Wyrd's Unsung Hero

 

Wyrd has really put their best foot forward in 2021 with the reinvigoration of their product lines. Malifaux Burns has launched the title system, giving options to our new masters and putting a new enforcer in every keyword. They’ve breathed life back into The Other Side with a new starter set. They’ve brought some fantastic content to Through the Breach, including the Neverborn supplement From Nightmares. They even put out another board game, Bayou Bash, which I’ve likened to essentially playing Mario Kart with gremlins. I contend, however, that the most innovative and potentially best thing that Wyrd has put out this year is their brand new board game that releases this month, Vagrantsong. 

If you follow Wyrd’s social media presence, you’ve probably heard the buzz around this game growing. Several influential board game reviewers have given it the nod. I can say that everyone I’ve talked to about it has enjoyed playing it. It’s a game that, according to designer Kyle Rowan, has been in the works in the Wyrd studios for several years now, and so far it looks like that was time well spent. 

In Vagrantsong, the players take control of a handful of old-timey transients (you know, back when being homeless was charming rather than cripplingly depressing.) Your crew of gold-hearted miscreants were beckoned aboard a train by a strangely noodle-armed hand and inadvertently wandered into a spooky adventure. This train is haunted, you see, by a series of Haints. What’s a haint, you ask? (Ok, first you probably make an immature joke about something that rhymes with Haint. I’ll give you a minute to get it out of your system. We good now? Ok, back to the review.) The Haints are powerful ghosts, drained of their humanity and trapped on this train as it travels the world. And that’s a problem for your crew of vagrants, you see, because you’re kinda-sorta trapped on this train with them. 

If you’re gonna get out of here with your skin intact (literally) you’re going to need to restore the humanity back to these Haints and find a way to escape the ghost train. Luckily, the vagrants represent a broad pastiche of old-timey humanity, ranging from the more mundane in the form of a failed revivalist preacher, a plucky orphan and her pup, and a travelling musician, to some more eccentric characters like the Cursebearer who gets stronger the more she’s afflicted by the Haint’s villainy and the self-proclaimed Empress of America, whose can-do attitude can overcome any obstacle put in her way (or so she believes.) Opposing them are a series of bizarre spirits. Some are truly chilling like the Lady in White or the Turned Faces. Some are a bit sillier, like the one that is basically a whacky-inflatable-arm-flailing-tube-man. Each brings a variety of unique challenges and obstacles for the vagrants to overcome on their way to restoring the Haints’ humanity. You do this by exploring the train, finding objects from the Haints past, and occasionally punching them in the nose (because nothing will remind you of being human like getting punched in the face, apparently.) 

Mechanically, it’s a cooperative game where you face down the Haint, who is controlled by draws of tokens from a bindle (naturally) that determine which of a series of pre-determined actions the Haint will take. One of the coolest parts of the game is the Event mechanic. A series of Events will occur when particular things occur during the game. Some of the events are helpful for your vagrants. It feels like more of them make things worse for them, but that could just be the experience of being a player. One thing is for sure, it’s always interesting whenever a new one comes out. An event can be triggered by something your characters or the Haint accomplish or at random when the right token is drawn from the bindle. They all raise the stakes and create a narrative beyond the mechanics of the scenario. The game itself operates with the vagrant assigning their 3 action tokens to move, search, fight, or take one of the special actions. When a dice roll is required, the game includes an exploding-sixes (or booming box cars) mechanic, which allows for spectacular successes that are sure to elicit a cheer from the players. Then the haint takes their turn, controlled as previously stated by drawing a token from the bindle and resolving the action as listed in the scenario booklet. Difficulty scales with the number of players, with the amount of humanity that must be restored to the Haint going up with each one. Oh yeah, and every time you knock the Haint’s health down to 0 it usually freaks out, does some kind of special action, and then refills its health until you’ve pushed it to the threshold a number of times defined by the scenario. The vagrants certainly have their work cut out for them.

I could go on and on about the mechanics, but let’s talk about the production value. This game is flat out beautiful. The board itself is a fairly simple set of three train cars connected by bridges, though each scenario typically includes a number of obstacles and terrain to set up before hand to make the game unique. The real stars of the show are the enamel figures of the vagrants and the Haints, as they’re both sturdy and attractive on the board. The art style is a good mix of cartoony and legitimately spooky (the first Haint, the Turned Faces, wig me out for whatever reason). The tokens themselves are mostly punched out from sturdy card stock. The scenario booklet is HUGE. I mean, there are a lot of scenarios in there. It plays like a choose-your-own-adventure book, so you likely won’t go through every scenario every time you play, but that also creates some interesting replay possibilities where a new crew of vagrants may follow a different track through the train based on their choices and whether they’re successful or if they all lose their humanity to a particular Haint.

In between games, your vagrants make camp somewhere on the train (I assume) and are met by a ghostly cat who offers you a choice of new skills and lets you buy some new equipment. The players can also spend some of their in-game currency to conduct a séance and get an advantage for the next game (usually a good idea). The currency is earned by completing the scenario itself, as well as through the completion of rituals, sort of side-objectives which can sometimes restore a big chunk of humanity to the Haint as well. And it’s at this point the vagrants can either save the game (write down their skills, equipment, and progress and put the game away) or continue on into the next scenario.

I really can’t overstate how much I like this game. I’ve been burning to put a group together to do a playthrough since getting it from Gencon, but real-life concerns have delayed that. I did get a chance to play through three of the scenarios, though, and I can tell you the challenge climbs as you move along (hoo-boy, when you get to the Lady in White…well, no spoilers, but bring your warm coat.) It’s worth the investment if you can pick up a copy. I have a feeling Vagrantsong’s going to be earning a place not only as Wyrd’s best offering of the year, but maybe one of the best games released in 2021, period. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see it in the running for an Ennie next year, and I really hope it creates an opportunity for expansion packs in the future (new vagrants, new Haunts, a new mini-campaign, etc.) Wyrd deserves a hearty handshake for what they accomplished with this game. Just make sure the hand shaking yours isn’t strangely floppy, or you may find yourself climbing aboard for a ride as well.  

Six Feet Under: Lady Justice in the Malifaux Burns Era

 

A not entirely unfounded opinion is that the Guild did very well in the most recent rulebook Malifaux Burns. Not exactly a shock, I suppose, given that they were considered to be somewhat under the power curve before this book came out. There were several things that jumped out at me when I read through the book the first time as potentially “good” or “dangerous.” Some I missed (Bashel is apparently pretty scary and I initially thought that, since he wasn’t a summoner, who cares). But one that tingled my spider sense was the new Lady Justice, Death Touched. And last week I asked a few questions of Matt Lewin, host of the podcast Flippin’ Wyrds (on the rare occasion they post a new episode) and he let me know this may be one of the things people can really have a bad time with, when they aren’t prepared.

The base theory is pretty simple: it’s tough to lose to a model that isn’t on the table. The crew focuses around the use of various versions of the Pine Box action, an action which is cast versus the opponent’s Sz and, if it succeeds, buries them and applies Distracted. Every turn, the buried gets a chance to escape with a WP duel against a TN of 13. If they succeed, or if the model that buried them dies, they pop back out. Lady Justice Death Touched lets the Marshals take 1 wound, drop a coffin marker within 1” of them, and then attempt the Pine Box action against a model within 1” of it, allowing some additional force projection and letting you block up parts of the board with these coffins (hello Research Mission.) Additionally, all of Lady Justice’s attacks can target these buried models, which creates some nice efficiency. The hard part of playing a melee master like Lady J is getting them to the enemy to hit them. So, you know, being able to smack things from anywhere on the board is pretty useful. Charge to a spot you need Lady J to be, hit a buried model, then continue on with her turn (potentially dropping a scheme marker you just moved into position for, for instance.) Even if her crew is having trouble getting things buried she can join in, as new Lady J has a 6” ability toss a coffin marker and bury an enemy model. And on top of that she’s HTW, Regen 2, and potentially Armor 1 with a LLC. 

Judge me next, boss mommy.

Several support models help to enhance the power of this crew. The Jury is one of the biggest ones, as her Exorcism Ritual ability does a ton of work when she activates, dealing 2 damage to every buried model. She can trigger more Pine Boxes as well with her Obey. The Brutal Emissary’s Into the Cage attack isn’t a Pine Box and doesn’t make coffin markers, but it’s a Stat 4 versus size (get in the box, Euripedes) and doesn’t have a claw symbol, meaning its unaffected by any melee specific defenses. One of my initial concerns was that the crew may be a little bit on the slow side, but the fact that the coffin markers make enemies with 1” count as Undead can help to offset that, since it lets Death Marshals gain Fast when they activate within 6”. The keyword’s new model Thirty-Three fits nicely with this, as she brings her own Pine Box, can target buried models with her Peacebringer, and has Incorporeal and Slippery to let her do a little bit of scheming on her own. 

The crew is surprisingly durable, with HtW on many models and Lady J having access to a Shockwave heal. Several models are going to have access to stat advantages versus the size of most enemies, and most crews don’t have a good answer to get them back out again. Coffin markers can close off parts of the board and making the enemies count as Undead usually gves boosts to Marshals. And the bottom line is, a model that is a problem is no longer a problem if its buried. Jedza preventing you from killing members of her crew? Bury her and there’s no more issue. Hoffman shoving pylons around that do insane amounts of irreducible damage? Not if he’s buried. Pandora screwing up your activation order…you get the idea. 

The risk is there for an NPE from this crew (negative play experience). I know that Matt said he’s 1) not lost with the crew yet and 2) the general opinion is that they would rather play a game they enjoy than play against this crew. Now, there are solutions. It’s not an unbeatable crew by any means. A crew that isn’t built around any particular individual models will do better than crews with a lynch pin you can bury. If you focus fire on the Marshal that has buried something you need back, that’s going to help. Blowing the coffin markers up can help clear out the board to help avoid the clutter and restricted movement. Etc etc etc. Not an overpowered crew by any means, but something that could really make for a bad time if you aren’t ready for it. Thus, why I thought it was worth an article. Be aware that this crew is out there. Think about what you’re going to do when you’re up against it. And thanks to Flippin’ Wyrd’s Matt for sharing some thoughts about the crew, as well as the below crew list. 

Death Touched J List (Guild)

Size: 50 - Pool: 4

Leader:

  Lady Justice, Death Touched

    Lead-Lined Coat

Totem(s):

  Scales of Justice

Hires:

  Thirty-Three

  Death Marshal

  Death Marshal 2

  Death Marshal Recruiter

  The Jury

  Brutal Emissary

Ortega Family Values: Looking at the new Perdita

 I’ve been looking at Guild more, recently. If nothing else, they’re considered to be on the lower end of the totem pole power wise, so at least I won’t be coming in last while playing broken crews. Moreover, if there’s a definitive hole in my swing when it comes to general Malifaux play, it’s in the killing/combat part of the game. I don’t have a good feel for what it takes to kill a particular model in any situation, so I need to practice that. And the Guild are combat focused, so that seems like a good place to start.

Speaking of starting, I thought I would start by looking back to where I started in Malifaux, with Perdita and the Family crew. Her new title, Nephilim Hunter, gives her the ability to summon the low cost Ortega minions. Normally this wouldn’t be something to get excited over, as the Pistoleros are, well, not great. That’s being generous, frankly. The summoning upgrade she attaches gives them a +1 to their duels when they’re within 2” of another family model, which lets them reach the lofty heights of “average”. They’re not good models at all, and like many people in the Malifaux community, I wrote this new Perdita off the first time I saw it. Something stuck with me, though. I’ve always wanted to play the Ortegas. They were the first crew I ever bought. The family of gunslinging monster hunters is very cool thematically, and I wanted to get them back out. So I kept thinking about it, turning it over in my head, until it finally clicked for me. 

I was sitting in the bleachers at my step-daughter’s volleyball game, waiting for them to warm up, when I read and saw that they get to add in a suit to their duels also. Huh, so that meant they had built in triggers. That might be cool, so let’s look at the triggers. Which is, of course, when I realized that the triggers on the Pistoleros’ attacks, Grudge, puts out Adversary: Family. Now that was interesting. Some cheap, disposable models to throw adversary at the enemy (or at least force some cheating to create hand pressure). Plus, the Family can be pretty squishy, so adding some more ablative wounds to screen and protect the important ones is a good thing. The summoning upgrades feel like a little bit of a double edged blessing, and I’m going to have to do some fiddling to understand the best way to employ them. They’re unique, so you have to put them in the right places at the right time. Ironically, if you have one whose effect when they come into play (removing scheme markers, ending a condition, etc.) are particularly useful, the smart thing for an opponent to do would be to leave the Pistolero alive so you can’t resummon it. That’s a little bit funky and I’ll have to see it in action before I know if it’s a real problem or just one I’ve made up in my head. And they always have Reckles to get a cheap, Fast model. So there’s potential there. I’m guessing you might get them up to grow into a Monster Hunter maybe once in five games at best, so I won’t be counting on that, but if you can get one their stat lines will be pretty impressive with the built in +1s. 

Dita herself shifts gears from killer to leader in this incarnation. The 6” bubble the Ortegas usually want to sit in will have her stationed in the middle to take the most of her Head of the Ortegas ability. Man of the clan have the “Ortega Family Values” trigger on one or more of their attacks, allowing another family member to either draw a card or concentrate. Dita changes this from a choice to getting both bonuses. Moreover, every Ortega has A Por El, which lets you discard a card to let a lower cost Ortega take an action out of turn. If that is a concentrate action and you’re within 6” or Perdita, that’s another card drawn. That’s potentially a lot of card cycling, and I’m very intrigued by that. I think that she’ll spend most of her AP summoning and doing her Trick Shot action to push models, hand out stunned to enemies, and trigger more Family Values. Her gun doesn’t have Critical Strike anymore, so you have just the 2/4/5 damage track of most Ortegas, which isn’t impressive but will do in a pinch. And she’s got a 12” pulse that doesn’t require LoS to hand out shielded, again helping to shore up some of the squishiness. Likely she and Francisco will have Lead Lined Coat (though I’m curious to see if it would be better elsewhere, since she won’t be needing to be in the thick of it) so they’ll be pretty resilient. 

I don’t know if it’s actually any good or not, but having a tailored hand and some resilience seems like it would go a long way with this crew. Phiasco and I set up a game and played through turn one, and I drew/cycled about a dozen cards. I already have some parts of it where I think I can do better next time. There may be something there, and I’m tentatively optimistic. I’ll keep you updated with how it goes. 

The Other Side of Gencon, 2021 Edition

 

We’re a matter of days from the greatest four days in gaming, Gencon. Excitingly, Wyrd miniatures will be taking a great step forward at the show, offering a significant number of new models and options for one of their games, which is very exciting to me. The options are going to increase significantly, bringing new models and new tactical options that should refresh it and give it new life.

Oh yeah, and Malifaux is gonna have some new stuff coming out too. 

I love The Other Side. It’s a great game that marries the scale of an army game with the action economy of a skirmish game. I like the armies that are in it, and I like the way it plays on the tabletop. So I’m excited for all of the new stuff that will be coming for it and thought I’d compile it here. Before I get to that, though, if you’re going to the show you know that Wyrd’s selection of tournaments and play events is more limited this year than in the past due, of course, to COVID 19 safety concerns. There will be, however, a selection of quick play timeslots when anyone ca come in and use the terrain to play a pick-up game. I intend to spend a good amount of my time there with a couple of Malifaux crews, trying out the new master titles, and with my ToS King’s Empire Force (likely with some Guild reinforcements, naturally). If you’re interested in a game, hit me up on Facebook or just look for me in person. I’m happy to get in some reps.

***

First of all, we know that Sonnia Criid is the Guild commander. She is a ranged damage master that provides a good amount of damage through blasts and some terrain control through the ability to drop pyre markers that block off a whopping 120mm diameter circle of terrain. Interesting that she seems to have more fire magic at her command on this side of the Breach, since the lore says that magic is weaker on Earth than on Malifaux. You almost have to assume that means she’s pulling her punches in Malifaux, and who knows what she’s truly capable of now. 

Coming with her are two new units: the Guild Mage and the Gatling Gunner. The mages offer an interesting sort of disruption by forcing opponents to discard to perform morale actions near them (recall that the interact action required to score points in most games is a morale action.) They’re pretty soft, though, with an armor of 6, so survivability is somewhat limited. To correct for this, they have soulstone defenses, the ability to discard a card to prevent wounds. I don’t know that I’d count on that to keep them alive under a sustained assault, but if you’ve got the resources it can keep them alive to do their job. I think they’ll do better paired with Abysinnia’s forces than the King’s Empire, as they have access to more card draw. That may be true of the Guild across the board, frankly. 

Gatling Gunners are, unsurprisingly, strong looking ranged support models. They do more damage the closer you get to them, but can at least try and put some damage on infantry that’s up to 20” away. They also can punish units that resolve the rush order near them, simulating the effect on the battlefield that this type of weaponry had when introduced to our world, as well. I think they’ll do better if they’re kept back and screened, as they are fairly squishy, but I’m interested to see them in action and find out what they can do. 

I feel like, where the Guild may be ok standing on their own, the Court of Two models will shine more as support to either the Cult of the Burning Man or the Gibbering Hordes. Neither Kirai, the Gwisin, or the Enslaved Spirits scream “damage potential” to me, though the Gwisin’s ethereal viscera could get nasty on later turns and the Champion Binh Nguyen is no slouch. Kirai’s Spirit Anchor action lets her spread reinforcement tokens around to nearby units, which are important to her and her CoT models to get to glory but also very helpful for allied units. The Horde, specifically, has a number of units that benefit from reinforcements, not the least of whom is their Titan. And anybody who tries to mess with her or the Gwisin has to deal with their Revenge ability, which hits you back with a strength 2 attack that can’t be cheated every time you hit them (note, NOT every time you wound them.) My KE gunlines are not looking forward to that interaction, I can tell you. When she gets to glory, she also gains the ability to summon, which is very rare in ToS. 

The Gwisin are unique, in that they don’t have to stay near each other on the battlefield. As mentioned, they have an attack that gets stronger as the game goes on. If they get into Glory they can pass out Shaken or Pinned tokens. If you can get there early you could potentially help cult units get into glory as well, though that feels inefficient. More likely you’ll want to counteract what the enemy is doing.

The Enslaved Spirits don’t offer a lot in the way of combat ability. Their utility comes from two fronts. For one, they can be removed through the champion ability by units that are 5” away rather than 3, which gives you a little more flexibility in maneuvering them. Second, their lethal curses ability lets them throw out Shaken tokens at the start of the game, so they can boost the cult up and then hurt the enemy later. In Glory they’re even nastier with this, as they have a built in trigger to strip Reinforcement tokens off their target when they hit, before doing the penetration flip. Very rude. 

As a bonus, we also learned that the Gibbering Hordes are getting a nice new treat, The Other Side’s first Nightmare Edition box. Yeah, sure, it’s a Malifaux boxed set too, but let’s focus on us :P. The Deepest Depths boxed set represents the Gibbering Hordes’ Storm Siren commander and comes with models that count as Egg Clutches and Morphlings. They’re on the same sized bases as Malifaux, so you can swap the models back and forth between the games no problem. They’ll be a good start for anyone looking to get into the game, though I wouldn’t say you’re going to have much of a fighting force without picking up some more units. The Gibbering Hordes Allegiance Box would be a better option in the long run, but this box will give you some style that’ll make your force stand out.  

TItular Musings

 

        We’ve got 3 more reveals left to go prior to Gencon (which hardly seems possible) so there are ostensibly 6 masters still to see beyond what Wyrd may be showing us through the Waldo’s Weekly articles. This means there will still be some reveals left (assuming they don’t just do a full drop beforehand) but also means we’ve seen a significant chunk and, I think, we can start to draw some extrapolations to what Malifaux may start to look like as a game in the new environment. 

This would be simpler, of course, if this was a situation akin to a set rotation in a CCG. That’s not the case here. Your standard edition version of Som’er Teeth Jones you’ve been playing since M3E came out will still be just as legal after September 16th as it was back in the day. But let’s be real. Unless you’re the kind of person who bets on the “Don’t Pass” line, plays aggro red after a block rotation in MtG:A, and fills out your March Madness bracket picking all chalk (IE: people who don’t like fun), you’re going to want to try out some of these new shiny toys on the tabletop. And here’s the thing, you’re not alone. At least for a while, you’re likely to see more of the new versions of masters than the old versions. So, if there are trends in these new Title masters, it’s a relatively safe bet that trend will be defining for the meta once this book drops. It’s worth it to take some time to muse on these, and that’s what we’re going to do here. But let’s keep in mind a couple of things: 1) we don’t really know how these new masters are going to work, just what we’ve seen in the reveals and people’s opinions. We’re living very much in the realm of theory-faux here and 2) I’m an idiot who thought Illuminated were crap at the start of M2E, so no one should take anything I say too seriously. 

That about cover it? Cool, let’s get to the analysis.

Thank you for being a friend.

76 zombies led the big parade, with 110 crooligans close at hand...

I started by looking at the masters and breaking them up into 3 categories: Damage Dealers, Crew Enhancers, and Enemy Controllers. In some cases this break-down wasn’t perfect (new McCabe, for instance, could be argued to enhance his crew and do pretty good damage) but I tried to make this as clean as I could. People can argue with where I have them slotted in, which is why I’m not going to go master-by-master through this, but I think the trends are clear: the masters are shifting away from killing to enhancing their crews. It’s fairly stark, actually. I have 13 of the original versions of the masters we’ve seen primarily focused on dealing damage, and exactly the same number in the crew enhancement category in their new versions. By enhancement I mean increasing movement, optimizing attacks, giving out free attacks to the crew, etc. That means a couple of things. For one, alpha striking the enemy’s master will do a lot less to completely neuter the enemy crew. They’ll be far more likely to be built with good beaters outside of the master. Second, tying them to their keywords potentially could serve as an even stronger encouragement for players to stay within their keyword to capitalize on this synergy. 

The numbers of control masters are roughly the same and they aren’t the majority in the original or new pool, which is probably for the best. Control tends to be a bit of a negative play experience (NPE) and, since games of Malifaux take a lot more time than a quick game like a CCG, that NPE gets stretched out over a longer period of time. Also, the complexity and diversity of crews makes it all but impossible to play true hard control crews effectively But it’ll still be a healthy chunk of the pool, and that’s actually tied pretty closely to the next paragraph. 

It’s gonna get crowded on the boards

Yeeeaahh, I'm gonna need you to build some more pylons.

The Other Coast folks pointed this out in their cast, and I think it’s worth repeating: there’s gonna be a lot of markers getting dropped on boards with these new masters. Whether it’s Geodes, Portals, Pyres, Coffins, or what-have-you, a lot of these masters are gonna be dropping markers on the board that will affect movement. 9 masters we’ve seen so far fit this description, as compared to a scant handful at most previously. This creates a bit of interesting tension with all of the movement tricks these new masters bring along as well, as we’re going to have to be careful not to push our crews into flames/sludge/etc. There’s going to be a lot of hazardous terrain out there, and precise movement will be critical to overcoming it. On a related note, I think models that can remove these markers are going to suddenly be worth a lot more than they were previously, so get those Sandworms painted, folks. 

The New Face of Summoning

Rosie the Riveter ain't got shit on her.

Obviously, it’s not a surprise that the masters who were formerly associated with summoning are, for the most part, not doing it anymore (that’s sort of the point of the title system, after all, to give you something new and different to play.) But, the masters we’ve seen so far all have a bit of a common theme in the way they have gained the ability to summon new models. All 5 of them (Ophelia, Perdita, Anya, Toni, and Kirai)(I’m not counting McMourning, 3 corpse counters for a Flesh Golem is not summoning as far as I’m concerned) have had the wide open “summon any minion from your keyword” clipped down to summoning relatively low SS models with very few options, often just one. Anya and Toni (and their crews) can summon Drudges. Dita can call her Pistoleros (with special upgrades attached to make that not a complete waste of an AP). Ophelia technically can only trigger her kin to summon back her totems, but those have some offensive potential (as opposed to Reva’s totems, which essentially just exist to be sacrificed.) The point is there’s only going to be a little bit of summoning, and it’s going to be very low soulstone disposable models. The question I have is whether this is just because adding summoning to keywords which were not built with that in mind is really difficult, or if this is going to be the model for summoners going forward? I can see either being true, to be honest, given how much trouble summoning has caused in the game historically. This new world of summoning certainly fits with the most recent Gaining Grounds rules, and it lowers the barrier to entry by not forcing you to buy a whole keyword to play them optimally. We probably won’t really know for sure until the next book comes out, but it makes sense to me. 

A whole new world

Don't you dare close your eyes. Because they'll stab you.

I know one of the harder parts of the M2E to M3E transition was that many of these masters are sacred cows and they carry an expectation that this master works this way because that’s always the way it’s been. Well, this book gave the designers the opportunity to kill some of those sacred cows and give the masters a new coat of paint. Both Viktorias on one big base? Check. Yan Lo not doing the slow-grow in power? Check. Marcus as an angry werewolf leading the charge? Check check. It’s an awesome refresh for the characters we’ve known and have basically played with in the same general form for nearly a decade, and it actually makes me interested to see what they do with this in the future. I wonder if, for future books, masters that are struggling might get a new title without having to do a full overhaul of every master in the game? Maybe particular titles/versions get rotated out or replaced over time? This opens up a lot of possibilities, and I really hope Wyrd takes the opportunity to run with it and really go wild. 

For now, I’m anxious to get this book in my hands. I’ll be curious to see how much of a difference this makes for crews as a whole, rather than just the master. And, of course, I’ll be curious to see how many things I’m wrong about in this article. But mostly I’m just excited to see these new masters in action. 

Hobby and Painting Digression

     In lieu of some actual written content, I thought I'd share with you some pictures of my collection and some painting I've been doing recently. I have some half-baked thoughts on the title system that I'll muse on next weekend, but for now...pictures of half-competently painted models?

        I set up a kind of diorama with all my models in a storage space, along with some terrain. They look like this. You can't really tell what they all are and it isn't terribly well lit but, well, there they are.

        Of course, there's some more space to fill, but this is a fairly good representation of my collection so far. 

        Zooming in, here are a few things I painted recently. I'm working towards a Frontier keyword crew, so here's some shots of my Sandworm and a rough Rider. 

        I wanted to do the Rough Rider with some native warpaint on it. Hopefully it's not based on real patterns rather than movie garbage, but it's tough to sort the two out online. And of course I needed to do a Sandworm. You know, for reasons.  The color is alright. The seams aren't. I've really gotta learn some greenstuff skills to patch those things in the future. 

        I also did these two Kentauroi when I thought I was going to give McMourning a try. I mostly wanted to try out GW's contrast paints. Results are...ok. They're a good way to quickly get some paint on something. 

        And last, just a shot of my pride and joy. Probably the best mini I've ever painted. 

        It's not a new model. I just like how it turned out. 

Hot Malifaux Summer

        Reveal season is continuing apace faster than I’m following along with them. Wyrd has done a really cool thing by integrating all the content creators in the process this time (and I’m really kicking myself for letting the blog lapse, as it would have been cool to participate). You can see what masters and models have been revealed here, which saves me the burden of having to comment on them all. Win/win. Potentially more importantly we’ve learned what product is coming at Gencon and what may be triggering some of these new faces our masters will be showing us in the future. The reason, quite simply, is that Malifaux is on fire.

Such a rad cover design.

Well, maybe not literally, though one master from each of the factions may now have an active desire to change that fact. The Burning Man is coming back, you see, and some members of the Malifaux cast of characters are feeling a bit, hmm, let’s say inspired by his incendiary presence. Nellie Cochrane starts using her propaganda to inspire chaos rather than control. Reva is…well she’s still pretty much a crazy cult leader, but now she’s traded her horse for more burning focus. Kaeris trades her metal wings in for some straight up flames. Parker Barrows appears to be Undead and animated by flames, which is pretty rad. Misaki is fractured, which means…well I’m not sure. She looks older in the picture, I guess. No obvious burning going on there. Maxine’s luck in Malifaux has apparently not changed, as she looks to be pretty mad now and has the keyword Monomaniacal. Euripides looks potentially even more violent. And Ulix is riding a flaming pig steed. It’ll be interesting to see these things in play, but I’m already absolutely in love with this idea thematically. The only way it would be cooler would be if they seceded from their old factions and formed a new one together, but that would be pretty tough to do from a game stand-point. From my perspective, I’m excited about the return of the “Some kind of big event happened in Malifaux, here’s how all our characters are dealing with it” storytelling style of the good old days. You remember don’t you? Back when a meteor fell out of the sky and gave everybody avatar powers? Ah, good times. Good times. It’s one of the most defining characteristics of this game (lore driving mechanics) and a very welcome return. Also, kudos to not going the obvious route and having Sonnia Criid inspired by the Burning Man since, you know, she’s already into fire and stuff. Then again, the BM (ooo, that’s an unfortunate acronym) is at least 50% Cherufe, who already possessed her once. Maybe this is an awkward ex situation? Or maybe Sonnia’s busy on earth and, for once, not in the wrong place at the right time?

Anyways.

With the article, we received another reveal of how all these models are going to be sold to us. After all, there are quite a few masters in Malifaux, and releasing a new package for each of them would be quite a lot of SKU bloat for stores, something that Wyrd specifically was trying to avoid with M3E. The reason for this may not be obvious to folks who don’t have a background in store operations or supply chains, but every piece of inventory you keep on a shelf is an opportunity cost the store incurs for the entire time its there. Modern retail is built on the idea of “just-in-time” supply lines (for better or worse) and, to maximize profit, its best for a game store to avoid taking up shelf space with tons of items for the same game. And, frankly, we can all think of a model that we always find hanging on the shelf for years, costing the store owners money. So, Wyrd has an incentive to cut down the number of boxes they’re going to be putting out. 

If you’ve been paying attention to the releases (you have, haven’t you?) you’ll notice each of the masters has a new model that shares a keyword with it and a different master. This is not a coincidence. The retail model for these is to sell a boxed set that contains 2 of the new masters as well as the new model they share. Now, this means you’ll have to buy a new master for a faction you potentially don’t play when you buy your new one. In some ways, this is a stroke of genius, because it lets you have a free sampling of this new faction which could maybe lead to players branching out, trying new factions, and eventually buying more models (which is of course the goal.) This does, however, lead to you paying for a model you potentially don’t want, which could leave a sour taste in some players’ mouths. I anticipate the trade forums and ebay lighting up with a lot of individual masters for sale in the weeks after each of these box sets comes out, but I think it’s a clever marketing move all the same. The individual bit sellers are going to make a killing. 

As an example, Reva and Kaeris are going to be sold together in a boxed set called “Embrace the Ember” along with their new friend, Deacon Hillcrest, who we’re told is analogous to one of the Cult’s Doomseekers in ToS. I don’t know much about Kaeris so I won’t weigh in on her, but I’ll chat a bit about Reva. Since she’s got no horse, her move has dropped significantly to 5. In exchange, she’s gained a better ability to manipulate Burning. I know when I have played Reva, I’ve typically had only one of the corpse candles alive at any given point outside the first turn, as I’m usually blowing them up or using them for various purposes. Luminary Reva, on the other hand, can kill a Revenant model within 2” of her to reduce the damage of any attack on her to 0. That’s some serious damage reduction, and a good reason to keep at least one if not both near her at all times. She can heal or damage a model for 1 the first time they gain a point of burning during an activation. She has a free action to concentrate Burning from several models down to one single model, which I imagine will often be followed by her Immolate attack, which makes you reduce the burning from a model to 0 and then take damage for each point of burning taken off. Oh yeah, and if that kills you, her built in trigger lets you summon a Lampad out of them. And she can push a Pyre maker 4” and use a crow trigger to place two friendly models in B2B with it after the push. That would be cooler if it weren’t a trigger, but could provide some interesting mobility tricks to her and/or her crew. Also I guess the pyre markers do damage if they pass through someone during the push, but 2 damage after a failed TN 12 MV duel isn’t exactly what I’d call “reliable.” 

Her new firebrand preacher (tehe) is a 7 stone enforcer who loves him some Burning, both having it and spreading it. Fittingly for a CotBM looney, he has a WP of 4 which makes him pretty vulnerable to attacks from that avenue and a DF of 5 which is nothing to write home about. He can offset this somewhat, however, through Manipulative, the Revenant ability to gain Shield along with Burning, and Blaze of Glory, the Wildfire keyword ability to trade points of Burning for positive flips. Dude’s gonna set up shop in a pyre marker and never leave, is what I’m saying. His melee attack (why are you in melee range of him, he’s standing in a bloody pyre marker?!?) and his ranged attacks do pretty forgettable damage, but give Burning to the target. Translocation ritual is a more utility oriented attack action that lets him teleport people to within 1” of a pyre marker and within 6” of where they start (some of that classic Cult flavor). And he has a self-heal that, you guessed it, gives him Burning. Oh, right, and enemy models can’t reduce their Burning value within 6” of him. 

I think Deacon is maybe not that necessary for Kaeris and her crew (who I don’t think really struggle to put out Burning), is going to be a utility player for classic Reva, but will be absolutely required for Luminary Reva. One of the oddities of the Revenant keyword is that it interacts with Burning but doesn’t have many ways to directly put it on the enemy. Deacon fixes that, which is why it’s troubling that he seems a bit fragile at first blush. I always have a hard time parsing out how effective defensive tech will be, so I’ll have to see him on the tabletop to know if he’s going to stick around for the game. You can, of course, dedicate a Shieldbearer to protect him, but that’s now 13 stones you’ve dedicated to spreading Burning around the crew, which may not be the most efficient thing ever. Of course, later on Reva may have some summoned Lampads to take over the job, so it may be alright if he burns out early. New Reva is interesting to me. She’s perhaps a bit more suited to defensive games than her mounted version since she loses so much speed. At first blush I like the classic version a bit more, but I do like the idea of spreading more and more flame around the battlefield. With all the movement tricks these new masters have, restricting that movement with pyre markers may be quite useful. Also, I’m itchy to paint that lamp in her hand with some green flame (points at the banner at the top of the blog.) 

And for those keeping count, that’s 19 uses of the words Burn or Burning in the article. Hot girl summer, indeed.