Malifaux Musings has previously discussed some of the crunch/rules content known so far regarding Wyrd
Miniatures’ forthcoming army-scale game, The Other Side. Late last week some
information started to come out onto Wyrd’s website regarding the four factions
the game will feature. And then, in this week’s Monday Preview, they released a
Youtube video discussing the character and fluff of these organizations and
giving us some hints into the way they will actually perform on the
battlefield. So, being the fluff nuts that we are and wanting to take some
educated guesses at what the mechanics may be from the glimpses we received of
their faction cards, we decided to take a dive into the information we have so far.
Let’s not waste any more time, as the world is literally at war.
The Story So Far…
As we
know, the current timeline of Malifaux has the date placed in 1906, which is a time of high political tension in our own history. We’re knocking on
the door of the first World War at this point on Earth and, in the Malifaux
timeline, things are also on the verge of armed combat. The closing of the first breach led to
global tensions over the sudden loss of a steady supply of Soulstones. This
tension caused the Black Powder Wars, which were ended when the Guild of
Mercantilers forms and brings the whole world under its (at least indirect)
control. However, not everyone is crazy about this arrangement, and the Guild’s
struggles to maintain order in Malifaux once the Second Breach opens only
aggravates this further. And then, as a result of his failed ascension as a
Tyrant, the former Governor-General of Malifaux appears in the skies over
London in a new form, The Burning Man. His arrival triggers chaos and opens a
series of smaller breaches which dump Neverborn creatures onto the Earth, and
plunge the world into war.
One
group that was ready and waiting for the Guild’s weakening was the United
Kingdom. The chaos caused by the arrival of the Burning Man was the last sign
they needed to throw off the Guild’s yoke and declare themselves independent.
In preparations for this moment, the Empire had stockpiled and engineered the
most powerful guns in the world, and they bring these to bear on the enemy. As
such, their battlefield strategies are designed around using ranged combat to
wear the enemy down from afar.
What we
can see from the allegiance card shown in the video tells us that the units of
a King’s Empire army get to flip from their normal form to their Glory form
after killing an enemy unit (what that means in practice, we don’t know, but it
is what it is. These are previews when we don’t have the rulebook.) They get a
mask trigger on melee and ranged attacks that let them push 2” after resolving
the action, which is a nice way of adding mobility to what otherwise looks to
be a static gunline faction. They can use their ranged attacks in melee, albeit
at a reduced AV, which we can assume from the use of the same terminology in
Through the Breach means Activating Value (the equivalent of Ml or Rg in
Malifaux.) So, again, it avoids one of the hallmarks of “gunline” armies by
making them not completely useless in melee. And finally, they can charge and
use ranged attacks instead of melee. Who knows if that’s any good or not, but
it would probably create some interesting tactical scenarios.
Dan
Carlin’s Hardcore History podcast has turned me on to World War I in a way that
history lessons in America never really achieved (for foreign readers, it goes
along the lines of “There was a war going on in Europe for a while, then we
came over and helped finish it. The end.”) That and my attraction to Imperial
Guard armies in Warhammer 40k makes me think the KE might be something I’d
check out in the future.
From
the faction page on Wyrd’s website, we know that the Gibbering Hordes are
Neverborn from Malifaux’s oceans and rivers. More specifically, they were on
the wrong side of the war with the Tyrants, and the Neverborn we’re used to like the Nephilim banished this group from the land as punishment afterwards. The Burning Man’s
arrival has plucked them literally from their homes and dropped them in the
middle of London (at least initially. We know the starter boxed set planned is
the KE vs. GH and is called The Battle of London.) Guess they got lucky that
the Burning Man didn’t show up over Tucson or the Mojave, as I imagine that
would have made for a pretty short invasion. Since their initial arrival,
however, other portals have opened up and dropped members of the GH around the
globe.
The GH
are a melee faction, focused on getting into close combat and destroying the
enemy that way. Their first special rule probably explains how they’ve managed
to hang on so long after being dropped off in Earth, Endless Numbers. It lets
them respawn a unit that was killed on the previous turn at the beginning of
the next turn. They start in the deployment zone, don’t have any assets
(upgrades?), and get to immediately move up to twice their speed. They also
deploy a pair of 120mm Tide Pool tokens on the board during the Scouting phase
(one assumes this is at the beginning, though whether this is done before or
after units deploy would probably affect efficacy.) These pools count as difficult
terrain which the GH units get to ignore. Finally, they get to flip towards
Glory by having one friendly unit eat another friendly unit that starts next to
them. Presumably this makes for a handy means of taking a wounded unit and
getting some value out of them before the enemy destroys them.
All in all,
it feels like you took a Sillurid and crossed it with the Zerg or Tyranids. I
suppose most army-scale games need something like this, and it’s fun to see a side
of the Neverborn that’s different than what you get in the standard game. Close
combat armies have never really been my cup of tea, however, so there’s a good
chance I’ll be splitting parts of a BoL box with somebody and letting them take
these guys.
The
other faction that excites me the most out of this initial group is probably Abyssinia.
They are a real-world kingdom that started in part of Ethiopia. In this history, they gained
access to soulstones before the rest of the world (how, we don't know yet) and, as such, have a greater
knowledge of how to use them. They seem more technologically advanced than the
other human factions, looking almost like a steampunk version of Wakanda from
the Marvel Universe. They stretch across central Africa now, and are seeming to
want to spread and bring more nations under their control.
They
are represented as an elite army that uses better technology and tactics than
the opponent, as opposed to sheer numbers (which triggers my “I don’t have to
buy as many models to play this faction” senses.) Their faction card doesn’t
give as much away as the others, but indicates that you can put two “Prototype
Assets” per commander to units in your army. Are these better versions of
assets, akin to Limited upgrades? We have no way of really knowing yet. They
do, however, have the ability to flip to their Glory side simply by discarding
two control cards at the start of a unit’s activation. Depending on how much
of an upgrade this is, being able to do it directly rather than having to
achieve something on the board (killing an enemy unit, eating a friendly unit,
etc.) would give you a greater degree of control over the unit’s state during
the game. Maybe you just spend the first turn burning your hand to flip to
glory mode on as many units as possible? Of course, that would be card
intensive, so you can try to get some of them back via the trigger all the units in
this army have, Innovation, which lets them draw a card when they have a Tome.
One of
the more progressive elements of Malifaux, initially, was its inclusion of many
strong female characters that didn’t have to be over-sexualized (although,
bizarrely, the more likely a lady master is to fight in close combat with a
sword, the less likely they are to be fully dressed while doing so.) In
addition to being cool, Abyssinia does this in another way, by taking an
African culture and making them the most technologically sophisticated on the
planet. We already had hints of this in Ripples (an Abyssinian built the
Infamy, Zipp’s airship.) But it’s cool to see it in play. Plus, painting a
Marcus model showed me how much better dark skin looks when I paint it than
light. And there’s the elites thing I pointed out above (I’m not a wealthy
person. For tips on how you can help me with that, scroll to the bottom!) So I’m
definitely giving the Abyssinians a close look along with the Empire.
When a
giant burning dude appears in the sky, maybe it’s not a surprise that a certain
type of people might ended up deciding he’s a god. What’s unusual about this
particular deific figure, however, is that worshiping him as such seems to be
granting his followers magical powers, albeit at the cost of their sanity
and/or their physical forms. These guys certainly duke it out with the GH for
who is the scariest looking of The Other Side’s factions, looking almost
reminiscent of the Illuminated and Depleted from Jacob Lynch’s crew in several
cases (and giving those of us who don’t like some of the Lynch crews sculpts
proxy ideas for the future.)
Like the Abyssinians, it’s
tougher to gauge what these guys do from the faction card (maybe this
is a design feature, as it seems the first two simpler factions will be featured in the
starter box.) When an ace falls into the discard pile (more Lynch
similarities?) you can put a Panic token on one of your fireteams. What do
those do? I don’t know. But if you have two of them, that’s how these guys flip
to Glory mode. This seems like the ability you'll have the least control over, though if you mill through your whole deck in an average turn of The Other Side maybe I'll be proven wrong. They do, however, seem to have an interesting mobility tactic in
use during the game. During scouting they place three 50mm portal markers
on the board, which they can shift at the start of their turn 6” by discarding a card. Then, if a unit starts in contact with a portal or moves
into contact with it, you can relocate them to a different portal anywhere else on
the board. You lose the rest of that movement action, but it still provides some
interesting tactical possibilities. As one example, you can present two fronts to the enemy at deployment, then bounce
your whole army to one side and try to roll up an flank. Other than that, we don’t get many hints from the video about what
they do, other than that they’re chaotic and use magic and mutations to strike.
So I suppose if you’re a GW Chaos player, particularly Tzeentch, these guys
will probably feel right up your alley.
Final Thoughts
Again, I want to stress that I don't know what I'm talking about here (well, more than usual.) I'm not a playtester for this game. I don't know anything about it. I'm learning along with you. Also, there were stat cards shown in the video which someone smarter and more patient than me could freeze frame and break down (though when I tried it, a lot of the terminology was different than anything in Malifaux, so I couldn't be sure what I was seeing.) As such, what I've said so far could and likely in many cases will prove to be incorrect. If nothing else, the video is worth checking out just to see the renders of all the cool models coming for the game in the future.
I won't lie to your Marge. When
this game was announced, my first reaction was a hard no. It’s not that I don’t
think it’s going to be any good. I have enough faith in Wyrd to believe that,
if they’re putting the time and effort into the design that they have, they’ll come
out with something top-notch. It’s just that I barely have the time or resources to
support Malifaux, let alone throwing an army scale game on top of it. That
said, some of the characterizations of the factions so far, as well as the
materials reaffirming the commitment to The Other Side being as objective
oriented as Malifaux, have led to my softening on this point. I’m still not sure if I’ll
plunk down the cash for it, but I’m giving it a look. I think a lot of you will
want to do so, as well.
***
And
where would Malifaux Musings recommend you go to buy The Other Side when it
finally comes out? Why, to Leodis games, of course! They’re sort of like an
online version of your friendly local gaming store, and stock Malifaux, Guild
Ball, Infinity, and many more games as well as custom accessories. Right now,
pre-orders for Sandeep’s Beacon of Knoweldge crew box as well as Iron Skeeters,
Shastar Vidiya Guards, and Archie are 20% off! And, by following this link before making your purchase, you’ll be supporting Malifaux Musings as well.
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