About Malifaux

Okay, so since it is possible that a few people make their way here from a non-Malifaux site, and perhaps have no idea what the game is about and why it's so cool, I'll post up a few thoughts. Any of you Malifaux people who are here, this should be nothing new, but feel free to add a comment if I missed something important.

The official line is that it is a character-driven skirmish game. What it means, to me at least, is that the stories are an integral part of the game design. Yes, there is some debate on whether the rules may be too beholden to the fluff, but for my part, I'm all for it.

[An aside, one of the reasons why I chose to collect Eldar back in 1993 was their story, with their technology and their fancy clubwear.]

Anyway, there are seven factions in Malifaux that each have their own idiosyncracies. Within each faction, there are about six masters. Probably half of the available models are either unique characters or rare types. A big difference between Malifaux and other games is you probably don't want a whole bunch of models of the same type. Most of the non-unique models have at most 3 different sculpts and, with a few exceptions, this is probably all you would want. My point with that blurb is, if painting is an important part of the hobby for you, this game gives you a chance to put together a really nice crew without having to paint the same model 100 times over.

Instead of dice, duels and such are made using a deck of cards. Some strange debates with even stranger mathematics go on about this. I try to stay out of those, which may seem odd since I'm a mathematician, but I try to steer clear of OPM (other people's math). The point with the deck is, yes there is a lot of random, but there is also a certain amount of control, or resource management as the folks at Wyrd like to say, involved in the gameplay.

Another interesting attribute is that winning revolves entirely around accomplishing the most points from a shared mission and two individually selected schemes. So there may be games where you can win without killing anything, or even more hilarious, games that you win when your entire crew is dead.

I moved away from where I started, so let me go back to the characters and the story. Quite a bit of background preceded the game, and so if you want to get a feel for the sort of characters and environment of Malifaux, you can download the Chronicles online mag and see for yourself. Also, I believe the fluff from the version 1 rulebooks is also available now in electronic form. Like I said, this is what drew me into the game. Plus undead hookers.

I probably sound like a total "fanboy" (future topic there) and Wyrd shill, but whatever. I'm not doing it justice. One last thing to note, the cost of entry for Malifaux is pretty low. Now if you're a completionist collector/addict like me, maybe not so much. In general though, for about $100 (that's full retail) you can pick up enough models to give you a single master force that allows for a bit of variation, an extra set of minions, a mini rulebook, and a deck. Depending on the master you choose, that could be pretty much all you need.

That's just my blurb - if it sounds interesting, then you should go to the official site and poke around. Especially because I've not been a very good writer for the last few days, don't know what's up with that but this is nothing like my usual writing style. It's kind of (totally) annoying me.

So why am I sounding like some kind Malifaux corner-pusher? Well, I figure if you got here from the local forum where I post, you should know that I think Malifaux is the best minis game I've played. So, I wanted to give you  a little background to pique your interest, and state that you should contact me on the forum, because really the worst that could come out of it is you lose a couple hours of your time. And you're already wasting some of it reading my crap, so I know you've got at least a little to spare. At best, this could be your new favorite game. And despite all the crazy stuff in the first few posts, I'm really not that bad.

**Updated to be more consistent with version 2 Malifaux