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 .Mikes. wrote:
GG season 2 is out with errata: https://www.wyrd-games.net/news/2021/4/21/waldos-weekly-time-may-change-me

Cue the usual gnashing of teeth. I agree with the errata pretty much mostly. Summoners got a big nerf by any model with a summoned upgrade can't do the Interact action at all now, but pretty much everyone agreed they needed something to dent their effectiveness so this seems to be pretty decent.

They can't use Interact to work with the Strategy Markers (relevant to three of the four strategies). That still leaves working with scheme markers, and the non-strategy uses of Interact like putting out fires.

The summon change is perfectly fine on a surface level until you look at who it affects the worst. The summoners you would think it's meant to hit (Dreamer, Dashel, Asami) don't really actually care about the change but the "summoners" who already struggled (Ulix in particular) got put in the dirt by this. Ulix has maybe one good strategy now when he wasn't particularly good before and Leveticus got an entire facet of his kit almost removed (in combination with his keyword nerfs, he went from a damage-focused generalist to a beater crew with mediocre scheming).

That said, a lot of crews came out of this very well. Tara in particular is back on top and I love it, especially because Talos is actually worth taking now and I love the model

Big news - alternate master cars for M3e!

https://www.wyrd-games.net/news/2021/4/28/waldos-weekly-title-and-registration

Love the look of the alternate for Sonnia. Keen to give it a go.

Also nice to see a renewed push on TOS:

But before we go, we wanted to also show how Sonnia will play in The Other Side. Whether she’s commanding her own Guild company or lending some help to another Earth commander, Sonnia will be a force to be reckoned with on the 4x6 field.



The Other Side’s Starter Box will be releasing at Gen Con later this year. In it, players will have enough models to create two small introductory companies to battle against one another in The Other Side (or to be used to build upon existing Allegiances). Additionally, every single one of those models in the TOS Stater Box will also be playable in Malifaux as versatile Guild or Resurrectionist characters.

I haven't repurposed my Gibbering Hordes pledge yet, maybe I'll see if I can't get my airbrush working and get those bad boys on their unit pucks, in case I play the game within the next year?

EDIT: So I really like the Court of Two, and was poking around seeing if I could buy their stuff from Wyrd (spoilers: nope). Further digging suggests that they're one of the factions in that new starter, which checks out given that half of it is Resser-friendly. The other side obviously being Guild.

EDIT2: Further sleuthing has informed me that the contents of the starter box have been known for years, and the release date has been pushed back repeatedly. Gotta assume the pandemic was responsible for at least one year of that delay.

So Wyrd can come up with 2 master cards with different roles for everyone, but cant find design space for Lillith, Collodi, Ramos, etc?

 Bossk_Hogg wrote:
So Wyrd can come up with 2 master cards with different roles for everyone, but cant find design space for Lillith, Collodi, Ramos, etc?

Not sure what you mean? Those characters have fully playable rules in M3E.

 Bossk_Hogg wrote:
So Wyrd can come up with 2 master cards with different roles for everyone, but cant find design space for...Collodi

But they did.

 Bossk_Hogg wrote:
So Wyrd can come up with 2 master cards with different roles for everyone, but cant find design space for Lillith, Collodi, Ramos, etc?

Sure. It's called "In order to have those models still actively in the game, they'd have to be redesigned to the point that they no longer acted like the models they were." That's the Dead Man's Hand situation, and no one wants to stick their hand in that blender.

For the variants, if you don't like the variants, you don't get forced to use them if they don't act they way you want them to.

Can't wait to see what Molly's alternate is like. Or Seamus. Or.... hell, any of the masters I play. The Sonnia one as it stands looks sexy as hell.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Bossk_Hogg wrote:
So Wyrd can come up with 2 master cards with different roles for everyone, but cant find design space for Lillith, Collodi, Ramos, etc?

Not sure what you mean? Those characters have fully playable rules in M3E.

Not really. They aren't balanced, tournament legal, and don't get new units added. One of the alleged reasons they were squatted were because they were "too hard" to find a niche for. Despite their niches being given directly to other masters, who now have multiple roles.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 solkan wrote:

 Bossk_Hogg wrote:
So Wyrd can come up with 2 master cards with different roles for everyone, but cant find design space for Lillith, Collodi, Ramos, etc?

Sure. It's called "In order to have those models still actively in the game, they'd have to be redesigned to the point that they no longer acted like the models they were." That's the Dead Man's Hand situation, and no one wants to stick their hand in that blender.

For the variants, if you don't like the variants, you don't get forced to use them if they don't act they way you want them to.

That argument doesnt hold up to scrutiny. Lillith was directly pushed aside for their circlejerk of a forum's favorite titty demon, Nekima. Hoffman replaced Ramos as the arcanist's construct guy for... reasons?

 Bossk_Hogg wrote:
Hoffman replaced Ramos as the arcanist's construct guy for... reasons?

I mean, I haven't been following closely, but Hoffman since his origins has always had an Arcanist connection.

Generously, I might suppose that they're so obsessed with the magisterial craft of their world building that they prioritized that over player collections.

Skeptically, I might suppose that it has to do with their attempted rationalization of boxes etc., and damn the consequences. (I have no idea how much of a mess their box transition was... I needed some space from the company when they announced their changes.)

Cynically, I might suppose that their reorganization is designed to keep players buying when it forces them to reorganize their collections, play sub-par or fragmented collections, or bail. Either way, this is the effect as far as I'm concerned. I wasn't burned by losing a master I cared about playing, but yeah it's not a nice move when since the game started they've emphasized the centrality of your master in building a crew.

To which I see a lot of the M3E changes as a correction to that. M2E really didn't have much master centrality and you bought a LOT of stuff just to build the super friends combo you needed. M3E is a lot more in line with what I wanted out of the game initially.

As for the replacements. Ramos and Hoffman have always been two sides of the same coin. They're modeled after Magneto and Xavier after all. Hoffman working with Ramos to fix Ryle has been a thing forever and most people were surprised he wasn't dual faction in M2E when that was heavily a thing. From a story perspective, taking Ramos off the board removes a lot of the need to force Arcanists into the M&SU mold and brings a lot of the rogue spellcaster elements back in.

I'm not sure exactly why anyone would be surprised about Nekima. That's like... her whole thing. She also lets them design the Nephilim as more of the fast aggressive playstyle people have generally wanted out of them, despite Lilith being much more of a control master. Most of that playstyle ended up in Titania's hands instead.

I do find it interesting that they pretty much cut off the heads of the original factions. Cutting Nicodem was zero surprise as his "summon anything" style was always a huge balance issue. They did similarly massively tone down Marcus for similar reasons, but removing him along with the Governor General meant the original 4 had lost their original leader. Curious how things would have changed if the community had voted to kill Lady J.

A new alternate master card has been revealed, this time Dreamer.

Example M3e cards for some upcomng Other Side models.

Big news drop coming July 3oth apparently.

From steampowered scoundrels:

I am incredibly excited to announce that Wyrd has reached out to us at Steam Powered Scoundrels for a very special collaboration. We get to reveal upcoming release material! The drop date is July 30th for our special episode, but that's not the best part. It's not just us! I won't spoil who's participating or when, but Wyrd has really outdone themselves this time. The build-up to GenCon is going to truly be amazing.

Is malifaux still going strong? In my area, it was big 10 years ago, but seems to have taken a hit since

 streetsamurai wrote:
Is malifaux still going strong? In my area, it was big 10 years ago, but seems to have taken a hit since

The rumors of Wyrd deciding to replace all of their current plastic with giant puppets are unsubstantiated rumors.

 .Mikes. wrote:
Big news drop coming July 3oth apparently.

From steampowered scoundrels:

I am incredibly excited to announce that Wyrd has reached out to us at Steam Powered Scoundrels for a very special collaboration. We get to reveal upcoming release material! The drop date is July 30th for our special episode, but that's not the best part. It's not just us! I won't spoil who's participating or when, but Wyrd has really outdone themselves this time. The build-up to GenCon is going to truly be amazing.

My guess is it'll be more titles before the new book launches. They did the same last Gencon showing off the Apex keyword

 solkan wrote:

 streetsamurai wrote:
Is malifaux still going strong? In my area, it was big 10 years ago, but seems to have taken a hit since

The rumors of Wyrd deciding to replace all of their current plastic with giant puppets are unsubstantiated rumors.

It's dead Jim, but M3E looks like they got their collectivist heads out of their fourth point of contact and actually listened to some real game designers for a change, and have been hard at work shoring up some of the bone heads content that they had saddled themselves up with in 2d Edition, which pretty much killed the game for them.

Now- Less of the jackass, and more factions and characters. They actually look like they want to make a real game, now, and it's not just that one guy's vanity project for his E-peen stroking.

And of course they have expanded the story even further, and added more characters and factions. As well as printing the figures so they weren't saddled up with all of those ridiculously cut pieces on the sprues that lead to "Gluing to your fingers, and crapping on the pieces-ITIS."

There are some pretty favorable reviews o the game over on YouTube, and I've also got some of the figures up and running for Shadows of Brimstone.

Their biggest issue is that damn card system. They keep making "Nu and Improved", and people still have a gak-load of figures that are pretty much worthless now, and a sour taste in their mouth from the last moves they pulled in 2E.

They should have a trade in system, if they are going to keep going down this road.

Over the pandemic there have been loads of Malifaux vassal games - as far as I can tell M3E is very popular, but it's location dependant.

As for models that are trash: there are a few models that are never worth taking, and a lot which are very situational, but Malifaux is very complex and plays well into the hyper competitive mindset. There are lots of models that get complained about for being weak, which then appear as lynchpin's in high ranking tournament games.

Also, the yearly gaining grounds tournament packs mix up the gameplay a lot more than you would expect from reading the schemes and strategies.

But, I think the biggest problem is that most of this just goes over the head of most players. A Malifaux player who plays regularly and ranks highly in tournaments can be given a randomly generated in-keyword crew and wipe the floor with any beginner using what's considered the best setup for a given master + strategy + scheme pool + deployment.

MrPieChee wrote:
Over the pandemic there have been loads of Malifaux vassal games - as far as I can tell M3E is very popular, but it's location dependant.

As for models that are trash: there are a few models that are never worth taking, and a lot which are very situational, but Malifaux is very complex and plays well into the hyper competitive mindset. There are lots of models that get complained about for being weak, which then appear as lynchpin's in high ranking tournament games.

Also, the yearly gaining grounds tournament packs mix up the gameplay a lot more than you would expect from reading the schemes and strategies.

But, I think the biggest problem is that most of this just goes over the head of most players. A Malifaux player who plays regularly and ranks highly in tournaments can be given a randomly generated in-keyword crew and wipe the floor with any beginner using what's considered the best setup for a given master + strategy + scheme pool + deployment.

More to this, Shcemes and Stones rel;easd data from the Vassal world series on factions wins, whcih was:

Ressers 49% Win Rate with 212 Games
Explorers 49% Win Rate with 160 Games
Neverborn 47% Win Rate with 221 Games
Outcasts 46% Win Rate with 127 Games
Guild 44% Win Rate with 154 Games
Arcanists 44% Win Rate with 147 Games
Thunders 41% Win Rate with 155 Games
Bayou 39% Win Rate with 170 Games
If you ignore ties:
Explorers 56% Win Rate with 139 Games
Ressers 53% Win Rate with 193 Games
Neverborn 51% Win Rate with 202 Games
Guild 50% Win Rate with 133 Games
Outcasts 49% Win Rate with 118 Games
Arcanists 49% Win Rate with 133 Games
Bayou 47% Win Rate with 144 Games
Thunders 46% Win Rate with 140 Games

Considering there's eight factions with over 50 masters between them and it's less than a 10% win / loss ration between them all shows a bloody balanced game.

MrPieChee wrote:


But, I think the biggest problem is that most of this just goes over the head of most players.

I find Malifaux a hard sell to people locally, not because of the models (which people love) not because of the setting (which people enjoy) its because the core mechanics and gameplay concepts are outside the norm and they have to actually think about it.

At the end of the day, people have less time, sorter attention span and quite frankly are much more dumb or simple compared to many years ago. The majority of the wargaming community don't want detailed tactical games. They want pretty models and simple basic mechanics that do the job. That's why GW is so popular. They worked out that people are simple creatures. You attract the masses with simple games and flashy OTT models, not by having 6 nerds in a basement discussing the minutiae of a rule or dice roll or having players need to invest personal time away from the table learning things. Also those sorts of nerds and activities are not the type of people or actions they need to sell wargaming to the masses.

The Malifaux card mechanics are not hard but takes some time to get use to and master the risk/reward of cheating and hand cycling etc. Its far easier to roll 10 dice and see which ones come up 4 or more.

Malifaux is an amazing game, and my fav game but people need to realise that much like Infinity, WM/H etc it out of step with the simple one dimensional wargaming that most people want, or in fact believe represents what wargaming is.

The complex thing about Malifaux isn't the cards. It's the movement.

Placement is critical to so many effects that, with alternating activations, you've got to plan many steps ahead. Also, all the models have loads of rules that new players have to keep looking up.

On the official forums there's been loads of talk of a simplified version of Malifaux to help get more players involved.

But, GW has the market with simple games and fighting in that space might be futile. Sticking to a smaller market without the big companies dominating it, is probably a good bet.

At the end of the day, people have less time, sorter attention span and quite frankly are much more dumb or simple compared to many years ago.

Ah yes, blaming the customer for not buying the product, the rational thing to do.

Malifaux has decent set of core rules, where it gets weird is in how many rules interactions can there be, and how...token-heavy the game gets. corpse markers, scheme markers, flame/poison etc. markers...all of it looks kinda ugly on the tabletop, which is sad for a game with that much visual identity and style.
That and the mis-steps in 3rd ed meant that the playerbase experienced a (thankfully) smaller version of the complete collapse that warmachine 3ed had.

 Grot 6 wrote:

 solkan wrote:

 streetsamurai wrote:
Is malifaux still going strong? In my area, it was big 10 years ago, but seems to have taken a hit since

The rumors of Wyrd deciding to replace all of their current plastic with giant puppets are unsubstantiated rumors.

It's dead Jim, but M3E looks like they got their collectivist heads out of their fourth point of contact and actually listened to some real game designers for a change, and have been hard at work shoring up some of the bone heads content that they had saddled themselves up with in 2d Edition, which pretty much killed the game for them.

Now- Less of the jackass, and more factions and characters. They actually look like they want to make a real game, now, and it's not just that one guy's vanity project for his E-peen stroking.

Tell us how you really feel.

TBH I have no idea what you are even referring to, I've played Malifaux but never really got into the community side of things.

Malifaux always feels, to me, a lot like my efforts to build the Star Wars: Armada community. Teaching the game is a breeze, but teaching people to truly embrace their wealth of options is a totally different beast.

Personally I love both because it takes work, practice, etc... but you can notably grow as a player. I love the element of skill coupled with giant pools of options... both of which are increasingly shunned by casual wargamers.

Don't get me wrong, there's a place for dice-chucking games too, but sometimes you just need meat.

The giant pool of options was cut down to a dozen tiny sub-factions where hiring out of them is penalized if not impossible.

.Mikes. wrote:Considering there's eight factions with over 50 masters between them and it's less than a 10% win / loss ration between them all shows a bloody balanced game.

That's great to hear! The more I played M2E, the more it felt like Ressers were just obviously better, and rewarded players who could afford to buy entire lines, when MFX was often pitched as a simple, cheap buy-in because you just needed a crew and a box or two. I've been much happier to see M3E's keyword system return to that promise of not having to own an entire faction. But also the balance part

Sunno wrote:I find Malifaux a hard sell to people locally, not because of the models (which people love) not because of the setting (which people enjoy) its because the core mechanics and gameplay concepts are outside the norm and they have to actually think about it.
...
The Malifaux card mechanics are not hard but takes some time to get use to and master the risk/reward of cheating and hand cycling etc. Its far easier to roll 10 dice and see which ones come up 4 or more.

The complexity of MFX is both a draw for me as well as a turn off. I played probably a dozen games of M2E and often felt like I wasn't 'doing it right' - like I was probably getting most the rules right, but sequencing and doing what my crew wanted and what the schemes wanted were always off. I'm content to chock it up to learning curve, but I left most games with my head swimming, even if I somehow won.

As for the card flopping, they're a huge part of why I'm always trying to get back into M3E. Really cool, really different from the dice games I play, love the cheating and etc. Here's where I'll also shout-out the stronger crew identity of M3E being a selling point, and also helpful for me to understand 'what a crew wants to do' (tho I'm with those who miss when masters could be pushed different ways depending on upgrades, etc.) in game.

Final thought on MFX, a major impediment for me is that I can't stand building the minis. I'm increasingly done with plastic kits, and Wyrd produces the most frustrating of the breed - many tiny pieces, tiny contact points, gaps everywhere. This is coincidentally also why The Other Side is probably my #1 game that I'm not playing Hoping to change that in 2022.

Lets be honest, it's never been BIG in the same way other games are. It's always been a fairly niche game, but one that was able to make a name for itself before the skirmish market got as crowded as it currently is.

That's not to disparage the game in any way. Mechanically they really figured out how to balance the game in M2E and while it worked for that era of "how e-sports can we get?" gaming, M3E really embraced the world they've created and crafted mechanics that make masters as distinct as they really need to be. Easily the best edition of the game and locally its never been more popular.

That said, it's still relatively niche and that's not terribly likely to change. It's a weird, demanding, complicated system that's not for everyone. Always places it could be improved, but its niche isn't likely to vanish any time soon, so its in a great spot if you want to play.

 LunarSol wrote:
M3E really embraced the world they've created and crafted mechanics that make masters as distinct as they really need to be.

I agree wholeheartedly. One of the things I love about Malifaux is how each master feels and plays like the master should. Lucius' lawyers tie you up in legalese and slow you down rather than kill you and that's a viable play style. Each master feels so full of character and is still fun and effective.

And also that's one reason I've had trouble getting people into the game. It's not always obvious and requires some up front thought to appreciate. I had one guy who asked about the game while I was playing at my FLGS actually scoff and walk away from the table when I explained to him that I was about to lose the game even thought I'd just killed my opponent's final model. It's not an all guns blazing game and it's not always an obvious game, and that's why I love it.