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Hey up!

I've been lurking with the idea of malifaux for about a year now. I've watched the game progress and the miniatures become better and better!... So I thought it's now or never to take the plunge! I've watched loads of batreps on YouTube, read some of the wyed forum posts and listen to the aether cast (malifaux podcast... And it's awesome!).... But I still don't have a clue on the rules as such, and I'm stuck on where to start.

There are 3 crews I want to buy and try, sonnia and hew witch hunters, lady justice and her death marshals, but my favourite has to be the freikorps! I've come from a wargaming background, and these guys look amazing!! I know that I need to buy the 2nd book to even think of using them, and possibly buying a convict gunslinger to compliment them. I also am the only gamer round my area who even knows about malifaux... So this means buying up to 4 crews, and 2 books to start, and play demos with my gaming pals!! I was thinking apart from
My freikorps I should buy 3 different factions to get the ball rolling, and for people to get an idea of what they like...

Any help or advice on spreading the malifaux word in north Wales would be great :-)

So what do you think??

Liam

Welcome to the world that is Malifaux!

If your going to put all this work into promoting the game in your area, I would suggest heading over to the Wyrd forums and apply to be a henchman.

The Freikorps are an awsome line of models, I have a box of them waiting to be painted now.

If you have any more specific questions feal free to ask.

Just so you know, when you buy a model it comes with the appropriate rules on a card for reference during game, so you don't actually need to buy all the books. Just the Rules Manual (the new small book), will get you by fine. The other books are cool too though. I have all three

Freikorps are an all around decent crew. Not many weakness at all. Around my parts they are usually run as back up to the Viktorias, but Von Schill leading is fine too.

Malifaux is a really awesome game, the best I've played in a long time. I'm sure whatever crews you pick up, you and your friends will have a good time.

Cheers lads! Awesome stuff! So for starters if I buy just the rule book and a couple of crews that should get me by? Will that include all the v.2 cards?

I haven't even purchased any malifaux yet... But I'm actually very excited to start so you started on the terrain this morning! Building a frontier/western township... But no wood in sight, a buy more of an orkish scrap town.

Am I right in thinking Von schill isn't a proper caster as such? Does this make the crew weak? Or is it to do with synchronisation?

Would anyone mind giving me a run down on how the freikorps work best? And which models compliment them well? ... Am I right in believing the convict gunslinger is a good addition?

Cheers!

Liam

Only the models from book one have V2 (or V3) cards. If you buy them, hopefully you get the right card, but that depends more on how long the box or blister has been sitting on the shelf. Wyrd is offering a free card exchange program right now though. Anything from Book 2 -such as the freikorps- will have the right card.

Good thinking on the terrain. The more you have the better in this game, and encounters can take place in a wide variety of places.

Technically, Von Schill is a Henchman, meaning you can have him be the leader of a crew, or a Master can hire him for a price. When he leads a crew he is perfectly fine, but in my opinion his real value is when he is hired into a crew, as his soulstone cost is so low for such a powerful model.

In general the Freikorps are not weak, so don't worry if you decide to pick them up. They are probably one of the most balanced forces:

Von Schill is fast for getting objectives, nearly unkillable, and an all around badass
The Specialist is your scary heavy hitter model. Great for taking out swarms, or tagging people with high defense
Librarian will mostly be there for healing
The Trapper is you long range support
and the Freikorpsman are you all around grunt.

Of all these I think the Trapper is the only model I would question on including in every list. Otherwise you are good to go, and you still have the option of including some of the other Outcast models.

First off, as others have said, you don't need either of the big books, the rules handbook and the cards that come with the miniatures themselves (and most of the older cards are also in pdf form on Wyrd's site) are all you need to play. What you will be missing is the storyline from both, which detail some relationships and the City of Malifaux and its surrounding region, and knowledge of all the other models out there. But it'll be fun to learn as you go...

Next, Von Schill is a Henchmen, meaning that he can be used as a Master, but can also be used as a Minion (rank and file stuff) if you select another Master. Since he's an Outcast, just about every Master can hire him, and his freikorps, into their own Crews. An interesting function, especially at larger soulstone games.

As a Henchmen he isn't quite as strong as many of the Masters. What you are more Soulstones to make up for that, and any Malifaux player can tell you that well spent Soulstones make up for a lot! They can do so much at key points that it certainly balances out.

As for the Freikorp themselves, I haven't seen them played yet, but at first glance they are all humans, meaning that you don't get a giant Beatstick like a Steamborg Executioner or such, nor do you get toss away garbage like Mindless Zombies and Terror Tots. Each of your models are somewhat middling to poor, cause they are just humans. What you do get is a lot of guns (mostly pistols), great armor and the ability of your models being able to succeed at some given task. Basic Korpsmen take up space, offer a threat to just about everyone, both ranged and close, and don't cost a ton. You get the Specialist and his flamethrower which looks like a decent damage dealer, Trappers which seem really strong at ranged strikes, and then the Librarian, which seems like a very interesting model, support orientated and a thinking man's piece. Overall, they seem balanced and well-rounded, if a little light on high damage dealing... If I was starting up this Crew, I'd go straight with the box set and another Korpsmen, thats 30 SS and 4SS in the Pool. Not a bad start, IMO.

As I already mentioned, the nice thing is if you start with them, once you get a hang on the game you can always use them with your next Master (most likely), in any size game, since they are Mercs.

Re: Convict Gunslinger - he's a great piece. I have one and use him with the Viks just about everytime. That said, Freikorps already have strong shooting which is what he offers. I'd look elsewhere if you wanted to move on from just Freikorps models, maybe Taelor is you want someone that can really deal damage in Hth... plus with a Librarian backing her up with some Healing Flips, she can stick around even longer!

Re: What to buy - If you are gonna run Freikorps I would look away from the other "Human" Faction like Guild (though you can do mostly Construct w/ C. Hoffman, he's not out yet) and go straight to Neverborn, like Lilith, she's a pretty straight up Master and Crew, come and get you style. Finally, you gotta do Ramos. He's Classic Malifaux. He sends Steampunk Constructs at the enemy while tossing both supportive and boom magic around. It will give you a really basic spread of Malifaux... and while you'll be missing undead, the Resurrectionist play like Undead in most games, especially Nicodem.

Freikorps are a solid starting block. It's where I started and then branched into ressurectionists. To start you only need some models & the rules manual (Green Book). They should be making it available for free as a pdf at some point. You don't need the original (Red) or Rising Powers (Purple) books but I do recommend getting them at some point if just for the stories.

Von Schill is a henchman and not a master so he can act as a master if there isn't one. If he does this he has a cache of 4ss & the MAX he can have is 4ss so you'll want to spend up to your max.

Freikorp are also well balanced, having a good mix of ranged & melee power. For additional models I suggest a convict gunslinger (All around useful), Taelor or Johan of which I prefer tailor (Melee power).

A nice trick to keep in mind is Von Schills "Slow to Die". This allows him to make a (1) cost action before he dies & you can use this to spend a soulstone on a healing flip, makes him much harder to kill.

Hope you enjoy the game, it's a blast.

You guys are awesome!! Thanks for taking the time to help!! It's much appreciated!... I didn't realise that with the freikorps you could basically take another master to "lead" them... Is it only outcast masters? Or can anyone hire them? So there are potentially some nasty combos to be made...

Am I right in thinking that the freikorps have to keep quite close to each other, almost acting like a unit to benefit from the librarian?

Again, cheers lads!

Liam

Anyone can hire them

You can only hire two Freikorps models unless you hire Von Schill as well, since they have the Special Forces rule.

However they are all mercenaries, so any non outcast master will pay +1SS per freikorp model (+2 for librarian)

CptCortez128 wrote:You guys are awesome!! Thanks for taking the time to help!! It's much appreciated!... I didn't realise that with the freikorps you could basically take another master to "lead" them... Is it only outcast masters? Or can anyone hire them? So there are potentially some nasty combos to be made...

Am I right in thinking that the freikorps have to keep quite close to each other, almost acting like a unit to benefit from the librarian?

Again, cheers lads!

Liam

From what I can tell, people tend to run the Freikorp like an infantry squad, so quite grouped, and have Von Schill running around as a sweeper/runner. Still, I'm sure they can spread out well if the situation calls for it.

Freikorp + Rhonin = Awsome.

Rhonin's are all you really need to add to have a very solid crew. They more then make up for your lack of close combat.

Awesome stuff as always!... My freikorps should be here tomoz, along with my fate deck and Ryle books! Time to get cracking!

Thanks again guys! Very helpful!

Liam

I need another game like I need a hole in the head, but I ever since I saw some of the brilliant Malifaux miniatures cropping up in other threads (I think the tipping point was some that were converted into necrons), I keep finding myself wondering "what if?"

I'm holding off for now, but I wanted to thank everybody who's chiming in. It's great info to absorb for later.

I don't know diddly about the differences between the crews outside of aesthetics, but I like the bayou guys and the creepy guy who looks like he could be Vega from Street Fighter II dressing up like Barry Lyndon (Lucius?) I'll probably just pick up his model and hope that scratches the itch.