support. When on his own, he can only hire Guild Guard and Elite Devision models, so he is rather limited. Most henchmen require some experience to play properly, and I wouldn't recommend Lucius to beginners.

Arcanists
Marcus: A "druid" type master focused on beasts. Beasts are hard hitting and have high mobility, but fold under pressure. Marcus is rather difficult to play well, and is considered one of the weaker masters of Malifaux.
Ramos: A machine summoner. Can replenish his crew with new machines, has some damage and crowd control, and can suicide bomb with his constructs. My experience with Ramos is rather limited, but I believe he requires some amount of finesse to play correctly.
Rasputina: The icy counterpart to Sonnia's fire magic. Slow but hard hitting, can cast with her crew as the point of origin for her spells, and deals tons of damage. Has some crowd control, and most of her minions are incredibly resilient. Easy to play, but hard to accomplish certain schemes due to low mobility.
Colette DuBois: A showgirl madam. Has some of the best crowd control, good mobility and soulstone generation. Will rarely win by dealing damage and is incredibly unforgiving, and therefore not recommended to beginners. I do consider her the strongest Arcanist master for competitive play, and if played will well, will utterly demolish the enemy.
Mei Feng: A melee mage. Can chain combos together via triggers, allowing her to deal a lot of melee damage with superior action economy. Moderately difficult to play (you need to keep all possible combos in mind or use the cheat sheet. Can be played as either 10Thunders or Arcanists.
Kaeris: The Arcanist henchman, a flying mage with damage dealing spells. Not terribly experienced with her.

Resurrectionists
Nicodem: The classic zombie necromancer. Nicodem is slow and easy to hit, but can bolster his crew with minions (everything from lowliest mook to hard-hitting elite) and has some nice debuffs. Requires proper positioning, but isn't too hard to play otherwise.
Douglas McMourning: Fast, hard hitting melee necromancer. Can regenerate wounds by dealing damage and summon creatures made out of body parts. Probably the easiest Rezzer to get into the faction.
Seamus: Jack the Ripper with a huge handgun and undead prostitutes. Can do a bit of everything, although he is generally the worst summoner. Recommended for beginners.
Kirai Ankoku: A spirit summoner. Kirai gathers the souls of those who die near her, and can create spirits out of those souls or use them for utility. Her force is among the most mobile in all Malifaux, but due to her mechanics (requiring close proximity to combat and using wounds to cast spells), she is probably the most unforgiving master for beginners. Played correctly, she is a force to be reckoned with.
Yan Lo: Gathers Chi from nearby dying models, and uses it to level one of three paths (like an RPG skilltree), allowing him to be played as mobile, resilient damage dealer. Uses ancestors as minions, whose abilities he gains when they die. Unlike the other Rezzer masters, he does not proactively create minions, but rather resummon those ancestors that have died. Can be played as 10Thunders or Resurrectionists.
Molly Squidpiddge: An undead henchman that can buff her minions. When played on her own, her selection of minions is very limited, so I wouldn't recommend her.

Neverborn
Lilith: Fast, hard-hitting master with very high defense. Her minions, the Nephilim, can be upgraded by drinking the blood of those killed, making them larger and more formidable. Lilith is rather straightforward and very beginner friendly.
Pandora: A master focused on willpower duels. Her stats are deceptively low, but enemies lose wounds when losing a willpower duel near her, and she cannot be attacked unless making a willpower duel. She has some crowd control shenanigans, and focuses on debuffs and attrition. Frustrating to play against when one doesn't understand her mechanics.
Zoraida: A voodoo master with lots of crowd control. Can hire low-willpower minions from all factions, making her very versatile.
The Dreamer: An elusive little kid using a combination of teleportation/creature swapping mechanics to achieve devastating alpha strikes. Very fragile on his own, but difficult to catch. Can swap himself with Lord Chompy Bits, a huge Nightmare with good offensive abilities but weak defense. Has been heavily nerfed, and requires careful planning and good knowledge of mechanics to play succesfully.
Jakob Lynch: A master focused on card manipulation. Weak on his own, but comes with hard hitting totem, the Hungering Darkness. His crew spreads a debuff called Brilliance, which he can utilize for various effects. Can be played as 10Thunders or Neverborn.
Collodi: A puppetmaster henchman using movement shenanigans for long range alpha strikes. Very narrow focus, but synergizes well with certain masters like Zoraida.

Outcasts
Leveticus: A master using constructs and undead minions. Can only hire those, but from all factions with no surcharge. Leveticus has some of the hardest damage dealing abilities can create minions, but everything is fueled by his life force. He does not get to draw cards the standard way, but rather, whenenver he dies, he respawns at the end of the round with full health near one of his two hollow waifs, which are then removed. He can then draw cards up to his hand size. Leveticus is a difficult and expensive master to play, and definitely not beginner material. If you decide to play him, I recommend purchasing the hat pack from Wyrd, and cover up his bald spot with a bowler hat.
Som'er Teeth Jones: A gremlin redneck master. His crew is limited to gremlins, pigs and mosquitos, but he can summon and buffs those to a certain degree, allowing him to bumrush his opponents. Rather difficult to play well. For those wishing to play Gremlins, I recommend starting with Ophelia and slowly expanding towards Som'er.
The Viktorias: Two sword wielding masters for the price of one! The Viktorias can only hire mercs, and are generally melee focused. They can slingshot each other into melee with their abilities, where they can wreak havoc. The Viktorias are rather easy to play, and recommended for beginners.
Hamelin the Plagued: A piper using rats and street children to spread plague. Has been heavily nerfed recently, which greatly impacted his playstyle, so I can't say much about his current state.
Ophelia LaCroix: A henchman. Her crew is the gremlin variant of the Ortegas, with many similar minions. Easy to get into, fun to play.
Von Schill: If Boba Fett and Chuck Norris had a love child, it would be this guy. A henchman utilizing paramilitary special forces, he is a hard hitting, difficult to pin down ranged attacker with high mobility, buffing auras and soft counters to construct/undead armies. Often hired by other masters, especially Viktoria.

10 Thunders
Misaki: A high mobility, single target assassin. The only 10 Thunders master that isn't dual faction. Not terribly experienced with her, but her mechanics suggest that some finesse is necessary.

Tier lists, as always, are highly subjective, but here's mine:
Tier 1: Colette, Kirai, Jakob Lynch
Tier 2: Zoraida, Pandora, The Dreamer, Collodi, Yan Lo
Tier 3: Mc Mourning, Lilith, The Viktorias, Perdita, Leveticus, Lady Justice, Sonnia Criid, Lucius, Von Schill, Kaeris, Som'er, McCabe, Misaki
Tier 4: Ramos, Nicodem, Hoffman, Ophelia, Seamus, Hamelin
Tier 5: Rasputina, Marcus, Molly

Rasputina tier 5? Mover her up to tier 4 imo.

Its very subjective though, this whole tiers thing. Some games have ended in the first turn when I've been able to get a target with Rasputina, but others have drawn out forever into a grind.

do note that it is officially endorsed by Wyrd, and will therefore try its hardest to make it even the most subpar pieces palatable.

WTF? What a change from Infinity o.O

Thanks. What do the tiers mean? Is Tier 1 the strongest or the weakest?

The Tier list is based on my experience with Malifaux, and represents my personal experience regarding the matter. As such, it is likely highly subjective. Tier 1 represents the strongest choices, Tier 5 the weakest.

As for the tiers: A higher tier does not necessarily mean that a given master is stronger or weaker, or that you should always choose a higher tier master. The tiers are ranked by the individual master's ability to accomplish given scenarios, and their ability to prevent their opponent from doing the same. The difference between the tiers is also not that huge; player skill and knowledge matters, so the list assumes equally skilled players, which is rarely the case in a real game. I've seen a skilled Marcus taking apart pre-nerf Hamelin. Also, the list assumes common crew setups for the respective masters, whereas certain masters (Hamelin, Levi) can run gimmick lists that will be very difficult to counter if unprepared (e.g. Hamelin Nephelim list).

As always, remember that you play a faction in tournaments, not individual masters. Sometimes, choosing a certain master that is considered weaker will increase your odds at winning.

@Kitsune: Wasn't too sure about Rasputina, tbh. She's kinda narrow in her focus, and has weaknesses that need to be adressed, but I agree that she's generally stronger than Marcus or Molly.

I'm taking up Malifaux as my second game after Infinity, though I can already see the game has its Pro's and Con's.

I like the card based system and the ability to cheat fate with your control cards, it somewhat negates the effect of shitty dice rolls that have ruined games of Infinity for me in the past. I also like the ability to spend soulstones as a mechanic for similar reasons to the above, I've begun wondering if Infinity could make use of a similar system by allowing players to instead spend an order to re-roll one dice but that was just thinking off the top of my head. I really like the stat cards with all the minis abilities clearly displayed, this is another thing Infinity could benefit from IMHO as it would remove the need to consult the rulebook for new or inexperienced players.


What I don''t like are the prevalence of netlists and uber-combos that I've seen, I'm reminded of Warmachine and TCG's like Yu-Gi-Oh where you either play the best list or you loose, the scenarios seem to balance this out a bit though. I'll need to get some more games under my belt before I decide to spend any more money on the system as a whole but for now it looks like I'll be playing it on a casual rather than competitive basis.

I actually like the combo system. It scratches the itch of Warmahordes without actually buying into an expensive system with ugly minis ($100+ for a hideous mini hahahahaha no). And I don't like the cards idea. They're good in theory, yes. When I got them, I saw they're so small the text is hard to read. I'll have to redesign them anyway, so hardly an improvement over Infinity And as for a reroll mechanic, in Infinity this is balanced by flexible tactics and other units - if you have only one crucial unit in your army, you failed at the list-building stage, whereas in MFX it's a fact of life and gets mitigated by re-flips and cheating.

I've seen some very good fan made stat cards for Infinity in the official forums, if they were available for every faction I'd get them in a second. They would be really useful for beginners learning the system for a start so would get them for Demo games at least.

I think I'm gonna make a thread with links to all the different designs out there.

Darkeldar wrote: I've kept up with the rulebooks, and I like the fluff for the most part, but the Avatars of the third book didn't interest me and the Ten Thunders in the last book, seems to want to upset the cart, that was rolling along nicely.

I find the Avatars a bit meh too. It's like they thought it was a cool idea to have your guys change form but didn't want it to be too radical so it ended up feeling like a stub. Also the fluff for it is a complete cop out.

Ten Thunders I thought were a nice way of adding a new faction without actually adding one. Storm of Shadows is definitely the worst of the books I've read from a fluff perspective though.

Magno wrote:The game needs to be very scenario focused. Straight up fights, it's the worst balanced game I've played.

Very true. I quite like the the wacky and obvious mis-balance. I'd imagine it's awful if you're in it for the tiny pewter glory, but I haven't played any game competitively in a long time so it's pretty fun for just taking your nicest looking guys and seeing what you can do with them.

Kitsune wrote:Yes when they started just showing CAD renderings I lost interest myself.

That annoys me as well. I also just generally like the plastic models less.

I am considering looking into Malifaux, but I am unsure as to how listbuilding focused it really is. Also - how hard is it to begin with one of the masters that are considered more complicated? I know we usually give the same advice on Infinity sectorial armies, but I personally learnt the game with a sectorial and did not find it that hard. Is this a comparable thing?

I can't comment on the tournament side of things but I got into Malifaux recently and found that lists are fairly important, but not the entirety of the game. You can make it a lot easier or harder on yourself during the list building stage but you don't really win the game there. I picked my models based on looks and fluff and just deal with it when the objective is hard for me to do, or spend a soulstone to try and getter a better one.

Master complexity isn't that much of an issue. Some of them I'd say are a real headache if you haven't played other wargames before but if you have it's just a matter of a few more lines of rules. Most units have a "run me with this guy" sticker on them so you can take them and figure out the interactions as you go. I started off with a henchman which is basically like running a sectorial army and found it made things easier if anything.

The only masters I'd really avoid starting off are ones that have strong summoning, since this means you'll probably need a lot more than just a starter box to get the most fun out of them.

Thanks! I am not at all interested in tournaments anyway. I just really like the worldworksgames cardboard city and the style of some of the miniatures. I think I will go with Colette and the showgirls for starters and if I like the game buy Hamelin because I like his theme. Howver I won't do this before I have painted the rest of my infinity stuff lest I get swamped in unpainted minis again

BTW, the new edition is supposed to be released at Gencon(?). The open beta is already out, along with the units from the first book to test. It's a good opportunity to see the new rules and art direction. The new art killed a large part of the game's charm for me, I hated Storm of Shadows and it seems it's just more of the same. I hoped the new rules would wow me enough to keep me converting old models, but it seems they don't. Oh well, more cash for Infinity

Been playing under the Malifaux 2nd Edition Public Beta (rules downloadable at Wyrd forums).

They scaled the special rules for models back and cleaned the core rules up considerably, so you can cocentrate on Sstrategy and Schemes (they made that system a lot better as well.)

In M1E, there were a ton of rules for every model. In M2E, they've scaled that back in a useful way. Now models tend to have 3-4 abilities and 3-4 actions, plus upgrades which allow you to bring a little something extra to the table with certain models (Masters, henchmen, and Enforcers.) Most of them are "buy-backs" of abilities that hardly got used in M1E because there were a whole lot of other, seemingly more useful abilities available.

I like where they are going with M2E, I think it'll be a fun 2nd game for Infinity players who aren't already playing. It has a funky activation mechanic (that's easy to learn) and they took out most of the stupid from the game, although this is based on a public beta; things are subject to change.

They've switched to plastics which I can't stand at such small scales.
Also, what's with these giant boxes weighing nothing and only pictures or the 3d models?

No pics of the actual models or any information. Just seems lazy