Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So like the title suggests, I have decided to startmaulifaux. I really plan to use it as an introduction to miniature gaming for one of my kids & something fun to play at home. Also on positive side, there seems to be a fair collection of players in the area, & I have been a fan of skirmish games since Mordheim.Have already downloaded the rulebook, given the rules a perusal, checked out pull my finger, & have decided on a shopping list.

The Crews
The Kaeris Box set (25 ss)

The Dreamer box set (25 ss)
Box of Daydreams

The Paperback rules manual

2 boxes of Terra clips
1 Buildings
1 Ruins
(Do I need extra clips?)

2 Decks

Is this all I need to get started? Will these crews be competitive against each other? Any help would be appreciated!

Xambrien

I'm going to answer your terraclips questions first.

To get a full 3x3 game board using terraclips as the base of the board you're going to need at least another box of the ruins. I have 3 sets of terraclips, and I now just have enough of the big squares for a 3x3 base of the table. What I would suggest: Set out a 3x3 area on your kitchen table or something like that, and just (for right now) use your 2 packs of clips and the Buildings of Malifaux to get buildings so you have indoor terrain, and can use the space between buildings as streets for some outdoor terrain.

Okay, so things might not be the most balanced. I don't have any experience with Kaeris, other than she's part of Miners & Steamfitters Union (which can dictate who can hire her). She's not a master like the Dreamer/Lord Chompy Bits, she's a henchman.

Henchman lead crews a little differently. The first is that you take and add her soulstone cost to the number of soulstones she has available for the encounter. (Kaeris's soulstone cost is 5, so in a 25ss game she would have access to 30 soulstones to hire crews with). So her 3 Fire Gamins (4ss) and 2 Gunsmiths (6ss) make her box worth 24 soulstones. This leaves you with 6 soulstones left in your pool. Normally, this is okay and is under the max soulstones you can have in your cache at the beginning of the game, but Henchman are limited to a starting soulstone pool equal to their cost. So you've got 1 more point to spend. Unfortunately Kaeris is limited in what she can take, and the lowest priced model she can have is another Fire Gamin. So you might just have to let that point drop.

The dreamer list is pretty rough out of the box, and while his card says he has no starting soulstone cache. He does get 1 soulstone per nightmare that he hires up to a maximum of 5. So the Dreamer's box is 19 soulstones worth of models, which grants the Dreamer 3 soulstones from hiring 3 nightmares, plus 6 points to get to 25 soulstones. You can hire 2 daydreams, which is usually all you ever really need, and hiring 2 more nightmares would increase your starting cache to 7 (5 from hiring nightmares and 2 from left over soulstones).

The Dreamer is most likely going to win more often than not. He's one of the better masters in the game, and Chompy is a beast stick in melee (with lots of tricks to keep himself out of danger).

What I would do personally, if you're intent on running Kaeris's box, is pick up Ramos either his starter box or just his model. Run the crew with Ramos as the leader and it'll look something like this:
Arcanists Crew - 25 - Scrap

Ramos -- 5 Pool

Kaeris [8ss]

Fire Gamin [4ss]
Fire Gamin [4ss]
Gunsmith [6ss]

Granted you could always take out a gamin for another Gunsmith which would leave you with a soulstone pool of 3... so that's not really suggested

Let me know if you have any more questions!

Thanx for the quick reply!

Let's start w/the Terraclips.

I haven't bought anything yet (though I am holding a $ 250.00 Amazon card in my left hand). I was planning on buying a ruins kit & a building kit & some extra clips, but your saying I need 2 ruins & a building kits to fill a 3x3 table, correct? Do I need a extra bag of clips?

As to the Kaeris is a Henchmen, yeah I realized that she isn't a master, & therefore limits her in what she takes. Thing is, rather then Ramos, I'm looking at Collette when I move up to brawl's.
That said her box really appeals to me, & at scrap level I will take the hit.

My 11 yr.old daughter will be playing the Dreamer & she already has her eyes on adding Teddy to her list (Imagine that). So any hit I take will make make learning & playing w/her a bonus.

I really appreciate the time your taking to answer my questions!

Thanx again

Xambrien

Whoo-hoo 100th post!

Okay, so terraclips... I'm looking at my ruins set, and it's not ideal to use as the base for your board. The better choice would be to go with the Streets of Malifaux (that way you have something that matches well with the buildings of Malifaux). If you're dead set on the ruins, I would buy 2 Dungeon Essentials and 1 Ruins, but then again, that's just me. You're going to need 1 box of clips per box of terrain just to make sure you've got enough of the different types of clips (like I've got 2 boxes of clips and 3 boxes of terrain, and I'm finding that I'm running out of I clips very fast.

Kaeris being a henchman, actually works very well with almost any of the Arcanist masters (Marcus no so much, and I've yet to see her with Mei Fang). The only reason why I suggest Ramos over Colette is because of Colette's reliance on Soulstones. Both Kaeris and Colette can go through soulstones easily, especially Colette (even with the free one she gets a turn). In a large point Brawl, that's not a big deal. Also, since Henchman have a soulstone cost and not a cache like masters, you can hire them into your crews like normal minions.

As for Dreamer, once you start expanding, the Dreamer with 3 Teddies is a brutal and fun list, and your daughter would probably love to see 3 evil care bears on the field. If you can (and her b-day is coming up) see if you can't get your hands on a Nightmare Edition Teddy just for the difference in sculpts. The Teddy model is cool, but suffers from it being on of Wyrd's oldest sculpts and is very flat (literally, there is no thickness to this bear lol).

I'd love to hear the opinions of you and your daughter, I hope you two can have fun with this game. I know as eerie as the game is, it's very female friendly (Lots of non-super model female sculpts, very fun, and who doesn't love show girls?!).

If you batrep your first few games, feel free to post them, I'd love to read them, Especially since the Dreamer is one of my regular masters

Thanx again for the help!

Cool, I will go with a street & a building with a extra box of clips to start.

Kaeris really appeals to me, & Collette w/all her movement shenanigan, seems really helpful in the objective-based nature of the game.

From everything I've read the 3 Teddy list sounds really brutal, & right up her alley.

I will be happy to write up some bat-reps, & give you my opinions. I'm excited!

Xambrien

I just bought a starter yesterday. Do you absolutely need to play on Terraclips terrain, or can I use any steampunkish stuff and go from there? I have quite a bit of terrain and love making it, but is there anything against scratchbuilt?

Welcome to Malifaux, what starter?

1) You don't need to play on terraclips, just like nothing prevents you from playing with non-GW terrain. It's just an option

2) Make all the terrain you want, the rules are pretty clear on handling height issues, as long as it's in the same scale as GW, PP, and infinity you'll be fine

A couple more notes:

it's good to, when playing, designate how tall terrain actually is. For instance, ht2 is taller than almost all ht2 models, so we determine at the beginning that x, y, z terrain pieces are human height. This also matters for falling/climbing.

Also, Malifaux tends to work better with a much higher terrain density than most other miniatures games.

I'm redoing my board for Infinity, so I should have quite enough terrain for 3' X 3'. And it is very non-descript so it'll pass.

I bought the Kirai starter, I've been learning Japanese and all. It seems to be a difficult one to start with. I'll be going back to the store to add a blister of Seishin, Lost Love and Gaki to my crew. I'm also tempted by the Guild Autopsies just for the look of the models.

Reading the rules as of now.

As a reference, Kirai might not be the best starter pack (sorry), because of a number of special rules that ignore or circumvent others...

I always say start what you like. You can learn them by playing more

But seriously though I think thats true. If you go with what caught your eye first, youll be more likely to actually want to stick with it and learn how they play.

 KingCracker wrote:
I always say start what you like. You can learn them by playing more

But seriously though I think thats true. If you go with what caught your eye first, youll be more likely to actually want to stick with it and learn how they play.

This is always good advice, as is SpiralingCadver's advice. Kirai is pain to learn, but she can do some cool stuff once you figure it out

Mathieu, I suggest picking up her totem, Lost Love as well, you can make Kirai a spirit for some added survivability.

I always try to start with a middling power/no insane rules group first ], from whatever set of groups I like, as it gets me an understanding of the fundamental way the game works, though that's partially due to my gamer ADD meaning I'll play a lot of armies if I like something, so I don't just learn to specialize one group... at least, not when starting out.

I would suggest to try TERRAINLINX MODEL PLANNER ($7) before deciding which pack to buy. Street and building sets can fill in a lot of space. Here is some suggestions: http://www.wyrd-games.net/showthread.php?24723-Streets-amp-Houses-my-first-table&highlight=

An alternative is to go to Sabol Design and ask for custom painted ex-illis panels. They are 9 inches squares. So, you need a total of 16 at least. They are being sold for $9 each painted. Ask the guy to cover up some details such as spear or shield on the board. Unfortunately, at best, you can only modify the terrain into graveyards, or wrecked station or buildings.

Here is the link: http://www.saboldesigns.net/catalog/item/8357999/9392730.htm

I think the 9$ is the painting service only, from what I read.

Yes, I ordered Lost Love, a blister of Gaki and the Izamu box. I'll see if I can use it...

Edit:

After seeing the price of the board... I'm not sure it's not 9$ for the board and the paint... They are really inexpensive boardpieces. Anyone wants to share?

The original retail price for a box of 20 boards is $99.95. Their store sells the whole set at $75. I do not consider them as inexpensive but good quality.

Hence my last question in my post. I don't think I'd need 20.