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I wonder if The Outpost is airfreighting them in from a US distributor in order to get them at 'launch'?

It wouldn't be the first time places have had to bypass normal channels to get stock at the same time as the US

Worth asking (or just asking why the markup compared to Wyrds suggested prices and what they've previously charged for the equivalent)

Heh, I went back to check and they have removed some of the M2E crews from the site. But M2E December is 27, M2E Ramos is 30.50 and M3E Marcus is 37.50. But if there isn't an anticipated (and substantial) content change, nor a price change on the Wyrd side, I will hold fire for now and see what other retailers offer

 .Mikes. wrote:

 spiralingcadaver wrote:
The individual model availability is nice. Still feel pretty burnt by the number of cross-faction crews, masters, and master-keyworded models that have been removed, though. Of my 4 main crews only one wasn't hit hard, and it was my least-played.

I understand that, but I'm glad Wyrd are willing to do that to move the story forward. It would suck if you own those masters, though.

Nah, feth their dumb little fluff tea party. I went from 4 neverborn masters to one. If I wanted a story, I'd play an RPG (and I do). Not to mention forced railroad metaplots are so 90's (what's up White Wolf). Moreover, they HAVE a product for this... story encounter boxes. There's zero good reason to crap away my investment in money/time in painting.Not to mention those crews arent really even balanced and won't have further releases.

Wargames are a GAME first. If they wanted to limit dead masters in a special one-off tournament, whatever. But you can already run into situations with unique characters on both sides in a game, so the fanfic crowd should be able to suck up a "dead" master being in their tournament/release cycle.

Yeah, it isn't art: it's just a game with some pulpy background and a continuous story. If you want story to progress and to kill characters or whatever, that's fine. Either ignore story and keep your characters, or make characters types, so Ramos can be a Hoffman proxy or Lilith can be a Nekima proxy. I think it's absurd how many collections that are basically independent armies in function and mechanic were dissolved in this edition. For all the problem that Leveticus obviously was, I've seen so many collections basically based around his hiring options, for instance.

It's totally fine to kill weird niche combos or exploits whatever, but the way they shuffled things ignores that people have collections, and they don't necessarily sprawl all the factions. It feels like they don't understand how non-superfans interact with their game. I'm a regular player with a few favorite masters and a number of factions, but and I still felt like my collection was gutted; playing only one faction must be even nastier.

I feel like Wyrd have been making a lot of well Wyrd decisions in the last 2-3 years. I don't know why but everything they've done in terms of The Other Side, the changes to 3rd Edition Malifaux it all feels like ill-thought-out.

If the price point The Outpost is quoting is reflective of the new price point for Malifaux it will be a very simple pass for me.

 Siygess wrote:
Heh, I went back to check and they have removed some of the M2E crews from the site. But M2E December is 27, M2E Ramos is 30.50 and M3E Marcus is 37.50. But if there isn't an anticipated (and substantial) content change, nor a price change on the Wyrd side, I will hold fire for now and see what other retailers offer

Some of those are likely discounted given they don't line up with the MSRP. M2E Marcus and Ramos both normally go for the same $50 being advertised for the M3E Marcus set. I believe the Marcus set is changing though, as a crew of resculpts were shown back at GenCon.

Again, it looks like at least from Wyrd's MSRPs, the things going up are the things that are currently below average, which comes down to the old Ten Thunders crews from M1E (that often went for $40) and the first run of M2E masters that went for $45. Even these aren't seeing price hikes in line with the Outpost, unless the difference is simply that they're back closer to MSRP because they're "new" SKUs where the old ones have seen bigger discounts because they've been sitting in the warehouse for 5-6 years.


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 spiralingcadaver wrote:
Yeah, it isn't art: it's just a game with some pulpy background and a continuous story. If you want story to progress and to kill characters or whatever, that's fine. Either ignore story and keep your characters, or make characters types, so Ramos can be a Hoffman proxy or Lilith can be a Nekima proxy. I think it's absurd how many collections that are basically independent armies in function and mechanic were dissolved in this edition. For all the problem that Leveticus obviously was, I've seen so many collections basically based around his hiring options, for instance.

It's totally fine to kill weird niche combos or exploits whatever, but the way they shuffled things ignores that people have collections, and they don't necessarily sprawl all the factions. It feels like they don't understand how non-superfans interact with their game. I'm a regular player with a few favorite masters and a number of factions, but and I still felt like my collection was gutted; playing only one faction must be even nastier.

Honestly, most of the problems they created for themselves are a result of forcing people's collections to sprawl all the factions and any one master in 2E required a factions worth of models since you were buying boxes of 3+ figures for one thing. I get being mad (particularly over the Neverborn thing, cause that's... weird) but it really really had to happen and they've made it FAR easier for people to fix their collections now than it required to even attempt to build them in the past. I definitely have some orphaned models, but realistically I already did in things like the 2nd/3rd minion from boxes I had no use for.

 LunarSol wrote:
Honestly, most of the problems they created for themselves are a result of forcing people's collections to sprawl all the factions and any one master in 2E required a factions worth of models since you were buying boxes of 3+ figures for one thing. I get being mad (particularly over the Neverborn thing, cause that's... weird) but it really really had to happen and they've made it FAR easier for people to fix their collections now than it required to even attempt to build them in the past. I definitely have some orphaned models, but realistically I already did in things like the 2nd/3rd minion from boxes I had no use for.

IMHO, there's no valid justification based on arguments of practicality for...

-removing some dual faction master sets while making other ones dual faction
-removing masters when adding others, rather than redesigning the first
-scrambling models around to new factions
-removing models which were sold for a whole edition as part of a master's schtick

I didn't have any masters removed, but, sure, being specific, my Tara list lost something like 3/4 of its options. My collection of something like 25-30 models, which consisted of
-her starter crew
-her signature Death Marshals, which have been part of her fluff since before she had rules
-her summon keyword models, some of which were also specifically named as hireable in her crew when playing as one faction, and were all native to one of her factions
-4 non-themed models with bury interactions, which were all native to one of her factions

now consists of:
-her starter crew
-1 model that now has her keyword
-1 non-themed model with bury interactions

So, no, I don't feel like when all of her rules and theme were built around undead/summons and her beasties, and the better way to play her was as undead/summon instead of a weak and poorly controllable gimmick, losing all of her undead options is made up for by having more flexibility buying more toys for my hobbled collection.

Edit: If they actually cared about players' collections and wanted to reduce hers to a single one, shifting her one model outside her crew to ressers and dropping outcasts would have been easy, and I think that such practical decisions as that might have suggested they actually believed that these decisions were made out of necessity to clean up the game. I think that at best their shifts represent a pomposity about their game as art rather than a game, and at worst represents pretty cynical marketing choices intended to get players to restructure their collections, given some of the weird decisions to shuffle models.

 spiralingcadaver wrote:
So, no, I don't feel like when all of her rules and theme were built around undead/summons and her beasties, and the better way to play her was as undead/summon instead of a weak and poorly controllable gimmick, losing all of her undead options is made up for by having more flexibility buying more toys for my hobbled collection.

It's a bit of a slap to be told that some of us were playing our masters 'wrong' and this is the way to do it right so now you have to, please and thank you. While on one hand I do commend reining in the 'soup' qualities of MFX and rewarding thematic play over powergaming, it's not so great when that theme changes and/or loses a lot of its flexibility.

100% agree on updating all existing masters and then adding in the new ones. Maybe there's SKU reasons for retiring some masters now (presumably for rerelease later on) or something, but it's still lame. I also suspect that Wyrd will continue to dial back their stance on the Dead Man's Hand masters due to backlash - the existence of the DMH rules points to their ambivalence on the decision.

I've also been burned by the new limits placed on minions, some of my favorite crews spammed mediocre minions - like my 8 Tanuki Brewmaster list I was building towards the end of M2E - or used like 4 of a crappy minion because it's what I had. Or like 2 of a thing in the case of my Mei Feng, who now has a spare mechanical porkchop that I have pretty much zero use for since they're now enforcers.

Tara’s such a strange case. She wasn’t even supposed to be a resser but the unwillingness to put a foot down on Levi left ressers down a master and scrambling to fit in. The latest redesign is like what? Her 5th in as many years? She’s not been what I’d call a consistent character and one I really feel suffered from m2es cross hiring bloat.

As for masters changing or losing factions I’m finding it kind of irrelevant. They’re so siloed now that faction is pretty irrelevant. I personally sold off several crews simply because I don’t need the whole faction to run a master I like and was able to just keep the master I like to play on their own. Ramos being a prime example despite being “dead”.

That's great that changing factions was irrelevant to you; it wasn't to how I played, and I probably won't continue to this edition because of it. Honestly, it's not even really anger, it's just demoralizing to work on a compact collection and then, as Salvage said, be told I was doing it wrong. I don't really want to buy more models and learn more rules when it feels like there's the looming threat that, again, I'm doing it wrong. It's a lot of commitment to possibly be punished for what felt like playing the game as intended.

Once bitten, twice shy.

The desire for a compact collection is exactly why I’m happy with the change. M2e made it challenging to collect without a lot of extra. M3e is selling me a game where I can pick up a master and buy stuff for that master without really having to buy much extra and it almost ever even lets me buy duplicates. That’s pretty ideal to me and I’m pretty happy to cut down to the stuff that I need for my favorite handful of masters rather than worry about how much faction wide box sets I need.

It's great that yours worked out, but, seriously, they pushed it too far. They already had the keyword system that already defined what was within a master's scope. There were some weird outliers, but most masters had 1-2 keywords.

Here: Make Tara and her guys a Resser, slap "obliteration" or whatever the keyword is on basic Death Marshals, call it done. You can take most of her old thematic hiring options at the out-of-theme tax, while mostly maintaining a single theme. I don't have any problem with the conceptual choices Wyrd made, but the execution is really wanting.

I totally get that it worked out for you and that you're happy about that; it didn't for a number of us, nor does your happiness prove that the transition was graceful. The problems of 2e were Wyrd's problems, but, the way they "solved" them in 3e just made them 2e players' problems. And again, there are problematic changes they made that seemingly respond to no problem at all, and are prioritizing their taste over the longevity of their customers' purchases.

I'm not saying I'm unaffected, just that I find the changes easy to adapt to. This is mostly because M3E's constraints are in line with the way M2E is sold. Most of what I lost were things where I bought a box for half its contents and that was pretty easy to turn into boxes where I needed it all. That's a process they're making even easier by bundling it all together. I'm not even someone who normally makes model deals. Selling armies to pay for armies really isn't my thing; but M3E's clean breaks along existing SKU lines has made it pretty easy to adapt.

I'll toss out that what they're doing with limited crews is how I was led to believe M2E would work when I started, only to discover you needed breadth in a faction to be competitive, and across factions if you were playing Ressers / the increasing number of summoners in the game. Which was a real turnoff, as I signed on for a highly thematic game with cool models to find myself playing a rather gamey system that demanded a significant investment in overly-complex plastic kits.

The irony is that at this point I have a fairly large collection, which I'm discovering is not actually that useful any more

I’m very much in the same boat. I’m just excited to get back to the game I thought I signed up for.

It will be interesting to see whether or not Wyrd has pooped the bed with this one, or even that there are so few people left that no one cares that the bed is FOS. There was a mass exodous seemingly on account of balance a good while back. So, I suppose restoring some amount of balance is one of their highest priorities. We shall see if they succeded, and if the sacrifices they needed to make to achieve balance end up pissing people off.

From what I have seen, masters play differently, which certainly could make people upset. If someone wanted to play an alpha strike type thing, or a scheme runner type thing, and then found that their old master was no longer good at it, that could certainly turn people off to say the least.

I enjoy new mechanics and types of things, so I am looking forward to breaking out some of my old minis and giving the new edition a try.

My FLGS has all their old Wyrd stuff at at least half off, might have to grab some to try out.

 spaceelf wrote:

From what I have seen, masters play differently, which certainly could make people upset. If someone wanted to play an alpha strike type thing, or a scheme runner type thing, and then found that their old master was no longer good at it, that could certainly turn people off to say the least.

I enjoy new mechanics and types of things, so I am looking forward to breaking out some of my old minis and giving the new edition a try.

Some people are always going to react badly to change. At least locally though, the game went from borderline unplayed to one of our biggest communities over the course of the beta. The focus on clearly defined playstyles and consistent rules across crews has opened it up in a way I've not seen since MK2 Warmachine.

spiralingcadaver wrote:IMHO, there's no valid justification based on arguments of practicality for...

That makes it sound like you will insist on being negative about this regardless of what anyone says.

Wyrd is doing a big overhaul and changing things that were difficult to balance or made the game worse (as far as they can tell anyway).
This may lead to things changing and holding on to how things played in M2E is not advised.

The new prices on the outpost website are due to the new boxes having more in them. Supposedly wyrd have told the outpost that there will be more mini's in the sets. That's why the prices have went up.

Also if you pre order a 3rd edition set you get the rulebook free

At least in USD, the prices have only gone up on the $45 sets. They've simply all been normalized to $50. The $50 sets remain $50 even for ones that have seemingly gotten new/additional models.

 Motograter wrote:
Also if you pre order a 3rd edition set you get the rulebook free

A physical copy of the rulebook free? I must have missed this. Where did you read this? I'm totally on board especially if there are free LtdEd models in addition.

 DarkBlack wrote:

spiralingcadaver wrote:IMHO, there's no valid justification based on arguments of practicality for...

That makes it sound like you will insist on being negative about this regardless of what anyone says.

Wyrd is doing a big overhaul and changing things that were difficult to balance or made the game worse (as far as they can tell anyway).
This may lead to things changing and holding on to how things played in M2E is not advised.

No, I think there are a lot of perfectly fine choices they've made. I think dropping the upgrade system was good. I don't really care about multiple masters. I think that dropping mercs was unfortunate but probably safer. I think that pushing thematic crews is a good move.

But, I think that, like you quoted, there's no justification for the way they shuffled what amounts to players' collections. Again, if they'd made signs that it was based on some sort of extreme restriction of the game/their products/etc., then I might have bought it. But, the way they're going about it seems based on their vision of their game, and preferences about narrative progression.

In an environment where they're able to rebuild model stats from scratch (i.e. not an x.5 edition or like a lot of 40k's rolling editions), where they're adding new pieces, where they're emphasizing theme, and where the game is an update from the previous one, I think the only reasonable starting place is to build on existing model themes, see what roles those fill in the themes, and decide how to make that work. Once you've fixed everything, then start working in your additions.

I think that Wyrd consistently shows a disregard to fans when not pursuing mechanics and themes they've emphasized:

Another example would be the avatar system, which were marketed as centerpiece models, then became campaign power ups, and finally those "models", i.e. display base inserts, were dropped before production began.

Similarly, those two Illuminated enforcers got special Neverborn-emphasized variant models something like a year before they were kicked out of the faction.

It's like they're using Malifaux as their personal sandbox. If they were video game generations or whatever, I'd have no problem, but I'm becoming more certain, talking through this, that I don't trust them to create a stable game that respects that their customers have budgets and lives outside their product, so I'm becoming increasingly disinterested in paying to keep up.

Has anyone picked up the scenery for the Malfaux game? I have seen a number of kits, and would really like to get some, but thought I'd ask before I do.

Kits in Question-
https://giveusyourmoneypleasethankyou-wyrd.com/collections/terrain

 Absolutionis wrote:
At least in USD, the prices have only gone up on the $45 sets. They've simply all been normalized to $50. The $50 sets remain $50 even for ones that have seemingly gotten new/additional models.

 Motograter wrote:
Also if you pre order a 3rd edition set you get the rulebook free

A physical copy of the rulebook free? I must have missed this. Where did you read this? I'm totally on board especially if there are free LtdEd models in addition.

On the outposts Facebook page is where the offer was.
Not sure if anyone's doing free limited edition models anywhere though

Just got an email from Miniature Market 30-80% off all WYRD Minis & RPGs

So.., dunno if that would include terrain

It does and doesn't - and while I'm no expert on their line, the prices don't look all that impressive for this sale.

Hi - I've been out of the loop on Malifaux for a while.
I'd appreciate it if someone could let me know where I stand in the new 3rd edition with the Masters I play:

Lilith
Collodi
Zoraida (mostly only played her with Collodi back when he was a henchman)

Karai
McMorning

Leviticus

Thanks!

(our group got pretty heavily disillusioned with them after the crappy KS they ran for the RPG.)

Collodi and Lilith both got written out of the game. They have legacy rules, where they're not exactly part of the faction and aren't tournament legal. Some people speculate that the masters in this place ("Dead Man's Hand") will eventually reappear as regular pieces; I'm not sure what this is based on other than hope.

IDK about Zoraida, don't think she changed much.

McMourning doesn't play Guild anymore.

Summoning has been nerfed/restricted hard, so Kirai from what I've heard plays very differently (a friend in the alpha said she played so differently he wasn't interested anymore).

I don't know about Leveticus other than that he's lost out of faction hiring options (like most broad keyword masters).

Pretty much every master is just focused down to models in their crew box and built around them. For example Levi is all about Abominations, Ashes & Dust, etc but out of faction he’s limited to necropunks.

Kirai has probably changed the least thematically. Still a spirit summoner. Her big limit is that she takes damage to keep her summons in play and needs to watch how many she has out.

Collodi and Lilith are dead but basically work as Neverborn options still.

Zoraida hasn’t changed much. Neither has McMourning. He doesn’t work in Guild anymore but honestly he didn’t “work” in Guild in m2e either.

Miniature Market is clearancing out a bunch of Malifaux stuff if any of you guys are interested.

It has to be said that once your game goes on the clearance rack at MM it is effectively dead.