Malifaux Musings

This last weekend was Gencon. The Wyrd booth had a set-up of M3E models and rule cards. Our undercover agent, the Sensei of the Wandering River Dojo, Phiasco scored some pictures of these cards. I know a number of people were disappointed that demos were not being run, but at least some information was available if you spoke to the game designers about it and/or took a look at the new cards/models. Here’s what we’ve got so far:

These are rules reference cards, explaining the generic actions, cover and concealment rules, and accuracy and damage modifiers. There's a lot of stuff up there, and you can read, so I'm not going to go into it.

Here are some scheme and strategy cards. All of the strategies have elevating difficulty in their scoring, meaning they get harder to score as you pick up points in them. For example, with Turf War, you score at the end of the turn if you have more friendly Turf markers than VP you've scored from the strat. IE, you have to keep flipping more and more markers as the game goes on to keep scoring. That's pretty smart. Schemes also cap out at 2 VP each, meaning games total 8 VP instead of 10, and the strategy becomes possibly more important to the overall game plan than in M2E, since it represents a greater proportion of the final score. I'm told that most of the schemes are easier to score one point but pretty difficult to score 2, which is also smart.

This is Rasputina's crew. The new sculpts of the models look pretty cool. Again, you can read. Take a look.

And here's Marcus. He gets super young, which is weird. I like old dreadlocks Marcus more, but w/e. Also, underneath are the Mutation upgrades which we've heard of, that give the Chimeras a suite of customizable abilities that Marcus can swap around among the members of his crew. I like it. Very McCabe-y.

In addition to these screenshots, those of us who weren’t lucky enough to attend in person were still able to get information by trolling through A Wyrd Place and Malifaux’s sewers (literally). The same Larry Mottola who would later go on to win the Gencon championship talked to the folks at Wyrd and managed to acquire the following rumors. I make no comment as to their accuracy, and as per usual all of this stuff is in Alpha/Beta, so keep in mind that things could change.

All initiative can be cheated.

You get pass tokens based on difference in activations and it recounts each turn.

All models outside of the Keyword get the old merc tax penalty of +1ss.

Damage scaled down.

Engagement ranges scaled down.

Charges are 1 AP Walks plus a single attack. No more than 1 charge a turn, barring special rules like Cojo.

First Master hire is free, others pay the cost. Totems are free with their Master. No generic totems.

Each faction gets Versatile models, like the Effigy, Emissary and Riders, which don’t pay the tax with any Master.

Peons are no longer a thing. All non minions are rare 1 unless specified otherwise

Also, Mason put up a pic with a size comparison of M3E stat cards compared to M2E.

Some people are mad about how big they are, proving yet again that people will complain about literally anything.

So, what do you think of what we've seen of M3E so far?

So, the first bit of news is that I’ve finished my move to Iowa. It’s been kind of a long year, looking for a new job and helping my wife finish out her nursing school, but I’m glad to report that things will hopefully be settling down in the near future. With luck, that should also result in content from Malifaux Musings being a little bit more regular in the future. Maybe I shouldn't overpromise, but look for things to get a bit more involved soon.

Additionally, the move means I’ve changed regions for the upcoming Malifaux competitive season from the Capital Conference to the Central Conference. To be honest, I never played enough in VA for that to make much difference or to compare the two to each other, but what it will really mean is not having to drive four hours every time I want to participate in a tournament, which is a welcome change to be sure. My local area doesn’t have an active play group at the moment, but Des Moines has been going strong for a while now. As a matter of fact, I’m planning on attending the Central Faux Tour Kickoff tournament in a couple of weeks. Moreover, this gives me the opportunity to meet up with some of the folks from my original Malifaux Meta in Lincoln, NE from time to time as well. They’re some good folks, and I’ve missed them since I moved away. Admittedly, 6 hours is a bit of a long haul just to say hi, but I’m sure we’ll run into each other at the events from time to time.

This leads into my current quandry, however. M3E is on the way, and my faction selection options are going to change pretty dramatically when it does. For almost all of M2E I’ve been a Neverborn player. I floated into Guild and Ten Thunders from time to time, but the Malifaux natives have more or less always been my home. The crews I played most often during that period were NB Lynch, Lillith, and Collodi. And, as you likely know, those three are either leaving the faction or going into the Dead Man’s Hand whenever that happens.

Which sucks.

So I’m in a crossroads at the moment. What faction should I play for this last stretch of time in M2E, heading into the new edition? Probably the most competitively sound choice would be to stay with the Neverborn for the time being. I know them best. It could even be a sort of going away party. The combination of crews I have overlap their strengths in a way that allows them to complement and cover for most different types of scheme/strat combos. And, there will still be some crews that interest me left in faction in M3E, at least thematically. I have a Nekima, of course. I like Pandora and Zoraida. Dreamer's always interested me, though that's as far as I've ever gotten with him. And I was a big advocate for Titania before she went and broke my faction apart with her civil war. Sigh. I’m not gonna lie. It’s a little tough to get excited for them at the moment. Maybe it’s just fatigue from playing them for so long, or maybe it’s looking ahead and feeling some serious #notmyNeverborn vibes. The fact that I’m writing this is probably a good indication that it’s time for a change.

Do I go back to my first love, the Guild? The very first crew I ever bought and, indeed, the crew that brought me into Malifaux initially was Perdita. I had spent a week recovering from tonsillectomy as an adult (I don’t recommend it, btw) and spent a large part of that time reading The Dark Tower series. The Gunslinger definitely played a role in drawing me to the Ortegas, and I’ve had a soft spot for them ever since. Additionally, I have a full Hoffman crew, including an alternate Joss and Howard to include some of the new Arcanist flavor. I like the aesthetic of that crew quite a bit. I own Lady Justice and have a painted Sonnia crew. I’ve always wanted to get Lucius, and the fact that his M2E box set is going to be the best deal in Malifaux once M3E drops, since it contains two masters, makes picking one of those up pretty tempting. That plus various other Guild odds and ends mean I could play that faction pretty comfortably.

Or do I follow Lynch (my favorite crew) to the Ten Thunders? Another crew I liked a lot was Lucas McCabe, who has apparently been fired by the Guild and now works exclusively for the Thunders. And I have a Misaki crew, plus a few additional odds and ends from the faction, like a Ten Thunders Brother, Terracotta Warrior, and Monk of the High River. But that’s literally it. I don’t own half of the masters in the Thunders and am missing a lot of the key pieces people utilize, like Yasunori or the Mysterious Emissary. Of course, the new job also means I’ll have greater ability to actually get these things (hurray for no more paycheck to paycheck), but it also means more painting time before I’m fully up to speed, which is problematic for the remaining M2E period.

I’m inclined to go with the follow Lynch plan for the time period and just say damn the consequences. I'm playing him in the Malifaux Vassal league that's running right now, so I can get an idea of how I feel about him in faction. Plus, from everything we understand of M3E, having a full faction may be less important in the grand scheme of things, as the crew theme and synergy are being much more emphasized. The Honeypot crew have appealed to me from the first time I saw them, so that’s my thought for now. That, and Cheating Bastard Lynch is a lot of fun, so I can honestly see myself playing a lot of that during the time remaining. Whether that is for the old bosses in the Neverborn or the new bosses in the Ten Thunders remains to be seen. Maybe you have some ideas? There's a good chance that whatever I end up picking will get a lot of coverage on Malifaux Musings, so if you want to see me write about something in particular that'd be a good idea. Feel free to comment in the various places, and I’ll take them under advisement.

Oh, and did you see my article in the most recent Wyrd Chronicles? It's called Soulstones in the Rough, and It deals with some common themes to this post. More specifically, it pulls out some models that have been relegated to the M2E dust bins of some people and makes an argument for getting them back out and on the table, as well as discussing some of the changes coming to those models (and their theme crews) in M3E. A lot of that info is currently unavailable outside of the alpha/beta forums. You should go check it out.

Later, Wyrdos.

To continue with this series of…musings…I think I’m resolved to give the Ten Thunders a go. The way I put it was something to the effect of “as goes Lynch, so go I.” Is this a rational way to make a decision? No, probably not. But this is a silly game with murderous teddy bears and zombie hookers, so I think we’ve probably tossed out any requirement for serious consideration in our decision making.

I thought this would probably be a good time to discuss my thoughts on the faction as a whole. My history with the Thunders is a bit of an odd one, as I never set out to actually play them. It just happened that, when the M1E book Storm of Shadows came out and introduced them, I needed Lynch and McCabe to continue growing my collection of Neverborn and Guild. Then I picked up a Misaki because ninjas were cool. Then I started adding bits and bobs and, next thing you know, I have part of a faction. The fact that Phiasco plays Thunders and we were frequent sparring partners made me hesitate to expand too much in that direction, as I like to have games be as diverse as possible. Additionally, as we were going through the last year of school and job searching, paired with the fact that I was a long way from a Malifaux community when I was living in western Virginia, and as a result I haven't bought very many models from Book 3 of M2E forward. As such my collection isn’t really at a point where I feel comfortable putting them out on the board competitively right now. Mainly, I’m missing two of the fairly key pieces that most Thunders crews bring for games: Yasunori and one of the Shadow Emissary or Sensei Yu. Without them, my Ten Thunders will be missing a lot of the things that give the faction their personal style and reputation.

Which I suppose warrants a discussion of what that style is. When most people think Ten Thunders, there are a couple of things that come to mind. One is the Focus condition. The Thunders have a lot of ways to get it outside of taking an action. The old classic is through the Recalled Training upgrade, which allows one to discard it at the beginning of a model’s actions and gain a + to all flips for the rest of the turn, basically a super Focus that lasts for the rest of the turn. They’ve had this since the beginning of M2E, and it’s really defined their playstyle. Somehow, despite its ubiquity, its managed to escape each round of nerfs without being modified, so this is still very much the case. Most of the time, a model that’s planning on being committed to melee or placed in danger will start the game with an RT attached, which can add a lot of soft costs to crew construction beyond the cost of the models themselves. In addition, a number of Thunders models have actions to hand out Focus. The aforementioned Shadow Emissary and Sensei Yu both play with Focus, as well as a handful of other faction models. The overall effect is to create crews focused more on individual, punishing strikes rather than a crew of brawlers that want to dive in and start throwing blows around randomly.

The other feature are the use of pushes to shove models around. Again, Yu and the Emissary are the usual suspects for this role. The increased mobility is a big part of what makes the “typical” faction crews work, and is a big reason why people play them. Generally, when you’re preparing to play against them, you have to keep in mind the realistic possibility that they can strike with their heavy hitters wherever they want to on the board by turn 2 (if not sooner.) Usually that comes in the form of a charging Yasunori lashing out with a series of brutal, repeated melee strikes, but the same methods can be applied to shove a master like Misaki or Shen Long down your throat as well. There are no safe spaces on the board, basically, if the Thunders want to attack it.

Their weaknesses tend to come when they get bogged down. They aren’t as fragile as the Neverborn, but they’re going to be more successful when they fight in a guerilla style with specific targets rather than engaging in long protracted engagements and hoping to muddle through. Models like Yin the Penangalan or Gwyneth Maddox have some decent defensive tech, particularly with the Smoke Grenades upgrades or defensive buffs from Charm Warders, but glass cannons are more common than tanks. Additionally, they don’t have a preponderance of anti-armor abilities in faction. The Arcanists in particular can be tough for this reason, and you often have to either focus fire on a particular key target or try to avoid combat with them unless entirely necessary.

So, right now this is what I have available.

Lynch Crew: Hungering Darkness, 2x Illuminated, 2x Depleted, Gwyneth Maddox, Mr. Graves, Mr. Tannen, 2x Beckoner.

Lucas McCabe: Sidir Alchibal, Luna, 3x Wastrels

Misaki: Shang, Ototo, 2x Torekage, 2x Thunder Archers, Yamaziko

Miscellaneous: Yin, Izamu, Oiran, Shadow Effigy, Ten Thunder Brother, Terracotta Warrior, Monk of the High River

I think the Emissary is my first priority for new additions, as he’s flexible enough to work in most crews as a lynchpin and enabler but can dish out some offensive punishment when necessary, something that Yu can’t really do (also, I don’t have to buy a whole crew to get the SE, which is nice.) Hopefully by next week I’ll have some tabletop results to discuss, and maybe a break-down of what crew builds I’m looking at. Now I just have to figure out how I’m going to paint some Dragon Balls to put on my Shadow Emissary’s base.

There are some Malifaux players who come into new crews/factions with a good base of knowledge from which to build. They’re prepped and ready. They know their crew and what they can do. They’re prepared and when they play, if they make some mistakes, they do more things right than they do wrong. For top-end players, you may not even know they’re trying a new crew if they don’t tell you.

I am not one of those players.

As some may remember from my first efforts with Collodi, I tend to muddle about in the dark with my first games and learn by failing. It was this in mind that I went into my first game as a Ten Thunders player. I signed up for the most recent iteration of the facebook Vassal League a month or so ago. I had to forfeit the first round, as my opponent lived in Europe and I was in the midst of the move from Blacksburg to Iowa. The next round had me facing Oliver from the UK, a lovely chap who came in 2^ndin the Welsh GT. He was bringing Resurrectionists, and I was pretty sure we were playing Guard the Stash, so I figured it was a good time for some Jacob Lynch-Cheating Bastard Action. A standard set-up of Mr. Lynch, HD, 2x Beckoners, and 2x Stitched Together would be joined by Mr. Graves to knock people away from Stash markers and Yin with Smoke Grenades to improve our staying power. This seemed like the correct call when my opponent revealed he was bringing Kirai. Since I don’t have what it takes to alpha-strike, I knew I would have to score early and try to endure and deny. With a Lampad coming from the other side, I figured I probably would have a chance to score set-up on it before (hopefully) killing it at the start of the next turn. And I had Lynch-Hungering Darkness-Graves-Yin to score Punish the Weak. It was gonna be tough, as I have no experience against Kirai, but I thought I had a good plan.

Of course, then I sat down to play the game and realized it was actually Symbols of Authority, not Guard the Stash.

All-in-all, the game was a comedy of errors for my side. I mean, I ran my crew well. We had revealed each other’s crews early in the week, so I didn’t think it would be right for me to change mine after I discovered the mistake. That meant I was not going to be scoring anything for Symbols most likely, but I could perhaps hunker down and limit the other crew’s ability to score any of mine. I’d have to get it with schemes to succeed. The gameplan for set-up didn’t entirely work out, as Oliver is much more cagey with his Lampad than some others and kept him hidden through all of the first turn. I ended up scoring two from it later on when the fire ghost finally appeared, but by that point I’d been picked down enough that the Lampad couldn’t be killed. My Stitched Together were rockstars, dropping severe damage gambles left and right to keep me in business. But, ultimately, my unfamiliarity with Kirai/Ikiryo/Seishin interactions doomed me. Between Huggy and Lynch I probably wasted about 4 AP worth of actions trying to do things that were impossible (Paralyzing Ikiryo/Trying to Kill Seishin for Punish/Trying to do damage to Kirai when Seishin were nearby) and, when you’re playing a good crew piloted by a good opponent with as big a disadvantage as I put myself in with my crew selection, there was just no way to win the game. Additionally, I left Woke Up With A Hand to see if I could get by with 52 Pickup and have a bit more flexibility in when he activates, which I think was a mistake. And most inexcusable, I let Huggy die with his Recalled Training still attached. My ancestors have been shamed. In a way, I’m actually pretty proud of ONLY losing 8-4.

So I definitely have some things to learn. But, I think the crew itself played relatively well. In a Guard the Stash game, I may even have been in a place to compete for a draw despite the in-game errors. I’ve discovered the worst situation for an opponent when inside the CB bubbles is to be winning on the initial flip with a low card, as you’re now stuck having to decide whether to cheat or risk me jumping over them with a moderate, which has to suck. My opponent, for his part, didn't seem phased by it and did what I think you have to do, cheated the important stuff and didn't sweat it otherwise. I discussed with Oliver in game that I like using Huggy as an anchor as you do in this crew, rather than the fire and forget missile that he was in Rising Sun Lynch. As Oliver points out, he’s still very vulnerable to getting ganked by casters targeting Df, but I prefer keeping him on the board for as long as I can rather than intentionally throwing him away. This crew fits well with my style. Plus, it changes things up from what an unfamiliar opponent might expect when you declare Ten Thunders, namely the alpha-striking Emissary/Yasunori combo. This is not that crew, and the things you might bring to counter that crew aren’t going to be effective against mine. So, all in all, I’m encouraged despite the failure.

***

Earlier in the week, I messaged my friends in the Wandering River Dojo to ask for what models would be considered REQUIRED to add to my Ten Thunders collection. As a reminder, this is what I have now. I’m not looking for new masters at the moment, just things to add to the toolbox. Essentials, if you will. This was what they came back with.

Number one with a bullet was the Shadow Emissary, and it’s easy to see why. The thing is a workhorse. Handing out Fast to any model with an upgrade is pretty good, since the models with the upgrades are also usually pretty good. Increased mobility. Some intermediate ranged damage. So, so, good, and that’s not even looking at the Conflux upgrades. With those, you can bring in another item from McCabe’s loot bag or give the Emissary a pseudo-Lure action with Lynch. And if you don’t want to use the Conflux, you can always give it a Recalled Training. Good stuff.

A Teracotta Warrior and/or Ten Thunders Brother would probably go here, but I’ve got one of each of those already, so next was Yasunori. Again, no surprise there. He’s the best hitter the faction has. He’s infamous for his ability to force opponents to change their set-up to avoid his mauling their way through the center of their crew at the end of turn 1/start of turn 2. He gets a ton of attacks with his triggers, and he’s a scary model. He's bad enough that he got a nerf in the last Gaining Grounds that resulted in a collective shrug from most of the Malifaux community, followed by their continuing to use him in exactly the same way and with the same frequency they had previously. That said, everybody sees him coming, and I’ve not used him. In a way, I might be better served not using him and sticking to stuff I know. Otherwise I run the risk of opponents bringing tech to counter him, which is a problem when I don’t have the experience to counter the counters.

As a counterpoint to Yas, Phiasco (sensei of the Dojo) suggested including the Lone Swordsman. He’s less of a point investment than Yasunori, so you don’t have to throw all your eggs in one basket when you use him. He doesn’t have Yas’s speed or multiple attacks, but he can still throw out a lot of damage. Also, one of the Thunders’ weak spots is countering armor from the opponent. It’s not really reliable, but at least the Swordsman is able to use a trigger to get through it. And I do like the ability to take a second activation in a turn to kill an opposing model or, on the last turn, perform those last-minute desperation actions to win the game.

Last was a Charm Warder. Disguise on your master is real good. Disguise on a model that lasts the whole game if the Charm Warder dies is even better. #analysis. A + flip to Df/Wp after activation. Versatile attack that can work around defenses like Incorporeal or having a combination of high/low Df/Wp. Scheme negation. The full toolbox of abilities that this model brings is crazy at 5 stones. There’s very little reason not to bring one for most games, at least in my view.

Those models are on the way. Next weekend I have the season opener in Des Moines, so it’s gonna be a rush to get them assembled and try to slap some paint on them. Additionally, I have the next round of the Vassal tournament against Rich D. Nave, who will have a (now-nerfed) Nicodem waiting. This will be a rematch of a game I asked for when writing the Nicodem article a while ago, so my fun with the undead continues, it seems. More on this in next week’s blog post.

A couple of weeks ago, I travelled to Des Moines for the 2018 season opener tournament of the Midwest Region. As part of my ongoing efforts to transition from the Neverborn faction to the Ten Thunders, I planned on trying out the new stuff. I loaded up in the morning and made the drive from Cedar Rapids to Mayhem Collectibles Inc. (a lovely store with a very large selection of Malifaux merchandise. They even stocked Through the Breach on the shelf, which was a pleasant surprise.) After going across the street for some coffee, registered, and picked up a Hinamatsu to go along with my entry fee (but, but, that’s a Neverborn model?! Join the M3E beta son. That’s all I’m sayin’.)

Round 1 looked a lot like this:

ROUND 1

Deployment: Standard Deployment

Strategy: Guard the Stash

Schemes: Guarded Treasure, Covert Breakthrough, Hold Up Their Forces, Inescapable Trap, Take One For The Team

Guard the Stash struck me as something that Cheating Bastard Lynch could handle, so I put together a crew built around that. I was paired against Resurrectionists, so I thought I would take the base crew and add in Yamaziko for a bit more resistance to terrifying and Graves to boot people off of the markers.

My opponent (from my old game store in Lincoln, NE) brought Seamus. I often joke that Seamus has Terrifying (Me) 12, and he lived up to his reputation. Sinister Reputation is mostly brought for the reduction in Willpower, but it also gives Seamus a Ca attack versus Defense, the Hungering Darkness’s weak spot. As such, HD was dead shortly after the start of turn 2. Jacob Lynch died shortly thereafter, which left me in “hang on by my fingernails” mode. Yamaziko proved to be extremely difficult for the opponent to remove, and I ended up wishing I had brought the Lone Swordsman instead of Graves, since he has the same immunity. Even still, I managed to accidentally kill my opponent’s Take One for the Team target on the last turn for two points, lost too many models to score more than 2 from the strat, and my opponent killed the wrong Stitched Together to give me any Take One points. So I ended up losing 8-4.

The more I play CB Lynch, the more I’m beginning to have doubts about it. The baseline idea is good, but the weakness is Hungering Darkness and Lynch himself. They’re anchor points for this crew, and if they die it’s pretty much over. And the thing is, they’re not that tough. I played another game after this one over Vassal against a Lady Justice crew that went slightly better, but the opponent knew they were the weakspots and removed them surgically before I could bring her down. I’m going to try working in some more defensive tech (Misdirection, etc.) but I may need to consider that this isn’t as competitively sound as I thought.

ROUND 2

Deployment: Flank Deployment

Strategy: Public Execution

Schemes: Eliminate The Leadership, Setup, Show of Force, Take Prisoner, Public Demonstration

The tournament was offering bonus points for going Iron Scorpius style and I knew any chance of placing was gone after a first round loss, so I decided it was time to go into playtest mode and try some stuff out. The other two crews I brought were McCabe or Misaki, and having Eliminate the Leadership in the pool crossed McCabe off the list, so it was ninja time. My opponents being Outcast didn’t tell me much, so I decided to try some of the Yolosunori style of crews as a viability check. It looked like this:

Misaki-Risk/Reward, Storm, Training

Shadow Emissary-CoT

Yasunori-Recalled Training

Yamaziko

Charm Warder

Terracotta Warrior

Shadow Effigy

Obviously I was going all in on the big Yas first turn charge, with Misaki as a counter-punch. My opponent was bringing Freikorps, however, which meant that Storm was pretty much useless and everyone had armor, so Yas was going to struggle. I saw first-hand how much it blunted him, as I think between doing less damage and missing a couple of his attacks meant he didn’t even kill back his points despite having a pretty sweet charge into some Freikorps mooks on the first turn followed by winning initiative and popping Recalled Training at the start of 2. I mismanaged the strategy and feel like I got a little lost in tracking all of the buffs and plus flips of the crew. With more practice, I think I can get better, but it ended up with a loss in this game through the opponent outplaying my schemes and managing to block a late-game Take Prisoner. Yas, however, didn’t blow me away. I’ll have to see him in action in some less obviously anti-him positions, but much like when I used to work with Nekima, I just don’t seem to have the touch for making these high-soulstone beaters earn back their investment during games. Maybe getting more experience in general and knowing what opponent models he’ll be effective against and which he won’t would be important here.

ROUND 3

Deployment: Standard Deployment

Strategy: Ours

Schemes: Guarded Treasure, Dig Their Graves, Search The Ruins, Recover Evidence, Vendetta

Now we’re in the Wooden Soon game, so there’s a sub-goal of trying to avoid finishing in last place. It’s McCabe time, which works given that I think he’s best in games where the action will be more spread-out, allowing him to surgically distribute his upgrades to provide advantages in specific quadrants. My opponent was Neverborn, but I didn’t really stress over that when putting this together, as I was now just trying new things out. Here’s what I brought.

Mccabe-Loot Bag, Promises, Badge of Speed

Luna

Lone Swordsman-Recalled Training

Shadow Emissary

Charm Warder

Ten Thunders Brother

Terracotta Warrior

Guild Hound

I faced a Titania crew with the Thorn Knight, Doppleganger, Baby Kade, Emissary, and some etc’s. I set the Lone Swordsman up with the Healing Potion and Cloak Relics and tried to send him up the board with the thought that eventually I could either follow along with McCabe and support him as he Vendetta’d the Doppleganger. Eventually, I’d swap one of the Relics out for the Sabre later on, which didn’t work out as the opponent lured the Terracotta Warrior forward and killed him before I could do the swap. What I hadn’t counted on was just how much of a pest the Swordsman is with that combination of relics. He stayed in the backfield most of the game vexing the opponent and eventually picking up Evidence markers in the backfield. McCabe meanwhile went off to the right flank and led an attack to block the opponent’s control of a quarter along with his pack of dogs, limiting the opposing crew to only a point or two for the strategy and killing the Mysterious Emissary along the way. The Shadow Emissary managed to hang on against Titania in a solo duel, shifting back and forth over the center line to keep her from denying me a quarter, and occasionally handing out Fast to the Swordsman. The Swordsman managed to earn a lot of respect from me all around in this game, as he was an all-star. The only thing he was missing was Ruthless to get around the Doppleganger’s Manipulative, so I didn’t get all 3 points from Vendetta. 2 was still fine, and I managed to pull out the win in this one.

I like McCabe a lot. He’s the right kind of fiddly to keep me entertained, and he’s harder for the enemy to predict. Models with these upgrades attached can overperform significantly from what people expect. He does have some significant holes in his game, unfortunately, and it sucks that there’s a scheme that pretty much rules out using him. Right now he’s my favorite in faction. We’ll see if it stays that way.

So, end of the day, I’m at 1-4 since my change over to the Thunders. Not great. Trying to learn on the fly during tournaments makes it tough to be successful, of course, and one of the crews I expected to use as an anchor point isn’t working as well as I had hoped. I’ve got some work to do, but overall I think I learned a lot. Just don’t look at my rankings.

For the time being, I’ll keep playing games and practicing. However, for October I’m planning to take a short break from the Malifaux skirmish game and do some features on Through the Breach, including product reviews of this Summer/Fall’s releases Above the Law (the Guild sourcebook) and Northern Sedition, a Penny Dreadful continuing the story begun in Northern Aggression. See you then!

Knock-knock.

Above the Law is Wyrd’s newest Through the Breach faction resource book. The previous (Into the Steam, Under Quarantine, and Into the Bayou) have been fantastic resources to expand the world of Malifaux and offer new character options for Through the Breach players. Above the Law continues this strong tradition, providing new information about everyone’s favorite tyrannical oligarchy, The Guild.

The book weighs in at a respectable 205 pages. It features the softcover format that has been the standard for all but the Core Rulebook. Almost a third of those pages are dedicated to background information on the faction. Another ~90 pages of character options comes next, followed by about a 40 page bestiary. Art, as always, is a highlight, consisting of a mix of stunning new work like the two-page spread on the cover and the splash-pages from the beginning of each chapter, and some recycled art from the miniatures game. I’m always a little disappointed that the bestiary art style is the sketchbook drawings with no color, but that is consistent with the other faction books. The editing is improved from previous Wyrd sourcebooks, and the handful of proofreading mistakes are much less noticeable this time around.

Background

I’m always most excited for the background sections of these books, as they fill in a lot of the history questions that have been unknown since the game’s inception. Most of the new information in this book details the time between the ending of the first-breach era and the opening of the second. I had always been under the assumption that the Guild grew out of the Council of wizards who managed the city in the 1700s. It turns out, however, that the Guild were a reaction to them and their control of magic and resources, a power grab that resulted in a global hegemony and a world war. One of the biggest departures of the Malifaux timeline to Earth’s actual history are the Black Powder Wars, a kind of early version of World War I that ended with the Guild’s growth from arms manufacturing cabal to worldwide superpower, mostly at the expense of the newly-formed Three Kingdoms and Abyssinia. As a fan of WWI history and the Victorian era in general, it’s a curious mental exercise to imagine this kind of event causing a breakdown of the Imperial/Colonial system almost a century too early, only to replace it with an even more controlling government that rules most of the world. Wyrd’s done a good job of taking this and still leaving the world in position for the Great War to break out (in the form of The Other Side). Additionally, Above the Law provides an explanation for why women and minorities are so well-represented in Malifaux’s timeline where they would historically have still been second-class citizens in the early 1900s (namely, that the Guild doesn’t care about your sex, race, or creed as long as you can follow orders and earn them money.) The book's timeline cuts off in 1907, with the Guild’s control starting to crumble. One small inconsistency comes from the statement that the Three Kingdoms are about to reclaim their independence, while Broken Promises seemed to indicate that this has already happened. This is pretty minor, however, and this history stuff, while possibly not having a huge impact on games, certainly makes my Malifaux nerd heart happy. It will be interesting to see how the Guild’s story continues from here.

The Malifaux side of the background info contains less new information. Most of the Guild’s history in Malifaux is also the history of the city itself, so consequently much of it has been covered in the fluff since book one of first edition. The organizational details for the Guild are interesting, though. I’m not sure whether the leaders of the Guild, the Minerva Council, had been mentioned before. There still aren’t many details on them, though the fact that they’re not exactly on the friendliest terms with the new Governor-General is interesting. Each of the Special Divisions gets some fleshing out, which is cool, detailing how one becomes a member of the Witch Hunters, Death Marshals, and Monster Hunters. The Public Relations department introduces a new division head in Leonardo Benneton, as it turns out Nellie Cochrane is only the Editor in Chief of one of the Guild’s two papers. We don’t know much about Benneton, but it’ll be interesting to see if he ever shows up in the miniatures game. All in all, there isn’t as much juicy new stuff in the background section of this book, but that’s mostly a result of much of the Guild’s history already being known. There is still plenty in Above the Law for a fluff-nut like me to sink their teeth into.

Character Options

Like the other Faction Books, Above the Law introduces a new Tarot for character generation to represent Guild employees. Each of these contains an additional card that details something specific about Fated characters to give them some flavor (and mechanical differentiation) to mark them as members of the faction. Above the Law’s version of this is the Vice Card, a wildcard that you can use to substitute for one of the others you put out during character generation. This lets you replace an option you aren’t happy with and also gives your character a character flaw to roleplay, be it Greed, Addiction, or the simply being on the wrong end of a Blackmail scheme. Characters built with the Ram’s Head tarot also will have destinies with more of a Guild flavor.

Above the Law introduces six new basic pursuits: the Bureaucrat, Commander, Gunner, Magewright, Marksman, and Propagandist. Bureaucrat and Propagandist are both social classes. Gunners use heavy weapons while Marksmen are snipers, giving you some different options for ranged support. The Commander is a version of the support combat class that brings in soldiers and issues them commands with a definite Guild flavor, best epitomized by the fact that they draw cards when their soldiers get killed. Magewrights are different than previous spellcasters, as they focus more on enchanting items and weapons with magical power and less on using Grimoires to cast powerful evocations. Additionally, the Executioner, Guild Lawyer, Mage Killer, Soulstone Aficionado, and Witchling Handler are introduced as Advanced Pursuits. There’s a lot of interesting stuff in these. I’ve made no secret of my love of Court Procedure doctrine, so you know I’m excited by the Lawyer. And, uh, yeah, Executioners are horrific melee combatants. I’ve FM’d for one, so I know what I’m talking about. Be ready for your bad guys to get wrecked in a hurry if you come up against one of them.

Seriously. These guys are bad news.

Additionally, Above the Law introduces 30 new general talents, ranging from my favorite, Idiot, which lets you not fail social skill challenges, to Guild Training that helps Fated interact with other Guild characters, as well as giving them some individually flavored bonuses based on which division your Fated have joined. The Eternal Dance is introduced as a Magical Theory used by the Domadores. It kind of feels kind-of tacked-on, but paired with some of the necromantic stuff from Under Quarantine could allow you to play one of these very unique character archetypes. 15 new Magia and 4 new immuto are offered in the book, many with some significant Guild flavor (ie: lots of things that banish/cage/control the enemy). Also, the book introduces several unique Grimoires, including the Forgotten Marshall’s Forgotten Box (complete with random summoning.) Finally, the character option section wraps up with a spattering of melee weapons to oppress the downtrodden up-close and personal and ranged weapons including a relatively high proportion of Heavy Guns (not a huge surprise, given that one of the basic pursuits is built around using them.) Ever wanted to be Jesse Ventura from the Predator? Now’s your chance.

The Bestiary section begins with our once again rejoining Ms. Emeline Bellerose, an undead agent of the Elite Division who has been our guide through the menagerie of opponents introduced in the other faction books. I’ve really loved this style of presenting background info for the monsters ever since the first time I saw it used in White Wolf Publishing’s Ravenloft sourcebooks. Obviously, various Guild troopers and constructs are the brunt of the options here, including the Warden, Domador, and Thalarian Queller. Some of the non-Guild options include Saboteurs, a spattering of weaker Resurrectionist minions for the Domador to bring (as well as stats for a horde of Mindless Zombies, which I’ll probably make a lot of use of in my games), an Essence of Power (which can be summoned with a Magia from earlier in the book,) and Wokou Raiders (for some reason.) New monsters (IE something that isn’t currently in the minis game) include a construct called a Clipper that can fire a pneumatic spike to pin you to the ground while flying closer to finish you off, a kind of arcane archer called a Hex Bow, and a Living Portrait first presented in this summer’s worldwide event that would look lovely hanging in Secretary Mattheson’s parlor. The big named Fatemaster character presented is Francisco Ortega. If anything, Franc is even scarier in the RPG than he is on the tabletop, as he adds Rams to his duel totals for each character with whom he is engaged (so he can Critical Strike like a mother) and his El Mayor grants a + flip on defense to any friendly character within his 2 yard engagement range. Fated are definitely going to want to have him on their side if he shows up on the battlefield.

I mean, he's in every Guild crew. He should probably be in the RPG too.

Conclusion

Above the Law continues Through the Breach’s tradition of strong sourcebooks. While it doesn’t offer quite as much in terms of new, interesting fluff as some of its predecessors (they can’t all be Under Quarantine, I suppose,) it does fill in some important historical gaps and clarifies some ambiguities about the faction’s structure. It offers some solid character options that expands on the Guild’s ranged combat superiority and aristocratic manipulations. Additionally, the bestiary is full of good stuff sprinkle into your game. All-in-all, if you are a fan of Through the Breach (or even just a fan of The Guild in general), Above the Law is worth picking up.

There are a number of important tools in the toolbox of Fatemasters. Building dynamic, interesting encounters is critical to creating the most memorable games. A solid foundational knowledge of the rules is vital (though I strive to point out that you don’t need that knowledge to be Encyclopedic.) The skill of describing things to your players in a vibrant, detailed, but also fast-paced manner is something that every FM spends their career perfecting. But there’s one other skill that is, in my opinion, just as important and doesn’t get nearly the amount of exposure. That skill is called plagiarism.

Now stay with me. I’m not talking about literal plagiarism, here. For good reason, using other people’s ideas as your own gets a bad rap. Probably the academic dishonesty thing, I suppose. But here’s the deal: there are a lot of good reasons to dip a pen into somebody else’s ink when you’re putting together a TTRPG game session. First of all, there have been a lot of good RPG stories told over the years. I’m not Matthew Mercer. You’re not Ed Greenwood. Well, maybe you are (Hi Ed, if you’re reading,) but you get the idea. Unless you’re very, very lucky, writing RPGs for people is not your job. But we’re not talking about showing up to your table to run your party through your brand-new adventure titled The Tomb of Horrors that you totally wrote yourself over the course of the last week. We’re talking about not feeling obligated to create everything in your game whole-cloth every time. People who do this all day every day have come up with a lot of cool RPG material over the years, and they’ve released them FOR YOU TO USE. Moreover, there’s a world of entertainment between television, movies, and the internet with things for you to riff on in your game. And yet, somehow, this idea persists that people who’ve built everything from scratch every time are somehow Gamemastering the "right" way. I think this is wrong, and I think it keeps people from taking a turn in the GMs chair for themselves.

Which leads to the second point: using a shared context is a shortcut to connect your story to the players. If the thing you're describing is familiar to your players, it will help them grasp it faster. That game involving the Dungeons and the Dragons has an edge in this regard, as the opponents and settings involved are iconic. People know them. Through the Breach has a similar advantage with those who know the Malifaux miniatures game world. Additionally, the genres involved are popular with a large number of people and a number of important historical events were occurring at the same time. If you throw in a splash of them from time to time, it saves you a few minutes of description and helps to avoid some of the risk of a player not following understanding what you’re describing. People know what a home with Gothic spires looks like. If a lady of the night has been killed and mutilated in a Victorian setting, people’s memories of Jack the Ripper will do half the work of setting the scene for you.

So, what level of idea-use is acceptable to you? Some will lift a theme or an image and build the game from there (and, arguably, 90% of game inspiration comes from this). Running a published module as-written is probably the other end of this, particularly if you’re providing the characters pre-generated to your players. Believe it or not, most of my games tend towards the latter rather than the former. My dirty secret is that I’m not super-creative, particularly when it comes to drawing maps. I love a good story, but I get lost in the nuts-and-bolts of RPG session design at times. Also, I have a family of 6 and a job that keeps me pretty busy, so sometimes finding time to be a “good” gamemaster can be tricky. I appreciate having some of the work done for me. However, after I find a module I like, the first thing I do is start hacking the module up with a machete to make it tell the story I want rather than the one that was probably intended.

Allow me to demonstrate.

I run a semi-regular TTB game on Sundays. The usual purpose is to playtest upcoming products, but testing has slowed a bit recently as a large bunch of material was recently released and (I have a feeling) Mason is occupied making M3E. As such, I elected to carry on for the time being with my own campaign. By coincidence, Wizards of the Coast happened to have released a new module, Dragon Heist, at the same time for D&D. This adventure is set in the Forgotten Realms city of Waterdeep and features an urban setting with a rapid, episodic plot wherein characters scramble against a number of factions to try and bring home a haul of gold. Honestly, I’m surprised it didn’t occur to me from the start to adapt it for Through the Breach.

That said, there are things that I have to fix.

From this point on, I’m discussing spoilers, so if you’re in my game you’ll want to quit reading *looks at Joe and Jon*.

The original plot of Dragon Heist revolves around a cache of embezzled gold coins (called Dragons in Waterdeep, thus the module's name.) An important figure in Waterdeep’s past was responsible for the embezzlement, and his son is now an NPC who helps the players with the mystery. That timeline doesn’t really work for Malifaux, as the second breach has only been open for about a decade. As such, I rewrote things a bit to make the NPC Emit Van Ember (who represents Dagault Neverember from Dragon Heist) the grandson of a member of the Council from the time of the first breach who ruined their family name when it was revealed that he had embezzled a sum of soulstones roughly equivalent to half a million guild scrip in current-day value. Emit now works as a private investigator who contracts with the Guild from time to time, but mostly tries to help common people with the kind of troubles they run into on a day-to-day basis. His family’s ancestral home is on the side of the Quarantine Zone section known as Strangers Keep near the Little Kingdom, and as such he has a “good” working relationship with members of the Ten Thunders. As the Fated are drawn into this web of intrigue, Van Ember and his information will be a key to getting to the cache of soulstone first.

One of the unique parts of Dragon Heist is the fact that it features four important figures from the history of the Forgotten Realms who, depending on the DM’s choice, can serve as the primary antagonist for the campaign. The others may aid or hinder the players depending on circumstance and/or the players’ choices. I like this a lot, and Malifaux has no shortage of powerful characters to fill these roles. What I like less is the arbitrary choice from the beginning. My players can tell you that morality is pretty gray in my games. As such, I’ve intentionally not placed any of them into a role of open hostility with the Fated from the beginning. It’s unlikely that they’ll avoid conflict with all of them (especially since they’re responsible for the deaths of the grandchildren of one of the faction leaders) but, ultimately, the choices will be in their hands. As such, the substitutions are as follows:

The Xanathar -> The Widow Weaver

My Fated ran the Heart of Darkness One Shot in the past, wherein they learned to their horror how much fun a Bandersnatch can be. I’m not sure that those spiders are related to the Widow Weaver, a nightmare from people’s imaginations, but I also don’t know that they aren’t. Good enough for me! Moreover, when I realized that the Widow Weaver is pretty much the Other-Mother from Coraline, I knew I had to work her into a game somewhere. And her semi-sane insanity works well with the Xanathar’s kookiness.

Manshoon -> Yan Lo

Manshoon and his Zhentarim faction are going through some internal strife during the events of Dragon Heist, because some of the Zents want to take steps towards going legit and getting away from being the default bad guys in the Realms, while Manshoon’s sub-faction are busy trying to grab the gold to buy enough influence to basically take over the city for him. I was stuck on how exactly to approach this in-game. My solution is to represent the Thunders as being somewhat in turmoil at the moment. Misaki has only just seized power via the death of her father, the former Oyabun. This rubs Yan Lo (who is her ancestor) the wrong way, wich pushes him to take steps to protect himself and their organization by seizing power. He’ll use his servant Manos the Risen (in place of the Manshoon simulacrum from the module) when direct intervention is necessary, as this will help to maintain plausible deniability. It’s a work in progress, but I like it for now.

Cassalanters -> Lucius Mattheson

Aristocrats with dark allies? Yeah, this one didn’t require an excess of brain power to set up. The interesting part of this one is that these characters grew from the end of the Above the Law playtesting process, and as such are Guild employees. Their missions thus far have all been undercover work for the Guild Guard that has earned Secretary Mattheson’s attention. He’s recruiting them for the Elite Division (their current handler is Ms. Bellerose from the faction books). And when he finds out about the horde of Soulstones, he will want very much to retrieve it for the Guild (by which he means, himself.) The next session, the group is going to be presented with a debt that they’re owed to the Thunders for some previous interactions and told that they’ll be forgiven if they retrieve the soulstones for them (as well as paid 10% for their trouble.) I very much look forward to the potential tension of trying to continue searching for it while keeping it a secret from the Fated’s employers.

Jarlaxle -> Collette Dubois? Angelica?

This is mostly growing out of the showmanship aspect of Jarlaxle more than anything else. I had thought about using Lynch for this spot, but that would be two members of the Ten Thunders. I can definitely see the Arcanists coming into this as another player trying to steal the horde of Soulstones. I basically envision it as: The Star is putting together a traveling company that’s going to go by riverboat to some of the outlying communities, but is currently docked on the river in downtown Malifaux City and doing nightly performances/hosting gambling events. The ladies of the Star are a good fit for this character, but I’m not necessarily sure how I would work it in for my campaign. We’ll see how things play out down the line and whether inspiration strikes. This is another good lesson for your burgeoning Fatemasters out there: no matter what Damon Lindelof says, they had no idea what the smoke monster was at the beginning of Lost. You don’t have to have it all figured out from the beginning, and you should absolutely be ok with shifting your plans when new ideas come up.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve got so far. Other parts of the story are waiting to be adapted later on, and I have some ideas for them as well, but more on that as we come to it. For now, I just wanted to give an idea of how I’m planning on going forward and to give an idea of how a module or an idea can be adapted across settings and even game systems. The only limit is your creativity.

Northern Sedition is the second in a three-part series of Wyrd’s Penny Dreadful adventure modules. It chronicles the efforts of a group of Fated to help protect the northern town of Ridley, a stronghold for the M&SU, from the Guild’s attempts to coerce it, a group of Seditionists’ efforts to undermine it, and a mysterious enemy’s endeavors to destroy it. I’m going to do what I can to keep the review spoiler free outside of one section at the end detailing the plot, so most of this review article should be safe for players to read.

Northern Sedition picks up a couple of weeks/months after the previous module, Northern Aggression, finished off with a wave of refugees from the northern mines fighting a pitched (or perhaps not so pitched, depending on the players’ actions) battle for entry into the town. Wyrd has done a solid job of setting the adventure up so that it isn’t necessary to have played through Northern Aggression to run this adventure, however. For context, my players hadn’t been through the original module and were simply assigned to Ridley at the start of the adventure, and other than having to spend a few minutes detailing current events in the city to catch them up on the situation, it ran fine. In fact, in some ways the mystery is almost enhanced by the Fated not having been through the previous conflict, as the arrival of the antagonists and their minions in town will be more “What the heck?” rather than “Here we go again.” Both work well, but have a very different flavor.

Speaking of the mysterious opponent, this adventure continues with the established precedent of offering the same monster colored slightly to represent the opponent and their patron’s identity established in Northern Aggression, but takes it to the next level. As the Fated have likely advanced in Rank, so have the minions exposed to the Wrath Fetish magic that is twisting and warping them. One patron’s minions will typically be sprouting animalistic mutations like wings, claws, or horns while another may suddenly explode into a burst of tentacles and mouths. This theming carries all the way through the adventure and adds an element of individual flavor and replayability to the Northern campaign. While the individual events will remain for-the-most-part the same, the enemy’s motivations and, thus, their actions from scene to scene may change depending on who the Fatemaster chose to be the big foe at the beginning. Plus, Northern Sedition does a good job of responding to the choices the Fated make and their successes or failures in carrying out their plans, causing later scenes to perhaps be very different from one game to the next. All of this together ensures that, while many elements will be familiar from one replay to the other, the Northern Sedition can potentially be rerun with your same group of players multiple times and remain fresh throughout.

Part of what helps to drive this is the Reputation system established with the module. As stated, Ridley is sitting at a crossroads (fitting, since it’s a railroad town) between Malifaux’s factions at the start of the adventure. Depending on how things went during Northern Aggression, the Union, the Guild, or the town itself may be at an advantage, but no one has established true control. The Fated are recruited into a town militia to help keep the peace as the city deals with the arrival of a large number of refugees from the northern foothills and the Guild tries to ship workers back to the mines to get them producing again. While they nominally are there representing the Town Council, Fated choose which faction their actions will aid (or hinder) during the course of the game. This has an effect on the plot of the adventure, but also grants the Fated positive or negative flips on their social interactions with Ridley’s citizens. This actually ends up getting fairly complicated as the adventure rolls along, as the writers effectively had to write the Penny Dreadful like a long decision tree. The last chapter is fairly indicative of this, as it involves the Fated trying to either distribute food they’ve gained lawfully to Ridley’s citizens, confiscate a bunch of food from Ridley’s citizens who are hoarding it and redistribute it to others, OR rob the people who are doing the confiscating! The writers certainly had their hands full trying to cover the increasing number of possible scenarios without this turning into a 400-page adventure, but they overcome this by having most of the diverging paths funnel back into common events. Case-in-point, all the above mentioned activities from the final chapter end with the Fated being led to the site of the final encounter with a potential disaster either about to start, already in progress, or possibly even having concluded. This keeps the size of the module down (and cuts down on the number of pages devoted to encounters you won’t end up running) while still providing enough agency to the Fated to show that their decisions have consequences in the game.

The bestiary at the back of the module is a highlight for the adventure as well, as it includes a number of interesting adversaries for the Fated to battle. Many of these are presented in four possible forms, to reflect how they’re changed by the patron opposing their efforts. Excitingly, this section also includes a number of named characters from the Malifaux world, namely one henchman from the miniatures game associated with each of the patrons. Additionally, stat blocks for three of the four patrons themselves are included in the appendices at the back (the fourth one’s stat block was published in a Wyrd Chronicles adventure, if you want her to make an appearance.) While master-level opponents are never to be thrown into a game lightly (unless you’re TRYING to kill your Fated off), they’re presented as an optional encounter to use against combat-savvy characters and/or as a way to end the module with a real bang and let the players know just how far into the deep end they are. And the nice thing is, even if you don’t end up running this adventure, this makes the Penny Dreadful possibly worth picking up just to have the statistics for these named Fatemaster Characters, along with a bunch of themed minions to use with them. I know I’ll be borrowing a bunch of the tentacle-y fellows to use in my adaptation of Dragon Heist.

Overall, I don’t think I’m overstating things to say that Northern Sedition is a real achievement by the authors. There is a massive amount of work in here just to cover the majority of the contingencies to the Fated’s actions. If I had a criticism, it would be that the final encounter has the potential to be a bit of a dud if the Fated have been especially proactive in shutting down the enemy’s plans (though the Fatemaster can always still throw in the optional encounter with the patron to help offset this.) Still, this is by-far my favorite of the Penny Dreadfuls that Wyrd has released so far, and I would call it a must-buy for Fatemasters.

Plot Synopsis

The Fated are recruited into the Ridley militia after the town has been thrown into chaos from the arrival of a number of refugees from the Northern Hills. They spend some time keeping the peace before it is discovered that corrupt Guild officials are press-ganging regular members of Ridley’s citizenry on trumped up charges and shipping them north to the mines, which is all the spark necessary for a Seditionist movement in the city to start protests.

These protests are all the cover that George Blank, a wrongly-convicted murderer whose mind was erased by the Guild, needs to unleash the plans he’s been enacting since Northern Aggression. You see, the madness that had spread through the northern hills was not a result of disease, but rather a magical affliction created by Blank’s patron to further their own aims. The patrons:***DOUBLE SPOILER ALERT***SERIOUSLY THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING*** Marcus, Pandora, Sonnia Criid, or Jack Daw, are using the north and Ridley specifically as an experimental testing ground for Wrath Fetishes, magical creations that infuse the people carrying them with a bit of the patron’s magic, giving them enhanced abilities but also turning them into frothing berserkers. The Fated spend the next Act of the story trying to deal with a number of people “blessed” with these Wrath Fetishes who show up at protests in Ridley and try to track them back to their source.

Though they may discover Blank’s identity and even make their way back to his home (which is, of course, individually decorated to reflect the particular brand of their patron), they’re sidetracked by riots breaking out around the city. The Fated have to choose whether to go protect the Guild’s Outpost in the city or the M&SU hall. The one they don’t protect will likely end up destroyed, effectively crippling that faction for the duration of the module.

At the start of Act III the city faces its greatest threat so far: famine. With an outbreak of mine madness apparently afflicting the town, the city has been quarantined. Like most industrial centers, without a constant flow of food into the town, the people will start to starve within a matter of days. After dealing with a riot (and attempted theft) at a Farmers Union warehouse, the Fated embark on a semi-legal (ok, pretty much illegal) mission to save the town by seizing a train of food that’s parked outside the quarantine zone. When they get there the curtain is really pulled back on the Patron’s plan, as the train is really an ambush with the patron’s 2^nd in command (Myranda, Candy, Sammael Hopkins, or Montresor) and a sufficiently powerful enforcer (a Slateridge Mauler, Teddy(!), Witchling Thrall, or a Hanged) waiting to get the Fated out of the way. This becomes a moment where your game could end up diverging a bit from the established continuity, as there’s a very real chance the named henchman could end up dead in this fight. Case-in-point, my group of Fated defeated Sammael Hopkins and, when he tried to bargain for his life, executed him (to be fair, one of the Fated was an Executioner, so she was really just doing her job.) As such, my Fated are now enemies of the Witch Hunters forever and their elite division is currently -1 second-in-command. This is likely going to be awkward going forward, as another one of the Fated is a Witch Hunter themselves. I could pretend like I don’t think that’s hilarious, but I’m not gonna.

All of this leads to the huge, sprawling fourth act of the module. If the Fated have the train of food with them, they can focus on getting back on Blank’s trail and track him to the town morgue, where they discover he’s been collaborating with a local Resurrectionist (morgues have really gotta find a screening process to keep those guys out) to reactivate the magic of the Wrath Fetishes in dead people. If the Fated don’t have the train, they have to focus on gathering food through various methods to stave off the pending famine, but they’ll stumble on the Resurrectionist in the process of doing so. It all finishes up in a grand showdown in the town’s main railyard where food is being distributed to a large crowd and Blank unleashes his undead minions to drive them into a frenzy. This gives him the cover he needs to try and activate several Rail Golems and imbue them with Wrath Fetish magic. If he’s successful, they’ll devastate the city before the Guild can arrive with a platoon of Peacekeepers to put them down. If the Fated stop him (or potentially even if they don’t) Blank overdoses on Wrath Fetish magic and ascends into an avatar of their particular flavor of magic (chimaeric beast, blazing pyre, etc.). This is potentially a very dangerous opponent for the Fated (the version of him that works for Sonnia has a trigger where the Fated is incinerated, killing them instantly. This should give you an idea of Ascended Blank’s relative power level) and they’ll really be in a lot of trouble if they don’t move fast enough to stop him.

All of the Patrons are fun, and you can flavor the game to fit them as you’re moving along. Pandora and her followers are just as insane and evil as you would imagine. Using Marcus as the patron helps to show that he’s really not a “good-guy” by any measure of the word, as he’s doing all of this mostly as an experiment in survival of the fittest. Daw has an interesting theme of misplaced guilt (since he’s attracted to Blank due to his wrongful punishment,) but I think Sonnia’s story is the most interesting overall. It is also, however, the most complex to run. The reason, of course, is that the Guild isn’t trying to destroy Ridley, they want to take it over. Sonnia’s idea for how to accomplish this is to cause devastation and strife and blame it on the Union’s mismanagement of the town. This means that, while the Guild are legitimate allies of the Fated against the other three Patrons, against Sonnia they play lip-service at best and actively hinder them at worst. This is particularly amusing if you have a group of Fated who are actually working for the Guild (as was the case in my game, as we were testing Above the Law at the time.) As the Fated build up the Guild’s reputation in Ridley, they are actually helping her endgame at the same time. My Fated did a great job of saving the town, but in the process delivered Ridley into the Guild’s hands. Fortunately, they became such local heroes in the process that Sonnia can’t just kill them, though she wants to do it desperately (they killed her friend Sam, after all.) This led to one of the sweetest final sessions ever (for me at least.) When the Fated finished saving the day and the Guild came rolling in with their platoon of Peacekeepers, Sonnia and a member of the Fated had to smile through gritted teeth, shake hands, and take pictures for the newspapers. It goes without saying, I’m looking forward to seeing how this situation resolves itself in Northern Destruction. I encourage you to go pick this module up, give it a run, and let me know how your story turns out.

Welcome! We're wrapping up the fourth post this month for Through the Breach, the Malifaux roleplaying game. Previously, I reviewed Above the Law and Northern Sedition, two products that were released (or will be) recently. The third discussed adapting adventure modules from other games for use in TTB. This month, the topic is how to host what I feel is the best online version of TTB you can do.

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I live a long way from the people with whom I play roleplaying games. This has been the case ever since I started playing Through the Breach. As such, it's been necessary to learn to play the game online, particularly given that my friends and I help with playtesting Through the Breach material. Our first efforts for this used the TTB module from Vassal. This method has some advantages, as it has Malifaux token sets already loaded into the mapping software and creates a subset of card decks for the individual players to use for their Twist decks. There are other parts of the module that don't work as well for what I want, however, so I've since moved on to finding other ways to play the game online. Ultimately, the best tool I've found for this is Roll20.

I know that they're currently on the internet outrage poop list, so maybe it's not cool of me to promote them, but A) I truly believe they've managed to assemble the best combination of complexity, flexibility, and usability of any online tabletop program and B) I don't care about internet outrage. For those who are unfamiliar, Roll20 serves as a virtual tabletop on which your players can conduct their RPG from anywhere with an internet connection. Signing up for an account is free, but there are monthly memberships you can sign up for to enhance your experience and add more tools to the toolbox. I would recommend having a Fatemaster sign up for a subscription and leave the players on free accounts, but I'm not you. If you want to support the company with your money, I support that choice.

My default tabletop for playing Through the Breach at the moment. All of the graphics were uploaded by me.

Not surprisingly, Roll20 is built mostly for dice-based games and mostly-mostly for Dungeons and Dragons. However, their system is set up with decks of cards as well, presumably for games where they're used for initiative or other resources like Deadlands or Savage Worlds. This deck requires a little bit of work to convert the default deck to a Fate Deck (mostly, replacing the graphics of the standard cards with something to show the Malifaux suits and numbers.) You can use the normal playing cards if you want and you're able to do the suit conversion in your head (Rams are Hearts, because everyone loves the Guild. Crows are Spades because Rezzers need shovels. Tomes are Clubs because the Union is like a social club. And Masks are Diamonds because the Neverborn want you to quit stealing their soulstones.) but where's the fun in that? Of course, making all those cards is kinda time-consuming and not a lot of fun. Luckily, your local friendly neighborhood Malifaux bloggist has done all the work for you. Here's a dropbox with all the graphics files. You're very welcome. Now all you have to do is drag and drop them on the appropriate cards. You'll also want to flip the settings on the main deck to look like this:

It's important to uncheck the "Cards in Deck are Infinite" box, because you need to know when the deck runs out, since that's when players draw new cards from their twist decks.

What's that? Twist decks you say? Oh yeah, I guess we should make those too.

This is easily done by creating new decks under the appropriate section of the toolbox, on top of the Gamemaster's toolbox area. You'll have to make a new card and then drag the appropriate card image into the spot, but otherwise it's pretty simple to do. This lets you build all 13 cards for the twist deck. For the twist decks, I usually activate the "Cards in Deck are Infinite" option, with the "Draw through deck, shuffle, repeat" box clicked. This'll save you a bit of work as Fatemaster (players can't reshuffle their own decks, unless there's a setting somewhere I haven't found to allow that.) I like to use my player's character portraits for the image on the back of their deck, but you could literally do anything as long as you don't use the same image as your Fate Deck. Then, you simply have to click "Show" to let the players see them, and they're ready to go.

For twist cards, players can draw them into their hands on their own or you can have the deck deal them out. Theoretically you can click on the fate deck and it'll flip over a card on top whenever you need to flip a card, but that is a little bit hinkey for + and - flips, as it does them one at a time and covers off anything previously flipped. Instead, I generally have everyone hover their mouse pointer over the top of the deck, which will cause an animation of a card to float up. You can then click and drag that card into play on the tabletop. This lets you track all of the cards from the current Challenge flips at once. It's helpful to make the Fate Deck cards and the Twist deck cards different sizes so you can tell them apart. Once the challenge is resolved, you can simply delete the cards to send them into their respective discard piles. Card flips are probably the funkiest part of playing TTB on Roll20, but ultimately it's not a big deal once you get used to it.

There's a caption to help you remember. Also, this is what the cards look like in play.

There are a number of resources online to help you run your games on Roll20, including their own wiki, so I won't go completely into all the details here. It's kind of useful to learn it organically anyways. But there are a number of useful tools. You can draw maps yourselves or upload graphical files for the maps as well as individual tokens to represent characters, opponents, or furnishings. These can be placed on a map layer that players can see but not manipulate, the objects and tokens layer where things can be clicked on and moved (you have to grant players permissions to move their own tokens, which is tough at the moment for reasons I'll get to later.) Additionally, there is a GM layer where you can place things that you can see but they can't. That's a useful trick to learn to manipulate. The purple glowing fellow in the middle of the map image above is on the GM layer, so I can see him but the players can't. That makes life a little easier and saves having to hunt through tokens to get them into play.

If you like atmosphere, there is a built in jukebox to play music and/or sound effects for the game. There's tables, handouts...basically there's a lot of good stuff in roll20. You can do a deepdive into it or just use it as a shared tabletop on which you can play your games. The level of commitment is up to you. We only just started using battle maps recently, for context, and really just because they were included in the Dragon Heist module I bought. Otherwise we're happy to play in theatre of the mind most of the time, but your group's mileage will vary.

The other big perk to playing on Roll20 is having all of your character sheets together in one place in the game. Or, at least it is for other games. Through the Breach doesn't have a character sheet yet on Roll20. As it stands now, to allow players to move their tokens around on a battle mat you'll have to make them a "character sheet" they can control and assign a token to it, which is silly since the sheet itself will just be blank (or, more likely, it'll default to a D&D sheet.)

But we're working on it.

Doug Brownman, a henchman from Des Moines who has html experience, is helping to encode a Through the Breach sheet in Roll20. So far, it looks pretty sharp. We're working out a few hiccups (figuring out how to allow people to add triggers ad hoc has been a bit of a stumbling block) and basically Doug's doing a lot of grunt work to get the coding set up, but I'm super excited for this. He's been a real hero, and if you see him and plan on using this at some point in the future, you should show him a little love yourself. When it's ready, we'll let you know and deploy it to the world at large so anyone who plays Through the Breach on Roll20 can use it.

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So, that wraps up our October of Through the Breach posts. Or does it? Maybe there's a Halloween surprise in store? Keep an eye on your RSS feeds/twitter/facebook groups.

Later, Wyrdos.

One of my favorite all-time RPG memories is inviting my friends to the house to run I6: Castle Ravenloft, inviting the players to the titular evil lair to face the vampire Strahd as he stalked them through his home. There's something special about running a horror game on Halloween. Everyone is already in the mood for a fright, and as a game master it's our solemn duty to provide them with one. Malifaux gives us a number of options to do just that. So, with that in mind, here are the top 6 Penny Dreadful one-shots to run for a night of spooky fun.

#6 Til Death Do Us Part

The Fated are contacted by a woman to investigate a murder. Pretty standard adventure set-up, right? Well, there’s a little twist: the woman wants them to investigate HER murder. Poor Sarah’s woken up as a zombie with no idea how she got that way. Worse (well, ok, maybe not worse), her fiancé is about to get married to somebody else! The Fated have about 30 hours to figure out what happened to her and obtain the information necessary to confront her killer. I love the set-up for this Penny Dreadful. The only thing that knocks it down this particular list is the lack of horror elements past the initial hook. If I was going to run it for a Halloween game, I might have to dress up some of the enemies down the line to include a bit more horror. But still, Til Death Do Us Part is a solid mystery with an excellent hook.

#5 The Ferryman

Something is stalking the shores of Malifaux’s waterfronts. Mariners and dock workers are going missing, and rumor has it a creature in the river is to blame. When a bounty is offered for bringing the thing in, a cadre of hunters (including the Fated) take to the waters to try and end the nightmare forever. Playing on the horror of an aquatic unknown menace, the adventure is reminiscent of the movie Jaws (right down to a Quint-like character). Not classically horror-filled, with the right application of a John Williams score and appropriate measures to build tension, this adventure is more than capable of keeping the Fated on the edge of their seats. One thing is for sure: if the Fated go after the Ferryman, they’re going to need a bigger boat.

#4 Ghost House

The classic haunted house story with a Malifaux twist, this story is a fantastic one-off for some spooky horror classics. Every game master at some point or another tries a version of this, and if you’re worth your salt you pick up simple tricks here and there to help things out. The house in question for this story isn’t exactly “The Haunting of Hill House,” however, as it is VERY blatantly haunted and the first thing the Fated will likely see is the phantom owners of the home gliding by. Still, put on some appropriately spooky ambient music. Make some halls longer than they should be. Knock under the table at a tense moment, and you can make for a memorable evening.

#3 Night of the Carver

I mean, come on. He had to be in here somewhere, right? Malifaux’s Halloween Boogeyman has been a part of the world since nearly the beginning, and there’s a reason the Carver endures in the stories. A killer who manifests on the most haunted night of the year and stalks the city’s citizens (and a city full of people who still go out and celebrate Halloween anyways), the Carver combines the dark fairytale fear of childhood with the unstoppable killing power of a modern-day slasher like Jason Vorhees. In this particular story, the Fated have to protect a mark that they’re trying to deliver for a bounty after he angers some Neverborn, leading the Malifaux natives to sick the Carver on him. It’s quick, which is ideal for a holiday party atmosphere where it can be tougher to keep the group’s attention. If you’re looking for a game to run on Halloween Night, you can’t find one that fits better than this.

#2 Bad Moon Rising

Not all Quarantine Zones are created equally, as your Fated will find when they join a pack of Neverborn hunters to try and drive them out of the western QZ named Beggartree. Here, the local Knotwood forests have grown over the walls, congesting the city with gnarly plant growth, tangling roots, and one very, very angry Waldgeist. If they can survive that challenge, they’ll have to deal with infiltration of the hunters by Dopplegangers, try and restore an abandoned Guild relic left on an earlier hunt, and try to disrupt a sinister ritual to awaken one of the Neverborn’s most dangerous enforcers before they can turn him loose on the city. A more combat focused adventure than usual, this locked-in-with-the-monsters adventure has the claustrophobic feeling of movies like Alien. It’s a lot of fun, particularly with pre-generated Fated who you can casually dispatch in a horrific spray of gore.

#1 Heart of Darkness

The first time I read through this adventure, I was legitimately creeped out. The story hook is ultimately fairly benign: a new type of gemstone has been found at a mine in the Badlands, and the Fated are sent to investigate who’s been smuggling them out to sell in the city. When they arrive, however, they learn that workers have been going missing, and those who remain are literally jumping at each other’s shadows. When it is ultimately revealed that the camp is being stalked by a Bandersnatch, and the stones from the mine are egg sacks from the very same creatures, the Fated are left to deal with this horror of the Malifaux world. This is easier said than done, however, as by the time they know what is going on, one of the Fated is likely to have a spider-monster of their own hiding in their shadow. Done right, the slow build of paranoia in the camp combined with the bizarre phenomena of the creatures can build an atmosphere like John Carpenter’s The Thing. This adventure is still one of my favorites of all time.

The day I’m writing this marks 100 years to the day when the agreement ending the First World War went into effect. In point of fact, it would be about 15 minutes from when I started writing this when the “Calamity Jane,” an artillery piece from the US armed forces, fired the last shot of the war at 11 AM to commemorate the moment when hostilities ceased. Like a lot of American students, the Great War didn’t take up a ton of my educational time when I was in school. I only really came to appreciate it after I grew up and listened to Dan Carlen’s excellent Blueprint for Armageddon series on WWI. Carlin drives home the point to a level I had never considered that this war is, most likely, the one with the most concentrated human misery, blind heroism, foolish waste, and consequence of any war in human history. The world changed fundamentally as a result of this conflict. At the time, it was called the War to End All Wars, and they were half correct. There have, of course, been other wars since Armistice Day (it is called World War I, after all, which inherently implies there was another one.) But this was the one that showed the world that the Industrial Revolution and advancements in technology had brought home General Sherman’s point that war is hell, and all it’s glories are moonshine.

And Malifaux’s version of WWI is starting with The Other Side.

It’s not exactly the same conflict, of course. We’re about five years early, for one things, as Malifaux’s current time line is somewhere around 1907 or 8. Also, there are fish monsters and horrible mutant cults. So, you know, that’s a little bit different. But the King’s Empire is the closest thing to an accurate WWI-era army, and I’m way into it. They resemble the forces of the British Expeditionary Force, but retain some of the early-war impractical uniforms that contributed to the horrible casualty rates early in the fighting.

I don’t know anything about them in terms of combat efficacy. Maybe they suck. Hopefully not, given that the game just launched, but you can never be sure. In reality, I know very little about TOS. At the time of the Kickstarter I was pretty much broke and not overly interested in an army scale game. The first factor has blessedly changed. The second is still not far from the truth. I like skirmish scale games better, if nothing else for not having to paint so many gorram models. But, I think I’ll be giving this new game a try, likely by ordering one of the starter boxes to let me run demos and see if the locals are interested. But, ultimately, my allegiance is going to be with the King’s Empire. You heard it here first. I cut my teeth in wargaming with the Imperial Guard of Warhammer 40K, and I've liked gunlines ever since. This plus my affinity for the historical context of the army makes the choice pretty academic. I have things to like with all of the others as well, but this is really not much of a choice for me. Rule, Britannia!

As such, while M3E news is slowly trickling out from Waldo, I’ll probably be talking about The Other Side in upcoming blog posts. If nothing else, it helps avoid the headache of avoiding breaking my NDA from the M3E playtest. I would guess that the Black Friday sale will at least allow you to order some of the new models, so it’s likely that the purchases will begin then. Maybe I’ll take a look at the rules for the next few posts, as they’re available for free online, followed by taking a look at the Empire’s forces and how I think they could be useful. So, if you wish to save humanity from tides of fish monsters, horrible magical maniacs, and maintain the peace with Abysinnia, well, keep your dial tuned to Malifaux Musings. Much tea will be consumed, and many rounds will be fired.

I've officially joined the Empire, as of last night. A fellow was looking to off-load his Kickstarter purchase and I happened to notice when he commented about that fact, so after a quick chat on messenger I have some forces heading my way. What it looks like I'll be receiving:

Rulebook- (Important. Knowing how to play the game is useful.)

Allegiance Box- (Also important. Contains Charles Edmonton, 2 Units of Riflemen and one unit of infiltrators. The riflemen seem very shooty, and embody the WWI army visual I wanted these guys for. The infiltrators are interesting. Being able to create hazardous terrain seems useful, but they have to live long enough and kill something to get to glory. They can act as screening units. They can screw with the opponents' tokens. They seem pretty useful. And Edmonton is a sniper who shoots things. Maybe too much of a good thing? IDK, we'll see.)

2x Margaret Belle- (strange, but I'll need a second commander and I can sell the other to defray part of the costs. Belle's crazy fast and very murdery. I wonder if she knows someone from Malifaux named Bette, because she certainly reminds me of her. My time playing 40k taught me how important a counter-punch can be for gunline armies, so I'm kind of leaning her way as far as commanders go. But we'll see. )

1x Samantha Thrace- (Guild envoy. Melee beater. Gives you a tactics token for 3 stones, which are invaluable in this game. Also, see previous comment regarding counter-charge.)

2x Motor Scout- (Whee! Funny guys on bikes! But with machine guns! I was a little dubious at first, but they're dirt cheap, silly fast, and if you gave them Toughness probably more trouble to get rid of than they're worth. When they flip to glory they can summon another one, so I guess it's a good thing I have two, although I'm told they include a cardboard template for things that are summoned in game, which is very considerate and cool of Wyrd. Also, they were a real thing. Totally didn't know that.)

Sharpshooter- (shoots things, but better. And counts as two people when he dies, so that's useful.)

Some extra token sets (how many do you need in most games? Maybe can trade some of them as well...)

The King's Hand- (Big stompy bot. Can't go wrong with that, and if I go to Adepticon I'll need a Titan.)

So, basically a commander level pledge with some motorized scouts tossed in. That's probably a good thing, in terms of learning how to play the game from the ground up. I have some idea of other things that would be good to add on, but we'll get there.

In other news, I've got Chicago on my mind (and I don't mean the band.) In the first week of December, I'm traveling there for work to a conference, and I'm hoping to meet up with the locals for some Wyrd times. Sounds like there will be some The Other Side to be played, or that's the plan anyways. And then, in March, Adepticon is coming. I'm hopeful this will be the first time I'm able to attend. We'll see.

Anyway, Wyrdos, I've put my money where my mouth is. Hopefully I'll have some models to show next time. Speaking of, I'm planning on doing a painted minis roundup of ToS models at some point in the future. I think people liked those. Keep a look out for it.

On today’s blog offering, a discussion of crews that excite me in M3E (and why it took so bloody long for me to post about them). But first, some…

Mini-Musings

-Going to Adepticon? Malifaux Musings is too! I have no illusions about being competitive in…anything, so if you want to hit me or Phiasco up for a game in person outside the tournaments, we would be delighted to oblige. We’ve got Malifaux crews. We’ve got The Other Side companies. So, come throw down with us!

-In Through the Breach news, our Roll20 character sheet (pictured above) is in beta testing! We don’t have it uploaded into Roll20’s system yet, so you have to install it through the custom script. The good news is, we want playtesters to try it out, and we’re happy to provide the code to you if you let us know you’re interested (and pinky swear to give us feedback.)

- Also, we’ve started recording an actual play podcast! I mentioned previously that I was running my crew through a Malifaux adaptation of Wizards of the Coast’s module Dragon Heist, and last month I started recording them. Learning how to edit has been a process, and we want to get lots of them banked up before we start releasing to the public, but I’m excited for this new way of generating content for Malifaux Musings.

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A couple of weeks ago, the NDA was lifted from M3E content, and an open beta began on Wyrd’s website. A rush of content has begun as the previously dormant podcasts and youtube channels have found new life (and you should go listen to all of them, including Flippin’ Wyrds, Max Value, Schemes and Stones, etc.). When this era started, I felt a call to start writing about the new edition as well. Malifaux Musings had lain fallow for almost a month at that point, as my readership numbers had let me know loud and clear that very few people seem interested in Through the Breach or The Other Side content, or at least nowhere near as many as would follow Malifaux news. This wasn’t a huge surprise, but it was hard to get motivated to crank out a batrep to essentially broadcast it to no one. But now that should be changing. M3E was out there, and we could start breaking down new masters, new schemes, and new rulesets to try and inject life back into my favorite game.

And for some reason, I just didn’t feel like writing.

It’s not like I had no ideas. Discussing how the new masters play on the tabletop. Looking for the best way to tackle the new strategies. Hell, just a celebratory “M3E is here! Let’s all start dancing in the streets” post would have been appropriate, but for whatever reason I just couldn’t find the spark to sit down and write it. Maybe part of this stemmed from the fact that M3E wasn’t new to me. I was drafted into the alpha effort, which was where most of my contributions during playtesting went on. I stuck with reading the updates and occasionally getting a game in during later phases, but the playtest group I tried to assemble never really got off the ground, due in large part to the fact that we all live hours away from each other and have to play on Vassal, which takes roughly 1.5x as long as a real game. Plus, it’s a pain printing out the stat cards every week for a crew, etc etc there are a number of reasons. SO, long story short, I stayed in the beta and kept reading the changes, but my interest waned over time. M3E coming out is therefore less a matter of “Oooo look at all the new shinies” and more “huh, well, at least it’ll be new people playing it” for me.

Then there were some changes at the end of the beta that really blew the wind out of my sails. The NDA is lifted so I could technically go into details, but I’m gonna chose not to, as it would just come off as griping. And then, of course, Mason left Wyrd, which frankly sucks. I was lucky enough to meet him at Gencon a couple of years ago and hang out. I’ve enjoyed collaborating with him during the Through the Breach playtesting group, and he’ll always have my respect for the excellent job he did heading up the rewrite of the RPG’s rules to fix some of the (very) bumpy parts of TTB1e. I’m sure Wyrd’s remaining design staff are excellent and the properties are in good hands, but I have a hard time believing that they’re not worse off for his departure.

And weirdly, the game I didn’t think I would be that interested in (The Other Side) has actually grabbed a lot of my attention and gaming time recently. One undeniable fact about Malifaux is that, at the end of a game, I’m tired. It takes a lot of mental energy to keep all the possible combinations and moves in mind as the game goes on, and things can swing on one activation. My King’s Empire doesn’t feel that way. Maybe that’s because most of the models I have are some variation of “move into position and shoot the other guys” for their activation. But, somehow, the increased model count and the more abstract nature of the rules (the only elevations are “low” or “high” terrain, for one example) have resulted in a game that is smoother and easier to play. *shrug* Maybe that’s not true for the other Allegiances (I certainly know that Phiasco’s Abyssinia seems to have more things to keep track of than mine) and maybe it’ll change as I expand the models available from the Allegiance, but for now I’m enjoying the game quite a bit, which makes changing gears back to Malifaux even more complicated. Also, the games I’ve played so far have left me with the impression that it’s hard to get completely wiped out in a game of TOS, as the reinforce rules make keeping a fireteam knocked off the board pretty difficult. After almost an edition’s worth of playing the glass-cannon Neverborn, it’s nice not being afraid that one miss-step would end with half my crew getting knocked off the board.

So, yeah, that’s why I haven’t come blazing out of the gate with M3E content. Let me be clear: M3E is a good game that answers a lot of the problems that had accrued in Malifaux 2^ndedition. I’m going to play it. Malifaux Musings will keep writing about it. But I’m gonna keep talking about the RPG and TOS as well. This is a continuation of what the blog has always been about, a celebration of all the parts of the Malifaux (and by extension Wyrd) world that I love. I hope readers will stick along with me.

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So who/what do I like about M3E? Well, most of the testing I did focused on the Ten Thunders and Guild, so that’s what I’ll be most familiar with initially. Long-term readers will know I was leaning heavily towards Ten Thunders going into the edition, and that hasn’t changed. I really like the card manipulation that Lynch’s crew uses. Stack the Deck looks like it would mostly be useful as a card manipulation/cycling tactic, but it goes deeper than that. Get tired of failing simple duels to activate your free actions? Put the card you need on top of the deck and the problem is solved without having to reduce your handsize by cheating. Know you’re going to be doing a double walk or a walk-interact (IE you won’t need to perform a duel during your activation)? Hide a high card on there and know you’ll be in good shape for defense duels. There’s a lot of there there, if you take my meaning. The summoning is nice, but I didn’t get as much mileage out of it in my games as I had hoped (disclosure, I played Lynch in the alpha and early beta, so it could have changed.) One of his abilities also used to be called “Blackjack and Hookers.” I’m sad that is no longer the case.

McCabe is interesting. I like that the crew is more built around swapping the upgrades than previous versions. I’m hoping the Ruffians prove to be quality enough to be used in most games, as I like the models (and the bald guy with the chains is one of the few Malifaux people I can cosplay, these days.) Plus I kind of fell in love with McCabe at the end of M2E, so I’m definitely feeling the Wastrels going forward. For those worried about his Nightmare Edition boxed set no longer being viable (since he can’t hire mounted guards anymore, after his termination by the Guild), rest assured that you only have to be patient. This will be resolved shortly. Misaki is a lot more interesting and involved than previous versions, as you have the tension of being penalized for the longer you let her sit buried versus the advantage of not having your master in a predictable place. I’m not sure I “like” it as a crew I would want to play all the time, but it’s certainly more unique and tactical. I’ll go into more of a discussion of the Qi and Gong crew in the future, but the games I played with them I enjoyed. Their success or failure doesn’t wrap around their master, as their damage dealers and scheme runners are in the greater crew, but they can tie you up into some serious knots with all of the conditions they can stick you with. They leave the opponent in a position where they have to make hard choices which you can exploit. I worry about how that will work competitively, as one of my hard rules is “don’t rely on your opponent making choices, as they will always choose the one that is worst for you”, but I’m intrigued. If nothing else, their addition ensures the Ten Thunders’ have the most hookers per capita of any faction in Malifaux, which is amusing.

Oh yeah, and the Shadow Emissary can crush some serious face, which I like for reasons entirely unrelated to being in love with the paint job I did on mine.

For the Guild, the new guys from the Frontier have definitely drawn my attention. They’re likely to be the subject of another blog post, but I’ve always been drawn to crews that can define the terrain of the battlefield, and these guys do a lot of that while also being ranged combat oriented. There’s a reason M2E McTavish was so popular in Lillith crews, after all. They expand the deployment zone, which seems broken as hell the first time you see it. That actually happens a lot in M3E, and The Flippin’ Wyrds pointed out that this is a feature, not a bug. When you get the models on the table you’ll realize most of it isn’t as bad as you think. I’m still a little worried about the combination of melee masters with it, though. Is Lady Justice being that close to the opponent on Turn 1 worth 16 points? I’m not sure, but I’ll keep testing it until I know for sure. Austringers that die release Malifaux Raptors, which is cool and reminds me of Roland’s coming of age in The Dark Tower, which is what drew me to Malifaux in the first place. Plus, Cornellius has a trigger where a sandworm pops out of the ground and attacks an enemy model. I don’t know this for sure, but I’m pretty positive Malifaux didn’t have sandworms prior to the Penny Dreadful one-shot I wrote for Wyrd Chronicles, so I’ve pretty much gotta play Basse.

Somehow playing KE in The Other Side (and all of the Guild lore from the setting) has me wanting to play Dashel. I’ve never really played a summoner before, which is kind of mind boggling when I think how long I’ve been playing Malifaux, so I’ll have to give them a go at some point. I stocked up on the Lucius box set and some other things that go with Dash during the Easter sale. If nothing else, the Captain deserves some respect for going from a nobody in Malifaux to a master in his own right over the course of two editions. I guess it’s good to have the secretary-general on your side. The Ortegas feel like the Ortegas, so they’ll always be there as an “I don’t want to think anymore, I just want to shoot shit” crew. I do like that Francisco won’t be the Guild’s version of Wolverine anymore (IE: somehow he’s a guest star in every single crew, much like Logan was somehow an X-Man, Avenger, had two of his own comic book, and was guest starring in half of the other series). The out of keyword tax wouldn’t have been enough to get that done with M2E Franc, so they scaled him back a little to get the job done. Also Santiago isn’t hot garbage anymore, so putting him (or his sister Santana) on the board won’t be as embarrassing.

So yeah, like I said. I don’t hate M3E (despite how the first part sounded.) I quite like it. The rubber-band dynamic of the scoring is interesting, and I want to see how it plays out in tournaments. There are a lot of crews I want to get on the table (even if it’s just virtual.) In the future I’ll likely do individual crew break-downs, unless people have their own stuff they would rather see first. Let me know in the comments if you have a crew you want first, or if there is a different topic you’d like to see covered.

Come at me, nerds.

It’s been a while since I put together a blatant click-bait post, so let’s give it a whirl. As I’ve had a whole 3 games worth of The Other Side experience, I feel qualified to make a definitive statement about who the best commander in the game is. Sure, Adeodatos is a pretty good force projector, if that’s the sort of thing you enjoy. Alright, the Storm Siren can lure enemy forces out of position. Big whoop. And yeah, whatever, your Lords of Steel make all the stratagems cheaper. La. De. Da. You can keep all of them. I’ll stick with the unsung hero of the British Empire, a lady who embodies all the virtues (gleeful homicide) and talents (shadow magic) that we prize in a young lady of these modern times (1907). I’m speaking of course of the pride of the Intelligence Service, Miss Margaret Belle.

From the first number on her stat card (ok, the second. I obviously don’t mean the +25scrip thing) Margaret Belle outshines the competition. Look at that. 8” of movement. That’s just silly all by itself, but then you remember the part where she places 16” away at the start of her activation and, if that isn’t enough movement, you can give her the generic Earthside asset Marching Boots and push her up to speed 10. That’s 36” of movement on a rush action. At that rate, in a tournament she’s going to be running around on your board for round 2 while you’re still mopping up your game in rd. 1. Df and WP of 7 are both excellent. Armor 8 is the equivalent of the Royal Rifle Corps. Her Poisoned Knife attack has an AV of 7 with an (admittedly nothing to write home about) St of 3. However, when she stabs an enemy champion, it’s instead St 4 and Accurate. And for that juicy target that really, really needs to die, she has a morale action which is an 8 vs. WP (Read: it’s going to succeed most of the time) that locks a target out of cheating fate until the end of her turn and (on a trigger) hands them a shaken token. All of this combines to make for a potentially devastating assassin that can be almost anywhere and stab almost anything she wants in a given turn. And that’s just on the front of her card!

In Glory, Margaret jumps to Sp 9 and WP 8. Her Knife attack increases to AV8(T) and gains a built-in trigger to flip the target out of glory, as well as another trigger to give her attack Piercing. Her morale action gains a trigger to immediately take a melee attack action against the target (hurray for free attacks!) and, if she’s got nothing to stab (likely because she’s killed her target or, more likely, because she’s busy supporting our boys on the frontlines by placing Objective Markers) she can spend a morale action to Draw two cards. Cards are at a premium in The Other Side, and if the King’s Empire has a failing (laughable concept, I know) it’s not having as much card draw as many of the other Allegiances. Of course, while deployed far behind enemy lines, she runs the risk of reprisal from the cowardly enemies she’s fearlessly facing down on her own. To counter this risk, her signature asset of Rapier Wit allows her to discard tactics tokens to force any action sent her way to target a Fireteam with which she is engaged (not "a fireteam she is engaged with", we don’t end sentences with prepositions in the proper King's English.) This can include the Fireteam that attacked her, so she’s probably safe most of the time so long as you end her activations engaged with someone with whom to pass attacks. And just for a bit of gravy, she gets another Morale action to force an enemy Fireteam to discard all tokens from their unit and then move them slightly out of position. Not the most powerful thing on her card, but a decent action to have in her toolbox (particularly to knock those Shaken tokens off of Burning Man loonies.)

While I think she’s probably the KE’s best choice for most games, she truly shines in objective based scenarios like Scavenge or Set Traps. Placing Objective Markers is a Morale action, after all, which means as a Commander she gets a free one. I personally enjoy placing Margaret 16” away from the Fireteam with which she was engaged, issuing the Rush order, placing an Objective Marker, and then moving right back in to engage the same enemy unit. I’ve enjoyed using her with the Marching Boots, but I think they’re possibly overkill in most games. Rapier Wit comes stapled to her card in my opinion. Beyond that, it never hurts to have Toughness in case she gets caught with some Ranged Attacks when she’s unengaged/when you can't afford to burn a tactics token. For one commander games I’m starting to like Medal of Honor to avoid being completely starved of tactics tokens all game (plus that’s another attack she can hand off to the enemy). You can flavor to taste, but I think that it’s no contest that Margaret is the best commander in the Allegiance, and well worth including in any game.

Rule Britannia!

If you pay attention to M3E beta news, you know that the end of the test is coming soon. Actually, at one point it was scheduled to be done already, but then they went and broke the Journalists and so they had to push it out to another update. In any case, the Beta process should be coming to a close in short order, which makes sense for Wyrd to move towards a Gencon hard release of 3^rd edition (IE actual books coming out, models, etc.) Some of you gentle readers have likely been participating in the process, playing a lot of games of M3E. Others (like me) may be giving the game a break to rest and solidify before you put a large amount of mental bandwidth into learning rules that may change next week. Either is fine, let me emphasize. But, if you fall into the latter category, you may want to start getting ready for the switch-over, and might appreciate some guidance on resources you can use to bone up on the new rules and strategies.

As such, I thought I’d do a quick sweep of the internet, highlighting some of the resources available to get you up to speed.

Wyrd Beta Forums and other web tools

The most obvious source of information, of course, is the still open Wyrd Beta forums. All the files are there for your reading pleasure, including the rulesets, models, and upgrades in printable pdf formats. Additionally, there is a great deal of discussion occurring regularly in each of the faction sub-forums as well as battle reports. If you’re looking for the most direct source of information on M3E, this is the place to go.

If you don’t want to read through all of them, or are looking for an easy way to throw crews together, a handful of web tool developers are completing the herculean task of developing them and keeping them up to date with each release. This one lets you put a crew together online. There’s an analyzer of the beta files that can be adapted to let you make some printable cards.

Third Floor Wars

These guys, I would say, are the superstars of M3E content at this point. Led by Craig Shipman, they’ve been steadily churning through the new crews one master at a time to discuss what they and their themed crews’ models do on the tabletop. They started out with the Guild and have (I believe) gone through all of them at this point, moving on to the Ten Thunders now. These are presented in small, bite-sized bits of content, so no need to sit through a long 2 hour ramble to get at the bit of info you really wanted, making them useful to put together a general idea for the very large meta of Malifaux. Best of all, it’s available in multiple formats. You can go to their Youtube channel here, or listen to ports of the videos on the podcast feed here (at the time of writing, the videos are ahead of the podcasts.)

Schemes and Stones

Kyle took a bit of a break/detour into ToS for a little while, but he’s come back to Malifaux with a vengeance since then. The S&S posts have hopped through various topics, starting with a discussion of introducing the Open Beta materials, discussing a couple of different crew keywords and how they play individually as well as how they play against each other. They’ve taken a look at Euripides vs. Mccabe and Infamous vs. Transmortis so far. Most recently, he and a cohost are taking on faction breakdowns, with the first episode discussing the Arcanists in total.

Other Podcasts

So the other casts have been hit or miss thus far. The break between editions has been rough, driving most of the casters into hibernation (we miss you Arcane Reservoir). However, since the Open Beta, some peeps here and there have started to be heard. The Flippin’ Wyrds, hosted primarily by Jamie F’N Varney have a few episodes on offering. They were aiming to increase the frequency of their releases, and predictably they seem to have failed to do so (I kid because I love, guys.) But they deliver great content, so whenever you put something new out, you should listen. Additionally, a preview episode of Max Value with Travis and everyone’s favorite coffee slurper came out back in January. They can be a quick way to hear some assorted opinions from around the world of Malifaux. The thing is, we know these guys make great content, so if they (or any other Malifaux casts) are on hiatus, keep an eye on their feeds to see if they'll be making a comeback with the release of the new edition.

And quickly before you go...

Adepticon is coming! And Malifaux Musings will be there!

I intend to make the trip down the road to Chicago in a couple of weeks for Adepticon, one of the most consistent tournament conventions nationwide for Wyrd games. There’s going to be a handful of Titan battle royals, a The Other Side one commander tournament, painting competitions, and a farewell to M2E tourney. You can find tournament packets there. Additionally, I’ll be bringing along M3E cards for my crews and will be looking to get in as many pick-up games of The Other Side or Malifaux as I can. And, if you beat me, you will receive one free “IOU A Blog Post” marker from me, allowing you to pick a topic for a 1000 word Malifaux Musings post in the future. Not enough for you? Then you should sign up to play The Other Side, Fatemastered by yours truly. If you survive, maybe you can pick a blog post topic too!

I left on Thursday morning to travel to my first Adepticon, my vehicle loaded down with clothes, painting supplies, and my newly magnetized Other Side miniatures in a black metal toolbox. Other than my cruise control quitting on the way there and the discovery of how atrocious the tolls are on the Reagan tollway, the trip was uneventful, just the way I like them to be. When I arrived at the Renaissance Schaumberg center the parking lot was starting to fill up, so I ended up parking around the back of the building. I left my things in the car and came in to find my friend Phiasco and pick up my badge.

Ostensibly, the point of the tournaments at Adepticon were two-fold: say goodbye to M2E and run the first official tournaments for The Other Side. I was primarily interested in the latter, as I haven’t played a game of 2^nd edition Malifaux since joining the Alpha for M3E over a year ago. As such, I wasn’t much interested in the farewell tournaments, and I was ok showing up after the first Henchman Hardcore was underway. Phiasco, on the other hand, was putting a well-honed strategy of non-violence to work in a tournament that is essentially built around killing. Utilizing Low-River Monks, Sensei Yu, and Sun Quiang to throw enemy models out of the center ring or make them insignificant, Phiasco managed to Win or Tie every game of the tournament without inflicting a wound on the enemy models. I told him he needed to tell his opponents “Namaste” after the games ended. I forget how he ended up, but I know he placed.

After that finished up, it was time for the first TOS tournament of the convention, a Titan Smash. The rules packet for it can be found here, but the short explanation for the scenario is that you play king of the hill for a couple of objectives while in a battle-royal style game with up to 7 other Titans on the same table. You score for being near an objective at the end of a turn, with a bonus point for the titan who is closest to the center point. Additionally, every time you knock an asset off of a titan, that scores as well. If one of the titans reaches 10 points at the end of a turn, all other Titans that haven’t scored 10 die instantly. The winner is the last Titan standing.

Obviously, I was bringing in my King’s Hand. I attached the Armor Piercing Machine Gun, the Big Drill, and replaced the head-slot assets with the special one for the scenario that gives an extra tactics value. I left the usually standard issue Symbol of the Realm off, as I was thinking that going into Glory may not be all that important for this type of game (though in retrospect that may not be as clear-cut as I thought.) This game was played with four titans squaring off: my King’s Hand, Ariel with a Dreadnought, a man whose name I didn’t get with another Dreadnought, and Steven with an Alpha Crawler. Early on Ariel and I traded shots and danced around the right-most Objective Marker. Steven took a turn to wind up his Alpha Crawler into Glory with a bunch of reinforcement tokens while the other Dreadnought took a commanding spot on the second Marker. Once the crawler was ready, he barreled into the second Dreadnought and did what damage he could, but by that point I’d been scoring 3 a turn from shooting off assets and squatting on the marker. The drill paired with the Dreadnought’s relative lack of offensive capability let me hold it relatively uncontested. As such, I hit 12 points at the end of Turn 4 and caused the other Titans to pop. So, in the first “tournament” run by Wyrd Games for the other side, victory came for the King’s Empire. *cue God Save the King*

I felt left out that my King's Hand box didn't have a Horomatangi in it by mistake, so thankfully the Titan Smash remedied that.

Despite my intentions to not play any M2E, there was an Enforcer brawl that first evening and

the choice was either to play in it or go home. I figured I knew enough of how to play the game to at least get by. If you’ve never played an Enforcer Brawl, imagine the Royal Rumble from the WWE and you’re not far off. If you die, you respawn on your initiative but lose points (and give points to the enemy model that killed you.) Phiasco let me borrow Yasunori, who can kill a lot of models but costs a lot (there are bonuses for killing more expensive models.) He’s not the right choice, frankly, but he’s pretty straight forward to run so who cares. First game I ran into a Peacekeeper, who is not a great dance partner for Yas due to his high armor. I managed to chop it down, but then the entire battle ended up respawning on the other side of the board, leaving me stranded. So that sucked. Second round went much better at first, with me jumping up 8 points early on in the game. Third round I discovered that Burt Jebsen with Dirty Cheater can’t actually be killed without blasts or passive damage, so that blew. All in all, the format was a laugh and I enjoyed it. I just want to try some different models next time. I think the format should still work fine for M3E, so I’m excited to try it again in the future. With that done, we headed home to rest up and give Phiasco time to get three colors on his Abysinnia models.

The next day, I threw on my newly acquired “The British Are Coming” shirt and went forward to do battle in the King’s name. The tournament packet was published ahead of time, so I had a good idea what objectives I would need to complete and which models I could use to do it. My garrison consisted of:

Kassa Okoye-Bigger is Better

Margaret Belle-Rapier Wit

2xMotor Scouts-Toughness

2xRRC

2xInfiltrators

1xKing’s Hand-Symbol, Armor Piercing Machine Gun,

Strategems-Overwatch, Medic, Behind Enemy Lines, Capture the Flag, Defensive Formations, Bloody Their Noses, Perfect Accuracy, Keep Calm and Carry On

First round saw me go up against Jeff in Scavenge with Confrontation deployment. The hordes crew was led by the Storm Siren and was built around sending some of the armored whelks to squat on objective markers on the flanks while tying my company up with Eels and Karkenoi. The board effectively funneled all the action onto my left flank due to a large impassible terrain piece (this led to the tournament organizers electing not to use that board for any of the other rounds of the tournament). Both sides forgot a large number of rules during the course of the game (resummoned units come in with one fireteam, not all of them. In scavenge the team that’s behind can use a tactics token to remove a turf marker at the end of the turn. Motor scouts have engagement ranges due to the bayonets rule. Etc.) I jumped out to an early lead and then dove Margaret Belle into the backfield to tie up the Stormsiren for most of the game. I decided to try out something I’d heard of online and buy the Overwatch stratagem on Turn 1, effectively giving me an extra set of activations for the rest of the game. It’s kind of a hefty cost to pay (starting with one card in hand and no tactics tokens is rough) but so far I think it’s worth the investment. The Hordes came back over the course of the game, however, and ultimately managed to take a 1-point victory over me. The day was off to an auspicious start.

Round 2 paired me against Steven (from the earlier Titan Smash) with…more Gibbering

Hordes. This time we were playing Pitched Assault in Corners deployment. I wanted to bring Kassa out for this one, as I hadn’t had a chance to see her in action. They were accompanied by one squad of RRC and one squad of Infiltrators. I knew Pitched Assault is a tough game for the Hordes to play, as their “eat my own stuff to flip my units to glory” tactic feeds VP to the enemy. There are essentially two ways to look at this from the Hordes’ side, either A) Ignore the usual methods and just go all-in on trying to kill the enemy with base units or B) Stick to the normal plan, let the opponent get a lead, and then come back and overwhelm them. Steven went with the latter idea, bringing Horomatangi, an Alpha Crawler, Eels, and Armored Whelks to use as food for the rest. The theory behind his army was to spike the Crawler up with reinforcement tokens and glory then send it barreling into the enemy, fill out your numbers disadvantage with multiplying eels, and have the whelks get eaten then respawn somewhere the enemy doesn’t want them. It’s a good plan in theory, and probably works fine in most games. In this one, however, I seized both objectives while he was powering up/feeding me VPs. My infiltrators took the left objective by themselves, essentially trying to bait part of the enemy to go deal with them while allowing me to keep most of my forces together to resist the Titan team when they came in on me. I learned the delights of Kassa allowing you to actually have cards and tactics tokens to spare (leading me to question my earlier assertion of Margaret as undisputed champion commander, but that’s a blog post for another time.) Ultimately, on turn 3 my Rifle Corps demonstrated why they are the pride of the King’s Empire, withstanding a full assault from the Horomatangi while my Titan shrugged off the Alpha Crawler, resulting in my jumping to 12-0 at the end of the turn. Since the Decisive Victory rule was in place, that meant the game ended immediately. Not exactly what I was expecting, but it put me back in contention for the tournament so I wasn’t complaining.

In round 3, I faced yet more Gibbering Hordes. There were other Allegiances in the tournament, I assure you, but I guess I’m just lucky. I hadn’t faced them before in any practice games, so I got the full seafood buffet in the tournament. Thankfully, my opponent (Andrew) was bringing the Frenzy for this game, so I got to see all the different faces of the Allegiance that day. As the game was Set Traps, Margaret was the clear choice. I strongly considered bringing Kassa instead, as I’d had a taste of what a KE company with card access could do, but elected to stick with my gameplan all the same. Andrew’s company featured the aforementioned street shark commanders, along with Yarazi, Karkenoi, and some Crawlers I think. They tend to blur. I deployed my forces in two groups on the outer edges of the board, splitting my two units of Rifle Corps with a tough Motor Scout in both places. Margaret was on the left. First turn, I focused on shifting the right Rifle Corps unit back towards the left, creating a sort of Refused Flank to try and pick a hole in the enemy line and then roll it up. I don’t know whether it really worked or not, or whether it’s even possible to do that against the Hordes when they can just respawn and reinforce as fast as they do, but it helped ensure I wasn’t facing the whole of the enemy force at one point. I underestimated the Frenzy, not having faced them before, and tried to use Margaret to tie them up. But without enough tactics tokens to protect her, she was quickly devoured on T1 or 2, leaving me with no commander for the rest of the game. I was tilted, but knew I needed to do something to try and slow the Horde down. I was able to accomplish this by sending the Motor Scout on my left side deep behind the enemy lines with a Rush order. Andrew either had to send the Frenzy back to go and deal with him (the option he chose) or leave me with a free hand to plant explosives at will behind him. Since his Frenzy went chasing after the Scout, that gave me a turn to shoot at them with a Gloried Rifle Corps, filling them up with Pinned tokens to slow their return (they still got back into melee the next turn, but it required them to eat one of their own to get into Glory first.) This, plus some fancy footwork on the right side by the other Motor Scout and some very fortunate card flips managed to get me the win.

Why is Adepticon trying so hard to get me to play CotBM

In the final standings, Phiasco tied on tournament points with the winner, who was playing Cult of the Burning Man, but was behind on strength of schedule so he got 2^nd. I came in third place and got Best in Faction for KE. The Faction badge was my goal for the day, and ultimately I felt my first round was winnable as well, so all-in all it was a successful day.

That was the end of the official events from the weekend, but I did have a chance to play some pick-up games with an old member of my former Club later on. It was Supply Cache, and I learned that 1) It’s important to actually understand the objectives of the game you’re playing before you start 2) Abysinnian Mechanized Infantry are a nightmare that have to be removed ASAP and 3) Field Intelligence Corps in Glory are kind of gross in this Operation, as they can place markers within 6” of each other rather than the minimum 8” from the rules. Additionally, I played a 2 commander game with Phiasco later on, wherein I was able to deploy my Dragoons. Overall, I wasn’t extraordinarily impressed with them on their base card. Maybe in Glory it would be another story, but unless there’s something I’m not seeing they seem expensive and brittle. While we played, there was a 4x4 game featuring one of each Allegiance going on, which was terribly exciting. Ultimately, that one was decided by how stupid the Burning Man’s Rhinos are, and I got the impression that they will likely be getting erratad soon, so players of other factions can rejoice.

All in all, I would call it a successful launch of TOS official tournaments. I came away with enough Cult of the Burning Man to get a start on them as a second Allegiance (after using my booth credit from running Through the Breach to get their starter box), which will be important for letting me run demos in the future. I came away with the impression that the game itself is strong, despite starting out awkwardly from the less than optimal roll-out. I think TOS is a better tournament game than M2E and possibly even M3E (I won’t know for certain until I try one.) And ultimately, I think I enjoy it more because I don’t feel as exhausted after playing it as I do when playing Malifaux. Even some of the more vociferously negative voices I’ve seen online seemed impressed with The Other Side, having seen it in person. I don’t know anyone who has a problem with the game itself, so much as frustration with how Wyrd has deployed it. Hopefully that will be overcome with time, as I think the game has some real legs to it.

I was all ready to cut ties with the Neverborn. I put my monster models away on the shelf. I lamented the removal of the masters I had played for the last several years from the faction (ok, technically Dead Man’s Hand masters regained their faction allegiance at the end of the beta, but you know what I mean.) I spent most of my engagement in Alpha/Beta testing Guild or Ten Thunders. I even had a #notmyNeverborn locked and loaded, ready for release along with M3E (there would have been T-Shirts. It would have been great.)

And then I thought of a Neverborn crew.

Admittedly, the beginning of this Kickstarter had something to do with twisting my mind back in the direction of Malifaux’s twisted natives. I’ve always wanted to do the Dreamer as HP Lovecraft and these models make good proxies.

(He’s a little too old, as he’d be 16/17 in Malifaux today. Also, of course, he was born in Rhode Island instead of London like the Dreamer. Maybe in his dreams he reverts a bit in age? The above is a picture of him as a nine year old. L Sprague de Camp described him as a brown-eyed tot with with long golden curls…)

Anyways, I’m getting off topic. Dreamer’s fun, but having bought his Nightmare Edition metal box in M1E that I never painted or played I 1) Don’t have any Alps to summon 2) Lost one of Coppelius’s face tentacles a long while ago and 3) don’t have a Widow Weaver or Serena Bowman to use as henchmen. So, it’ll be a while until I can field a Dreamer crew realistically (assuming those models don’t all suck, which is possible. People who tested Neverborn in the beta can let me know.) So, basically, I was just planning on using the models as an art project and nothing else.

Then, of course, the Easter Sale happened (it’s still happening, btw. Go buy stuff. I guess. You don’t have to.)

This year’s new limited edition alternate model is a really cool/gross alternate sculpt of the Stitched Together. They’re pretty cool, and I started to feel the gribbly little claws of the Neverborn worming their way back into my soul. I looked them up in the beta files. They’re pretty good. Not as killy as they used to be, but nothing is in M3E. That’s one of the points. But the final straw came when I glanced at the Dead Man’s Hand files to see what ended up becoming of Lillith and Collodi. I don’t care for the former, but the latter seems like a pretty good compromise of some of the M2E stuff and not wanting him to be completely unbalanced. The Dreamer, I realized, only casts 13 stones to hire for some reason (I mean he doesn’t do much damage, but he’s a summoner. I’m just surprised, is all.) He can only summon 2 nightmares, but Collodi can hire all 3 of the Stitched Togethers if you want at base price, all of which can do Lucid Dream to help feed Dreamer and use the cards you mill for your life gambling attack.

And a crew was born.

I mean, it’s Dead Man’s Hand, so obviously you have to have your TO allow you to use it, but I kind of want to because it keeps one foot in both worlds of M2E and M3E for me. Dreamer is there to resummon any of the Stitched that die during the game. He can do it from literally anywhere on the board, since his summoning mechanics have the summoned Nightmare appear next to an enemy who fails a WP duel. I think it may be better to only come with two Stitched and have Dreamer summon the third one so it can pop out in the fray later on. He can summon Insidious Madness later on in the game to run schemes if necessary, although in M2E anyways the Marionnettes were able to do a lot of the heavy scheme runner lifting on his own.

Anyways, a list.

Nightmares and Puppet Shows

Collodi-Inhuman Reflexes 2SS

4xMarionnettes 0SS (Hurray for free totems)

Dreamer 13SS

Brutal Effigy 4SS

2xStitched Together 12SS

Vasilisa 8SS

Another Effigy 4SS

Cache 7SS

The second effigy slot can swap around to something different depending on matchup. If I know I’ll need condition removal, Arcane is an obvious choice. I think Lucky would be a good all-rounder choice. There may be other options, who knows. To be determined. I think it’s good. Let me know what you think.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a release date!

Earlier this week, our Wyrd overlords deigned to inform us that June 28^th is the date upon which we shall be receiving our M3E goodness. The message included a number of interesting details for store owners, including their intention to put together packets of the new stat cards which can be inserted into the boxes along with a sticker on the outside to indicate that the box has been updated. This should cut down on the need for retailers to clear out old stock and replace it with new cards, and hopefully cut down on the recent Wyrd product firesales that most stores have been employing. Additionally, Wyrd is intending to start lumping some of the individual model boxed sets together to try and cut down on the number of SKUs that stores have to stock for Malifaux product, which is also a good thing. One of the concerning things going into the relaunch was going to be the situation with boxed sets that are having new models added to them. As a way of addressing this, Wyrd will be offering the ability to special order individual models through store owners for the first year after M3E’s release. This way, if you already own the whole Marcus boxed set but need one model that has been added to it (just a random example, I don’t actually know if there will be anything new in Marcus’ boxed set) you can get it special without having to fork over cash for a whole new box. I think these are good steps taken by the company, as their reputation, particularly in terms of customer service and relationships with retailers, has taken a bit of a ding over the last year. Hopefully this is a sign of them pulling out of that tailspin.

But what about the new stuff! Well, ok, calm down. Obviously, I’m going to talk about that too. For those of you like me (and, let’s be honest, everybody reading this blog probably falls into the same category) that won’t necessarily be in a huge rush to go replace all their models with new stuff come launch day, all of the rules and stat cards for M3E will be available for free on Wyrd’s website day one. If you have access to a printer or a tablet, you can play M3E when the game launches June 28^th without spending a dime (other than printer ink, of course, which I think is made from soulstone dust gauging by the price. /oldmanrant.) Most folks will want physical cards, of course, and the stat cards and upgrades for each M2E model will be available for purchase in Faction Packs that will be sold essentially as long as demand lasts. Gauging how M1E to M2E went that’ll be about a year so you won't want to wait too long. It’s a good way to get shiny new cards for all of your old models all in one go, barring dual-faction complications. Interestingly, Wyrd has also decided to create Faction books that will be released over the months following release that will include new stories, lore, and information on the factions themselves. I assume stat blocks will be in there also, but at first blush these fall into the category of “luxury item” for people who want to just play some Malifaux. I’m curious to see what’s in them, and as a lore nerd I’ll probably need to pick them up at some point to get all the current juicy fluff content, but I don’t feel like I’ll need to buy all of them on day one necessarily.

As for the models themselves, as mentioned above the plan is to lump some boxed sets together. This helps store owners out for the above reasons as well as by helping the sales staff to guide new players (“Oh, you like Seamus? Cool, to get all of the models from his keyword, you just have to pick up these three boxes that say they include the Redchapel keyword on the outside.”) and potentially make it less of a wallet hit for new people to join the game as well. Ok, probably not that last one, but at least it’ll keep new players from getting overwhelmed by letting them focusing on the keyword models rather than having the daunting task of buying the whole faction in front of them. I included some preview art of the new boxed sets above. I preferred M2E’s green and black boxes to this new scheme, and this new sculpt of Lady Justice isn’t my favorite, but the new judge looks rad and I really like the idea of lumping some models in theme together in the same box. As for the new release schedule itself, why don’t I just go ahead and throw it into the post here so you can check it out.

* An asterisk next to a product SKU indicates that the box contains new sculpts or models.

June Releases

WYR23001	Malifaux Core Rulebook	$20.00
WYR23002	Guild Faction Pack	$20.00
WYR23003	Resurrectionist Faction Pack	$20.00
WYR23004	Arcanist Faction Pack	$20.00
WYR23005	Neverborn Faction Pack	$20.00
WYR23006	Outcast Faction Pack	$20.00
WYR23007	Bayou Faction Pack	$20.00
WYR23008	Ten Thunders Faction Pack	$20.00
WYR23009	Dead Man's Hand Pack	$7.00
WYR23011	M3E Fate Deck	$13.00
* WYR23101	Basse Core Box	$50.00
* WYR23302	Burning Bridges	$50.00
* WYR23701	Youko Core Box	$45.00

July Releases

WYR23010	General Upgrades Pack	$8.00
WYR23012	Guild Faction Book	$25.00
WYR23014	Arcanist Faction Book	$25.00
WYR23015	Neverborn Faction Book	$25.00
* WYR23104	Lady Justice Core Box	$50.00
* WYR23301	Marcus Core Box	$50.00
* WYR23502	Loyalty to Coin	$28.00
WYR23106	Nellie Core Box	$50.00
WYR23107	Perdita Core Box	$50.00
WYR23108	Sonnia Core Box	$50.00
WYR23124	Brutal Fate	$40.00
WYR23205	Seamus Core Box	$50.00
WYR23206	Reva Core Box	$50.00
WYR23224	Carrion Fate	$40.00
WYR23312	Ironsides Core Box	$50.00
WYR23315	Kaeris Core Box	$50.00
WYR23316	Sandeep Core Box	$50.00
WYR23319	Arcane Fate	$40.00
WYR23407	Pandora Core Box	$50.00
WYR23422	Titania Core Box	$50.00
WYR23425	Mysterious Fate	$40.00
WYR23512	Tara Core Box	$50.00
WYR23515	Parker Core Box	$50.00
WYR23519	Hamelin Core Box	$50.00
WYR23522	Jack Daw Core Box	$50.00
WYR23525	Hodgepodge Fate	$40.00
WYR23610	Mah Tucket Core Box	$50.00
WYR23614	Zipp Core Box	$50.00
WYR23617	Brewmaster Core Box	$50.00
WYR23619	Ulix Core Box	$50.00
WYR23624	Lucky Fate	$40.00
WYR23712	Lucas Core Box	$50.00
WYR23714	Mei Feng Core Box	$50.00
WYR23715	Asami Core Box	$50.00
WYR23720	Shenlong Core Box	$50.00
WYR23725	Shadow Fate	$40.00

August Releases

WYR23017	Bayou Faction Book	$25.00
WYR23018	Ten Thunders Faction Book	$25.00
* WYR23303	Colette Core Box	$50.00
* WYR23601	Som'er Core Box	$50.00
* WYR23713	One Born Every Minute	$27.00
WYR23109	Pathfinder and Clockwork Traps	$21.00
WYR23125	Pale Rider	$30.00
WYR23126	Guild Steward	$11.00
WYR23213	Rogue Necromancy	$30.00
WYR23220	Draugr	$21.00
WYR23222	Necropunks	$21.00
WYR23225	Dead Rider	$30.00
WYR23320	Mechanical Rider	$30.00
WYR23405	Teddy	$18.00
WYR23406	Carver	$18.00
WYR23411	Cyclops	$40.00
WYR23421	Grootslang	$30.00
WYR23424	Killjoy	$18.00
WYR23426	Hooded Rider	$21.00
WYR23427	Hinamatsu	$15.00
WYR23222	Ashes and Dust	$30.00
WYR23606	Swine-Cursed	$18.00
WYR23607	Pigapult	$30.00
WYR23612	Rooster Riders	$35.00
WYR23618	Whiskey Golem	$30.00
WYR23625	Bayou Smuggler	$18.00
WYR23626	Akaname	$21.00
WYR23629	Silurids	$21.00
WYR23703	Kunoichi	$21.00
WYR23705	Ten Thunder Archers	$21.00
WYR23718	Jorogumo	$40.00
WYR23723	Lotus Eater	$21.00
WYR23724	Charm Warder	$24.00
WYR23726	Dawn Serpent	$15.00
WYR23730	Yasunori	$30.00
WYR23731	Tanuki	$18.00

September Releases

WYR23013	Resurrectionist Faction Book	$25.00
WYR23016	Outcast Faction Book	$25.00
* WYR23201	Von Schtook Core Box	$55.00
* WYR23401	Dreamer Core Box	$60.00
* WYR23501	Viktoria Core Box	$50.00
WYR23115	Six Feet Under	$35.00
WYR23116	Wake the Dead	$42.00
WYR23209	Surgical Staff	$42.00
WYR23217	Vengeful Ghosts	$42.00
WYR23221	The Returned	$30.00
WYR23223	Eternal Servitude	$50.00
WYR23308	Altered Beasts	$30.00
WYR23310	The Ten Peaks	$42.00
WYR23322	Support Staff	$30.00
WYR23420	A Light in the Dark	$35.00
WYR23423	The Howling	$35.00
WYR23430	Familiar Faces	$24.00
WYR23503	Hired Killers	$24.00
WYR23511	Marlena Webster	$18.00
WYR23516	Wokou Raiders	$21.00
WYR23523	A Hard Day's Work	$30.00
WYR23613	Bayou Engineering	$35.00
WYR23615	Off the Top Rope	$30.00
WYR23627	See Ya Later	$35.00
WYR23628	Gautraeux Bokor	$24.00
WYR23630	Creative Taxidermy	$35.00
WYR23716	Ancient Evil	$30.00

It looks like there’s roughly one master’s boxed set per faction getting a resculpt, except for the Ten Thunders. That’s a little disappointing, as I would argue they are the most in need of new plastics, since they were first after Wyrd switched away from pewter and their quality is well behind the others. I thought that all of the alternate art for them in Broken Promises might have indicated the future, but for now I’m a little confused. I assume a new Sonnia will be coming at some point as well, since she doesn’t wear the mask anymore.

I'm sure she's hard at work "motivating" the sculptors as we speak.

Lastly, Wyrd mentions that they’ll be releasing a Gaining Grounds Season One document at some point within the first year of the game’s life to reignite the competitive scene (some of which has already started to come back, based on the M3E beta tournaments I’ve seen recently.) I hope they’re working with Craig at Third Floor Wars so they can tie this in with his Third Floor Wars’ attempt to get a national Masters tournament put together. And, of course, they bring up the mysterious new faction coming (likely) in the next wave of M3E. For those not in the know, McCabe and the new Guild master Basse are dual-faction with them, and some overheard rumor and scuttlebutt has it that 1) there will be a model in the faction for which you can use the former Mounted Guard alternate sculpts from the Nightmare McCabe boxed set and 2) the name of this new faction has been mentioned somewhere in the already existing fluff. More details will doubtless come from the upcoming M3E fluff, but I’d say that the themes of frontier, wild west-type models will probably be involved. Maybe an Explorer’s Society pushing out into the boundaries of settled Malifaux to explore the wider world? I don’t know, but I’m in love with them already. I wish Perdita was going with them as well so I could just quit the Guild entirely and play these new people, but c’est la vi. I’m told by unnamed sources that Perdita and Basse don’t really get along, as Perdita will happily burn down a village to get the Neverborn she thinks is hiding inside while Basse is much more law and order focused. The obvious rebuttal, of course, is “yeah, but McCabe is a lawless scoundrel who is literally responsible for breaking the Earth,” but nobody asked for my opinion on the matter. I like ‘em. ‘Nuff said.

All things considered I’m looking forward to the coming M3E goodness. I think this community post by Wyrd was a good step in the right direction, and they seems to be conscious of the need to make the transition between editions as painless as possible, which is a good thing. Every day I get more hyped for M3E, which hopefully will translate into more regular Malifaux Musings. If you’re in the mid-west United States, I’ll be attending my first M3E tournament in Des Moines May 25^th and 26^th at Museon Con. If you make the trip, hopefully we’ll see each other there! I’ll be the one who looks befuddled while trying to remember how all these newfangled models work.

I'm still procrastinating on assembling my own tournament report from the Iowa tournament staple MuseonCon (also known as the Schemes and Stones Open) which occurred a couple weekends ago. In the meantime, however, I've begun reaching out to some of the luminaries of the Malifaux word to discuss crews in the M3E era. What better way to start than with the crew that won the 22 person tournament on Saturday? And the fact that it features my favorite crew in terms of theme in all of Malifaux, the folks from the Honeypot, is icing on the cake. Also, it means I get to dust off this old chestnut.

Keyword Models:

Jacob Lynch

Hungering Darkness

Gwynneth Maddox

Kitty Dumont

Mr. Graves

Mr. Tannen

Illuminated

The Depleted

Beckoners

Keyword Ability:

Rig the Deck +X- Allows most models (not Hungering Darkness) to draw X cards off the top of the deck when they activate, and then place X cards from their hand back on top of the deck in any order.

Without further time wasting on my part, take it away Landon!

How Does the Crew Work?

For reference, the list I played all 3 rounds of MuseOn Day 1

Lynch, Huggy w Silent Protector, 2 Beckoners, 1 Illuminated, Mr Tannen 1 Shadow Emissary, 1 Kabuki Warrior. 6 stone cache.

In my style of play, Jacob Lynch is a kill-oriented crew which can either play aggressively turn one and two, or play for a later game by taking advantage of brilliance tokens. The early game version works by using beckoners and Tannen to move big beaters such as Huggy and the emissary up the board. These models have excellent damage tracks and triggers to tear apart a few key models on the first turn, and are tanky enough to cause a lot of disruption on subsequent turns as enemies try to deal with them while slowed, engaged or both. The key is to use stones appropriately to keep Huggy alive while not wasting his large amounts of healing, and to take advantage of the emissary’s place trigger or Huggy’s obey to move dangerous models out of position after you have crashed into them.

If you decide to play a longer game, Huggy will usually be using obey to place tokens/disrupt your opponent until you build enough tokens to kill their most dangerous pieces with Lynch’s nuke. The Kabuki Warrior is most helpful for this style, as the – to WP lets you place tokens and land the nuke much easier.

How Has the Crew/Keyword Changed Since M2E?

In M2E Lynch lacked excellent options for mobility, and beckoners were extremely overcosted. In addition, the crew was much easier to kill. Now with beckoners being much cheaper it is much easier to move your own pieces around. The tradeoff is lures have much lower stats so it’s harder to use them to move your opponents out of position. Additionally, the card filtering mechanic of rig the deck is new to M3E, and gives lynch a quality over quantity of cards approach to card advantage, whereas before you were usually drawing aces to improve your hand.

Who are the Key Pieces in the Keyword, and What Are Their Roles?

Huggy, who is your totem, is a key piece. He can either put out tokens or consume them for +flips, healing, and slows. Beckoners allow you to place brilliance tokens before the game even begins, which lets your t1 and t2 with Huggy be incredibly aggressive. I take an illuminated model because the 2” shockwave is quite helpful for softening their hand as well as being another activation to rig the deck with brillshaper to throw away a dead card. Tannen is key to your survivability, as his auras can all but disable melee beaters trying to attack your models as they have to pass 2 simple duels which cost double to cheat before they even try to attack a terrifying model.

Rate the Keyword

-Killing Power

SEVERE!

The crew that I run has incredible output when the lowest damage model is essentially your ‘min 2’ beckoners. I say min 2 because they have a trigger built in to put out a brilliance token, which in combination with other models essentially adds one to two points of damage to the attack. After your 2 beckoners everything is either min 3 or potentially min 3 with +flips. I rate it lower than 14 because it lacks consistent ranged damage, and a lot of the killing power comes from the card manipulation mentioned later which allows you to land your hits.

-Survivability

MODERATE!

Terrifying or –flips on all of your important models makes it very hard to kill this crew, especially if you are in Tannen’s bubble. I would push this mark higher if you know you are against a crew with lots of melee and lower if you are against a crew of near exclusively ranged attacks. Ruthless and +flip ranged attacks get through a lot of this crew’s defensive capabilities but they won’t fold immediately if this is the case.

-Scheming/Maneuverability

MODERATE!

I rate them slightly above average in this department for the list that I run. He’s no McCabe (although I would certainly consider hiring some of his models in this crew out of keyword) but beckoners and Tannen help you maneuver enough that you shouldn’t have any problems getting your schemes done.

Card Manipulation

RED JOKER!!!

This needs little explanation, but with rig the deck and the emissary you will regularly cheat or flip 4-6 severe cards a turn at exactly the right time. Including your starting 6 cards, you will see a total of 19 cards a turn without spending soulstones. That’s over a third of your deck.

Which Keyword Models (Outside of the Master) Are The MVP and the LVP?

Ignoring Huggy and Lynch, Mr Tannen is both the MVP and the LVP depending on the game. If you can position Mr Tannen correctly such that he does not get charged/shot off the board he makes your opponent’s turn near impossible within his 6” bubble. His df 4 6 wounds however can easily make him a wasted model if you let him get shot off the board, and with walk of 4” he sometimes gets left behind if you are playing aggressively.

Are There Versatile Models and/or Upgrades You Take Routinely?

I routinely take silent protector on either Huggy or the illuminated. HTK gives both of these models a ridiculous amount of survivability with their built-in healing. Sometimes it goes on the illuminated because the minion clause for the upgrade lets it take the hit for other models which can be relevant if something like vendetta or assassinate is in the pool.

The upgrade for stealth should not be overlooked as a potential take on either Tannen, Lynch, or both depending on the pool and matchup .

I always take the Emissary. His 0 to pitch your hand for a new 6 when your hand is garbage can be used either early in the turn as an alternative to stoning for cards or later after you’ve used rig the deck to place your high cards on top of your deck. That in addition to his high mobility, survivability, and min 3 damage track synergizes well with the keyword. (Editor's note: sometimes in the Honeypot Casino, the dragon chases you!)

Lastly I would mention kabuki warrior as an out of keyword hire which often makes it into my list. The –wp aura makes it very difficult to hit terrifying models and near impossible to avoid lynch’s nuke. When you don’t need or want the aura walk 6 and new horizons make him a better than average scheme runner or denier. And Min 3 helps him kill whatever gets in his way.

Thanks again to Landon for contributing. You can look forward to future articles of this type discussing Lady Justice, Kirai, and many others. I really appreciate everyone who is helping out with these. I'm aware of the fact that I'm...ok at Malifaux, but not an expert in the competitive realm by any means.

No, I don't know why the logo is an orange. Don't ask.

I've procrastinated long enough, so with some prompting (and light shaming) from 3rd Floor Wars' Criag Shipman, here is my breakdown of the MuseonCon M3E beta tournament, aka the Schemes and Stones open. It was hosted a few weeks ago in Des Moines, and I believe had somewhere between 22-24 people for the first day's tournament. Second day had more like 16, I think, as a large contingent had done an iron-man drive from Minnesota and had then returned the same day to avoid paying for a hotel. Still, to our knowledge this was the largest M3E tournament so far.

I entered having not really played much Malifaux since the early M3E alpha/closed beta. My main goal was thus to learn as much as I could about my faction for the coming year (Ten Thunders) and this new version of Malifaux in general.

Note: I took lots of pictures of the boards from these games. Then the SD card in my phone died. So yeah, that sucks. Sorry for the image light post.

Day 1

Round 1

Deployment: Corner

Strategy: Reckoning

Schemes:

·Detonate Charges (1)

·Hold Up Their Forces (6)

·Take Prisoner (7)

·Power Ritual (8)

·Deliver a Message (11)

I wanted to try a Jacob Lynch crew to see how it worked in M3E, as I had played versions of it earlier in the testing but hadn’t touched him in a while. My opponent and I played on a cool barroom board that Kyle had brought. He brought Guild-Lady Justice. My plan was to get into position to try and apply the Illuminated and the Shadow Emissary’s Shockwave abilities to attack the opponent’s hand while I was manipulating mine with Rig the Deck. Also, if you Rig a card on top of the deck before you perform a simple duel, you can be sure that it goes off without having to use one from your hand. I thought it made sense, and I thought that, since I knew Lady J would be in my face ASAP, so Detonate and Deliver a Message seemed like good ideas. I was partially right, about the Lady J in my face thing. What I had underestimated was the abilities of models like the Lone Marshal to shoot off the aforementioned Illuminated while you try to bring them up into position (they seem a bit softer than in last edition), the amount of healing Lady Justice and her crew can bring now, and the relative ineffectiveness of Shockwaves. Maybe it’s a personal thing, but in the games I play I rarely see to see opponents fail simple duels. That’s why the whole “Terrifying is good at making your opponent lose cards,” thing has never washed for me. I like Rig the Deck as a mechanic, but the keyword ability on its own isn’t enough to win games of Malifaux. I need some tips to learn how to play Lynch now, because right now I got nothing.

Round 2

Deployment: Corner

Strategy: Corrupted Idols

Scheme Pool

· Breakthrough (2)

· Dig Their Graves (5)

·Outflank (9)

· Claim Jump (12)

· Vendetta (13)

Wanted some mobility for this game, so I looked towards McCabe. This round I was up against Leviticus, played by Daniel. He referred to this strategy as “Kickball,” which I thought was apt. Apparently this kickball has rocks in it or something, since it hurts you to kick it, but close enough. I used a Samurai, because I wanted to try and employ he and Sidir to protect the backfield with their machine guns. Hucksters would go forward to move the idols. I wanted to try a Ruffian out, despite the fact that I’m really not sure they’re worth their points. I also brought the Lone Swordsman, who I used for Vendetta against the Ashes and Dust in the enemy crew. The earlier part of the game worked out great, with a Huckster on my left flank bumping an idol forward and then moving into position to score Outflank. Lone swordsman darted in to score the first points on A+D then Mccabe rode in to pull him out and rescue him. The Samurai and Sidir had a grand time tossing artifacts back and forth between each other to hand out fast and then machine gun the heck out of things. At one point a fast Sidir killed A+D then machine gunned a prospector to death in one activation, which I enjoyed. Unfortunately, the this let the Dust Storm appear next to Lone Swordsman and kill him, preventing the second point from Vendetta. This did open up the amusing scene of Luna biting the Dust Storm and dragging it around the board with her trigger. The ruffian managed to do more damage to himself on the flanks shooting at an abomination than he did to the abom itself. Some deft maneuvering of models by the opponent pushed us to a tie at the end of turn 3. I was confident I could maneuver out of it t4, but then Kyle called time as we were getting ready to start. So that sucked. I lost my cool a little at this, and I felt like a jerk for that. Sorry again if you’re reading this, Daniel.

Round 3

Deployment: Flank

Strategy: Turf War

Scheme Pool

·Detonate Charges (1)

· Breakthrough (2)

· Harness the Ley Lines (3)

· Dig Their Graves (5)

· Assassinate (10)

Wanted to try out all 3 masters I brought along with me, so I pulled Misaki. Didn’t bring much of her keyword models, but went big with Yasunori and the Emissary along with a samurai and some hucksters for Detonate. I played against Roman with Lucas Mccabe, who introduced me to the wonders of the M3E Tanuki, who is like Oprah Winnfrey for handing out Focus. Roman made an epic play using Mccabe’s new henchman, Desper Lareux, to bait my Yasunori into turning around and chasing him down by bluffing that he was going for Breakthrough, ensuring that the horseman was out of position for much of the rest of the game. I learned a lot from this game regarding proper placement of Misaki shadow markers, the epicness of the Shadow Emissary, how silly the Hucksters’ False Claim ability can get so long as you have an AP to waste somewhere else on the board to throw down a disposable scheme marker, and how to use Shang to cheat some extra movement for Misaki. I ended up losing again fairly handily, but felt I learned the most from this game of all I played this weekend. Roman’s a great guy, and I hope to have him contribute to Malifaux Musings at some point in the future (he writes the Versatile model reviews for Schemes and Stones’ blog.)

So with that I finished at an ignoble 0-2-1 for the first day. I did however get some cobblestone base inserts that will work well for some ideas I have for future crews, so not a complete loss.

Overnight, I decided the crew I’d had the most fun with was McCabe, so I decided on day 2 to go with him exclusively and try to hone in on how to best play him. Round 1 looked like this:

SUNDAY – ROUND 1

Deployment: Corner

Strategy: Plant Explosives

Scheme Pool

· Harness the Ley Lines (3)

· Take Prisoner (7)

· Assassinate (10)

· Deliver the Message (11)

· Claim Jump (12)

I decided to try out this 2 masters business, as Misaki would make finishing the strat much simpler. Hucksters + Misaki + Mccabe’s speed should have made it academic. I was playing against Phiasco and his Yan Lo which, though fearsome in combat, is not overly mobile, so I knew I would have a maneuverability advantage. Also, we misread the start time and were about 15 minutes late, so I had a feeling we’d be stopping early, so I would need to grab all the points I could as fast as I could. I set about doing just that, hurling relics from Mccabe and Luna to hand out fast (with the assist of a trigger on the Huckster’s false claim to get an extra scrap marker for them to use.) Most of the game boiled down to me trying to dance around, drop bombs, and drop scheme markers on the center line for Harness. Mccabe and Yan Lo delivered messages to each other on turn 2, which is always amusing. Mccabe picked up the Whispering artifact and then dropped into tanking position, which I think is a pretty strong choice to keep in mind for future games. In the end my proactive strategy payed off, as we didn’t get through t3 and I ended up winning accordingly. First win of the weekend!

SUNDAY – ROUND 2

Deployment: Standard

Strategy: Turf War

Scheme Pool

·Breakthrough (2)

·Hold Up Their Forces (6)

·Power Ritual (8)

·Outflank (9)

·Assassinate (10)

Not having listened to the Schemes and Stones post-Museoncon episode at this point, I still had it in my head that Turf War was a scheme-y strategy rather than one that’s essentially Reckoning but more spread out. I went with a Desper and two Hucksters list therefore to go and do Outflank and penetrate deep into enemy territory to flip markers. My opponent was the winner of the Saturday tournament, Landon, using a Crossroads Seven! Arcanist crew led by Envy. Since Envy relies on Armor and doesn’t have much in the way of wounds, I thought I could probably use McCabe to try and drop him without too much fuss after giving him the bladed artifact. That part of the plan was executed relatively well, but I didn’t get enough damage down to actually kill him. I think I got a point from Outflank before Pride wrecked Desper and the Huckster that tried to follow in behind him. Pride is very good, and the CR7 are pretty solid as well. I think they can be beaten if you have effects like Lure to pull them apart from each other, and some of the pieces are more important than others (I think Pride, Sloth, and Envy are most important, Wrath and Gluttony are good, and the others are meh.) More Luna biting things nearly to death was another highlight, and I have a feeling a lot of people are going to get caught off guard by her. Ml 5 2/3/4 isn’t that impressive normally, but on a free totem that you can toss a bladed artifact to it could actually be fairly scary. Despite the loss had a very enjoyable game.

SUNDAY – ROUND 3

Deployment: Wedge

Strategy: Corrupted Idols

Scheme Pool

·Detonate Charges (1)

·Search the Ruins (4)

·Dig Their Graves (5)

·Outflank (9)

·Vendetta (13)

Played against Leviticus in Corrupted Idols. Hmm. Where have I heard this one before?

This time I was up against Brian “Schemes” Spence of Schemes and Stones fame. He was pretty tired and frustrated with his weekend, so he decided to YOLO Levi at the tip of his wedge with the free walk upgrade, sending him forward on T1 to get Sidir within range and blast him off the board first activation. I forgot to use stones to block the 2^nd two attacks (the first one he triggered to prevent) so that was a screw up on my part. The rest of the way was just cold deck on my side of the board, hot deck on his, and well executed play on his part to step on my crew’s neck and not let up. The game was completely one-sided, to the point that Brian was apologizing by the end, which always feels great :P.

But, since we decided it was all over but the counting after T2, that gave me time to go spy on Landon and Shawn at the top table, where Zoraida was facing off with the Crossroads 7 for the tournament championship. Let me reiterate that: the championship game of the Sunday Museon Tournament was Zoraida vs. the Crossroads 7. If you needed a sign that M3E is going to be a brave new world, look no further. I didn’t catch a ton of details about Shawn’s Zoraida, though I did see the Voodoo doll kill one of the band members with pins. The Swampfiend’s stealth is pretty clutch in this new, more ranged combat friendly version of Malifaux. In the end, Mama Z took home the win and first place. I had scored a Lady Justice crew from someone for cheap, so I took some Domodores to go with her as a prize, and more importantly took home several new contacts in the area to contribute to Musings and a lot of new info to process for how to play M3E!

Contents

Background

Character Options

Conclusion

#6 Til Death Do Us Part

#5 The Ferryman

#4 Ghost House

#3 Night of the Carver

#2 Bad Moon Rising

#1 Heart of Darkness

Mini-Musings

Wyrd Beta Forums and other web tools

Third Floor Wars

Schemes and Stones

Other Podcasts

Adepticon is coming! And Malifaux Musings will be there!

Keyword Models:

Keyword Ability:

How Does the Crew Work?

How Has the Crew/Keyword Changed Since M2E?

Who are the Key Pieces in the Keyword, and What Are Their Roles?

Rate the Keyword

-Killing Power

SEVERE!

-Survivability

MODERATE!

-Scheming/Maneuverability

MODERATE!

Card Manipulation

RED JOKER!!!

Which Keyword Models (Outside of the Master) Are The MVP and the LVP?