Mini-Muses
-Wyrd has put together a Bundle of Holding deal wherein you can acquire pdfs of all of the Malifaux Miniatures game books for $27.88. Pretty good deal, and part of the proceeds go to the St. Jude's Children Hospital.
-May 20th to 21st was the date for the Malifaux International Team Competition, a really cool event put together by Mike Marshall for international competition ala the Ryder Cup in golf. This year's event ended up with the USA triumphing via team Trump Card.
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Big Brain Brin-7ss Henchman-A Gremlin support henchman, Big
Brain Brin seems like some kinda great big smart Gremlin. She can clear conditions
off of models, which is always helpful, and can hand out reactivate to another friendly
Gremlin with WP 4 or less (which costs her a card from her hand, unless she’s
ok with sacrificing said Gremlin at the end of their second activation.) Her
attack isn’t exactly amazing, but has a tome trigger to hand out Insignificant.
She lends some support to her allies against attacks that target WP,
traditionally a weakness of Gremlins, and can cancel triggers from enemy models
within 6” of her (albeit, again, at the cost of a card.) Her DF of 4 leaves
something to be desired, however, so you’re going to have to be protective of Brin
if you’re going to use her. She strikes me as more of a “tech” piece to counter
Resurrectionists or Neverborn at first blush, but I could be wrong.
Gatraeux Bokor-6ss Enforcer-Despite having a nearly
unpronounceable name, the Bokor is a fairly straightforward model. They seem to
have two roles you can choose from in your group: handing out a condition reminiscent of Kirai’s
curse that grants a + to Ca attacks from other Gremlins against the target or
spending 2 AP to grant Reactivate to Enforcer or Minion Swampfiends. That, plus
a 0 action ability to give another model in the crew the Faded trait, which
lets them reduce the damage from the first attack that hits them to 0, with
some triggers to add additional utility. These could potentially be useful in
Wong and Zoraida crews.
Wrastler-5ss Minion-Little cousins of Mancha Roja,
presumably, these guys continue the Lucha Libre tradition of Gremlin society.
Tap Out provides an interesting defensive ability, allowing you to prevent them
from being targeted by enemies for the rest of the turn after an enemy hits
them for 3 in a single blow. They have Diving Charge, which is useful and
charcterful (just gotta give them a turnbuckle to climb and leap off.) When operating on their own they have a relatively hard hitting
melee attack that can use a ram trigger to replace the damage with placing Paralyzed
on the target. If there’s another friendly model fighting the target, they can
use Tag Team which has a lower damage spread on its base damage flip, but has a
built in trigger to do an additional 1/2/3 damage flip as well. That paired
with “Give em a shove” to push target models around and their ability to
discard scheme, corpse, or scrap markers which they finish a charge in base to
base with to add some additional damage make for an interesting cheap beater
for Gremlins. Plus, they make me want to build a professional wrestling themed
Gremlin Crew (Mah Tucket converted to Hulk Hogan? Trixiebelle as Ms. Elizabeth?) so that’s always a good thing.
Flying Piglet-4ss Peon-Well, it had to happen. We have
flying piglets in Malifaux now. They have Diving Pigcharge, which is
interesting, and can be summoned by models that can normally summon Stuffed
Piglets. They have an incredibly troubling attack named “Drop Bowels” which, if
you’re thinking “Maybe it doesn’t mean what we think it means,” does a little
bit of damage and poisons the target. So, yeah, it probably does mean the
flying pig is pooing on you. Jaw Dropping Amazement lets them hand out slow,
which is pretty strong for a 4ss model. And, finally, it can do 2 damage to
itself to drop a scheme marker. Putting a handful of these on the board and
using them to strip AP off of enemy models gives these the potential to be
relatively annoying, especially given the fact that they’re summonable.
Bayou Smuggler-6ss Minion-Probably the main reason to bring these
is the ability to, when you use a soulstone to draw cards, discard an extra one
to refund the soulstone cost. That’s potentially VERY useful. Longtime readers
of Malifaux Musings know my affinity for card manipulation shenanigans, so the
fact that they get to draw one when they’re in a duel where the opponent cheats
appeals to me. Their smuggled goods lets them reposition enemy scheme markers.
Their “The Swap” ability lets it change places with an enemy model at the cost
of letting them place a scheme marker next to the enemy model prior to changing
places, which could potentially backfire badly if the enemy is doing a “Detonate
the Charges” style scheme but does have some interesting utility. There’s a
forgettable attack with a paddle with a push trigger and an ability to discard
all markers within 3” of them (at the cost of discarding one card per marker,
which may be a little high.) I think the Smuggler may have a place in crews
just for the Barter Economy, but it has some interesting utility all the same.
Gremlin Crier-7ss Enforcer-I’m interested in the fluff for
what’s going on with these guys, as a town crier doesn’t initially scream
Gremlin to me. They can take wounds to draw cards for each card a friendly
model discards near them. They have the Lucius “Highest Authority” ability,
which will help them survive when they use Gremlin Bureaucracy, which makes all
enemy models and any conditions on models within 3” of it not count for schemes
or strategies until the end of the turn. They can hit people with their bell
and get a + to damage flips if you have more cards than the enemy, and have a
short range lure attack that does damage if the target ends up in base-to-base
contact after the push. And finally they have some interesting survival
abilities, in that they can discard cards to heal themselves as a 0 action and,
when they die, they summon a Bayou gremlin into base to base first before
removing the Crier from the board (essentially the gremlin deciding that they’re
tired of doing this job.)