McNathanson

I think the only thing needed to create that consistency is a tournament format pdf that lays out any house rules or FAQ in use and is adopted by a wide range of tourney organizers... think Direwolf FAQ of a few years ago. Otherwise I don't think there's anything intrinsically more "house rule prone" about 9th Age... in fact with good FAQ support, it could be better than WFB in that regard! WFB required all sorts of house rules to fill the gap between the FAQ releases. Anyway I think KoW is a great alternative... and faster gameplay? Yes, please! I really like their design in general. Very cool game.

Now that I'm sufficiently distant from the collapse of my WFB hobby, I don't miss it. Malifaux and other smaller games have equally amazing models thanks to 3D printing, and since GW rules have always been pretty bad and horribly supported (FAQ rate, tone, etc.), there's not much to miss! I am happy 9th Age is still being worked on, because at some point I'd like to break out my Dark Elves or Bretonnians and play with an updated rule system that doesn't require a lot of reworking of bases/trays/etc. but plays a lot like good ol' 8th. And from what I've read they're fixing a lot of the weaker rules from 8th; seems like a smart group! But in the meantime, I'm actually happy for the opportunity to check out new games that I wouldn't have had time for if WFB hadn't died. Malifaux is awesome, and other games await should I get tired of it! I even took a look at 40k but the rules are so freakin' bad that I luckily didn't have to even spend money on an army to figure out that I had no interest in playing that game. Bye, GW... it was fun while it lasted :)

Is total VPs a common tourney scoring method? Seems weird... though I guess that's appropriate ;) But really I thought you were supposed to try to get your S&S, and also try to stop your opponent from getting his? Why not just win/loss, with VP margin as a first tie-breaker, and total VPs as a second, or whatever?

Oh no my heart just broke... I was counting on the Malifaux event bring Friday as in years past, and so I agreed to a trip leaving Sat evening... now I can't make this Sat/Sun event. I just missed the Breaching the Faux event, too... I'm going to go cry myself to sleep :( This looks awesome though, thanks Rudy for stepping up and making it happen!! <--- Sad NtK

It was really fun seeing you guys and I was sorry to have to miss playing! The tables were great and I saw a lot of folks having fun :) Huge kudos to Dan for making the trip in order to run the event for everyone else's fun!

If I somehow get freed up that weekend I'd bring Guild: Perdita (primed) Nephilim (primed) Francisco (done) Brutal Emissary (primed) Nino (primed) Abuela (primed) Austringer x2 (primed) Brutal Effigy (primed) Sonnia (done) Purifying Flame (primed) Witchling Stalker x4 (done) Watcher x2 (assembled) Guild Hound x4 (assembled) Also a lot to do but the odds of me making the tournament happen are slim. Still I'll probably drop by and check it out and hopefully squeeze in a pick up game with you Mark-5!

Actually I was kidding about an argument thread. This really hurts my feelings. I'm going through some tough stuff right now and sometimes Chewts and Lahdurs is my only solace.

Derk, you are right... let's find something - I don't care what - and let's make it a goal to have at least 10 pages of vitriol. I want diagrams; I want ad-homonym attacks; I want the term "RAW" and "author's intent" to be used in every single post. I want quotes from the Wyrd forums, and by page 5, I expect us to have left the original discussion behind, and be resurrecting 6th ed WFB arguments. Can we do this?! Can I count on you??!!

Double-yay! Thanks Rudy!! What's your favorite beer? I'll bring some to the event for ya :)

Hi folks, I've been operating under the naive assumption that someone would be running a MF tournament at this year's OFCC... but looking at this thread: http://www.ordofanaticus.com/index.php?/topic/27268-announcing-your-2016-ofcc-hogs/ I don't see any Head of Gaming submission for our Wyrd little game! Is this an oversight, or is there really no plan (yet) for a MF event at OFCC 2016?

I could see some pretty clever ways to use this, such as walking around a nearby friendly model, to place your ally exactly between you and the enemy model, then walking away (or Interact action, etc.) Fun!

Hey Folks, I found a pretty interesting FAQ entry: "45) Q: If two models are engaged, and one of them wishes to take a Walk Action which will result in it no longer being in LoS of the model it is engaged with (without actually leaving the engagement range) will this provoke a disengaging strike? A: No. Disengaging strikes only occur if the model intends to leave the engagement range. Although the models will no longer be engaged once their LoS to each other is broken, no disengaging strike occurs unless the model is also leaving the engagement range." I believe this means that if you are willing to use two walk actions, you can disengage without provoking a disengaging strike, by walking out of line of sight first (provided you can do so while still staying within the engage range of the enemy model), and then walking away. Is that right?

Entrapping her is definitely a big part of taking her down, especially with Ml attacks. Easier said than done against a good player. But Enfrentate a Mi works very well for doing it, especially if you start with EaM from the Emissary, then unload Francisco and Companion to him! Pretty good way to box her in. My problem with doing the "surround" thing is that you are setting yourself up for her Pulse attack, Black Blood from Nekima, and Nekima's Teach Them Fear. So you need to be very careful how many models you throw into her vicinity in an attempt to trap her. The look on Pandora's opponent's face, when they realize they've set up their own crew for about 5 rounds of Wp and Terror duels, is also priceless ;) The other factor that's key is suppressing SS damage prevention, as her +1 dmg prevented upgrade is quite difficult to power through even for a hitty crew like Guild. Personally, I believe that in a crew with Nekima at least, it's better to focus on Nekima and Doppleganger if you can, and try to weather the Incites and Paralyzes as best you can, rather than pouring your entire crew into trying to bring down Pandora while Nekima and Doppleganger (using Nekima's sword, for example) kills everyone :) She's a much harder-to-kill model than those two, and no more deadly (less so than Nekima). Put it this way: if I were playing Pandora, I'd *love* to see my opponent using all his AP and cheat hand trying to bring down my 7Df/Wp, +1SS damage preventing, pushing out of engagement, flying, Paralyzing, Inciting Master. Have fun killing one of the most difficult to kill models in my faction, while my crew wins me the game :) That said if she oversteps, I'm going to try to gank her, cuz she's damn powerful offensively, too :)

I should have clarified: only the belt line and up is painted, the lower half is just primer/basecoat/washed. Thanks for the input though, I think after leaving it and coming back, and reading your comments, I'm leaning toward #1 as well. I'll finish out the model in that pattern and come back with another pic. I also like my brother's reasons, which were that the #1 approach emphasizes his face and shirt more, which I agree is the high-point of the model (along with, I hope, his sword pommel once I've painted it).

I'm undecided which approach is better to highlighting the sleeves on my Francisco model, so I thought I'd see if anyone has a strong opinion one way or the other! The first approach is to highlight just the top and fade down to darker color. The second option is to highlight the same way but then call out the bottom edge of the section also. Here's what I mean: Option 1 (see Francisco's right shoulder): Option 2 (left shoulder): To be fair I think Option 2 was executed a little worse in this case, and looks a little messier. It also may look a little less realistic (aka correctly lit), but I think it calls out the features of the model more clearly... eh, I'm torn!! Thoughts? Nathan

I do think the Ca 7 Paralyze is pretty damn rough, especially when it can be combined with Incite to prevent the Paralyze from being removed in time. My best defenses against it so far are a) Perdita's stubborn (Os Veo) and Aura Ancestral (buffing the Wp of the rest of the crew) and b) hoping he doesn't have high Crow cheat cards ;) I have been running some Witchling Stalkers and they help a little, but I need more activations to really make condition removal meaningful, and I'm addicted to that damn Emissary and Francisco pair which costs ~21SS together and really cramps my activation count. I need to let go of them, and get back into activation lead - it makes SO much difference in a game involving Doppleganger init-cheat. Mark, you might have a larger meta so that trying to "one up" activation count doesn't really come into consideration... but have you experienced that arms race phenomenon, of getting more and more activations in the crew? Right now the difference between 8 or 9 activations and 10 or 11 is the difference between getting Paralyze/Incited or getting to remove the Paralyze before the next turn. Pretty huge impact, but I've been resisting the "building back and forth to get the +1 activation edge" thing, as it seems kinda janky :)

Ahem... just to keep things in context, Pandora's won a handful games in a row against me (mostly with me playing intentionally weaker crews e.g. no Austringers), and with the last two wins consisting of: game 1: Pandora pushes into Sonnia's soulstone suppression bubble, realizes her mistake, nearly concedes on the spot, and then plays on and survives my Turn 2 attack with 2 life left only by virtue of cheating a Red Joker defensive cheat vs. Francisco's final attack, which would have killed her otherwise (I had cheated a 13) and been an easy wipe out for my crew. game 2: Nekima flips Red Joker damage against Perdita on turn 1 and kills her before she fires a shot, and then my counterattack kills Pandora on Turn 3 but too late to come back. So, hardly a puzzle worth considering "solved" or by any means even "explored and found confounding". I *am* convinced that 1) Pandora is very tough, and 2) that Neverborn have some amazing models (Doppleganger, Nekima, for example). I also think Pandora is one of those masters - like Sonnia - who requires her opponent to play around her abilities, rather than just "doing their own thing". Other than that, we're still very much in the learning phase and hardly ready to conclude that any master or crew is dominant... after all, just a month ago there was a similar (incorrect) opinion about Lilith being OP. Turns out, Lilith is very good, but one big strength is that she frees you up from having to think about rules (like LoS and terrain and Malifaux) which makes her easy to win with for newbs. I'm sure we'll find Pandora is better long term (based on your experienced opinion Mark), but I'm not even close to convinced that our matchups are settling out. For example after 10-ish games against her, I'm already far less worried about Incite than I used to be, having learned to play around it just like Micah had to learn to play around Austringers and Sonnia blasts etc. And I'm playing with some build changes that will put the activation count back in my favor, and prevent the end-of-turn Alpha followed by init cheat Alpha at the start of the next turn, without which Nekima is far less scary. We have a lot of playing left to do before drawing conclusions, IMO.

Worth mentioning: I had a great experience with my order! They mis-packed one figure and the rest was perfect, and then they discovered their own mistake and sent me the correct figure (letting me keep the other one too), and I got the replacement just a few days later! Nobody's perfect so can't ask for much better service than that.

Definitely agree. There are just quite enough things like this already that I don't want a 30-minute pre-game discussion :) I like to as much as possible have an FAQ or at least a shared forum where we've all done as much level-setting beforehand as we can. Of course where that's not feasible (a pickup game with a stranger) then it's best to discuss ahead of time, or just not do stuff that seems to upset your opponent!

The thing they didn't discuss was the main question I raised: does using By Your Side on the first Attack Action resulting from a Charge Action, and in the process blocking LoS to the Charge Target, prevent the second Attack Action! I tend to think "yes" but it'd be one of those things that might raise eyebrows the first time you pull it on someone. Then again maybe Mollyfox has enough "tricksy" moves that people are just used to getting caught off guard by a new idea they hadn't seen before and accept it as cleverness?

@Mark: thanks, and yes (you'll notice in my example she ends up 2" short to make sure b2b isn't possible!) @Pax: most of that is wrong ;) 1) Charge is an Action, part of which is to take 2 Attack Actions against the Target of the Charge, after moving up to model's Cg distance. 2) The Charge doesn't have to go directly toward Target, but just needs to go in a straight line, and end within the Charger's close attack range of the Target. 3) The Charge Action is not complete until after the 2 Attack Actions are completed. 4) Close Attack Actions *do* require LoS, regardless of whether they were generated by a Charge or by a regular AP or some other way. Ummm... think that sums it up for the most part, but check the M2E rules for "Charge" and "Attack" actions!

My question is, if Pandora charges Sonnia (say she's 6" away so her charge stops 2" short of contact), and I use By Your Side on the Charge action, I assume then that Pandora now attacks Sidir with both Attack Actions generated by the Charge, correct? However, if Sidir instead targets the first Attack Action, and places himself 'exactly' (declaring intent) between Pandora and Sonnia, what happens? Can he be targeted by the Attack Action even though he is not the target of the Charge? I would guess "yes" because there is no wording saying that an Attack Action that somehow targets a different model auto-fails or anything. But, now Sidir is blocking LoS to Sonnia, so the second Attack Action can't be taken, correct? Seems like a slick move in the right situation... just wanting to see if that's how it really works.