It’s probably going to be October when this article goes up. Sue me. [Oh ye of little faith. -Ed.]
Whatever month it is, it’s That Time Of Year Again! Things have been pretty good in Malifaux since the last errata – Ashes landed with a splash, but the good kind that gets you pleasantly soaked on a hot day, not the bad kind that throws a plume of debris into the lower atmosphere, blocking out the sun and causing a max extinction event (RIP dinosaurs, taken too soon).
But balance can always be improved, and errata isn’t just for the new hotness. This round of changes has followed through on Wyrd’s promises from last time, revisiting older models that were languishing a bit and giving them some love. In fact, they’ve revisited an entire old keyword and given it a fresh coat of paint. Two keywords, actually – Mimic and Elite! That’s right, Lucius and the gang are ready to strut with some fancy new upgrades and abilities.
This errata was quite large, so I’ll be splitting it up into two. This article will tackle all the non-Lucius models, and the next one (hopefully soon) will look at what’s changed for the Governor-General’s Secretary.
Oh, and I haven’t forgotten about the recent Asami rework, either. (I’ve been busy, ok?!). Look for an article on that after Lucius.
Without further ado… let’s get to the changes! All of these side-by-side images are courtesy of Danger Planet; the old cards are on the right, the new ones on the left.
Damian Ravencroft, Aspirant
Look, we all knew it was coming.
Unbound was not the only problem with this keyword. Li’l Damian has been the consensus strongest master in the game for a while, and in a particularly non-fun and non-interactive way. So what’s changed?
He’s gained one Health. Off to a good start.
First, his bonus action, Knowledge is Power, no longer does damage. Its effect is now just the trigger which you declared 100% of the time, and it has a built-in Reposition trigger – so you’re trading three irreducible damage for 3″ of movement. This is a good change; Damian was an annoyingly killy turret, and tweaking down his damage output just a bit has let him still play a blaster role without effectively just deleting anyone who got within 17″ of him.
The other change is more significant: Memories of the Yellow Crypt is just gone. No more free pushes and free Shielded. This is huge: good Damian players could trigger Memories over and over and over, sometimes more than once per activation, and get an insane amount of out-of-sequence movement on their whole crew. The ability not having a range was very stupid. (It’s also stupid on Maintain Order, but I guess he gets to keep that one for now). That really put the crew over the top; without it, Damian is going to have to take a lot more Walk actions, which will impact his damage bottom line. Combined with the change to Knowledge is Power, he’s doing the same thing he did before, but with a lot less damage output.
I approve heartily of this change. One thing I really like about it is that it targeted what made Damian actually good: Maintain Order is very annoying, and complained about frequently, but Memories was the actually problematic ability on that card and I’m not sorry to see it go.
Showgirls
Finally, this menace is nerfed! No more will we be terrorized by…
Oh wait, I’m being told that Showgirls were godawful and are getting a buff. Well, ok then.
They’ve lost Manipulative, which is frankly crap as a defensive tool, and gained Backup Dancer – effectively Armor +1 for themselves and all nearby living Performers, except it can’t be Armor Pierced. This is a significant boost to survivability and should help them out a lot, since they do have the general 5-stone minion problem (i.e. they die to a single focused stat 6 3/4/5, which are pretty common these days).
Their actions have been, basically, completely reworked, including by giving them a bonus action for the first time – a requirement for any model to see play. They have two, actually: Onward is the gold-standard bonus action, a third AP, and Wow the Audience is a cheeky little attack that will occasionally get a card out of your opponent. Their melee attack has changed to attacking Wp (thematic) and is a bit more consistent at the price of losing some top end (but, get real, you weren’t really whacking people for 5 with your hairpin). And Lure has traded out for Beckoning Call, which is a straight-up upgrade even though the stat is a bit lower. The triggers on Beckoning Call are impressive here, although I think at stat 5 you will most often be targeting friendlies to push them around, so the crow trigger isn’t quite as good as it looks.
These ladies seem great now, at least the first one, in a Performer crew. They’re a bit card-hungry due to TNs, but you can push two friendlies forward, walk up yourself, and protect them both with an Armor aura. And Mannequins have Take the Hit to keep you safe, though now you’re really chewing through cards (and they won’t benefit from Backup Dancer).
McTavish
Another previous-edition superstar who has languished since 3e, McTavish always suffered from being a multirole model that wasn’t particularly good enough at any of them to justify his price tag. Now?
His gun and bite have traded stats, which is pure upside for him: this guy is not durable enough for you to want him in melee. A 14″ gun that ignores Concealment and Friendly Fire can do a lot of damage, especially with Armor Piercing (stoneable Armor Piercing, no less). He’s lost Penetrating Stench, which is fine since you don’t want him in melee, and gained two new defensive abilities: an aura that turns nearby Scheme Markers into one-way Concealing terrain (always nice), and an oops-I-didn’t-die Demise that incidentally poops out a Scheme Marker as well. Also he can drop Scheme Markers with his ranged attack (near him, not near the target, it must be said).
His new bonus action is quite good, too. It’s a lot like the old Gator Snack, although it generates ranged attacks instead of melee attacks (sensible, now that he’s a shooter first) and the effect comes from the activation flip rather than a random flip off the top of your deck – which means it can be cheated or Soulstoned for consistency. That makes it way better. It also doesn’t require a marker within 2″ to go off anymore, just anywhere in LOS, which makes it a lot easier to trigger, though you lose a little utility at the margins now that it doesn’t remove the marker anymore.
Overall, this is a huge buff. McTavish has a role now: he’s a durable, consistent gun who can shoot up to three times in an activation while also dropping up to two markers in that same activation. Seriously, this guy just vomits out Scheme Markers. He doesn’t have Crit Strike, Puncture, or any “shoot again” trigger, making him distinctly less deadly than some snipers, but a 2/4/5 Armor Piercing gun will do work – especially with Zoraida, who can channel her actions through him too.
Uncle Bogg
It ain’t all good news in the Bayou, though. Bogg has been showing up everywhere, which is typically a pretty good sign that a nerf is coming.
In this case, it’s surprisingly minor. Bogg has lost Uninvited Guest, which only triggered sometimes, was remembered by the controlling player even less often, and actually impacted the board even less often than that. I do not mourn the extra bookkeeping. He’s also lost Inclement Weather, which seems laser-targeted at OOK hiring; within Angler, it’s trivial to keep him on a Tide Marker 100% of the time, but outside of his own keyword it’ll take some doing to set him up on one. (Not impossible, though!).
Turning to the back of his card, his melee attack has lost the built-in Tear Off a Bite trigger, which is a nerf I’ve been calling for since Day 1. Combined with the loss of Inclement Weather, this is a significant blow to his survivability, especially out of keyword. His functionality is mostly intact – Off the Path is as busted as ever, even though he lost Gremlin Table Manners (pst – the worse of his two triggers!), as it’s picked up two nifty new triggers, including one that makes a Tide Marker (mostly relevant for the aforementioned OOK hiring) and one that pulses out unresistable Distracted. Finally, he’s traded A Weary Road, an action that they are probably never going to print again, for Choose a Path, which is like A Weary Road except it has a TN and can remove markers. The TN definitely hurts, especially as he’s already got a TN he really wants to hit in Off the Path and Angler doesn’t draw that many cards. But Choose a Path is actually better than A Weary Road if you can hit the TN, so if you are hiring Brin or fixing your hand some other way, you can do work.
Bogg is still an auto take in every Angler crew ever and still worthy of serious consideration outside of the keyword. And you can still summon Richard. So all is right with the world.
Botanists
You know… I don’t want to start any fights, but I always thought these guys were overrated. Sure, I see the appeal, but they don’t do much even once they’re juiced up. They’re speedy and hard to remove, but their damage blows, and they don’t have a lot of utility outside of taking General Actions. I suppose that’s enough.
Well, not anymore. Botanists have gotten a significant overhaul, but the headline is that their Grow mechanic caps at +1 now instead of +2. They’ve gained one Mv to compensate, so they’re as fast as ever, but they’re significantly easier to kill, especially with one fewer Health and with the loss of Grim Feast. And their Onward! is a bit less reliable, too.
It’s also much harder to Grow them – instead of growing when a nearby Marker is removed, they have to remove the Marker themselves at the start of their activations to do it, which also means one marker no longer grows three Botanists. That was always a bit silly, to be frank.
It’s not all bad news, though – they’ve gotten cheaper, which makes one or two a bit more attractive as scheme runners. The new Grow rule lets them eat a Marker within 4″ for free at the start of their activation, which is a heads-up play; sometimes you’ll run into Pylons or Underbrush or Pit Traps and be really glad for ranged, no-AP-required Marker removal. And they now, oddly, have the ability to discard three or more Grow tokens to summon another Botanist. Typically they only gain one Marker per activation, making this ability a bit too slow to be reliable, but they do still have a trigger to gain a Grow token from making a melee attack, so if your opponent has Df 4 minions, you can nosh on them a bit and get real big before pooping out a clone. That’s worth something, right?
Explorer’s Society Starter Box
I’ll talk about all of these guys together. The Society starter box, as the first one of M3E, was a bit odd – unlike the later boxes, which were united by both a unique Keyword and a mechanical theme, it was just Some Dudes. This update brings the Society box in line with the others.
Starting with Hopeful Prospects, the little guys have lost their ability to grow up by killing enemies – sad, but that was far too swingy to ever be balanced, especially with the advent of Ancient Constructs. In return, they’ve gained… a lot, actually. They’re Significant now, and have the new Society keyword as well as the keyword ability Society Honors, which lets them discard a card to gain a +flip on any duel. They’ve added Creep Along as a bonus action to give them some mobility, their melee attack has gained a 1″ range (and apparently now represents a brisk rifle-clubbing rather than a sly stabbing) and their guns have gained +1 stat. They’re still dirt cheap, but I think I’d actually consider them now. Condition removal is great, they filter your hand, hand out Focus, they have three AP all the time, and at Stat 5 their gun is actually kind of fearsome – nobody wants to get donked for a Severe 6 from 14″ away, especially not at the hands of a 4 stone minion. You know, I’m talking myself into it…
Mr. Ngaatoro is the same as he ever was, only moreso. He’s gained a pip of health, the Society keyword, and Society Honors, and… that’s it.
Tannenbaum, however, has changed a lot. His being a Seeker was a bit odd, so now he’s Society, complete with Honors. He’s got the standard starter box Enforcer rule: draw a card if you activate near a master or henchman, +an effect if you’re near your starter box henchman. The +effect is pretty sweet this time, though, effectively drawing you a second card (albeit one that’s only likely to be useful if filtered or discarded for value).
He’s traded Manipulative for Hard to Kill, a straight upgrade, but lost Chatty and Chronicle. The latter of those is sort of whatever (and inevitable because he’s not a Seeker anymore!) but the first stings; Chatty is really strong, and the Society doesn’t have any other source of it.
His Actions have also gotten a complete overhaul. Gone is Comprehensive Notes, which was cute against the Dreamer but ultimately kind of weird and niche. Gone too is Rewrite the Story, which is the sort of ability that’s impossible to balance. He’s also lost Surge on Ancient Words, though he’s gained a point of Stat and the Field Kit trigger, making it more reliable overall (and he has plenty of card draw on his own). He has a melee attack now, confusingly enough called Comprehensive Notes, that is not very good but at least lets him Charge. And he’s got Onward! which is just great.
You’re still hiring him because of Inkfingers, one of the most powerful effects in the game. If you don’t need it, you probably won’t hire him, although if you’re taking Ngaatoro anyways he might be too good a deal to pass up.
Sonnia Criid
Sonnia was in a bit of an odd place. She has two titles, but they’re both basically just variations of Flame Turret. Wyrd has tried to give them mechanically unique identities, and this is the result.
This Sonnia might as well be a brand new model. She went from “awful Df, great Wp, super slow” to “good Df, bad Wp, normal speed.” Ignite is now built in on her Df. She lost Counterspell, Seeking Flames, and Smothering Flame, but gained Pyrotechnics (Wong2’s ability to chain Blast Markers) and Arcane Reservoir.
And her Actions are… totally different. Her melee attack is a lot more respectable, gaining an inch of range, blasts on moderate and Severe, and the ability to heal anyone within 4″ of the target instead of just herself. She doesn’t set people on fire or make them discard cards anymore, but she has a built-in trigger to turn whoever she just killed into a Witchling Stalker, which will be fun when it works every second or third game.
Her ranged attack is very odd. Gone is the incredibly deadly and long-range Flameburst; here is Sapping Flames, a low-damage shot with lots of Blasts that inflicts lots of Burning, and ignores Shielded and Incorporeal (which means you’ll almost always inflict at least 1 point of damage – and thus +3 Burning – on everyone you touch with your spaced-out Blasts).
She can’t burn people out anymore with Scorch the Soul, but she can end an enemy’s Burning to summon any Witch Hunter Minion. Off top of head, Spelleaters and Witchling Thralls are both extremely dangerous summons, and they require only an 11 or a 12 respectively, but don’t sleep on summoning Thalarian Quellers or Witchling Handlers – they can both do a respectable amount of work in the right circumstances.
Once she summons a model, she can give it Fast, with triggers to either draw cards or make the area near it Hazardous to enemies – the summons arrive Slow, but you’re not limited to targeting them once per turn, so you can summon a model, then hit it with Arcane Infusion twice to draw two cards and make it Fast and and Hazardous. Finally, Advance Order is basically Playthings, which is great.
This Sonnia is solid – Sapping Flames can deal a ton of passive damage if your enemy doesn’t spread out far, and giving Director Rodriguez Fast is a queasy proposition. I can’t wait to see her on the table!
Killjoy
Killjoy never really found a place in 3e. His “sacrifice” mechanic was cool and flavorful, but not particularly efficient; he was expensive, and while he was reasonably killy, Df 4 and no Armor made him pretty quick to remove. Plus he didn’t really synergize with the Fae keyword outside of a few tacked-on Underbrush interactions.
The new version fulfills much the same role, but in a streamlined and more efficient fashion. He’s lost HtW, but gained a pip of Df, and his recursion mechanic is much more straightforward. No more sacrifice – he just gets one extra life. And an extra attack: Made to Kill is a super strong rule, and Killjoy is by far the beefiest model with it. He’s properly Unimpeded now, too.
His back of card features two tweaks and one significant change. His melee attack lost a point of damage on Moderate swings but gained a built-in +twist if he’s near Underbrush, a straight improvement over the old Barbed with Brambles. He’s lost Onslaught, somewhat limiting his offensive output, but Drink Blood will keep him alive (and makes losing Juggernaut sting less), and quite frankly he doesn’t need any more free attacks. The attack has slightly less top-end but is much more consistent.
His Pudge-like Hooked Chain has become Rosewood Chain, and it has gone from a projectile attack to a generic ranged attack that ignores Concealment – which means it also now ignores Cover and Friendly Fire and can be thrown while engaged. Massive glow-up. Not only that, but it has more flexibility in where you push the target, and two truly fantastic triggers. Daze on this chain is mean as hell, a massive upgrade over Pull and Drag, and On Your Heels is even nastier. Remember, that’s a free attack with Made to Kill!
Finally, Bloody Gate gives him some much-needed mobility – it’s like a suitless Leap, but even longer-range, and with a nasty little trigger.
This guy is going to make three attacks during most activations once he gets stuck in, most or all of them at +twists, all while healing and throwing enemies around. He’s scary as hell and I expect to see him a fair bit, though remember that he’s still a fat sack of wounds with no defensive tech outside of Terrifying. Canny enemies will focus him down, especially if they can turn off his healing.
Asura Roten
Ezekiel sort of stole Asura’s thunder, so what’s new for Rottenburg’s resident necromancer?
Quite a lot, it turns out. New Asura is bananas. Let’s start with the headline changes: she has the Zombie keyword, giving her a surprisingly broad hiring pool in the Redchapel and Experimental keywords, and she lets you bring ten Mindless Zombies. They clearly want you to run her as a Leader, and you know what? I might.
Her card has basically been rewritten. She doesn’t make all your Mindless Zombies perma-Significant, but she does give them a passive +twist to all actions, which is… probably not as good, but the old ability would be busted in a crew with TEN ZOMBIES. And Siphon Power just means she gets all her triggers for free whenever she wants, because you’ll never be short of dead flesh to siphon.
She’s lost her melee attack, though her Decay is a bit more dangerous now with Siphon Life. She has also sadly lost Zombie Apocalypse, and its cool triggers, for the more boringly named Return of the Dead. Re-Animate has seen a hell of a glow-up, though. One Zombie take an action? How about… all the zombies? And how about they get a free 3″ move first? And how about they ignore Insignificant? That’s a lot of free votes, a lot of free Scheme Markers, and a lot of free Gnashing Bites at a built in +twist and an arbitrarily high stat due to Pack Mentality. Stat 9 is not hard to imagine at all.
In need of a new bonus action, she has Study, which mostly turns a Mindless Zombie into a Scheme Marker but also has a bananas trigger: a built in +twist on everything for everyone near the Scheme Marker. Ok, not on projectile or melee attacks, but how about: on all tactical actions and all non-projectile ranged attacks? Like, say, Decay?
I love new Asura so much. Ten zombies, guys. That’s one too many.
Reva Cortinas, Luminary
Reva2 was another Problem Master. The Problem was that she was, basically, completely noninteractive. Summon pyres, push models into pyres, push pyres into models, inflict burning, inflict free damage, repeat.
I hated that playstyle, and I’m glad it’s dead. But unfortunately, Revenant might be dead too. The most noticeable change is the loss of Enkindle the Cult; Reva has to take her punches to the face like everyone else, or at least pawn them off on a Shieldbearer. She’s gone up to Df 6 and 12 hp at least, but she’s still not too hard to remove with the kinds of threats people point at Masters.
Visions of Fire has likewise been gutted – it now only affects friendlies. Infinite free ping damage, gone.
Funeral Pyre has gotten a side-probably-upgrade – now Reva gets a free Pyre Marker in the Start phase, rather than when she kills something. (Mostly you got those markers from Enkindle kills, but Enkindle is gone now anyways). Note that the free push from Guiding Light is instead of the free push from Tear Back the Veil, which can’t trigger during the Start Phase due to the Once Per Activation limiter.
Finally, she’s Fireproof. Hooray!
Looking at her back of card, Corrupting Flame does a bit more damage but no longer makes Pyres – definitely a downgrade, you’re not punching people for damage. Immolate now always summons 4-health Lampads, which is 1) a downgrade, probably but also 2) actually functional within the rules now. And Lantern’s Light has picked up Pyrebloom and seen a change to its Luminary’s Chosen trigger; you no longer need Shielded, but it only affects Attack Action damage. Again, no more free pings anyways.
Fan the Flames is still a great action; Traverse Through Ember is still a busted trigger. Is it enough? Ehhhhh. Revenant isn’t that great, and was already struggling outside of stupid uninteractive ping combo nonsense. Sorry, cultists.
Yasunori
Another terror of 2E paying for his sins, the “Ten Thunders Rider” has never matched up to his siblings. Yasunewri (see what I did there?) abandons any pretense at Riderhood; now he’s just a beatstick. He’s gone down in cost and up in Health, and his Df and Wp have switched places, though he’s lost Hard to Wound and his defensive trigger. His weird hand size mechanic is gone, replaced by a pair of upgrades.
You might call them Offense Mode and Defense Mode: the former makes his sword a 3/5/6 and gives him a bonus action that lets him sort-of get an extra Charge if he can win a stat 6 v. Df duel. The latter gives him Armor +1 (except not, so it doesn’t interact with armor piercing) and a weird little bonus action that Conceals him and gives him a miniature Gravity Well. It also lets him do a mini-Leap or a small heal.
He’s lost the built in +twist to his melee attack (and the very silly mass-push trigger) but gained three nasty triggers: Daze, Thunderous Blow and Duality are all solid. And he’s lost his bonus action that lets you both draw a bunch and potentially wreck your opponent’s hand.
So what does it all add up to? Here’s my hot take: not much.
Ten stones is still a lot, and while Df 7 goes a long way to keeping this guy safe, it’s not impenetrable – Wp attacks, unresisted Injured (there’s plenty of that these days) or just plain bad luck can bring him down to earth, and once this guy starts taking damage he goes down fast. Sure, you can Armor him and even Conceal him, but then you’re paying ten stones for a stat 6 2/4/5 sword. He’s not a Henchman so he can’t build in any of those triggers. You know who can swing at a 4/5/5 (sometimes 5/6/6)? Bill Algren. And he’s only short 1″ of threat range on Yasunori, can engage enemies with 1″ melee ranges from safety, heals himself, gives himself Fast, generates Pass Tokens and does a shitload of other things.
Basically: the upgrades are cool, but Yasunori is decidedly subpar at whatever he’s not wearing an upgrade for, and you can only wear one at a time. For ten stones, I want more out of my beaters.
Why are you booing? I’m right.
Join me next time, where we learn just what’s been going on in the Governor-General’s mansion!
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