Thursday, August 23, 2012

Tournaments, Timing, and Percieved Balance

Lets talk a little bit about Malifaux tournaments and about perceptions on balance. I recently returned from Gencon where Wyrd holds its most visible official tournaments each year. While the UKGT and Adepticon have historically been larger, Gencon is the "World Masters" official tournament. I was blessed with the oppurtunity to both play in one of the events during the weekend and act as primary Tournament Organizer of the final's during the weekend. I also had a great opportunity to watch and rules-judge a number of the competitive events.

So, how about a little background to why I wanted to write this article. First, I am a competitive Malifaux player. I enjoy the competitive tournaments and seem to do fairly well in them. I am also acting as a primary Tournament Organizer for a number of events, both large and small. This gives me a certain perspective in watching games (win and lose). Lastly, I have been following a large number of balance discussions in relation to Malifaux and have a theory I wanted to explore regarding those perceived balance issues.

This is a great place to note that the release of Book 4 - Storm of Shadows - may change the dynamics seen this year for faction to faction perceived balance.  The timing issue still applies however.

So lets dive right in. Malifaux is a game where you choose your faction, then hire your crew from within that faction. It is a game where you have a primary objective and two secondary objectives, which you play toward over 6 turns. There are a number of ways to choose your primary objectives, typically by flipping on one of two tables to see what you have. Often those objectives are seperate for each player, but just as often they are shared with a single objective both players are striving to complete.

In a tournament, some of these factors tend to change. First, many tournaments dictate what the primary object (strategy) is that you will be striving to complete. Then, they make this a shared strategy as that helps tremendously on scoring. After this, tournaments have a fixed amount of time for each round, enforcing time limits on how long a game will go. These time-limits do not take into account the number of game rounds you have played, but are typically set at a fixed time limit such as 90 minutes.

The time limits and nature of tournaments provides an interesting twist to the game as a whole. Many people will plan out how they wish to achieve their strategies and schemes based on a 6 round game. They make allowances for if the game goes an extra turn, and plan their crews accordingly. Rarely do players plan to play thier games in 70 or 90 minutes. In a tournament, it is more likely that the 70-90 minute time frame will see games actually going 4 turns as opposed to 6. In addition, many games will not see a final "End Closing Phase" or even any part of a closing phase, as the end of the game will be called in the middle of a single model's activation.

This creates some very unique complications when planning out how you are going to approach the game. The largest piece of advice I gave to players over the weekend (when asked), was figure out how to win your game in 3 turns. You may play a whole game but chances are you will only see 3 or 4 turns in a major con-centered tournament. This is not always due to slow playing players, but is due to the nature of how Malifaux plays overall. I very rarely saw a player slow-playing or stalling the game over the Gencon Weekend, but I regularly saw games that did not finish. While I hope this is addressed in future official tournament formats, it is the nature of the current format that we have to take into account.

So, what does this mean? More importantly (for this article) does this affect the perception of balance across the faction. I strongly believe that it does. The current perception is that Neverborn is at the top of the heap when it comes to strongest faction. Lots of people will argue that it is not (I am one of those), and that all the factions are balanced well against each other. This is very true in a "normal" game that goes through all 6 rounds and resolves naturally. In the artificial environment that tournaments create, I shift my stance to Neverborn being very much at an advantage. Further, I believe that there are specific masters in other factions that have a similar advantage, while the rest don't. I will go one step further to say that at least 1 faction is simply weaker overall when it comes to the time restrictions in tournaments.

So, lets take a closer look at Neverborn first. Neverborn are understood to be "Glass Cannons" overall, and they have an advantage in speed and movement. When a game is not going to move through a complete 6 turn resolution, the "Glass" portion above becomes less important. Most Neverborn crews have the advatage of being able to follow the following recipee in a tournament game via different methods:
  1. Delay through turn 1 to see what the opponent will do
  2. Move to the center of the board/target spot on the board on turn 2 to grab the objective
  3. Dish out the necessary damage/movement/interactions/etc over turns 3 and 4 to grab strategy and scheme points
  4. Game tends to end before turns 5 and 6
So this means that while some factions are still struggling to gain their positioning during turn 2 and 3, with an eye toward turns 4 and 5 to get their points, the Neverborn are sitting on points and just need to hold on. Now, if they had to hold those points for 2 or 3 turns, they might have issues. Only having to hold those points for 1 turn or less gives them a huge advantage. Collodi becomes an even stronger tool for Neverborn as he has synergy built in that addresses this timing. Turn 1 he can activate his marionettes to "burn" through and out activate his opponent. Then at the end of turn 1 he gives his marionettes fast. Now Collodi can pick up tremendous movement to activate points (Treasure Hunt, Destroy Evidence, Line in the Sand, Deliver the Message, etc) on a single activation that could provide up to 35 inches of movement plus additional AP of actions during the turn. If he has to put damage on something, each marionette provides him effectively 9 inches of movement plus 1 AP to attack, with those marionettes that do not need to move getting 5 attacks on a single target. Then, once Collodi achieves his goals on turn 2, he can hand out armor to his marionettes and is fairly resilient for at least 1-2 turns. If a game is only going to go for 4 turns, by the time an opponent punches through Collodi's defenses, the game has ended.

Lets jump to the other side of the spectrum, which is a faction I also play. Guild has the ability to deal out a lot of damage, but rarely takes large model count crews and only has a limited number of fast moving models among its choices. Guild can work very well across a 6 turn game, but starts to run into trouble if they have to compress that time frame. Guild suffers from a very very limited selection of models that have high movement and retain AP for interact actions. This list is really limited to Guild Hounds (6 inch walk, on the trail (nimble), plus 2 AP), Wardens, Peacekeepers, Pale Rider, Santiago, and Perdita. In addition, Guild has a tough time gaining fast for their models.\ and has very little summoning. This means that the Guild tends to spend the first two turns getting into position. In a typical tournament game, this is half the game spent getting into position, leaving very little time to do anything else. In addition, this limits their ability to react to a fast moving opponent, as typical guild crews do not have the models to out-activate their opponent. It also creates a predictable first turn of movement for the Guild player that an opponent can factor into their plans and utilize to their advantage.

I believe that those two factions are at the ends of the spectrum for a condensed four turn tournament game. That brings us to both Arcanists and Resurrectionists. I play a limited amount of Arcanists currently, and do not play Resurrectionists at all. I can speak to these based primarily on what I saw during the tournaments at Gencon.

Resurectionists have a number of models and crew builds that are very strong across the full 6 turn game. They suffer when it comes to strategies and schemes that require a lot of movement, and especially a lot of early movement. Ressers are very resilient and are a late game strength faction. This weakens their capability in competing against other factions when the games are condensed. This means it takes a higher level of skill at the game and in playing to do well with all but one of thier masters than it does for other factions. The stand-out exception to this is Kirai. Kirai can bulk up her crew on the move, has very big movement tricks to gain speed in the game, can out-activate her opponent easily, and is very resilient. This makes Kirai very similar to Collodi in the game, being a very strong choice for tournaments. This provides some indication for why Kirai is considered a top master in the game.

Arcanists have a couple of very fast masters that can do well in tournaments, along with some very resilient masters. Colette is the master of movement tricks and quick movement, while Marcus can gain an incredible amount of movement during a turn as well. Colette is typically easier to keep alive than Marcus, and Marcus suffers from a complicated crew build. Ramos has historically been a slow master, but his Avatar provides some addition resilience, hitting power, and speed to his crew. One issue with non-Colette Arcanist crews is the requirement that Guild runs into, that being a need for turns 1 and 2 to be dedicated to positioning your crew for accomplishing your goals. Colette has an amazing movement ability, but has trouble hitting hard against very resilient crews.

Lastly we come to Outcasts. Outcasts are a mixed back and play very differently across the faction. All the outcasts have an ability to either gain fast on their models, gain tremendous movement, or control the game in some fashion. Outcasts can do well in the short game, but are complicated to learn how to use. I believe this is why on a global scale the outcast showing is mixed. Overall, outcasts did not do badly across the tournaments at Gencon.

So, before we close out lets look at how Schemes play into this a bit. The additional factor that must be taken into account for tournaments is how can you grab your schemes without having them taken away. Which schemes are reliable to achieve within the 4 round time-frame and also "keep" points on. Everyone has access to the basic set of schemes, but some factions have models better at a couple of those than others. A great example is either Pandora or Zoraida for Steal Relic. Both of those models have high WP. Both of those models can quickly get to the point where they engage the opponents master. Both of those models have abilities that keep them alive unless heavily focused on. This makes Steal Relic great for those masters, but not for most other masters in the game. Others such as Hold out are pretty good vs specific opposing factions, such as Guild and Resurrectionists. Then there are schemes such as Bodyguard and Breakthrough which are especially good for masters such as Colette and her crew. The factor that seperates the Factions within the game are the Master and Faction specific schemes. Lets look at those.

Guild has Raid and Round Up as their faction specific schemes. Both of these require you to engage your opponent and remove his or her models from the game. One requires you to have more minions than your opponent in play at the end of the game, the other requires you to kill all your opponents minions. Both of these are very hard to do in a 4 turn game. For master specific Schemes, we have four schemes requiring the master to kill 2 or 3 enemy models with specific abilities. These do not make for great schemes across 4 rounds of a game. Overall, Guild suffers with the schemes they can take, and with thier ability to achieve the general schemes faster than thier opponent while staying in 4 rounds.

Resurrectionists have Army of the Dead and Death after Death as their faction schemes. The first requires corpse counters to be littered across the table, which is tough considering the number of non-living models in the game. The second requires you to raise a number of models so you have more models in play at the end of the encounter than at the beginning. This second scheme is easier than the first, but till requires you to effectively ignore your strategy to achieve it. Thats not the best choice for winning a tournament round. Resurrecitonists have some models that do well at the general schemes, but not many. Kirai can do exceptionally well at breakthrough, bodyguard, and Eye for an Eye but the bulk of the faction suffers with the others. On the master specific side, we have 3 schemes that require attacking or killing the opposing master and 1 that requires placing corpse counters around the board. All of these are tough to do with only 4 rounds to deal with. Again, they rank at the bottom with Guild when it comes to accomplishing schemes.

 Outcasts jump up next in my opinion, placing in the middle of the field on schemes that can be accomplished in a tournament setting. Outcasts have two faction schemes, Gather Soulstones and Thwart. Thwart is not great unless you are playing Neverborn, as most opponents announce their schemes. You end up losing out on a point immediately if your opponent announced both schemes. Then to gain the 2 points for the scheme, you have to stop both of your opponents schemes. Very tough to do in the tournament constraints. Gather Soulstones is the second but is also a bit tough. You need more SS in play at the end of the encounter than your opponent. This could be easier to accomplish with drain souls, but that requires sacrificing your crew. Only some specific Outcast builds do well with this method of gaining points. On master specific Schemes the Outcasts are a bit better off. Viktoria has to have the first two models to die in the game be the opponents. Not unreasonably hard. Leviticus must die four times during the encounter. As long as the turns go through turn 4, this is pretty straight forward. Somer and Hamelin have schemes that are more difficult, but overall the Master schemes are pretty straight forward. Add to that the ability to achieve some of the general schemes fairly well and you end up with a solid middle-of-the -pack standing for Outcasts.

Then come Arcanists. Arcanists have two schemes that are tough for 2 of their masters, and absurdly easy for the other 2. Sabotage and Power Ritual are very simple strategies to complete and complete early for both Marcus and Colette. Colette becomes the queen of completing these strategies, often able to grab the points by the end of turn 2 with little difficulty. On the Master Specific side, 3 schemes require killing opposing models with special model abilities, and one requires having more than 7 soulstones at the end of the game. Colette can actually accomplish this scheme fairly simply due to her ability to create SS through the game. Add in the strength of certain Arcanist crews to accomplish Bodyguard, Breakthrough, and Stake claim and you end up with 6 strong schemes for the Arcanists. This combination makes Arcanists really strong and possibly tied for first place on the scheme front.

Which brings us to Neverborn, who have very good schemes as well. The faction specific schemes are Kidnap and Reclaim Malifaux. Kidnap has the neverborn player identifying 3 of their opponents models and those models must be not in play at the end of the game. This is typically very very easy versus some factions. Second they have reclaim malifaux, requiring the neverborn player to use (1) ap to activate 9 quadrants. With their movement, neverborn have models that can very easily accomplish this. They then have 2 masters that are great at Steal Relic, 3 masters that are great at assassinate, 1 master that is nearly unparalleled at breakthrough, 4 masters that are fantastic at Bodyguard, 1 master that is really good at hold-out. Neverborn do really well with schemes overall. On the Master specific side this becomes a bit tougher, but the strength that neverborn bring to faction specific and general schemes makes the master specific schemes unnecessary. In addition, all these schemes are pretty easy for the Neverborn to accomplish within the 4 round constraint.

So, at the end of the day, I think thats where the perception of imbalance lies. I think these imbalances could be addressed by lengthening the proscribed time-limits on tournament rounds and by taking another look at faction and master specific schemes. Perhaps the Wyrd Approved Gaining Ground tournament format should look at using a new set of schemes that are balanced for all factions.

I will close out by saying I am surprised there are not more Arcanists at the top tables. I believe this is the case due simply to Neverborn being slightly better at General schemes within a 4 round time frame, and to the majority of Arcanist players being drawn to the faction for the challenge. I also believe that Book 1 is still heavily influencing the game, where the balance between factions was far different and more defined.



Friday, August 17, 2012

Picture Week Friday - Guild post

I figured I would use the Student for this Friday post on Picture week. I am not likely to post up a ton of outcast pictures, if any at all, so this is a good way to get the non-elephant hands Student out there. Also, I picked him up originally (2 years ago?) for use with Lady Justice, so he can lead us into the guild post.

I hope people have enjoyed the pictures this week. I know that with Gencon here everyone really wants to see the pictures of new models. I will be snapping pictures all day and aim to get them on the blog next week when I get back from the con. I am also looking forward to getting a look at the painted up new models. By the same token, I had all these pictures and wanted to share.

So, lets dive into the guild!! First up is the old lady herself, Abeula. This Ortega made it into a couple games of mine and pretty much camps out in my case now. She was fun to paint, but I had trouble coming up with good "Mexican Grandmother" colors to paint for her dress. I have seen some amazing Abuela models, and overall she is a great model to paint.

Next up we grab the Drill Sergeant who works so well with Lucius. I am really considering him a must-take in future crews that use the Guild Riflemen, as he will make them really good. He was a fun model to paint, but some of that comes from my time in the military.

This brings us to the Spirit slaying, Undead Hating, Nightmare Loathing Exorcist. This guy is great when facing very specific factions, and the rest of the time he is meh. He also needs a nice guardian alongside him to soak up the wounds he inflicts to himself to hobble along. He was a fun model to paint as I was able to pull together some brighter blue for his coat to set him apart, while still letting him blend into the overall Death Marshal and Guild crews.

Now the Executioner model is not one of my favorites. As a matter of fact, I do not like him at all. I am not sure what it is overall, as there is a fair amount of humor in him. His hands are hanging from his belt and he looks great painted up with striped carnival pants. He has big mechanical claws and he is a bare chested fat boy wearing a hood. Unfortunately, even with all the character built in I am not a fan. I painted him up for use in official tournaments and because I was getting a lot of questions regarding my alternate. I did pick up the alternate Executioner, but he looks very similar to this one so he might end up in my prize box opposed to on the table.

That follows us up with a pair of Guardians. These guys should be made of gold! They make it into a lot of my crew lists and really work well with what they are supposed to do. From a model aesthetic and painting standpoint, I went fairly simple. My Hoffman/Guild Construct crew is mostly metallic brass with some other colors thrown in. To that end I wanted to maintain that color scheme while adding some character. On the first I added a trash can from the Streets of Malifaux accessories. On the second, well... I did not add anything. Neither really does better than the other, but I find myself reaching for the trash-can guy more often when pulling models out.


Driving on into the guild models, I realize I have a lot of pictures of my guild here. Our next model is  the hunter, another Hoffman construct. The Hunter works pretty well when combined with Coppelius in a Hoffman crew. It takes a bit of finess to get the best use out of, but its still fun. I think in the future I would go with a different color scheme for this guy, as the brass becomes a bit boring to look at with the whole crew. Not bad overall, as I like this cat-looking critter, but just something to consider in the future.
Anyone else getting tired of Constructs? No worries, this is the last robot looking model set I have to post in this thread. Here we have the new and very much awaited Wardens. I picked up two of them and do not expect to add any more. Even though they are cheap and are excellent models, I like variety in my crews. I think 2 works out well, and more would become gratuitous. I put these guys together shortly after grabbing them and used them in a Achievement Day event the next day. They paint up very easily and are fairly simple to assemble.

So, enough with the Robots! Lets look at another awaited model that I really like. Here is the Witchling Handler which, even with her fairly static pose, just screams personality to me. I love this model and am sad my paint job does not really do her justice. She is one of the models I have painted that I would strongly consider grabbing a second at some point to get commission painted. I can see her in a diorama as well. Maybe sometime in the future.

And that brings us to the last model I am going to toss up this week. Here we have the second rider I painted up, the Pale Rider. He was tougher to paint than I expected, but still worked out well. I really did not like the original art for him, but can confirm that he looks far far better in person than the art that was presented by Wyrd. I do not feel he looks as chunky in person as he does in the Wyrd art. That said, my painting is certainly not up to Studio quality. I am happy with how he came out and have had a chance to put him on the table. The street bases I use for my Guild tie him into the guild crew nicely when combined with his dark grey Guardsman coat. After that, he is as prominent as intended with his size and the lighter colors on the horse.

So, that's picture week. I hope everyone enjoyed!

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Picture Week post 4 - Neverborn!

So have you seen the new Malifaux plastics? Have you seen the new Neverborn models that are available as a pre-release TODAY at Gencon? Look, look close. This crew is going to be so much fun to play. I will be grabbing them a couple hours after this posts when the Gencon exhibitor hall opens and the rush comes pouring in. I am really looking forward to getting Jakob on the table and playing around with his crew. He is one of the first 10 Thunders crews to be relased and I plan to play him as both 10 Thunders and as a regular Neverborn crew, as I believe he works well as both! But, this is picture week. Enough of my gloating about being at Gencon, lets look at some of the Neverborn I already have painted and in hand.

I really need to start with this absolutely bueatiful model, Studio painted by Wyrd. The picture does not do this model justice on how nice it looks. This was a Widow Weaver that was painted by one of the Wyrd Studio artists, which Nathan was kind enough to give me to use in games earlier this year. Its a fantastic piece and I find I do not use her enough and keep looking for ways to get her on the table in my games.

So, with that lets get moving onto the models I painted up myself. These do not look as good, but they are my own work! I realize there is a little voice out there saying that Night Terrors are not Neverborn models. My response is that until I get Kirai painted up, they sure as hell are. These boys sit in my dreamer crew and rectify the horrible errata that made it worthless to take Alp's. These are 3 point Significant models that can grab objectives and fill out a Dreamer crew. Unfortunately for them, in the first game out they stayed buried all game, but thats not the point. They are painted up and ready to jump into a crew. I have 2 more coming at some point, but for now the pair is where its at!





Now this model was a bear to assemble, with the cape on the back being 2 pieces and the snakes on the head being a nightmare. That said, I put on about half the head-snakes then set to town priming and painting this bad boy up. I really enjoyed painting him and I think I got some good color on the flayed muscles and body. I have not played with him on the table yet, but I am looking forward to it. I hear he is not one of the best riders, but he is the NB rider, and I need to think up a good crew to use with him. Overall a really fun model.


Then we come to Tuco, the best Ortega in the game. I have to admit, they could have gone with a rule or two less on this guy and he still would have been in good shape. I really like the way he looks and enjoyed painting him. The trench coat came out looking good and the wash settled into the crevasses just as it should.

I guess I will end the post with the Black Blood Shaman. I have tried to use him in games a bit, but he does not work for what I want him to do. In a grow list, I feel the points are better spent to pick up Nekima than the BBS. With that said, he was an interesting model to paint. I am not in love with him, but am not overaly hating him either. Its tough to get inside the wings to his flesh on his body. I also found he was unbalanced on the base, so had to remount him after my first attempt. Now he is just a tall model who takes up space in my malifaux bag.

So, with that said, that's the end of today's post. Tomorrow we jump into guild and I try to figure out if I can cram it all together into one long post!

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Paint Week Post 3 - Its a kind of Magic!

Well, its Wednesday and I am in Indianapolis for Gencon! Chances are I am still sleeping in a bit when this hits the net, but those are the joys of pre-scheduling the blog to release posts.

That aside, lets jump into the new pictures. I figured this would be a good post to get some of the Arcanist pictures posted. Now, this is a limited set of my Arcanists for a couple reasons. The first is that for this post I am only putting up pictures of the models I have painted. This means that the whole of my Colette crew is not featured here. James Convy did a fantastic job of painting the Colette crew and they really deserve their own blog-post (which they have gotten in the past). With that said, and removing the Effigy from yesterday, that leaves me with a lot of Kaeris' crew to post up. Here we go!

We get started with good old Johan, who is really an Outcast but we count him as an Arcanist. Due to his Union Membership he can be picked up by Kaeris for her crew, which is nice. I do not have the best luck with him, but I enjoy tossing him into support Kaeris. I especially find he works well with the Union Miners, as he becomes an anchor for them. It was also interesting to me that his base insert actually comes with his model.

That brings us to the Union Miners. I am not exactly sure what to say about these guys, as they are kind of comical. I regularly refer to them as the Village People, simply because its a bunch of guys with over-developed muscles and one of them wears a hard hat. Its horribly inaccurate compared to the actual Village People act, but regularly brings some chuckles. I have to admit that its pretty simple to paint these boys to a table top standard pretty quickly. It took some base coat, minor highlights, and a good wash. Overall, not a bad set of models.

So, moving on into other models that work with Kaeris we come to Joss. Funny enough, I have not yet tossed Joss into a crew with Kaeris mostly due to his cost. I painted him up for use with Hoffman, but found that once again due to his cost, he did not hit the table much. I am sure Joss works well somewhere, but I just cannot find a place for him. Regardless, he sits in my bag waiting to jump onto the table.

Now we jump over to the Large Steampunk Arachnid, which is one of the melee beasts who works well with Kaeris. I am sure he works well with other Arcanists as well, but for me he fills a spot for Kaeris. He will definitely be jumping into my Mei Feng lists after tomorrow as well. I heard horror stories about how tough he was to put together, and I can confirm most of them. I was lucky to have a base that looked pretty good once he was added to it, crawling up on the stage. The legs on this boy are a true pain to get to sit correctly, and then glue in place. I ended up using more glue than was good, then "adjusting" it with some paint to make the glue globs look part of the overall model.


So, that brings us winding down, but I would be remiss to not add in the Token Neverborn model to the list. I have fielded Iggy equally in an Arcanist crew (Specifically Kaeris) as I have in Neverborn crews. He works really well with big sister Kaeris and is a ton of fun to play.

So, that wraps up Wednesday. Tomorrow morning I will be in the Vendor hall as the doors open and the hordes come rushing in. Its my second year at Gencon and I remember the rush from the horde side last year. I am really looking forward to seeing the other side of things!

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Picture Week continued - Effigies!

Lets be honest, Effigies are really Neverborn models who work best with Collodi. Well, all but the Brutal Effigy who is amazing overall, and works with both Guild and Neverborn equally well.

I have 4 of the 5 effigies painted up and figured I would show them off second this week.

First we start out with the Mysterious Effigy. As a Neverborn model who is a true Neverborn model, I got to use all my purples and whites to make him work out. His paint job fits the color scheme on the card as well. I really enjoyed painting up the eyeballs on his hat, along with trying to get a good rope color onto his "wings". The wooden pieces plus his brass finishing ran together a bit on the color, so I would almost recommend other people go either gold or silver for the clock pieces. While I like the Effigy models a lot, the Mysterious was the lowest on my favorite looking effigies.

Second, we get to the Brutal Effigy, who is a guild model and can work with the Neverborn like all the Effigies. This guy is fantastic and I enjoyed painting him up. He is probably my favorite overall, although he takes 3rd place as my favorite to look at. I was able to grab some of the color schemes from my Guild Guards and Death Marshals, while still using his bandana to give him some Red for Guild. I did not wan to make him steel colored even though he is a mechanical puppet, so I went with a little bit of a wooden color, a bit glossy and brassed over.

Third we work out way to the Arcane Effigy, who is second place in fun to play for me, along with second place on how he looks. The Arcane Effigy was a lot of fun to paint as his themes go together really well. I especially enjoyed picking out the blue-white ice pieces and separating them from the blue-steal look of the metal. While I would love to say I had the patience to do writing inside the book, its just not the case. I have seen some fantastic Effigies with writing on the book but my hands shake too much to make that look good.

That brings us to the Fourth Effigy I have painted, and my favorite from a looks standpoint. Its a real shame that I do not find a lot of reasons to put him on the table to play, but he does come out occasionally with Collodi. On the looks standpoint, I am just a huge fan of how he ends up looking with the giant roses growing around his body and blooming above his head. It was tough to pick out all the correct pieces on the Hodgepodge, and was especially tough to choose a good color for his robe. After pulling out the reds and greens of the roses, plus the metal of the knife, I just decided to go with Grey for his robe. Then I put some skin on his face and hands, figuring he would look good as a simulacrum type of creature.


So, thats Day 2 of the picture week. Hope you enjoyed the Effigies, I still have the Carrion Effigy to paint up but I think he will work out well with Burgandys and Greens to match the Resurrecitonists. Stay tuned this week for more pictures!

Monday, August 13, 2012

Picture Week

I am off to Gencon 2012 this week but thought that in absence of updates from Gencon, I would feature a photo-week of miniatures. Well, to be honest, I am also featuring these photo's this week because I took a bunch of new pictures and wanted to share.

So, there are a load of new things coming for Malifaux this week and I am looking forward to picking them up! The new 10 Thunder's faction will be launched with the new book (Storm of Shadows) on Thursday morning and you can bet I will be in the front of the line to grab these.

Even with all that, those who have followed the blog for a while know that I am slacking on my pictures of existing crews. Well, if you scan across the top bar you will see a link to Malifaux Crews. That is a mostly complete list of the Malifaux models I own, along with a huge number of links. I just went through, prior to writing this post, and updated the pictures to add links to the new stuff I will be posting this week.

With no further ado, lets get started. I figured why not start with new pictures of the Masters:

Alternate Justice - new picture
Avatar Justice
Alternate Lilith
Alternate Pandora
Alternate Sonnia - new picture

Hoffman - new picture
Alternate Zoraida
Avatar Zoraida
Kaeris
 Of course Lucius was at the start of the post. As you can see, I have moved pretty heavily to the Alternate sculpts. I also have a couple Avatars out there now (aZoraida, aJustice, and aSonnia (not pictured here)). I have aDreamer sitting and waiting to be assembled but that has not yet happened.

More pictures through the week will be appearing, so check back.