Why Malifaux!

As the title suggests, this post will be my reasoning behind why I chose Malifaux as my renewed interest into miniature war gaming.


I started playing miniature war games when I was about 10 and it was Warhammer fantasy Battles very swiftly followed up by 40k. 


I played for about 8 years and then grew weary of it and had a break for a few years...well 4 to be exact.


After the break I went back and picked up my 40k again but just didn't 'feel' the "I must play using as big an army as possible" ethos, and after 2 years of playing big battles I started looking around for a skirmish game. 


This brings us up to last year when after searching the Internet and using various forums I got introduced to Malifaux, and oh my I haven't looked back since.


My intro post on here gave my initial impressions but this post will elaborate on them and explain why I am so passionate about this game.


The first crew I picked up was Hamelin the Plagued and that was a big mistake, due to it being a game with many rules for each model in the game Hamelin was a very steep and quick learning curve which led me to putting him on the back burner and picking another crew.


That led me to buying the Ramos starter set and since then I have only added to the crew, it has become my main character and although people say he is rubbish I have actually had pretty decent success and of course some absolute disasters. 


I still remember my introductory game it was my Ramos starter set vs a club members Von Schill crew and we flipper shared treasure hunt. Needless to say it was over very quickly and the fact that Ramos as a starter crew is not very mobile was quickly revealed. This however didn't put me off and I then proceeded to add all and sundry to the crew, bringing it to the 60ss it is today. 


All through this I still didn't even own any of the larger rules manual and was pretty ignorant to the excellent fluff that was contained within. After hunting furiously for the first rules manual a good friend of mine told me he had a spare one in a pretty sorry state so I could have it for free.


After opening the rules manual and after finishing the stories I went to looking at all them other masters and factions. That is when the addiction began! As soon as the book was shut, I had ordered Perdita, Lady J, Sonnia and Som'er crews, and of course the other rules manuals. 


After they all arrived I rather energetically glued them together and got to painting, before I read the other books as I knew there would be so much more models I would order and then watch the model pile grow and grow.


After playing plenty of games with Ramos and Perdita again with much mixed success. I proceeded to read through the other two rules manuals and again spotted so many models I felt I just had to have! 


All those Avatar models and the art work just evoked so much interest to me as to how the game was going, naturally I went and bought the Ramos Avatar. Having only played one game with Avatar Ramos which was a loss to Avatar Seamus. I thoroughly enjoyed the game and that is one thing that has kept me hooked on Malifaux. Even a loss is more than enjoyable.


That note brings me back to this post (after much digression) as to why I chose Malifaux and why I love this game so much.


For me it has to be the unique setting and story based games (with cards no less, none of this dice rolling here kind sirs). 


For the setting I think Eric Johns describes his game the best "Based on an alternate Earth, Malifaux blends Gothic, steam punk, horror, and wild-west themes into a fast paced and brutal 32mm tabletop miniature skirmish game". 


I mean what other game can you play where you have zombies fighting cowboys and mechanical spiders roaming the battlefield all in one world. 


It's fantastic other than the debacle that is book 1 rules I can hardly fault the game, yes there is some streamlining that could be done but they would literally just be tweaks on an already great game mechanic. The only things I would personally like is triggers and abilities that do the same thing just call them the same thing, it will make it easier to learn rules and save regular checking in rules manuals (although the reference that got added into the pocket edition is great for this) as people will only have to learn one name and then just place in [] the specific weapon/card suit/requirement for said ability or trigger. As I said only minor tweaks are required.


The thing that drew me to this game (other than truly beautiful sculpts and characters) was the fact you use a Fate Deck (deck of playing cards) instead of the standard D6 for resolving actions, this I found a revelation and a far better idea...it's easy flipping a card from a single deck, I remember trying to roll all them dice in an apocalypse battle, 60+ dice are not fun! 


After subsequent releases from Wyrd miniatures my enthusiasm for the amazing sculpts and very rarely do they release a model I don't enjoy the look of.


So I think in a summary I have became addicted to this game through a combined effort of amazing sculpts and a truly beautiful setting for a game (if beautiful is a word you could use for a world that even the trees could kill you). I think the game will be here for the long haul and I look forward to seeing every monthly releases knowing that I will willingly part with my money to a great game and in exchange I get beautiful looking models and great stories contained in the package.


I think I have rambled on long enough on why I love this game, so if you haven't played it why not give it a go! You never know this could be the game you've been waiting for and it could fill the gaming void for you like it did me. Until next time....


As always remember Cheat Fate or Lose Your Soul

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