What is Malifaux?
Are you willing to risk your soul for a chance at great wealth and power? It's your only weapon in a world rife with monsters, necropunks, man-machine hybrids, gunslingers, and power-hungry politicos. In Malifaux, you lead your Crew in the battle for control of the Breach, a dark portal to a world of limitless magic.
Malifaux is a character-driven 32mm tabletop miniatures game. Players collect, build, and paint models representing the denizens of Malifaux, pitting these models against one another in groups called Crews for control of the precious resource known as Soulstones.
A Crew can contain several different types of models depending on how a player constructs it. Masters can manipulate the course of events in the world around them, changing their own Fates through their control or theft of Soulstones. A variety of fantastic and frightening beings, collectively known as Minions, serve the Master as fodder in his or her machinations. In addition, Henchmen can lead specialized Crews in their Master's absence, or serve their Master directly as a member of a Crew. Masters and Henchmen are also supported by Totems, extensions of their magical abilities which increase their spellcasting range and provide additional aid in an Encounter. Lastly, each Master can transform itself into a powerful Avatar, representing a specific aspect of their personality.
How well a Crew carries out its leader's Strategy and Schemes determines whether or not it will emerge victorious in an Encounter with an enemy Crew. Strategies represent the Crew's main path to victory, while Schemes are simpler alternate routes to achieve the leader's goals.
Malifaux players use decks of cards called Fate Decks to resolve game events such as attacking and spell-casting. Players can manipulate the cards they play to alter the Duel's outcome. It takes a shrewd leader to effectively utilize a Crew's resources, ensuring he or she always has ready the cards needed to Cheat Fate.
Be prepared to fight to the death because Malifaux is the end of the line!
What Will I Need?
The first thing you will need is a Crew. Average games of Malifaux are between 25 and 40 Soulstones. This generally works out to between 6 and 10 models (though some Crews such as the Gremlins will need more). The best place to start your collection is with your chosen Master's Starter Box. Each Starter Box can be played out of the box as a 25 Soulstone Crew. It is very easy to build onto a Starter Box, as you can see below, in this case a Totem and a Silent One have been added to Rasputina's Box Set, giving a player a 30 Soulstone Crew.
In Malifaux Fate's hand is represented by a pack of cards we call the Fate Deck. Each of the Fate Deck's suits represents one of the threads of aetheric power magicians use to power their abilities. When a model attempts to perform an action you will often flip a card for it to determine whether that action is successful.
Every turn each player draws a hand of cards. You may cheat fate with your cards, replacing the flipped card with one from your hand. In this way you can influence a model's actions you deem to be important.
Each player will need a Fate Deck.
Distances in Malifaux are measured in inches. A tape measure is a tried and tested way of measuring distance.
Malifaux is best played with lots of scenery and includes rules for breaking down, climbing over and falling off it. You can fight a battle in Malifaux over a wide variety of terrain, from the enclosed tunnels of a sewer system to the open expanses of the Bayou.
Wyrd has worked alongside World Works Games to create Terraclips which are an ideal way to put together the perfect board for playing a game of Malifaux on. Terraclips are modular so you never have to play on the same board twice.
Malifaux uses a collection of counters, so you will need something to represent them. Luckily counters are the same size as a 30mm base, Blasts the size of a 50mm base. You can even use some glass nuggets to represent Soulstones.
PDF of Counters
