Malifaux Terrain

When setting up terrain for Malifaux, it is important to cover the four types: Obscuring, hindering, obstructing and hazardous. The rulebook gives a guideline of between 25% and 50% of the table should be covered and recommended a third of the table. See here for my previous post about this. I have noticed in the new two player they now recommend half of the table be covered in terrain but I still prefer a third.

 

See below for some of the last table terrain setups used in games at my place. Take particular note of the different types: blocking, hindering, soft and hazerdous. Note that the white shapes are smoke for soft cover and hindering.

As you can see I can still do better with the mix of terrain.

The hazardous terrain is made with foam from the local dollarstores and is quite cheap. I have fire, acid and pits. How I made them are here, here and here.

Woods are simple green foam cut into interesting patterns.

The smoke is the same. It can also be used as snow mounds and the other side drawn on with lines for ice (difficult terrain with a def check or slow).

Blocking and hindering terrain should be as varied as you can afford. I have the luxury of having accumulated a lot of terrain over a decade. It can aslo be done on the cheap. Never pass a yard sale as even childrens toys and buildings can be appropriated for terrain with a few twists and modifications.

Brown foam around a terrain peice means difficult terrain so you can combine elements to make unique terrain that can be changed up in the next game.

Always remember to go through unobvious terrain so everyone is aware at what it is and what it does.

Cathedral Rubble

Another purchase picked up a while ago, the Armorcast Cathedral Rubble 1 terrain can look great for multiple settings: Medieval, Malifaux, WW1, WW2, Warmachine...etc.

The slightly blurry photo above depicts two of the terrain pieces that were painted with dollarstore paints, flocked with GW grass and topped with Army Painter Meadow Flowers.

They make for good height terrain to block small dudes from LOS and give cover to those who are larger.

Malifaux Shifting Loyalties and Campaign Deck

At Worldcon 2015, I ordered from Wyrd during thier GENCON sale a few items. I'll review them as I build them but first is the book and campaign deck for Shifting Loyalties.

The book is the same size as the large format rulebook and Crossroads expansion and contains many interconnected short storys in the ongoing sage taking place in Malifaux.

The campaign system is uber-cool! It reminds me of the best things about other campaign systems. You start off with a crew led by a henchmen (can start with a master if everyone agrees). Through games played and weekly scenario changes, injuries, new skills, new recruits, buying a master and eventually getting them to avatar status you can play a great story based campaign. They recommend playing for a couple of months and then stopping and making a new one. Even though there are inventive ways to enable players who have lost a lot and lag behind to catch up and be equal on the battlefield, you want to start fresh once in a while.

The avatar section makes interesting boosts to your masters. Basically they make hat they do better.

There is also new model stats for the figures that will be coming out in the next year. There are not as many as the crossroads expansion but each faction will get an emissary of fate, one of the Crossroads 7 musicians and a few other models. The Guild and Neverborn get three extra with the two player new box set models.

The campaign deck is another extra that makes playing a campaign easier. There is a lot of cards in it so be careful when keeping track.

Overall an excellent addition to the Malifaux 2E lineup. Now to read all those stories!

Star Fleet Battles

There was a Star Fleet Battles tournament that was advertised in the Worldcon 2015 booklet and I thought that i'd take a look.

I played back in the early 80's but lost interest. I picked up the newer edition in the early 90's but lost interest after I moved. It is a rules intensive game but very detailed. Above is the Federation Space map which is used for the strategic game.

Unfortunatly the fellow organizing it did not have enough players so I chatted with him for a bit and admired his ships. Brought back memories.