There’s something that I’d like to mention before I get too far ahead of myself.  It has been confirmed that a 2nd Edition of the Malifaux rule set is coming out at Gencon this year.  If you snoop around you can find some interesting tidbits about it, from what I’ve gathered it’ll address a couple of my complaints about the rule’s lack of polish and unnecessary complexity (which I also love at the same time).  Thus, please consider this a disclaimer.  Since I’ll be talking about Malifaux’s rules, models, etc. today there is a strong chance that this information will change.  So if you’re reading this in the future PLEASE DON’T HATE ME.

As I had mentioned in my last entry, the job site I’m visiting this week is Malifaux (not like it’s really a job, well in some cases it feels like a job to play the game).  The request came over our Facebook Page.  A link has been provided for your viewing pleasure, you should like us!

Get people to know more about a game?  At first I couldn’t think of anything beyond making a marquee that had MALIFAUX emblazoned across it in flashing letters.  That’d draw attention to it and maybe could get some people interested.  However, that idea was quashed (AFTER I PUT ALL THE WORK INTO THE IMAGERY) because my Boss felt that an image and the words “Check it out!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!!!!!??!?” wasn’t a well developed article entry and so back to the drawing board I went.

After a little soul-searching, I decided that I’m going to support one of the local communities I frequent and get a new crew (the game is played with small crews of models, which luckily Wyrd puts out to make it easier for people to get into the game).  After I show the crew off, I’m going to go into a BRIEF rules primer on how to use the chance mechanic (I am a bit rusty presently).  Then get ready to play a game with it, which will have to wait until my next entry (I’d love to say it’s because I’m going to get my paint on, but that’s a lie).

Malifaux is a relatively new miniature game (released in 2009), one that categorizes itself in a genre and style of play that I’ve yet to explore a great deal.  It’s classified as a Skirmish game, set in an all-comers genre.  Once I heard that it was a skirmish game, I knew I was in love, low model count is a huge selling point for me.  I live the woes of the mini-gamer, having models resting on every flat surface imaginable, scattered throughout the home like roaches (depending on your significant other, they can be considered equally as pesky.. <_<).  Combine that with the ability to play pretty much EVERY cliched genre that my little heart desires, from Steampunk to Ghosts & Goblins to Wild West.  It feels like a match made in heaven.

The game is broken up into 5 different factions: the Guild (Think Victorian Western meets Steampunk), the Resurrectionists (Think every cliched Frankenstein and zombie film), the Neverborn (Think..  All the nightmares from Little Nemo, just older and scarier), the Arcanists (Think taking Steampunk, Monsters, Ice Worshipers and Show Girls and slapping them all at a University + every Wizard cliche in the book) and lastly The Outcasts (Think mercenaries but they have Goblins which makes up for everything).  When starting the game, one would normally pick one of the groups to follow, however there are situations whereas those lines can be blurred, I’ll talk a little more about it later.

So I was off!  I went to my local store (I’d post pictures, however they didn’t turn out very well, it would seem the judicial application of water to your phone isn’t good for picture quality) to purchase myself a crew.  I did some exploring on the interwebs beforehand to try and get ideas as to what appealed to me, but in the end it would heavily depend on what the store I was visiting had in inventory.  There’s a lot of different crew boxes, mostly because Wyrd has one for each of the Masters (think Warnouns or HQ choices for your army, just more like the GW versions for they themselves bring a great deal of things to the table, lending themselves to being your most influential piece and losing them doesn’t spell the end the the game) that come with a few other models that said Master would use.  So if you’re getting into the game, it’s a great starting point.  They usually save you a couple dollars on models that you’re likely going to buy anyways.  All boxes include the stats cards and bases necessary to play the crew, though if you want a physical copy of the rules you’ll have to invest in the rule book (However because they’re releasing the new Rules, they’ve released a PDF version of the rule book to the public; here’s a link to it.  Malifaux Rulebook).

After much thought the box I decided upon is Collodi.  I really enjoy the satire of a puppet being the puppet master (he’s a marionette, but the one leading the puppets) and though it gives me nightmares, since Collodi makes me think of that really creepy Goosebumps book “Night of the Living Dummy”.  I, like many children had that Goosebumps phase and I know I lost a good chunk of sleep to that book.  Looking back on it, it’s kinda silly.  Though I will admit, I’m not looking forward to having Collodi watch me while I sleep. <_<

So I purchased him from the Shopkeep and immediately rushed home to sit down and assemble.  This is where the fun parts begin.  I took pictures!

Here’s a picture of the crew that I picked up (they didn’t need much assembly at all, I was able to slot them into their bases quite easily).  This is Collodi and his crew of Dolls.  Seeing as this isn’t my first crew I decided to go with something a bit different.  Collodi is a “Henchmen” not a Master, which means that he can be taken in a crew as a model (in a different crew and if you’re playing Neverborn) or in my case you can have him lead a crew.  If you do, he is restricted in the models that he can hire.  This restriction is called Special Forces, Collodi’s special forces is (Doll).  Which means that he can only take  models that are classified as Dolls.

Here’s the models with the stat cards, as you can see the crew consisted of Collodi, 4 Marionettes and 3 Wicked Dolls.  Every model has classifications underneath the name on their stat card (this is where you’ll find out if they classify as dolls).  Collodi’s classifications are Construct, Henchman 7, Special Forces (Doll) and Scavenger.  Whereas the Wicked Dolls in his crew are Construct, Insignificant, Special Forces (Doll).  Since the Wicked Dolls are… Dolls, they can be taken in his special force.  The special forces rule isn’t always a restriction though it also means that he doesn’t need to hire models only in his faction, if there were dolls (which there are) in other factions that he wanted he could hire them into his crew with impunity.

The second part (one of my favourite things about the game), is that the backs of the cards ARE CRAMMED WITH TEXT.  Each entry being a different ability or effect that the model can have on the game.  I took a picture of them and was thinking about posting it:

BUT I’M NOT BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE ILLEGAL.

One can achieve whatever they want with all those rules.  It really benefits the player to have an overactive imagination, I even find myself immersed in the setting more when I try and do the most ridiculous things, and this is all because of their overly complex rules set.

Every (I assume!) miniatures game has a random chance mechanic, otherwise it wouldn’t really be a game :P.  Most that I’ve seen have done so with dice.  Players roll differing amounts of polyhedrons to try and achieve an in game effect.  Malifaux is unique in that regard, as all of it’s randomness is determined via playing cards.

For those of you that don’t know me particularly well.  I LOVE.  I MEAN LOVE.  Playing cards.  They’re likely my favourite thing in the world barring my significant other.  I love them so much that I’ve take the time and effort to TATTOO them upon my body.  Thus, the idea of playing a skirmish game with playing cards is really enticing..

In Malifaux, much like real playing cards there are 4 suits, however they all correspond to base factions in the game.  The suits and their corresponding factions are: Rams (The Guild), Crows (The Resurrectionists), Masks (The Neverborn) and Books (The Arcanists).  They are numbered from 1-13, as well as the Jokers (Both Black and Red).  Leaving you with 54 cards, just like a standard deck of playing cards.  When you flip up a card you use the corresponding value on it as if it was your die roll in the game.  For the case of Malifaux every model will have a stat associated with all it’s actions, be it casting a spell, shooting someone, etc. and every check you flip a card, add the two together and BAM.  In the case of the Red Joker it’s value is 14 + you get to flip another card and the suit is whatever you want it to be.  Alternatively, the Black Joker is worth nothing and has no suit, so in most cases the ability misses entirely or does no damage.

With the model and randomness mechanic introductions completed, It’s almost necessary to familiarize you with the anatomy of a round.  A round for Malifaux means that all models on the board have activated, one of the really cool things (especially given Malifaux is a skirmish game) is that you and your opponent alternate the activation of your models   The first player picks any of his models that haven’t already activated, unless they have an ability says otherwise, models get up to 2 actions.  Anything that you can do on your turn require the expenditure of actions, the amount of actions that are required for the ability are listed in brackets on your card, usually you’ll see a (0), (1) and (2).  (0) actions are special, they don’t cost any of your actions, though unless you have an ability that says otherwise, you’re limited to one a turn.  A model isn’t limited to just the actions on their card, there are also a pool of common actions (Like moving your model, making a melee attack, or a ranged attack) that a model can can use instead of solely the ones on their card.  Once you’ve completed your action, the turn passes to your opponent and they get to pick and complete 2 actions with a model..  This goes back and forth until there are no more models to activate (In the case that a player has less models than the other, the player with more models just keeps activating until they’ve all had a turn).

You want me to show off a turn you say?!  I’d love too.  I’ve got pictures too!

I win the initiative flip and decide that I want to activate Collodi first.

He gets two actions,  for the first one I decide to make him move (so he can move a number of ” equal to his wk/cg).

With his second action Collodi decids to try a melee swing against one of my Wicked Dolls, it’s completely unnecessary, but should be fun.  Collodi has a melee attack ability of 6 with a suit of masks and the Wicked Doll has a defense stat of 7.

Now.  Right out the gate, Collodi isn’t hitting.  6+7 =/= 7+7.  However I forgot one crucial aspect of the game..  One that makes it significantly more interesting.  What kind of card game doesn’t actually let you play with a hand of cards?  That’s right, in Malifaux you also have a hand of cards that you can use to Cheat Fate, which I will go into in a moment.  The size of your hand depends on the kind of game you’re playing, for this case it’s 6 cards (there are abilities in the game that let you draw & discard for advantages and in some cases disadvantages).

There’s our hands!  Collodi’s hand is 1,1,3,4,5,RJ versus Wicked Doll’s 1,2,3,6,7,12.  Now starting with the loser (Collodi) we both have the ability to replace our flipped card with one out of our hand (only if we didn’t have a (-) negative flip, a (-) (negative flip) means you take cards until you get the amount of negative flips you had (-) + 1 and take the lowest)

Obviously Collodi is going to play his Red Joker.  Which means now he has a value of 6 + 7 + 14 + another card.  In the case of the other card I flipped a 2 of Masks and that gives me a total of 29.  That trumps his 14 by a significant enough amount to let us hit him and get a damage flip.  If you look at the back of the book there’s a table which shows you the benefit of exceeding your opponents defense flip, the higher the value the better chance you have at getting a (+) flip, which is much like the (-) flip except you keep the highest.  In my case I exceeded it by 13 which means I get to flip 2 cards and keep the highest.

Now because I couldn’t remember how many extra flips I got (which was 0) I flipped too many.  Since we are looking at the bottom two cards of the pile of 3, we have 4 and 11, since we take the highest it means we inflict Severe damage (5 in total).  Now you know how to cheat fate and the most complex thing you’ll have to deal with in the game.

SO.  You’ve seen some models, you’ve got a good sample of the anatomy of a turn and how the card mechanics work.  It’s my hope that this has sparked enough interest to investigate or maybe read the next installment that I’m intending to do once I get a chance to play a game.  In my next entry I’m going to do a battlereport to really showcase some fun gameplay mechanics.  😀  Thanks for your time!

OH AND.

CHECK IT OUT!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?