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...and it's a nightmare. Don't get me wrong, I love the sculpts, but some of the choices of which parts should be separate seem really strange. Just put Perdita together and had to attach the tiny little gun to her leg [after dropping it 3 times]. Why? Surely this could have been a part of the leg? I'm a little worried that all of the little bits that I've had to glue on will end up dropping off and being lost. Also, some of the decisions about where the minis join together seems strange, e.g. Nino has a join halfway up his body which is going to take some greenstuffing to sort out; no attempt by Wyrd at hiding the join. Finally, the instructions are bloody useless. The ones for Perdita don't even show her leg sash.

Trying to get my mates into Malifaux so I won't be mentioning the fiddlyness of putting them together. I've invented a load of new swear words and my wife keeps looking at me funny. Two down after an our and a half, suppose I should get back to it...

Yep, it's a general complaint about the plastic line- some of their minis are broken down in insane ways to make sure they don't lose any details with undercuts. A lot of people recommend old-fashioned plastic cement for the extra working time and that the glue will melt joins together.

Apparently Wyrd is working on the problem, but that'll mostly only matter on models outside the first book.

(Also, if you want to see insane, check out the Steam Trunk from the Von Schill crew. IIRC it's 35 pieces for a small based model.

Malifaux plastics have had known sprue issues for a while and its not just book one boxes. Its something that folk will need to deal with for now. Wyrd have said they will look into it but nothing so far has been done

Some boxes are better than others.

When I built my first box, Lilith, the Terror Tots annoyed me. My second box, Pandora, was much better. Even Kades little arm wasn't awkwardly positioned, and the Sorrows and Poltergeist went together really well (aside from one Sorrows arm with a separation at the elbow).

My third box, the Dreamer, had a few hard bits. The Dreamers little buddy had a really awkward leg (about 2.5mm long, 0.2mm thick, and hard to place). The Alps were a ridiculous 8-9 peices each, but didn't have any awkward bits.

My main issue so far has been seams. Gmorts said the plastic Chompy needed no gap filling. Bull. gak. Same with the Mature Nephilim. So much liquid green stuff needed to fill seams.

I've heard bad things about So'mer (three part face) and Yan Lo's goatee. I got McMourning's box not long ago, and that went together fine, except for the zombie chihuahua's tail, which has teleported somewhere.

Definitely go with plastic cement. I cursed and cursed assembling the Depleted, but after switching glues I've had few to zero problems with the plastics.

Yeah, super glue is a bust on these models. Definitely use plastic cement. Brush both sides, get them nice and tacky, stick them together and leave them alone.

I've been plastic modeling for about 25 years now, so Malifaux plastics don't present anything new to me. But. I've seen more complaints about the Malifaux sprues than I have ever seen anytwhere else in all of my modeling. Not saying I agree, but I do acknowledge.

Since this is a skirmish game, there's no need for multipose miniatures. So the artists draw something good and Wargames Factory turns it into plastic. No multipose means they don't have to do generic cuts. In general I love the dynamic poses that about 80% of the Malifaux plastic line brings to the table, even if I didn't play the game I'd buy the miniatures. For me their worst attempt was the multipose male and female models the made for Through the Breach and released at GenCon. I bought the complete set from a Kickstarter backer, received the items, and turned around and sold them. Their static poses were just uninspiring.

The biggest complaint I have with their line is they have scaling issues that Wargames Factory can't seem to get right. There are some figures that are just a couple of millimeters out of scale and it's annoying.

Other than the scale issues, I actually find the male kits more frustrating, since they're less flexible. In either case, you can do some good things with those kits, but I think they weren't a great direction to go, since with minis for an RPG, you can't expect experienced modelers.

I'll agree with that. The cuts make sense to bring out the details, but we almost have "Reaper in the nineties" levels of pose at the moment. IT'll be good enough to add a generic model to a crew (say, an extra Rotten Belle), but I don't expect I'll be using them unless my crew turns around on the diceless thing.

I don't understand the hesitation to the game based on the cards mechanic. I think a lot of people think 'MTG with miniatures' when you mention cards, then stop listening when you actually explain the mechanics behind the fate deck.

 -Loki- wrote:
I don't understand the hesitation to the game based on the cards mechanic. I think a lot of people think 'MTG with miniatures' when you mention cards, then stop listening when you actually explain the mechanics behind the fate deck.

Cards? No one mentioned cards here, maybe wrong thread?

I glued Samael Hopkins' stupid chain to my thumb, and I couldn't even blame it on the dice gods.

 MightyGodzilla wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:
I don't understand the hesitation to the game based on the cards mechanic. I think a lot of people think 'MTG with miniatures' when you mention cards, then stop listening when you actually explain the mechanics behind the fate deck.

Cards? No one mentioned cards here, maybe wrong thread?

I was referring to this

Mathieu Raymond wrote:but I don't expect I'll be using them unless my crew turns around on the diceless thing.

Which I took to mean he won't be buying that Rotten Belle because he won't be using it until he gets his group to accept the card based system. Though I might have been way off on that.

Gotcha!

No, you were straight on target. "The dice" being exactly the same thing as "the deck of cards", except you have more granularity of results, is lost on most of my friends. Plus you can cheat. How often is that part of the official rules? Pearls to the pigs, I tell ya.

Plus, the ambiguous use of the word "crew", amirite?

Ah yes, I can see it now. Sorry about that, group.

I like calling my group "crew", but I usually use "gang". I might try and toss in "warband" and see if anyone notices...

As far as Malifaux plastic goes, those weird seams are quite obnoxious, and the fiddly bits do tend to fiddle and fall off if you are either rough with a brush or not paying attention on the tabletop.

Just think of it like assembling a ship in a bottle, and learn to love the experience.

Also remember, because of Malifauxs much smaller range of models compared to other games, and the fact that you'll generally get everything you need in a single box, you won't be building these units over and over again. Any really fiddly model you build once will only be built once.

Well... M2E raised the "standard game" to 50SS, whereas it used to be around 35SS previously (although, of course, each meta might have been vastly different) so single starter box is less likely to be the scenario in most cases. Look at my Ramos question thread to see how some feel about that.

There is a fine line between obscure artisanal game made by one guy and a for-profit company pushing a ruleset to drive sales of miniatures. I happen to think Malifaux and Infinity do that best of all, but YMMV.

I agree, but I would tack on Privateer Press to that list.

Really, going up to 50 from the crew box typically involves a blister and maybe another solo, unless you run a summoner-type master.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I just realized someone probably said the same thing back-in-the-day about 40k.

PP may have been the "little guy" at one point, but they were never an artisinal game, and they work in PVC these days, which isn't exactly what I'd call the cream of the crop. They've made a few very nice minis, but their duds/uninspired ones far outnumber them, and they've little drive to innovate. I still feel like, even though 2nd edition was a better game, it also roughly marked when PP stopped doing anything I'd call creatively interesting.

Mathieu, part of the increased size is upgrades are a new cost, but yeah, it does amount to around 1-2 more minis most of the time.

I agree on the overall increased cost. It's often a lack of nuance that my crowd suffers from. They see "increased cost" and imagine the cost of a Battleforce from GW, not the 20-40 dollars of the Malifaux increase. Even if you want some versatility, we are not in the typical GW range.

When I mentionned artisanal games, I meant like Too Fat Lardies, Open Combat, Chain Reaction or Ganesha Games and the like.

I get annoyed when I see people confuse cost per model and overall cost. Cost per model for Malifaux is slightly higher than a GW game, yes. The difference is that once you've bought your crew, if you only want to play that crew, you've got maybe three or four more cheap purchases and your completely done.

For the cost of a pair of Tervigons, I bought three plastic crew boxes, a couple of metal blisters, a couple of plastic solos, and an additional box (Nephilim), which gives me a huge range of gameplay choices. Crew boxes all contain units that can and do mix well with other crews, and the solos and other boxes flesh them out.

But yes, cost per model is higher. For the cost of a crew box, which has 6-7 models, you can buy a 10 model regiment box for Fantasy or a 10 model squad for 40k. Lets just ignore the other half a grand you'll need for everything else though, cost per model is higher!

Believe me, Loki, I've had this debate regarding Malifaux, infinity, & wild west exodus & gw has poisoned the well so badly that this constant pervading fear of having to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars just to play at the ' correct ' points level makes trying to get anyone to play something new about as easy as getting affordable healthcare under the affordable care act. They won't even look at other manufacturers anymore. It's gw or nothing.

And yet, even if they'd sell their GW army at a significant loss, they'd still have enough money to field many different options for even a single master.

Oh I agree. I've sold off half of my 40k collection at a loss & funded Malifaux, infinity, & wild west exodus with at least 2 different factions up to the largest official point level with extras for varying lists. And I still have 2 labor of love armies I'm building just because I enjoy them even if I do consider the current ruleset & dex to be abominations of the game I loved for over 20 years.

See, I don't see the need to sell your 40k stuff unless you just don't want it anymore. Personally, my Salamanders have huge sentimental value to me, and my Tyranids, well, they're still my favorite miniature range from anywhere.

But convincing someone to, say, not buy a Storm Raven which they won't get around to painting for 18 months and they don't even need for their army, and instead buy Malifaux 2E, a starter crew and a few solos, is like pulling teeth. They could even go with the smaller rule manual (if they aren't interested in fluff) and fit two starters with a couple of solos in there with it.

Well, my friends rationalize it by saying they buy Chinese knock-offs instead. (Hence cheaper overall) But it's still a sea of grey plastic.

I just assembled some of the TtB MPM, and they go together great, if you're not expecting super-dynamic poses.

 -Loki- wrote:
See, I don't see the need to sell your 40k stuff unless you just don't want it anymore. Personally, my Salamanders have huge sentimental value to me, and my Tyranids, well, they're still my favorite miniature range from anywhere.

I love my Dark Angels, Deathwing, and Eldar. Totally sentimental to me. Even though I don't feel like building them right now. One day I hope to have a full company of Dark Angels built complete with a tank corps.

But convincing someone to, say, not buy a Storm Raven which they won't get around to painting for 18 months and they don't even need for their army, and instead buy Malifaux 2E, a starter crew and a few solos, is like pulling teeth. They could even go with the smaller rule manual (if they aren't interested in fluff) and fit two starters with a couple of solos in there with it.

Pretty much all of this, especially the bit in red. For (less than) the $80 on whatever new GW big bad is out there, I bought Guild's Justice, a full sized rulebook, and a Lone Marshall. I play with them solidly as my main crew switching out new pieces as I get them painted. That's a great buy in for excellent models and a solid rules set. I started getting into the game I'd say early July of this year. The fact that I bought as much as I did as quickly as I did I a testament to how much I like this game.