I’ve
already written about Broken Promises extensively from a game perspective, and
I’ll be writing about it more in the future (watch for this month’s Wyrd
chronicles), but one thing I haven’t done yet is break down the actual physical
product that Wyrd released. So, since it’s Review Week on our new Malifaux
Musings publication schedule, let’s do a review of Book 5. But first, some
Mini-Musings and a word from our sponsors.
***
Mini-Musings
-The biggest news, of course, is the beginning of block 1
from the Homefront campaign. It will run for 2 weeks, going from October 2nd
to, presumably, the 15th. I like the tie-in between Malifaux and The
Other Side, but I’m not as amped for this one as I have been in the past. The
reason came to me when I saw that the Syndicate and Faction forums were up, I
went to go read them, and realized “Wait, there’s no point. There’s no strategy
for this other than ‘play as many games as possible.’” So I’ll still be playing
and reporting my games (Sandmen all the way, baby, and not just because I’m a
big Metallica fan.) I just won’t probably be spending a lot of time in my
faction forum.
-Iron Painter rd. 1 voting is going on as we speak, and ends
on Monday. The first round’s theme was OSL, and from what I’ve seen, there’s
some very cool stuff out there to check out.
-We’ve completed one month on Patreon, so it’s time for our
first drawing. *reaches into raffle box* And the Miss Ery model goes to….Kevin
Tapper! Kevin just joined this month, and he’s won a prize already. You’re not
trying to win from out of a pool of hundreds of contributors, folks. We’re a
small blog right now, so the prizes have never been easier to win. Come on down
to our Patreon and sign up now, and you can get an entry for October’s drawing,
a Miss Terious! This model works as an alternate Death Marshal and will fit
nicely into most Guild-y crews, particularly Perdita. And if you knock the
casket off, she’d probably make a pretty decent Monster Hunter proxy until the
model comes out. And because it’s Halloween, I’m going to throw in an
All-Hallows Eve surprise for the winner, as well. Even a $1 a month
contribution earns you an entry, so come on over to our page and supportMalifaux Musings!
***
The
cover image on Broken Promises is something quite unique, as all of the covers
for Malifaux books that I can remember have usually had some kind of action
scene featuring full-body artwork of one of the models released in the product.
Perhaps fittingly, since this features the first effort to go back and release
new upgrades for old masters, this features a different style of cover image.
It’s a collage of signature masters for each of the factions separated like a
broken pane of glass, with a Guild seal at the center. The message is pretty
clear: the Guild, and more specifically, the new Governor-General, is going to
smash things up and make their presence felt. In response, the other factions
are starting to fragment. It also gives Wyrd’s new graphic artists a chance to
show their stuff. Lillith’s primal scream and McMourning’s trademark maniacal
grin are really striking, and it makes for a sharp looking cover.
The book
itself weighs in at 257 pages of content, which feels like about par for
previous Malifaux offerings. Each faction gets their own section with a new
lore story, a special story scenario related to that short story, followed by
the new content for the miniature game. The factions each received a new
henchman, a selection of enforcers and minions, and the biggest change to the
game, new Upgrade cards for each master. While I wouldn’t say that every single
model in this book is amazing and going to find significant table time, there
also don’t appear to be very many which make me say “This is a dog turd. Why
would anyone play this?” This is a significant achievement, considering we’re
in the 5th book of this limited-scale skirmish game. Anything new
that the designers introduce has to compete with everything that’s come before
and do it without introducing power creep, something with which many games can
struggle. They’ve achieved this here in a number of cases by introducing models
which explore regions of design where factions have previously had a weakness.
As an example: the Guild previously had a reputation for strong top-end models
but more lackluster low-soulstone stuff. To counter this, Broken Promises
introduces a bevy of 6-stone models, all of whom perform different roles. This
was done masterfully. Additionally, some models were very clearly intended to
sit with masters that needed a power boost, like the Riotbreaker for Hoffman or
the Cyclops and Bultungin with Titania. This was done subtly, by providing a
model that is useable and effective with any crew that can hire them but which
really shines when paired with the appropriate leaders. The approach varied in
different factions, but the end result is the same: new options and new design
space being opened up. The new models are a big win for Wyrd and, in my
opinion, the most effective part of the book.
Since
the start of M2E, I’ve wanted to see them release new upgrade cards for the old
masters. It was something that was promised as an option from the start and,
especially where Limited upgrades are concerned, gave the Malifaux designers
the ability to radically alter the way a crew works without having to release a
new edition of the game or a new version of the model with redesigned or Errata’d
rules. However, besides the occasional errata for severely gimped masters like
Lucius or Ironsides, masters have lived with what they received at release.
It’s easy to see why it took a while to try new upgrades, especially on this
scale. You can’t very well just add new options for some masters but not for
others unless you want a lot of community belly-aching, so you have to design
for all of them at once. Much of a crew’s power runs through the master, so
there’s danger that you can end up making much more drastic changes than you
intended when you tweak them like this. And, tbh, Wyrd probably makes much more
money off of new models than they do from decks of upgrade cards, which reduces
the incentive to put them out. As such, I applaud the effort behind getting
this work done.
Overall, I would call their effort
successful with a few stumbles. A number of masters that needed help got it in
spades with these upgrade cards. We’ll have to wait and see how many of them
end up being as effective in the game as they look on paper, but just the fact
that people are excited to play Toni Ironsides, Mah Tucket, and Lady Justice
can only be considered good things for Malifaux overall. Other masters that
were already pretty good got new tools added to their toolbox. Dreamer can play
a melee oriented game. Pandora can act as a limited summoner. Dr. McMourning greatly
expanded his hiring pool. I think this was the best part of what was done here,
and I wish we would have seen more of it. It seemed like an effort was made not
to take some of the already strong crews and make them stronger, but rather
give them some different choices to try. This was for the most part effective,
but there were some odd glitches. Both of Collodi’s upgrades have been
dismissed by every reviewer I’ve seen, as adding a melee attack when he can
already use his main attack, one of the best in the game, in melee is redundant
and unnecessary. The teleportation/summoning upgrade he got feels janky.
Contrast this with Hamelin, who is arguably one of the strongest masters in
Malifaux Gaining Grounds 2017 (if, paradoxically, one of the least played due
in part to the large number of models required and the general “uck” feeling he
inspires in most people.) His new Plague Pits is a flat-out strong upgrade that
is going to be played often, allowing Blight become a viable main attack
strategy, and doesn’t seem to cost him a whole lot (Hamelin crews usually could
afford dropping an upgrade to make room for it.) Add to that the ability to
work around the “no-unburying-on-turn-1” clause of Viktoria’s Soaring Dragon
upgrade using the Scion of the Void, and the top 2 Outcasts seem to have the
majority of the potentially negative-play-experience upgrades in the book. This
feels like a mistake, and I would expect that the Soaring Dragon thing will get
fixed with an errata, but that won’t be happening until January. And, look,
it’s early yet. Some of these things may end up being overblown. Plague Pits
may not be such a big deal, and Collodi’s Doll upgrade may actually be really
good and we’re all just not seeing it. I don’t know, and I’d be the last one to
stake my reputation on theory-craft (as I’m, frankly, quite bad at it.) But,
the thing to remember is that these are the exceptions, not the rules. Most of
the new upgrades are at least interesting, and it blows open crew design from
the end-of-GG-2017 funk I think many players have felt. It’s hard to consider
this aspect of the book to be anything but a win, and I applaud the effort
Aaron and the other designers put into this.
One of
the highlights of most Malifaux books (for fluff nerds like me) are the stellar
short-fiction offerings included to advance the story of the game world. It
seemed, however, like the fluff wasn’t as big of an emphasis here as we’ve seen
in other Malifaux books. Where, previously, the factions sections would have
been bookended with stories that incorporated elements of each of the factions
and (usually) provided the big thrust of the story developments, in Broken
Promises there were just the 7 short stories for each faction. The overarching
theme was two-fold: the Guild cracking down in Malifaux and the other factions
trying to endure while individuals advance themselves through acts of betrayal.
Most of the stories were well-written, and I liked what they offered. The
McMourning focused story from the Resurrectionist section felt a little odd, in
that the doctor effectively threw his Guild badge in Lady Justice’s face but
will remain a dual-faction master from the game’s perspective. The Outcast
story, while feeling a little bit like fanfic in terms of the need to have
major-character after major-character show up for a cameo, was at least
interesting from the perspective of solidifying the faction and giving them a
home-base in the Outlands in the wake of the Guild outlawing mercenary work.
The Gremlin story was…well, it was what you expect from Gremlins. If you like
it, you were probably delighted. If you don’t, this won’t change your mind. I’d
like to see the Gremlins mix it up with some of the other factions more
frequently, personally, as we’ve been told since the beginning of M2E that they
were going to be important in the coming wars with the Tyrants but, apparently,
seem content to sit in the bayou and argue amongst themselves rather than doing
anything meaningful. But the story I found to be least in keeping with the
overall aesthetic was the Guild story. I get what Mason was going for here:
trying to craft a comedy piece featuring the masters of the Guild in their
off-hours, mingling inside their Enclave’s break room downtown. It was reminiscent
of shows like the Office, with only the individual confessional-style
interviews missing. But it felt tonally incongruent with the rest of the book,
and I don’t think it worked. Personally, I think something could have been done
to explore a member of the Guild getting screwed over in the new regime (or
vice-versa) and this story would have felt more at home in an issue of Wyrd
Chronicles. Plus, how does Lady Justice play poker? She can’t see what’s
printed on the cards?
The
graphic design of the new book is really strong. A number of masters got the
sort of touch-ups and updates that we’d previously seen for Dreamer and (if you
had access to Through the Breach’s Core Rules) Von Schill, leading to
tantalizing speculation on whether some of these incredible redesigns are going
to be converted to alternate sculpt miniatures. One assumes the Dreamer is
coming for sure, as the kid in the nightshirt feels odd to play as the
Cricket-Bat wielding sociopath he’s becoming. For whatever reason, the Ten
Thunders masters got a number of updates, including a very cool image of Lynch
with cards flying around him and burnt-out eyes, as well as a much more
lithe-looking Yan Lo and a grungier McCabe in a duster. I wonder if they’re not
in line for a refresh simply because they were released as Wyrd’s first efforts
at plastic and, to be honest, many of the models don’t live up to the current
sculpts. The only place that the art design falls down, in my opinion, is where
they’ve recycled art from previous publications for use here, as the styles
don’t always match with the newer, grittier pieces. It wouldn’t be as jarring
if they were consistent (IE new art in the short fiction stories, old art with
the upgrades) but when they switched back and forth it was a little jarring. It
was particularly weird in the Resser section, where some art of McMourning and
Nicodem were resurrected (fittingly) from the 1st edition days to
represent them. Weird.
So,
overall, I think the crew at Wyrd really succeeded with Broken Promises,
especially from the perspective of Malifaux the Game. There are no obviously
dead models coming out (arguable, but it’s my review so you can deal with my
opinions) and the new upgrade cards improve the game by expanding the options
available to the masters. The production for Broken Promises had a few more
rough edges than I’m used to seeing in Wyrd products, but if sacrifices had to
be made somewhere, I suppose some hiccups with the fiction and art can be
forgiven. Broken Promises is a fine product, overall, and keeps the strong
tradition of Malifaux sourcebooks going.
