Product Review: Nythera

Mini-Musings

-The November FAQ came out. There aren’t a ton of overwhelming things here, but a few things were clarified. First of all, the so-called “Schrodinger’s Hungering Darkness” question that arises with the Death Contract upgrade, wherein Death Contract could potentially be triggered repeatedly when paired with Rising Sun. Specifically, you Huggy doesn’t die, so it doesn’t trigger Death Contract. Additionally, Trixiebelle can’t redirect attacks from charges or flurries to other models, as she is the only legal target for them, you can’t butterfly jump into melee to block a ranged attack, and moving “up to” a certain difference can choose to move 0”. There are a few others. Go read it yourself. What am I, your secretary?

-The Get Gourd contest winner was Rene Luthje (I don’t know how to put accents and/or oomlots on with my English keyboard, so apologies for their absence.) Here’s a link to the images. Congrats to the winner and those who get carvers. Sadly my strategy of “Run out of time and don’t carve a pumpkin” failed me yet again.

-Round three of iron painter started Monday. The topic this time is Stranger Things. So, good luck to those who are still participating. We’re all counting on you.

-The winner of October’s Malifaux Musings raffle is Moritz Hampel. I’ll be putting your stuff in the mail shortly. Next week I’ll let you know what’s up to be won in November. How does one with this raffle, you ask? Well, I’m glad you asked, because the answer is by becoming a Patron on our Patreon page. Just head over to patreon.com/MalifauxMusings, become a subscriber on any level, and you’re entered into the drawing!

-Finally, I'm writing Shadow and Void to full novel length for NaNoWriMo. Come join me on my page, and maybe throw me some support. Cuz god knows, I'll need it...

https://nanowrimo.org/participants/agentrock2021

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Through the Breach-Nythera: Or The Political Ramifications of the Discovery of Neverborn Ruins for the City of Malifaux.

Writing & Design: Mason Crawford

Additional Design: Aaron Darland

Editing: Brandi Edgmon

Art: Harry Fowler, Jorge Gomez, and Bram ‘Boco’ Sels

               Released some time back, this book contains the material published during the worldwide event two years ago. It features the story of Malifaux’s discovery of a second ancient Neverborn ruin, Nythera, and the subsequent scramble by its players to claim it for its own. I played through this during the event itself, but the individual chapters have been collected and pooled together in a Penny Dreadful that is available on DriveThruRpg. Let’s take a look at how it all turned out. Also, if you’re a player, some spoilers may come out here.

The Nythera adventure consists of four acts and does an interesting job of taking characters from relative nobodies up to major players in the city of Malifaux. It literally begins with the misfit band being led to their execution on the Hanging Tree, just prior to their rescue by a pair of Wastrels with one foot in the Guild and the other in the Ten Thunders to do a job for them. The Fated are engaged to track down information on the newly discovered Nythera ruins and the efforts that people are taking to claim it for themselves. Along the way, they’ll have to retrieve Phillip Tombers from the middle of a firefight (literally) between two of Malifaux’s Masters, navigate between your saviors’ two factions as they try to pull you in separate directions, coerce a Brilliance addicted Friekorpsman to escort them into the badlands to Nythera itself, and eventually join a Friekorps assault alongside Von Schill while the winter witch Rasputina rallies her forces against you. In the end, it will come down to them to decide whether to release what is contained within or make sure it stays sealed forever. Either choice has consequences for the future of Malifaux…

The real highlight of this module is the amount of hobnobbing with major figures from the miniature game that occurs. Over the course of this adventure, the characters will come into contact with no less than 8 (and possibly 9) masters. Additionally, they plan a heist with Phillip’s Head (as an aside I, no joke, only got that joke when I played through this the first time,) enter an underground boxing ring, and encounter a wide swathe of the various creatures and nasties from the Badlands. Probably the most dangerous combat encounter comes at the end of Act 3, mostly due to the protracted combat against monsters with Black Blood (passive damage is very harsh in TTB), unless of course the players release [XXX Redacted by Order of the Guild XXX], in which case death is almost certainly assured. The investigation and journey through the wilderness makes up the brunt of the non-combat events. The module also includes stat blocks for 30 opponents in the “People” chapter, which greatly adds to the repertoire of what Fatemasters can bring to their games.

I liked this publication overall, but I have a few quibbles. For the most part, TTB goes to lengths to have the Fated have their own adventures without interacting with some of the more important Fatemaster characters. This serves a dual purpose, both by giving the Fated more agency and to avoid the feeling some players used to get when playing in established settings like the DC Universe or the Forgotten Realms where players know that, if things get too out of hand, Superman or Elminster can always show up to save the day. Additionally, if you keep the cameos down to a minimum, it helps to ensure that it feels special and cool when a character your players recognize pops up in the story. This module runs completely in the other direction. I thought it was fun, but I would understand why some people would feel otherwise. Also, to be honest, the second act of the story drags a little and likely is unnecessary to the overall story, as it mostly involves the players realizing and then confronting the Wastrels’ attempts to kill them at the demands of the Ten Thunders, but the rest are very interesting. Still, overall, I feel the plusses very much outweigh the negatives.

As an extra bonus, the module includes pre-generated characters which new players can use in the story. They’re a diverse group representing members of each of the factions, including an Ortega relative, a cyborg Doctor, and a human who was raised by pigs. One of my favorite parts of the Nythera event, unfortunately, isn’t included here, as the pre-gen characters had their own personal goals to complete every chapter when we were playing it live. Some of these were straightforward enough, but many were rather unorthodox like “make someone call you ‘Arizona’ during the game’ or ‘Squeal like a pig at someone until they demand that you speak English.’” Unfortunately, players will need to do a bit of adjustment to correct them for M2E, but they’re a good starting point.

So, in summation, I recommend this module for most Fatemasters. If you want your characters to go through the Malifaux equivalent of starting at the bottom and pulling themselves up through its tangled web of intrigues. It makes for a great self-contained story, and I honestly recommend cutting the campaign off after finishing the last Act and moving on to new Fated and a new storyline. So, check it out! 

Nythera or Bust pt. 1

Seems like a lovely place to visit...

Today the details were released for Wyrd’s Fall 2016 organized event, in which players will battle to claim and profit from the discovery of a ruined city in the Badlands, Nythera. For the fluff heads out there, Nythera is sister city to Kythera, which the factions battled over back in book 1 due to it containing a portal to a realm of death. The living managed to seal it up and deal the Resurrectionists a blow there, but with the discovery of this sister city, the battle is on once again.

            On the Malifaux side of things, players sign up on the Wyrd forums for one particular faction that they will represent during the event. The factions will then battle it out on a map of the Badlands, fighting to seize territory for their side and defend their holdings from the enemy. Players will report their game results, and will be granted access to secret forums where the factions can plan their objectives for the week. It sounds very similar to the Dead of Winter event from several years ago which, ultimately, led to the creation of the Tara crew and the Kaeris alternate sculpt released earlier this year. This time around, the winning faction gets to be the 2016 Nightmare Edition Gencon crew, and second place gets the Miss alternate sculpt model. Cool stuff. I’m also intrigued by their integration of the Campaign system from Shifting Loyalties into the event, with players working towards constructing strongholds for their faction during the course of the event.

The campaign map, pre-violence.

            Excitingly, they’re also including the Through the Breach roleplaying game as part of the event. Fatemasters sign up to receive three one-session scenarios with characters responding to the Nythera events back in Malifaux city. Character generation will be skipped for this event in favor of pre-gens, which is a little bit of a bummer, but I understand why it will be necessary. In place of the destiny mechanic, each player will have individual goals that they will be trying to accomplish for their character. At the end of the event, the character which most-frequently accomplishes their personal goal will be made into a model for the Malifaux skirmish game! Awesome!

            I’m signed up for both sides of the event, so I see a lot of time spent on the other side of the breach in my future. My regular Wednesday Google plus gaming group is down for the Through the Breach stuff, though I’m going to have to figure out how to do it online, using Vassal perhaps. I am signed up for the Guild in the Skirmish game (natch) so I’ll be doing my best to earn us some new miniatures at next Gencon. “But Adam,” I hear you saying, “The Guild has already had a Nightmare Edition boxed set and two Miss models. Wouldn’t you rather see the Ten Thunders get something new?” And my answer is, frankly, no. We’re the Guild. We’re Law and Order. We deserve to get more Nightmare models, just in exchange for keeping peace and order in the city. And, frankly, that kind of seditionist talk is just the sort of thing that could get you thrown in prison or added to a work gang.

You wouldn’t want that, would you?

For more information, head to the Event section of the new and improved Wyrd forums.

Nythera Wrap-Up

Well, here we are in Nythera. We all travelled here, right? Hung on with the campaign up to this point? I hope so, because if you opted out, you missed a pretty awesome event orchestrated by the folks at Wyrd, and you’re going to end up regretting it.

The Malifaux Campaign

I would assume that the majority of people who took part in the Road to Nythera did so in some fashion through the miniatures game. For those bums that sat things out at home, this was organized by having players sign up for their faction of choice from the beginning and duke it out over locations scattered throughout the Badlands area south of Malifaux city. Each faction started out controlling three locations worth 1, 2, and 3 campaign points. To play the games, you found someone from an opposing faction, flipped for who would be the attacker versus who would be the defender, and played out the match contesting either one of the defender’s territories or the neutral territory, Nythera itself. You had the option of either playing a standard game of Malifaux or, if you had Shifting Loyalties and were taking part in a campaign, using additional random events created by the Wyrd staff every week (ok, so they were based on the ones from the book, cut them a break) and even working towards building a stronghold for your faction during the process. Pretty cool stuff. Winners scored points for their side towards control of that location. Loser didn’t. Pretty simple, really. Hundreds of games were played, and in the end the winner was determined by a difference of one (1) campaign point. Talk about coming down to the wire.

My part in this would involve no actual moving of minis on a tabletop, sadly. Southwest Virginia continues to be a Malifaux desert. However, I tried to start an online campaign using the Vassal system. I signed up for the Guild from the beginning, as mentioned previously, and so entered the Liquid Courage League version 1.0 with Ryle’s Retaliators, a crew consisting of Ryle, Francisco with Wade In!, Abuela Ortega, a Death Marshal, and an Austringer. I posted to the Wyrd boards and got together a group of 8 people initially and even put together a rule set for setting up one weekly match between opponents based on a Blood Bowl League that I used to play in once upon a time. Early results were...somewhat less than stellar. I’m just saying, the Guild didn’t earn a lot of campaign points off the back of my efforts. However, in week 3 I managed a crushing win against my opponent, got myself one of the Red Joker upgrades, bought some cool stuff for my crew (my favorite part was Francisco with Instinctual and the ability to eat corpse markers around himself for healing. Franc went a little nuts over the course of this thing.) I bought the Pale Rider and added him to my team. Things were finally turning around for the retaliators. AAaaaaaand, of course the league folded immediately after this.

Obviously

I’d had too many people drop out over the course of the thing to keep going in any meaningful way. I learned a lot of lessons from this, including making sure to get people who can commit the time and effort to put this thing together on a weekly basis, and to potentially look at making them shorter or freeing people up to play in a more freeform fashion rather than specific match-ups every time. C'est la vie. It happens. In the meantime, I got busy with another gaming project (also related to why the blog has sat silent for so long) and regrettably my contribution to the noble Guild’s efforts ended there, with my contributing maybe two wins total to the campaign. I was still happy to be a part of it, and I was thrilled with how organized the Guildies were in our sub-forum. Every week we had a solid strategy of attack, often coming at things in very sideways fashion rather than directly to optimize our points output. Which payed off pretty well, I guess, since….THE GUILD FRICKING WON! WOOOO! NIGHTMARE GUILD BOX AT GENCON THIS YEAR.

Year of the Ram, baby.

Through The Breach

One of the really innovative parts of this worldwide event was the integration of the roleplaying game with the overall storyline. As initially advertised, the players would be paralleling the progress of the miniatures campaign by exploring the consequences of the race for Nythera in Malifaux City itself. Players got to choose from 14 pregenerated player characters (2 associated with each faction) ranging from a gunslinging black-sheep of the Ortega family, to a pair of Cyborgs (from two different factions), to a hatchet-wielding mad necromancer and a girl raised by pigs (seriously.) The characters rubbed elbows with some of the real movers and shakers of the miniatures game, getting caught at one point in a crossfire between Kirai and Kaeris, being subtly threatened by Lucius Matheson (does he do it any other way?), having tea with the Mistress of the Ten Thunders, and going toe-to-toe (sort of) with the leader of the Nephilim. Each of the characters had a personal goal they were trying to accomplish during the session. Sometimes they were simple (kill this many of this type of creature, earn this much scrip, etc.) Other times they were down-right bizarre (convince all the other players to call you by your nickname rather than your real name, oink enough times during a conversation that someone eventually tells you to speak English, etc.) Additionally, the players’ actions would play a role in determining [SPOILER ALERT IN CASE YOU HAVEN’T READ SHIFTING LOYALTIES] who would take over the Guild now that the Governor-General has blown himself up. Players had four candidates to support: a military general, a bean counting union-breaker (unsurprisingly, this one has been consistently the least popular throughout), a smooth politician looking to soften the Guild’s image, and a sorceror associated with Sonnia’s Witch Hunters who honestly reminded me of Rasputin.

I really had no complaints about the roleplaying campaign whatsoever. As a Fatemaster, I found them to be interesting, relatively diverse, and an interesting journey from the slums of the city to a journey by covered wagon through the Badlands (which my players, of course, dubbed “Malifaux Trail” and spent the whole time making “Float the Wagon” and “You just died of dysentery” jokes.) Highlights included 1) My players building Phillip Tombers’ head a fake Aethervox case to hide in and pretend to be a radio announcer (he enjoyed singing dramatic musical accompaniment to the party’s fight scenes) 2) Vin Pham (a Ten Thunders artificer) deciding she was tired of being manipulated by the Guild and just starting to execute people Tarantino style in the second module and 3) the gunslinging Ortega character intentionally experimenting with Brilliance and then trying to set up a three-way between herself, a working girl, and a Friekorpsman from whom they were trying to get information. Finally, the bonus was that though the roleplaying event ends on Monday, we are getting one additional chapter of the campaign to serve as an epic conclusion! And, just between me and you, a little birdy told me that finale is going to be freaking epic. So, look forward to that, malifolk.

2015 Malifaux Musie Awards

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Malifaux's Greatest Award Show (by default,) the 2015 Musie Awards! Generally speaking, I tend to focus my thought processes and attention on the competitive side of the Malifaux miniatures game, looking at it in terms of strategy, crew composition, and what is most likely to give you a win in a particular stratety/scheme set-up. There’s a reason my podcasts of choice tend to focus on shows like Before We Begin and (anything Joel Henry is on) rather than those that pay more attention to hobby and collecting. It’s not that I don’t like those other shows, it’s just that I only have so much time and this is the part of the game that interests me. Perhaps not unexpectedly, as I’m listening to these I get a passing view of which factions and masters are winning consistently at the major tournaments over the course of the year. As such, I thought it would be useful and interesting to look back at 2015’s Malifaux Tournament scene with an eye for which factions did well in the competitive environment. I focused on tournaments that either A) had 20+ attendees or B) were a qualifier/golden ticket event for the UK or US national championship (or, of course, were those respective championship tourneys.) First, a few disclaimers that will apply to this first iteration of the awards:

1) I had to have access to the results, so they focus on those which are available through the UK and US Malifaux rankings site. Additionally, I turned to the Malifaux public themselves for some filler data on tourneys I was missing, and I threw in the Nythera event results because it A) had the most players of any event and B) probably gave the closest representation of the aggregate competitive level of Malifaux factions across all of the playing public.

2) I don’t have which masters were used in each tournament, so I elected to not include that in the tracking. Next year I hope to correct this.

3) I wasn’t present for any of these tourneys, so all information has to be second hand. I’ve tried to stick to only data given to me from participants/organizers, but I’m not ruling out the possibility that something in here is incorrect.

The final list of events included in this compilation is: Adepticon, Gencon Avatar of Malifaux tournament, the NOVA Open, the UK Grand Tournament, The UK Masters Tournament, the Nythera Worldwide Event, Brooklynfaux II, Live Free or Die Cheating, Captain Con, Mali-Fest, Templecon, Connecticon, Isle of Faux, Cow Wars, Haul of Eggs, the Scottish GT, Deliverance, and Play More Games. From a first look at the data, what do I see? Well, in terms of attendance at the major tournaments, the UK wins mostly on the back of the 88 people who were at the UK GT. This is just staggering, and is a testament to how popular the game is in the UK per capita and, possibly, the advantage of having all of the player base on a handful of islands rather than spread across the entire continental US. It was impressive to see that the US could field a similar number of high player base ranked events as the UK, however, as the disparity between US versus UK events was only 1 (9.5 vs. 8.5, as I split the Nythera event between the two.) Also encouraging is the fact that each faction had at least one win at a major tournament this season, a testament to how wide-open the meta is for Malifaux’s competitive scene (or, as some might argue, it may just be a comment on the fact that the meta is constantly evolving and no one has quite figured it out yet.) But, this is supposed to be an award show, so let’s get on to the awards.

To start with, the Musie for US faction of the year goes to

…The Guild!

Yer Goddamned Right it does.

A lot of this comes on the back of the Guild winning both the Gencon Avatars qualifier and the NOVA Open, as well as the Nythera event. Hot on their heels are the Outcasts and Resurrectionists, with two and three major US events each. Two factions (Neverborn and Arcanists) failed to take down one of the major US tournaments included in the data set. It would be interesting to break things down into smaller, more localized meta reports for who wins in certain areas, as I would bet the differences would be pretty significant. Two of the Guild wins that got them this award were from the same player in subsequent tournaments, but the Resurrectionist wins were also clumped (around a certain Guy in Suit) so it’s possible this picture isn’t as complete as it could be.

Next up, the Musie for UK faction of the year

…goes to the Resurrectionists!

Checking into the Rezzers award show party. Update: the party is totally dead.

The Rezzers put together a strong resume of tournament wins in the UK in 2015, taking down both the UK GT and the Masters. The Neverborn ended up with two major tournament wins as well, but I gave the edge to the dead-folk due to overall population of the tournaments that they won. Two different factions failed to win one of the major tournaments. One of the missing factions, interestingly, is the Guild. The disparity in Guild results in the UK versus the US consistently fascinates me and was probably one of the most interesting outcomes of this research. What’s the deal here? Are there just not as many strong Guild players in the UK as in the US? Did the differences in the two meta-games open the door for a more dominant, destructive Guild list to win out here where it was countered there? This is worthy of closer investigation, in my opinion. Look for a future blog post examining that.

Speaking of the UK’s staggering tournament attendance, it should perhaps be no surprise that the winner for the People’s Choice Award Musie (combination of wins multiplied by attendees at the majors) goes to

…Resurrectionists! 

Currently serving appetizers at the Rezzer party. 

Again, the UK GT skews this result strongly in their favor, but it says something that the Rezzers came out on top of a pile of 88 of the UK’s best and brightest. That is a meat grinder, to be sure, and deserving of respect. Outcasts come in second here, with none of the other factions cracking triple digits.

The second to last Musie we’re going to call the Wooden Spooner award (with nods to self-described terrible Malifaux Player and podcaster Matt Spooner) we’ll give to the bottom of the pile faction. And really, are we surprised that this one goes to

…the Gremlins! 

They don't know it's a gag award, so they're still happy.

This result is probably the least representative of what the faction can really do, as I would pin part of this result on the simple fact that, for a large part of 2015, most of the faction wasn’t available in plastic (or at all.) People don’t like playing proxies, and major tournaments generally aren’t going to let you get away with using them. Their one win (from the included tournies) was Play More Games, a tournament in Maryland. Look for this to change next year, as Ulix, Ophelia, and Rooster Riders are just one of the many scary things you don't want to see across from you on a table. It is fun to poke at the perpetual little-brothers of Malifaux, however, and remind them that they still aren't a real faction. I was also surprised that the Arcanists finished as low as they did, considering they had the Mechanical Rider and pre-nerf Iron Gamins all year long. The one win included was Martin Wodehouse at the UK's Deliverance tourney (and how Gremlins didn't win that, I'll never know.) Now, they finished on the podium for a large number of these tourneys, so if I was including this I think they would have finished stronger. But still, that one really surprised me.

So that leaves us with our final award, the Musie for Faction of the Year: Most major tournaments won worldwide. If you’ve been reading through the rest of the article, it should perhaps not surprise you that the winner is…

 

I mean, really, what other picture could I use?

The Resurrectionists!

With five major tournament wins worldwide and strong showings in both the UK and US metas, I think it’s no surprise that the deadheads are the winners here. Encouragingly, this was not a matter of the same single master or list winning these tournaments (though Kirai was well represented in both, as Andrew Weakland and Joe Wood, among others, have demonstrated her strength as a master quite convincingly at this point.) Seamus and McMourning were well represented here as well. Runner-up for the award is the Guild, again coming entirely as a result of victories in the US meta and their victory in the Nythera worldwide event. Honorable mention goes to the Outcasts, as Jack Daw and Leveticus led their faction to three major tourney wins.

Well, that’s first effort at putting together a Musies award show, as much as I could do with an informal poll after the fact. Next season I hope to poll the major tournament organizers and winners as the events come along, giving me better information and making for some cool interviews and insights from the players on sight. I’d love to attend some of them in person (and that may happen for Gencon, if nothing else) but I think this is the next best thing. I’d love to get comments and suggestions from readers on how to improve these for 2016, and I’m sure some people disagree with the results I have here. I love to have comments, so feel free. But in the meantime, thanks for reading. Enjoy the post-award show parties. Try not to take too much Brilliance.

If you do, the management is not responsible for any Hungering Darkness or Seamus related mishaps that happen afterward.

Malifaux Musings Vassal Nythera Campaign League

A long time ago in a play area far, far away (Nebraska) my friend Phiasco and I played in the Lincoln Blood Bowl League, once of the best organized play groups in which I've been privileged to participate. The model was built around players being assigned an opponent during a week, working with them to set up a time to meet and play their game, and then reporting them back to the commish for accountability to make sure of no collusion. It was my favorite, and the recently released Shifting Loyalties Malifaux Campaign system allows for the possibility of doing it with Malifaux in the future. Problem: Phiasco now lives in Atlanta and I live in Virginia. Solution: Vassal!

Phiasco and I are looking to organize a campaign league for a small number of players to run the length of the Nythera event (starting in week 3 at the earliest, obviously, since we're already under way.) I'm hoping to get 6 people who are willing to commit to one game a week against a predetermined opponent with a strategy and scheme pool defined (IE everybody is playing the same game, with the weekly event in place, so everything should be roughly level.) To counter the somewhat reduced growth people would see from limiting the number of games to one a week, the factions will put in place "Emergency Resource Allocation," a home rule wherein factions will receive 1 scrip per vp they acquire in game (as opposed to 1 per 2 vp) and all crews start the campaign with a bounty of their choice pre-purchased. 

Rules are still being written and finalized at the moment, but I wanted to take people's temperature on them and start gathering interest. Players will be responsible for scheduling their game with each other each week, and I'm still determining what exactly will be the consequence if people can't get their game lined up. We're North American Eastern Time Zone players, so unless you want to be up until the odd hours, probably best to stay within the North American time zones. Skype will probably be required for communication during the game. Obviously you need Vassal. It's meant to be a fairly light-hearted league/campaign (IE not super-competitive) so if you can't get your game in during a specific week it will probably just count as a double forfeit with no penalty/benefit for either player. Repeatedly missing will result in removal from the league and replacement with another player. I'm open to discussion on this point, however.

Ideally, I'd like to have everybody using a different faction, so I'll keep this up to date with players and their faction as they sign-up.

Edit: I've added a second ten thunders crew. Essentially, if they play in-faction their games won't count for the Nythera Event. 

1. AWOL - Guild 

2. Phiasco - Ten Thunders

3. Asrian - Outcasts

4. Tawg - Ten Thunders

Hit me up with sign-ups on the Wyrd Forums Thread if you're interested, or to provide rules suggestions. 

Ripples of Fate Preview: Titania

This week’s Monday preview brought us the first in a series of reveals for the masters in Malifaux’s next book, Ripples of Fate. Confidentially, I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while, as the first preview was…Titania!

With a name that hearkens to Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” it should be no surprise that Titania is the Queen of the Fae. The resemblance ends there, however, as details revealed from the Nythera Penny Dreadful (stop reading if you plan on playing this or don’t want this spoiled) let you know that she was once ruler of the Neverborn before she made a pact with the Grave Spirit to defeat the Tyrants by shattering their physical forms. The Neverborn were not thrilled with this (their hatred of the undead continues to be one of their defining traits, as Hayreddin can likely attest) and they locked her away beneath Nythera before she could bring the Grave Spirit fully into the world. Since then, she has leeched the energy from the Badlands, turning them into the wastes that they currently are, before being released by Fated at the end of this summer’s events (assuming that your Fated released her. I am aware that not all are as impulsive as others but, as my players put it “We’ve come this far, there’s no way we’re NOT going to find out what’s locked under here.”

Fluff-wise, I like this character a lot from the little bit we have so far. Someone who is an enemy of the Neverborn from the inside, who is returning and going to make the other masters decide how they feel about this person being back, could lead to some very interesting stories going forward. Also, it occurs to me that all of us should feel some sort of affinity for her, as Titania is one of the first characters any of us ever saw in Malifaux and one who many of us have spent games praying would appear in our favor.

Look familiar?

But what about in game? Let’s take a look at the front of the stat card.

For Neverborn players, it should be apparent that this is something very new and different for the faction. This character is very tough. With twelve wounds, Impossible to Wound, and the ability to heal two wounds every time her crew drops a scheme marker within 6” of you, it’s going to take some doing to bring down our new Undead queen. Additionally, enemy models that activate within 6” while in base contact with her scheme markers have to make a WP duel or take some damage. This seems like it would be sort of difficult to set up, but still makes some interesting possibilities for using her to defend markers in schemes like Convict Labor. Walk 5 and flight on a master usually means speed, though that’s nothing new for Neverborn. Still, good to see she will be able to keep up with other members of the faction if she needs too. And, frankly, nobody is likely to say no to a 4 cache. That’s good stuff, and will let you feed stones into the crew without having to save them for her (usually.) It’s tough to gauge anything past that without seeing the flip side of the card and her upgrades, but so far I like what I see.

***

As an aside, I’m happy to officially announce that roving reporter Jon has joined the blog as an official coauthor, and should be posting soon about his experiences at the Cool Mini Or Not Expo tournament. 

Malfaux Musings Week 1: Four Quadrants, A Funeral, and an Information Broker

The mysterious stranger stood amongst the abandoned ruins, immaculately dressed despite the dust and grit that seemed to blow its way into everything in the Badlands. His masked face was unreadable as he stared into the bloody charnel pit, still smoldering with the remains of whatever poor souls had been ritualistically destroyed here some time in the past. He reached into his vest pocket, retrieving a gold pocket watch. He flipped it open and nodded. "Ten minutes to midnight," he said to himself, nodding. "They'll be here soon." He looked up, eyes peering unnaturally into the gloom. They would come for Nythera, the fools. They would come thinking they could claim for themselves that which was unclaimable, and what once was would be again. And, as always, he would profit from their sorrow. That was his nature.

As the shadowy forms became visible on the horizon, eight small groups dashing towards him at full tilt, he let out a quiet, high-pitched titter of laughter. "Time to let the killing start..." 

The arsenals have been assembled, the rules are finalized, and we are underway with the Malifaux Musings Vassal Campaign League (MMVCL? sure, we'll go with that.) And the week one scenario is...

Deployment: Standard

Strategy: Interference

Scheme Pool: A Line in the Sand, Assassination, Bodyguard, Cursed Object, Plant Explosive

Vassal Map: Funeral Home

Weekly Event: 

The Information Broker

Tales tell of a masked information broker, in a dapper suit and top hat, who seems to know a little too much... Reports have sighted him all over Breachside, telling tales in the city and through the Badlands. Whether it is one man or many is uncertain, but only a fool would pass up this chance...

An Information Broker joins every Encounter this week. Place a 30mm Information Broker Marker in the center of the table (or as close as possible). This Marker is Ht 2, impassable, blocking, and it may be attacked. When it is attacked it is considered to have Df and Wp of 6 and 8 Wd. The Crew which is not Attacking it flips and cheats for it. It can only be damaged by attacks which directly target it.

Any model within 1” of the Information Broker may make a (1) Interact Action targeting it to ask it for guidance. When this happens, flip on the following chart (this flip may not be cheated): 

Black Joker	The model is immediately killed.
Ram	Heal all damage on the model.
Tome	The model’s controller may place a Scheme Marker anywhere on the table.
Crow	The model’s controller gains 2 Scrip.
Mask	The model’s controller gains 2 Scrip.
Red Joker	The model’s controller makes an additional Barter flip at the end of the game.

Alternately, any model within 1" of the Information Broker may make a (1) Interact Action targeting it to ask it for information. The player may spend 1 Scrip to gain 2 LP in any non-Nythera location controlled by another Faction. A player may not earn more than 6 LP from this event during Week 3.

Wanted to use Wyrd's weekly event, but of course there's a hiccup because we're only in week 1 and nobody has any scrip to spend on the information broker. Solution: add in the ability to use the action this guy is based on from Shifting Loyalties and get some scrip or other bonuses from him, which you could theoretically use later in the game to get some LP for your faction. 

And here are the week 1 crews. 

Player Name	Andrew Casterline	Scrip			Current Bounty	Do the job. Get paid.
Crew Name	Hannah's Hellions				Progress	0/3
Model Name	SS Cost	Skills	Injuries		Equipment	Upgrades
Hannah	10					Survivalist – 1SS
Hodgepodge Effigy	4
Sue	8
Freikorps Librarian	7
Freikorpsmann	5
Total Models	34
Maximum Game Size	39

Player Name	DoctorWhat	Scrip			Current Bounty	Hit-List
Crew Name	Anna's Executioners				Progress	0/2
Model Name	SS Cost	Skills	Injuries		Equipment	Upgrades
Anna Lovelace	9					Spare Parts (2 SS)
Canine Remains	4
Carrion Emissary	10
Rotten Belle	5
Rotten Belle	5
Total Models	33
Maximum Game Size	38

Player Name	Brian Schoner	Scrip			Current Bounty	Covert Operations
Crew Name	Rolling Thunder	0			Progress	0/2
Model Name	SS Cost	Skills	Injuries		Equipment	Upgrades
Ototo	10					Call the Thunder
Katanaka Sniper	7
Komainu	5
Wastrel	4
Yin the Penangalan	8
Total Models	34
Maximum Game Size	39

Player Name	Joe B	Scrip			Current Bounty	Lessons learned in Blood 0/4
Crew Name	Flash of Brilliance				Progress
Model Name	SS Cost	Skills	Injuries		Equipment	Upgrades
Hungering Darkness	8					Nexus of Power (1)
The Illuminated	7
Beckoner	7
Beckoner	7
The Depleted	4
Total Models	33
Maximum Game Size	38

Player Name	Adam Rogers	Scrip			Current Bounty	Strange Times
Crew Name	Ryle's Retaliators	0			Progress	0/2
Model Name	SS Cost	Skills	Injuries		Equipment	Upgrades
Ryle	10					Wade In!
Francisco Ortega	8
Austringer	6
Death Marshall Burns	6
Brutal Effigy	4
Total Models	34
Maximum Game Size	39

Player Name	Travis DeVoll	Scrip			Current Bounty	Clean up crew
Crew Name	Tokkun	0			Progress	0/3
Model Name	SS Cost	Skills	Injuries		Equipment	Upgrades
Yamazaki	7					Blot the Sky [1]
Takehiko (Thunder Archer)	7
Yuuto (Thunder Archer)	7
Jorogumo Takaide	9
Tengu Asuka	4
Total Models	34
Maximum Game Size	39

Player Name	Jon / Sensei Phiasco	Scrip			Current Bounty	Mark our Territory
Crew Name	Wu Kang	0			Progress	0/2
Model Name	SS Cost	Skills	Injuries		Equipment	Upgrades
Kang	9					Misdirection
Chiaki the Niece	6
The Thunder Brother	5
Katanaka Sniper	7
Guild Pathfinder	6
Total Models	33
Maximum Game Size	38

Player Name	LittleGreenGuy	Scrip			Current Bounty
Crew Name	Big Hats	0			Progress
Model Name	SS Cost	Skills	Injuries		Equipment	Upgrades
Francois (Leader)	7					I'll Love It And Pet It (Lenny) (1)
Lenny	9
War Pig	9
Piglet	4
Hog Whisperer	5
Total Models	34
Maximum Game Size	39