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Ive heard this game is very unbalanced. How true is this? Im Looking to start playing but i dont want to auto lose because my army is nerfed.

There have been a few unbalanced pieces, though most have seen errata which have put them back in line. There are a few bad match ups, but this is true with any system.

I would say that Malifaux is not exceedingly well-balanced, but I've never crushed/been crushed where it hasn't been the result of poor list making, rather than inherent unbalance.

There are a few masters that really stand out (due to flexibility or raw power), but I feel most of the game is well balanced. I've seen fewer one-sided Mali games than WM/H or 40k.

Balanced? Not perfectly (though no complex game is). Very unbalanced? Not at all.

The thing that leads people to believe some things are unbalanced is that in malifaux, every crew plays SO INCREDIBLY DIFFERENT. In 40k and fantasy, although every army has it's strengths and weaknesses, there is an underlying similarity to them. Not so in Malifaux, where models have so much variety that comparisons of "better or worse" have less meaning.

There are some crews that turn your own models against you, some that summon hordes of undead, some that come at you with a full-force melee face eating, and one incredibly frustrating crew that doesn't do much in the way of melee, even less at ranged, but can move itself from one corner of the board to the opposite corner in less than a turn.

Many of the cries of imbalance really do come from the people that just grab an opponent and decide to slug it out in a deathmatch.

Also note that you're supposed to choose and declare your Faction first. Then you choose the mission. Then you make your list. Many players and tournaments mess this up. You're supposed to build your list as the LAST part of the mission preparation.

The game is not a pure deathmatch.
Your choice of schemes is also really important.
You choose schemes and strategies as part of the game and these are actually important unlike other games out there. You could win the game without killing a single opponent's model.

This game is different from other games most people play, therefore it seems unbalanced. Let's look at the main difference. I can only compare this to 40k, but, sure other games are the same.

1. In 40k you bring your army then figure the rest of the game out, scenario and so on. In Malifaux, your crew is figured our last. Therefore, you Can mess your opponent over with your crew, list tailoring.

2. If you lose sight of your strategy and schemes, you can end up in a slug fest where certain master and minions are not good at hand to hand or range fighting.

3. I have heard certain people at the local store not like the game due the card system and not the d6. I guess they just Dont like that much randomness.

How well do the gremlins do?

They do extremely well. Ophellia is the same as the Ortega crew. Difference, is the reckless ability. When Ophellia goes against most Guild armies, she can really wreck them.

Reckless lets you take an extra action, with the downfall of that gremlin taking a wound. So, I cant recall the name of the Papa Loco gremlin. Papa Loco gets two AP, and a 0 action. The gremlin version, a 0 action, and up to three AP while taking a single wound. So, walk/walk/boom. Plus, Ophellia has the "its a girl" which just pulls other gremlins along.

Her and Sommer Teeth seem to be OP against the guild, but, I have seen Ressers realy take it to them.

The gremlins suffer against anyone who can summon additional models and/or heal wounds...they can dish out tons of damage in the early game, but at the cost of doing wounds to themselves...as the game goes on they lose combat ability as they lose goblins...so if you survive their initial onslaught, or can bring extra models to the fight they suffer...since guild is pretty much resiliant beef, they suffer to the gremlins as Ophelia in particular can do good damage and ignore armor....against rezzers and spirits they suffer and play more of a stall game to go for game objectives...

Absolutionis wrote:Many of the cries of imbalance really do come from the people that just grab an opponent and decide to slug it out in a deathmatch.

Also note that you're supposed to choose and declare your Faction first. Then you choose the mission. Then you make your list. Many players and tournaments mess this up. You're supposed to build your list as the LAST part of the mission preparation.

The game is not a pure deathmatch.
Your choice of schemes is also really important.
You choose schemes and strategies as part of the game and these are actually important unlike other games out there. You could win the game without killing a single opponent's model.

The problem is this feels counterintuitive, since it's akin to going to a Magic the Gathering tournament with a sixty card sideboard. Also, most people prefer to build armies by choosing a theme involving models they like.

It's really odd when you're playing as Guild because so many of their units are specialized to fight one faction.

It's not counterintuitive, really.
You can still field your favorite master, but you can then tailor your minions to perform better in the upcoming mission.
I've found myself taking a Mechanical Rider in my Ramos lists purely because the Strategy requires some item to be moved around; otherwise, my incredibly slow force of Arachnids and Ramos really don't stand much of a chance. Same with Recon; I'll take a Mercenary Freikorps Trapper just for this mission.

Some tournament settings even allow a Sideboard to prevent this from favoring the person with the larger collection.

Then again, you really could just have a list based on completely killing your opponent (Which many Dreamer players do).

Guild may have three masters based on being soft counters to each of the factions, but they're not as effective as you may think. Sonnia may be anti-Arcanist, but she is really not that much of an enormous counter to Ramos's summoning/buffing or Collette's physical attacks/mobility. Arguably, Perdita's range and Lady J's scrap token denial would be better against these masters.
If I choose Arcanists as my faction and you're running Guild, Sonnia isn't the BEST choice in all circumstances.
Also, Guild doesn't have any logical counters to the Guild itself and Outcasts with their wildcard playstyles.

Also, on the contrary, Guild units aren't specialized against JUST one faction. Lady J's corpse/scrap counter denial seems anti-Resurrectionist, bit Kirai really isn't affected. On the contrary, the Arcanist Ramos is really affected.
Witchling Stalkers are meant to be, flavorfully, anti-Arcanist. However, they're just effective against any spellcaster which more than half of the masters are.

I just started with Malifaux about 2 months ago and have not had any issues with balance. I am a competitive Warmachine player and balance is a big part of a game for me and I dont see any real issues with Malifaux so far.

You will have a bad match up if you only play one crew just like you will have good ones. Alot of people tend o forget balance comes at the faction to faction level not model to model.

I've been playing Malifaux for a few months and I don't find many problems with balance but I do find that the game favors those with larger collections as they can easily take counters to your army. Most of the guys at my FLGS have 3-4 of the starter boxes with a few addons but there is one guy who has pretty much every model in the game and it isn't very fun to play against him.

Honestly, because every individual model is unique and has its own set of unique abilities, it's a lot like pitching Necrons against Cryx. It's so hard to determine balance because they crews play so differently, and player skill and familiarity with the crew they are playing plays a huge part.

Two different Masters who once held the "Worst Master" title have had recent errata affect them - Larva Errata on the Giant Mosquitos (Som'er) and Drain Souls Errata (Marcus).

And of course, balance depends largely on your strategies. Hamelin is widely considered to be a broken model. However, Hamelin will lose slaughter every single time, Which harks back to what is always said about the game being balanced faction to faction and hiring your crew after you know your strategy. If playing Outcasts and I flip Slaughter, Hammy stays in my bag.

 Florintine Mallorean wrote:
I've been playing Malifaux for a few months and I don't find many problems with balance but I do find that the game favors those with larger collections as they can easily take counters to your army. Most of the guys at my FLGS have 3-4 of the starter boxes with a few addons but there is one guy who has pretty much every model in the game and it isn't very fun to play against him.

The problem with the idea of taking counters to your army, you don't reveal your masters until the strategy has been decided. One thing the tournament scene is starting to do is that once the strategy has been flipped/revealed, you both write down your master and then reveal them at the same time... Yes a larger collection means you theoretically could counter what your opponent hires, but at the same time experience comes into play...

It really depends on masters and strategies. For instance, right now my wife plays solely a Viktorias crew, right now, I play solely Collette du Bois. Collette is not very well suited to a stand-up fight as with the exception of a couple units, I don't have too many melee damage, and very little in the way of ranged dmg. In playing our games, the outcome greatly depends on the game types and strategies used, and how well either one of us can get them completed.