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.

I'm looking to start with the plastic goodness, and I'd like to pick a faction and buy a couple of starter sets mostly, maybe a box set or two. Do the faction starter sets overlap at all or would I end up with mini forces?

They do overlap if you have two for the same faction. For example, grab two Guild sets, Lady Justice and Sonnia Criid, and you have lots of nice cross-compatibility. Jady
J can make good use of the Witchlings from the SC set, and The Judge is a cool hero to throw in to any Crew. Malifaux is pretty well balanced, and as you don't pick your actual list until the mission is chosen, so it's always good to have options.

Good to know. I wasn't planning on going cross faction, unless I picked up the hybrid colour starter sets, but as everything is colour coded I can't go wrong.

In that case you should be fine. With the exception of the odd Master-specific Totems, any Master can use anything from their faction as far add I know.

There are, however, masters that have MORE models in common with each other. For instance I play Collodi and The Dreamer, both of whom love stitched together, weaver widow, and teddy. Starting with 2 masters who have a lot of models in common can be a really good way to have a bunch of viable options in the beginning.

Yep, there are certainly masters with heavily overlapping selections, so it's worth checking that if you've got a list of ones you're interested in.

Other examples include Lucius and Lynch, who both like mimics (and everyone likes Illuminated); Molly and Tara, Kirai, or Seamus (she can tailor a summon list that overlaps with any of them); Leveticus is in a weird position where he can expand his options to include any constructs or any undead, so can potentially overlap with large portions of Arcanists or Resurrectionists in particular.

Thanks for sharing some of the options. Not exactly sure who I want to play as, ruling out Resurrectionists I think. I tend to like to collect one or two complete factions, so I'll have a look and see what tickles my fancy aesthetic wise. Lucius and Lynch sound quite fun background wise I must admit.

Grab Lucius, Lynch, and McCabe and you have 2 Masters for 3 factions with a good bit of overlap between them.

The faction with the least faction bleed is Arcanists, so would be best if you really just want one faction.

However, I don't particularly like them, and have to agree wiuth Chumbalaya's suggestion- Lucius is kind of hard to play but my favorite; Lynch is just strong and has some cool condition mechanicss; McCabe is fun and weird.

If you got those 3 and added Riflemen and Mr Tannen and Graves, you'd have a ton of overlap and some pretty well-rounded crews. (Also, you kind of need Riflemen to run Lucius's henchman: I think it was a very poor choice to include an expensive support piece without what he supports well.)

Chumbalaya's idea tickles my fancy as McCabe also has a cool background, and Lucius and Lynch seem quite tricksy (could be wrong) and I like tricksy playstyles. And then that presumably gives options to expand into Guild, Neverborn and Ten Thunders.

Arcanists are tempting due to the funky mage archetypes however, and everyone loves mercenaries so they're an option as well. I'll need to mull it over more.

Info you guys are giving is great, thanks.

I haven't played as/against Lynch that often, but he's quite overtly powerful, I'd say pretty straightforward: "tag enemy with condition, murder enemy" is more often than not the basic game plan. Lucius is one of the hardest to learn, since he's much more about managing his crew than doing any of the heavy lifting himself. Not enough experience with McCabe to comment other than in the abstract (he buffs little guys).

I really like the aesthetic/playstyle of outcasts- mercs and creeps make a pretty fun set, and they have a pretty wide range of just about everything except for top-end summoners and artillery-style spellcasters.

Lynch- Supports a wide variety of playstyles, and is good enough at all of them to switch between mid game. His Hench-Totem,

Lucius- Doesn't do much on his own, but can hand out gak-tons of AP to his crew. This makes him both easy and hard to play, because before going into the game you will already know how you're going to be using him. On the other hand, so will your opponent, and a smart opponent will take advantage of it.

McCabe- This one's a little tricky. The name of the game with a McCabe crew is speed. Mounted McCabe is in the running for fastest Master in the game, and he supports speedy models well. The downside of a McCabe crew is that it is heavily synergy dependent, so a smart opponent can screw you on that. The WYRD thing about his crew is that it feels like 2 crews, because McCabe and his totem support different models and like different models. His totem is a dog that supports Guild Hounds, making them an //almost// auto-include if you're running with his totem.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Lynch- Supports a wide variety of playstyles, and is good enough at all of them to switch between mid game. His Hench-Totem, affectionately named Huggy, can do the lifting of a heavy hitter, and if properly supported can do the duties of a master. Lynch himself will make sure that you have the cards in hand that you need, due to his insane card cycling abilities.

Lucius- Doesn't do much on his own, but can hand out gak-tons of AP to his crew. This makes him both easy and hard to play, because before going into the game you will already know how you're going to be using him. On the other hand, so will your opponent, and a smart opponent will take advantage of it.

McCabe- This one's a little tricky. The name of the game with a McCabe crew is speed. Mounted McCabe is in the running for fastest Master in the game, and he supports speedy models well. The downside of a McCabe crew is that it is heavily synergy dependent, so a smart opponent can screw you on that. The WYRD thing about his crew is that it feels like 2 crews, because McCabe and his totem support different models and like different models. His totem is a dog that supports Guild Hounds, making them an //almost// auto-include if you're running with his totem.

Yes, Luna gives you 5 non-insignificant fast models for, what 16 soulstones?

I went in for Kirai/Yan Lo/Misaki myself. With a few extra boxes like Toshiro and Izamu and counters for summons, that's a good basis.

Are there any prominent balance issues? I imagine some guys have a hard time against others simply due to the nature of providing so many options, but are there any tiers to watch out for? We've got the bug, we need to start playing competitively. Once I sort my faction out.

There are some crews/masters that are counters to certain factions, but not massively so. For example, Sonnia is specialised in Anti-magic, so Arcanists might be at a slight disadvantage against her, but not to a huge degree. Same for Lady J and Ressers, not sure about the rest but in general nothing is too imbalanced.

One of the great things about malifaux is that you get to build your list after you know what missions are being played, so there really isn't much net-listing that can be done. Their isn't a faction that is weaker than the others, though there are some that require more finesse than others.

Guild tends to be straight forward
ressers rely on synergy (based on which master you use you'll need to summon/buff/push models to get them where they neeed to be)
Arcanists I don't have much experience playing
Neverborn are about speed and trickery, so often times need more finesse but the rewards can be just stupidly awesome
Outcasts are a mixed bag with huge variety
Gremlins reward a high risk/high reward ballsy playstyle
Ten thunders I don't have much experience with because most of their masters work for other factions as well, but from what I've seen it's the same as in their 2nd faction just with amazing archers.

This, plus the fact that each faction has multiple masters that work differently, means that balance is rarely an issue. It also helps that rarely will you be focused solely on slaughtering the opposing force.(<-that's a hard one to learn when picking it up if you have experience with other games. I've won a game without taking out a single enemy model)

I can cover those gaps a little-
Arcanist seem very much about little cliques from my experience, plus mostly summoning/strong spell offense.

Ten Thunders (with a couple exceptions) has few thematic interactions and mostly just has strong independent pieces.

I have the Ortega boxed set, almost done painting them. Are there any other casters with list overlap for her or the family?

The Ortegas (particularly Francisco and Papa Loco) are pretty strong. Sonnia has strong minions (the ortegas don't have cheap options) and can make good use of the ortega buffs, if you like more range.

I think Justice (boring, also expensive basic guys, though her henchman is solid) and Lucius (likes cheap guys as much as he can take them) are the two weakest options to connect with the Ortegas, but the rest seem at least reasonably good with crossover.

Justice and Francisco apparently get along alright, at least from what I've seen.

Anyone and Francisco, realistically. He's got a really good buff on an otherwise solid model.