Malifaux (3rd ed) - First Games Review and Discussion
Posted: Sun Nov 21, 2021 9:37 am
While I technically played a game back when 3rd ed first dropped, it is only recently that I have been able to play several games (or parts thereof) in a short-ish period of time.
First off, let me say that Malifaux is still my favourite game in terms of game mechanics and rules. While I love my historical games for a variety of reasons and I enjoy the fluff of the 40K universe, Malifaux is a fantastic system that checks all the right boxes for me. It's also a lot of fun in terms of model variety. On the tables today we had Stompy Robots, Berserker Pigs, Undead Call-girls, Vicious Mercenaries, Half-blooded Mutants and Insane Psychotherapists. I don't think many other games pack in that much variety.
Personally, I am still trying to wrap my head around 3rd edition rules and forget the various 1st and 2nd edition relics that are still stuck in my noggin. So, even though I thought I knew the rules, I had to keep checking and looking things up to be 100% sure. This slowed things down a little, but I think I did okay overall.
In terms of time, it does seem that 50-stone games take a while. Until everyone has the rules down and knows exactly what they are doing with every model in their crew, I don't think 50 stones is a viable number for games days if you expect to get 2 games in. From past experience, I doubt that we will ever get to the stage where every player is fully up to speed with the game. We all play too many other systems and get games in too infrequently to reach that level I think. 35 stones seems like a much more realistic option for a 2 games/1 day scenario. This does lead to Masters having a larger influence on the game as they represent a large percentage of both crews. This works for both players of course, so shouldn't be a big problem. The smaller game does mean that some figures will be left behind as players can't afford all the options they may want to take in a 50-stone game.
One thing that I did think of was to have the strategy and schemes for the day worked out ahead of time. When games are being lined up, we could generate deployment options, schemes and strategies beforehand. Players could declare which faction/crew they were bringing that day, and then at the event we could simply flip for attacker/defender and start directly from the deploy crews step? We could either do one set of flips for all the games on a given day (so if you play 2 games, it's the same set of options twice), a set for the a.m. and for the p.m. or even just unique sets for every game you line up. What do people think?
As for crews, the official method is that you declare faction, set up the rest of the game and only announce crews when everything is locked in. For players with multiple crews per faction, this is fine, but for players with only 1 crew, it puts them at a disadvantage as everyone knows what they will be bringing. For the time being, perhaps it would be best if everyone declared Keyword/Master in the declare Faction step, so that we are all on an even footing?
Anyway, I love this game and I'm eager to get a LOT more games in.
First off, let me say that Malifaux is still my favourite game in terms of game mechanics and rules. While I love my historical games for a variety of reasons and I enjoy the fluff of the 40K universe, Malifaux is a fantastic system that checks all the right boxes for me. It's also a lot of fun in terms of model variety. On the tables today we had Stompy Robots, Berserker Pigs, Undead Call-girls, Vicious Mercenaries, Half-blooded Mutants and Insane Psychotherapists. I don't think many other games pack in that much variety.
Personally, I am still trying to wrap my head around 3rd edition rules and forget the various 1st and 2nd edition relics that are still stuck in my noggin. So, even though I thought I knew the rules, I had to keep checking and looking things up to be 100% sure. This slowed things down a little, but I think I did okay overall.
In terms of time, it does seem that 50-stone games take a while. Until everyone has the rules down and knows exactly what they are doing with every model in their crew, I don't think 50 stones is a viable number for games days if you expect to get 2 games in. From past experience, I doubt that we will ever get to the stage where every player is fully up to speed with the game. We all play too many other systems and get games in too infrequently to reach that level I think. 35 stones seems like a much more realistic option for a 2 games/1 day scenario. This does lead to Masters having a larger influence on the game as they represent a large percentage of both crews. This works for both players of course, so shouldn't be a big problem. The smaller game does mean that some figures will be left behind as players can't afford all the options they may want to take in a 50-stone game.
One thing that I did think of was to have the strategy and schemes for the day worked out ahead of time. When games are being lined up, we could generate deployment options, schemes and strategies beforehand. Players could declare which faction/crew they were bringing that day, and then at the event we could simply flip for attacker/defender and start directly from the deploy crews step? We could either do one set of flips for all the games on a given day (so if you play 2 games, it's the same set of options twice), a set for the a.m. and for the p.m. or even just unique sets for every game you line up. What do people think?
As for crews, the official method is that you declare faction, set up the rest of the game and only announce crews when everything is locked in. For players with multiple crews per faction, this is fine, but for players with only 1 crew, it puts them at a disadvantage as everyone knows what they will be bringing. For the time being, perhaps it would be best if everyone declared Keyword/Master in the declare Faction step, so that we are all on an even footing?
Anyway, I love this game and I'm eager to get a LOT more games in.