Ten reasons why I'm loving Malifaux: Reasons one through six

  The past few months I've been painting and collecting models from Infinity and my new love..Malifaux. I decided to post ten reasons why Malifaux is awesome, hopefully to win over people who are on the fence with the game and also to get in the habit of blogging again. Here are six of them, in no particular order. ..

The fluff

   Malifaux is a game that combines the Old West and Victorian Horror and then throws in kung fu and steam punk robots. Even if one or  more of those concepts turn you off it is easy to focus on the aspects that you like. This weird mix works really well. Trust me.

The miniatures

 For me, it started with the miniatures.  I've been picking up models for this game here and there for a few years now,  with little expectation of ever playing the game.  I saw Seamus's new box set in October and I knew I had to play.

 The new plastics are gorgeous. ..as gorgeous as one would expect zombie hookers to be.  And the old minis still look good next to the new plastics.  They are fiddly to put together but no more than Infinity. I'll post some pics of my crew when I can.

It's cheap to start

 Like Infinity,  the buy in for Malifaux is super cheap.  A starter box is around 40-50 (with out a discount) and the mini rulebook is 15 dollars and has all the rules you need.  The crews in the boxes work really well and you can play small games right away with them. The boxes have the cards to play with the crews inside and you can buy the other cards to minis in your faction in arsenal decks put out by Wyrd.

Table via a very talented gentleman from the Dorkamorka group in Waltham. 

The cards

  Although the cards are just another random number generator like dice, having a hand of cards gives you a chance to change your luck. If your luck tends to be shit like mine this can be huge. Malifaux lets you cheat your cards, by replacing a drawn card with one in your hand, and influence the game.

It's not all about killing

I find games where the focus is to wipe your opponents models off the board boring and a little demoralizing after a while. You have a lot of objectives in Malifaux in the form of schemes and strategies. While some are based on killing your opponents guys (or keeping yours alive) many others involve planting things called scheme markers or delivering a message to the rival crew boss.

Every model counts

  While Infinity is worlds away from 40k's minis equal hit points mentality, there are loads of times I've had to hide guys behind things to prevent them from getting their dicks shot off. A lone Moderator can take down the toughest T.A.G., but they can't really take objectives without upgrading them to a paramedic. 

     Not so in Malifaux. You don't rely completely on  your head honcho ( called a Master ) or his lieutenants and toughs (Henchmen or Enforcers) to carry the game for you. The cheapo dog or Guild guard has a chance to complete a scheme or strategy. Even models that can't plant markers, the ones nominated in the rules as "insignificant", make a difference by buffing your units, debuffing your enemies and just doing plain old damage.  Just ask Seamus' s  little buddy, the Copy cat killer, what he can do.

Seamus and the gang about to get stomped by Viktorias.