Time to carry on with the reviews! If you missed the first half, here's a link!
Sandeep Desai
From
the fluff, we learn that Sandeep was born in Guild occupied India and learned
magic at a temple when he was adopted as an orphan. The knowledge he mastered
was totally against Guild law, and as such his master was killed and Sandeep
was set on his path. He has since become a teacher of rebel mages and
spellcasters, with a mastery of Gamin and holding secret classes on Earth and
now, after being invited there by Victor Ramos, in Malifaux. It could be my
academic background, but I like the flavor of this dude.
He
summons his big totem, Banasuva, to provide a threat on the board that could be
interesting for Collect the Bounty. On the card (likely modified from
upgrades,) he has a not so strong melee attack from his big Gada mace. His ranged
caster spell has a respectable 2/4/5 damage flip with a ram trigger to give it
plus flips for damage. He can teleport as a (0) or perform an interact action.
As written, he feels like a kind of generic master, but that makes sense
because any of his abilities that are casts (the ranged attack, teleport, and
interact) are usable by the other academics in his crew. As such, you wouldn’t
want them to be too overwhelming or that could get really out of hand. His
melee attack is enhanced by which of his limited upgrades he chooses. He also
picks up the ability to summon gamin from his limited upgrade, and gives
different buffs to them based on which upgrade he chooses. The other upgrades
aren’t detailed to any degree, other than to state that they let him hire
academics regardless of faction and gives him the ability to enhance their
abilities…in some way. Perhaps fittingly, Sandeep remains probably the most
mysterious master at this point, but I’m very interested to see how he operates
on the tabletop.
Parker Barrows
Parker
was screwed over in court by a brother long ago, which took all of his money
and left him to a life of banditry. He now runs a gang out of the Northern
Hills and robs people. They aren’t loyal to anybody, so anybody is a target.
And…that’s pretty much it for fluff.
Parker
sort of strikes me as being reminiscent of the game Othello: you can learn him
in minutes, but it will take you a lifetime to master. He shoots stuff,
unsurprisingly, and has a trigger to make an enemy drop…one of their scheme
markers? That will likely seem weird, until you get to the tactical action Five
Finger Discount which lets him discard either his own soulstones or the enemy’s
scheme markers to attach one of Parker’s upgrades to him. This makes sense when
paired with his Empty The Chamber trigger on his shooting attack, which
increases his damage from ditching upgrades, and the fact that he has 7 different upgrades which allow
him to do different things on the board. So, Parker ditches an upgrade that may
or may not have outlived its usefulness in the game (IE it’s a combat upgrade
and the game has shifted to a strats/schemes/movements phase, or vice versa,)
does some extra damage on an attack (3/4/6 for the cost of one upgrade,) and gains a
soulstone back for Limited Supplies. He can then either ditch that soulstone or
an enemy scheme marker and attach something better from his massive pool of personal upgrades. So, he could be a swiss
army knife, with a different tool to fit whatever job you need. He also can
toss out some pushes to his crew to help get slowpoke models into position for
added utility. So, to all appearances, he is a scheme denial master (sort of,)
who can switch between strategy or combat mode in mid game. My brother used to
joke that, if I went to a fast food place, I would tend towards the “one of
everything combo” because I like having options. Parker gets more tempting to
me all the time. I do worry, however, that most Levi and Vik players may look
at him, shrug, and move on past because they already have a very strong combat
master and Parker doesn’t explicitly fill any of the things they’re missing.
Asami Tanaka
I
wasn’t sure if Asami would have been an Oni from the start or a former human
who had been changed into one. Her backstory reveals that she is the latter.
Asami was locked up (seems to be a theme with the women of this book, I just
realized) as a child because she could see the lights twinkling in the Beyond
and longed to call them to be her family. She and Reva should sit down for
coffee sometime. I think they’d have a lot in common. Anyway, her temple was raided
and she was wounded and left unable to have children, ensuring she would never
be able to create said family the old-fashioned way. As such, she accepted an
Oni into her and gained the ability to call them, as well as a big shiny new
smile (on the back of her head.) The Thunders have recruited her to take
advantage of her talents but, who knows, maybe she isn’t so inclined to being
under their control.
Let’s
get the big thing out of the way, Asami’s a summoner. She calls any Oni type
minions with a similar version of Nicodem’s summon, but with a twist. Rather than
losing wounds when the new Oni enter the board, they have a condition called
Flicker+1 that ticks down at the end of the turn and, if it is removed from the
model, results in their being sacrificed. So, Asami’s summons have a timer
essentially, which can be spiked up by sacrificing corpse and/or scrap markers
when she calls them and (presumably) by her totem which has the ability to
increase conditions. They still can’t interact when they appear and are slow,
but they can tick her for 1 wound and then charge as a (1) so that mitigates a
bit of the speed problem. She also has the ability to grant an Oni or minion
Focus+2 for the cost of an AP (she is an Oni herself, don’t forget) and her
melee attack is no slouch on its own. That said, she has only 10 wounds and
only Hard to Kill to protect herself, so keeping her safe while taking
advantage of that attack is going to be tricky. Her upgrade A Heavenly Design
sounds, on the surface, to be a must-have due to granting her a placing effect
for better positioning and by allowing her to drop a scheme marker next to any
models which are sacrificed near her (granting them a kind of pseudo-Finish the
Job trick similar to Molly’s.)
I think that, of the new masters, Asami has the
potential to be the most difficult of the lot, but there’s a great deal of
potential power here. Playing her as a dedicated summoner and ignoring her own
offensive capabilities may end up being a trap, but summoning is one
of the most powerful mechanics in Malifaux. Plus, you know, Amo No Zako
charging for 1 AP is scary, ya’ll.
Zipp
Zipp is
pretty much what it says on the box, Captain of a crew of sky pirates. He and
his band stole an experimental airship and have been raiding and pillaging ever
since. His ship is called the Infamy.
He has a jet pack and a lightning gun. I think that’s more or less covered it.
I like
to think of him as having more in common with a certain other captain from
Futurama whose name begins with Z. His strength is in A) Aggravating the people
around him, B) talking a lot and C) Winning because the competent people around
him go complete the mission for him. He’s insignificant, we already knew, and
specializes in disruption. His two forms of attack are the lightning gun, which
can drop the enemy’s walk down or push someone around on triggers. Or, he can
lift you up in the air and drop you, leading to the very unique Melee versus
Height duel with a pretty decent damage spread and the ability to reposition
Zipp and the target 5”. This attack also has the greatest trigger name in
Malifaux, “My work done, I race triumphantly into the clouds,” which lets you
move Zipp away after doing the drop on the enemy. I think the most powerful
thing he might be able to do is summon clouds of smoke to redefine the terrain
on the battlefield and screen his troops. And, he has a semi-reliable ability
to reposition his own people. I don’t think we can see the real full strength
of his model at this time, since he gains power from upgrades which also allow
his enforcers to attach Sky Pirate upgrades as well. These give you the ability
to bring the Infamy into the fray by
having his people drop pianos out of it on people on the other side of the
board. It's tough to know for sure what Zipp is going to do, but I'm sure we'll see a ton of it just for the humor value (which could be said for most non-Wong Gremlins, but I'm editorializing again.) Good luck building those Iron Skeeters, though.
So, that’s the whole sorry lot of ‘em that’ll be available
at the Con. Before the show starts, I’m hoping to put together a post with some
pre-Gencon plans that I’m orchestrating, some information about the games of
Through the Breach I’ll be running there, and a Malifaux Musings challenge which
will gain you entry to a drawing for some Gencon lootz. So, tune back in for
that later this week!
