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I have recently picked up a few Malifaux crews due to the awesomeness of the miniatures, I picked up a few more yesterday as well as the A5 M2E rulebook. I knew that the game mechanics involved no dice but after 3/4 reads through the rulebook I just cannot get my head around the mechanics of the game.

I have played miniature wargames for over 20 years but was not prepared for the "shock" (perhaps too strong a word?) of getting my head around the rules. So my main questions are as other wargamers

Did you find the transition to playing a card based game difficult?

How long did it take for you to, in essence, re-wire your gaming mind?

Any hints or tips to ease my transition into playing the game? Maybe small 25 ss games?

Any replies will be greatly appreciated.

Start small and play often, once you get a couple of games under your belt, you get used to it. I also play infinity and x-wing and have not had issues switching between cards and dice.

It doesn't seem difficult to me, but I relate it to playing CCGs like Magic. I prefer the card mechanic as it gives you limited control over every "roll"/Flip and adds a layer of strategy that no other system can match (in my opinion).

The hardest part for me to grasp was the rate at which you succeed modifying your flip for damage, but that's something that you quickly learn with a few playthroughs.

As Guardpiper says, start small and play often. I haven't gotten to play often, but keeping it to henchman level games makes it much easier to grasp since Masters tend to have a lot more rules.

I haven't found using cards to be that hard. But I've also been a very long-time fan of the (now sadly OOP) Avalon Hill Game "Up Front" which used card draws to resolve all randomization events (as well as movement, declaring shooting attacks, rallying pinned troops, etc...)

It does take some time to learn to "read" how strong your hand is, especially when you start really tracking all the possible triggers you can hit with a larger game.

Learning when to cheat and when to save cards is a key part of the game and really only comes with experience.

Valete,

JohnS

Thanks for the advice, the more I read the rules the more it does become clear to me. I think starting in smaller, master-less games, and getting used to the core mechanics is the way to go. There are just some things I cannot get over, for example does a Master like Rasputina have no close combat attack? Just seems weird to me.

I also think that the book could be laid out a lot better, is the main large size rulebook any better for this?

From the point of view of someone else who has not yet played (so this is coming from reading and batreps) the card mechanic intrigues me a lot, and is one of the things (aside from the beautiful minis) that drew me to this game.

What seems interesting is that, over the course of a deck, both players have exactly the same potential. So as much as luck is a factor, you know that over the course of a game, you're going to get 4 of each card value. I don't know yet, but I imagine this can stop things being too one sided, unlike 40k where a few bad rolls can put you under. Every weak card you draw increases the probability of drawing a strong card next.

The Cheat Fate idea also seems really cool, giving you control over the randomness and adding an element of tactical resource management.

I can also see it being a little faster than mass-dice games. Instead of picking out the successes in 40 dice, re-rolling failures, rolling the successes again and then rolling those again for saves, you simply flip a card. If you win, you flip another. Simples.

The card mechanics was a bit of a problem to get my head around in the beginning aswell. Though, once you sort of escape thinking about dice and "get" it, then it all falls together and it becomes quite a bit more logical a game.

And yes, it (to me anyways) indeed adds a level to the game that you simply do not have with dice. It forces you to think about what you want to do, how you want to cheat etc and there is always the counting what cards are out already and which are still int he deck. I realyl like the fact that both players have an identical chance/deck rather than random rolling. It also makes drawing more cards/forcing your opponent to draw more a mroe important thing than you might think at first.

It's a little different, but I've found out to be a nice change of pace.

A couple of weeks ago I had my first Red Joker come out on the last flip of a double negative to hit and it was pretty much an amazing feeling.

 Paradigm wrote:
What seems interesting is that, over the course of a deck, both players have exactly the same potential. So as much as luck is a factor, you know that over the course of a game, you're going to get 4 of each card value. I don't know yet, but I imagine this can stop things being too one sided, unlike 40k where a few bad rolls can put you under. Every weak card you draw increases the probability of drawing a strong card next.

The Cheat Fate idea also seems really cool, giving you control over the randomness and adding an element of tactical resource management.

Exactly this. If you flip a bad card then it's at least out of the way until the next turn, and if it's a terrible result you have the option of cheating it with one in your hand, allowing you to mitigate really bad luck.

It's also worth noting that it's sometimes handy to have crap cards in your hand; it means they aren't in the deck, and you might still be able to use them (one of the gremlin upgrades let you recover 1HP if you cheat a flip, and cheating in a 2 on an already failing flip gets you the HP without losing anything good), or you may want to cheat in a poor card if you accidently shoot your own team in melee, or you want to get/avoid a trigger.

There's a lot more depth to it than purely dice replacement.

No one has mentioned the Jokers yet. The black, which can sink even the greatest of plans utterly, or save a model from certain doom. Or the Red, which can turn the tide in a duel, or cause maximum damage just when its required!

Knowing when to hold onto them, or use them, is an important aspect to the game.

The thing I have a hard time with is the abbreviations like Df and Wp, but I know that will go away.

The card mechanic is so neat when I think about just how random it is compared to traditional dice mechanics.

 melkorthetonedeaf wrote:
The thing I have a hard time with is the abbreviations like Df and Wp, but I know that will go away.

The card mechanic is so neat when I think about just how random it is compared to traditional dice mechanics.

What? Are you saying dice are less random than cards?

I think what he means is that on an independant level, there's more variation. A Die is 1-6, a card is 1-13+Jokers, so there's a lot more range of options. On a die, without re-rolls, you have at worst a 1/6 chance to succeed. On cards, there best and worse case scenarios are more widespread.

Cards are hugely more reliable than dice.

Say you have 2d6 and a deck of 36 cards with each option on them.

You can never draw three 12's in a row, though you can roll three 12's in a row.

A wider spread doesn't make things more random.

 spiralingcadaver wrote:
Cards are hugely more reliable than dice.

Say you have 2d6 and a deck of 36 cards with each option on them.

You can never draw three 12's in a row, though you can roll three 12's in a row.

A wider spread doesn't make things more random.

I appreciate that, I was pointing out that what I think the post was trying to say was that there was a greater variation and wider spread. Which is true of cards. But yes, I agree with what you're saying.

Sure. I was responding to the claim you were explaining, didn't think you were making a value judgement on it.

Haha! Wowsers. Yeah, I just meant there was more variation. 4 suits, 1 to 13, plus two jokers has a much wider range of options than 1d6 or 1d10.

Add in the cheat mechanic, and it's far more reliable.

As far as dice go, 2d6 is still my favorite means of generating random numbers. I blame Catan and swinging Falchions in D&D for showing me that.

Oh. Well, spent a long time with D&D with your standard d20/crit 1 & 20, so, not really seeing anything particularly special about card spread.

I like the system a lot because it's more controllable, but don't see it being particularly more varied than anything I've seen with dice.