Assassins Creed 3: The Second Day

I wasn't really expecting to hit each day that I played this game, but so far I've had some pretty bizarre occurrences each day, and I just can't help myself.  I've learned some key things about how life in the Assassin's Creed world differs from that of the real world.

How Not to Get Caught
I was given a mission where I had to sneak through a heavily guarded portion of Boston.  My skills have improved since my first day where I was falling out of trees and jumping off churches (well... I still jump off churches).

I've figured out how to read the screen as I'm going along too.  For example, if Red Coats see something unusual, they'll start to get suspicious and you can watch the bar of their suspicion rising.  Often that's your cue to hide or get out of the way from where they're moving.  I was so excited to have figured this part of the game out that while I was standing beside a warehouse on the docks, I was trying to keep an eye out for those cues.

My friend was with me.  My goals were to keep him safe and keep us both hidden from the enemies.  So sure enough, I see one of those bars start filling up and spring into action.  I turn and start running the other way to get into hiding.

Only my friend was standing right behind me.  So as I turned around and began running, I did what I do to anyone in my way when I start running.  I shoved him hard to my side.  He was standing on the edge of the docks.  I shoved him anyway.  Into the Atlantic.

As I started running, a warning came up saying that my friend had died.  Evidently that was the wrong choice to make.


How to Master the Art of the Assassination
Later, I had a bunch of friends (including the guy who took a drink in the Atlantic) who were disguised as British soldiers and pulling a wagon of prisoners in to a camp to try to infiltrate it.  I was leading the wagon and my friends would rush ahead and lay ambushes for any Redcoats they might see head of them.

It was fun.  I'd sit in the wagon, watch for my allies to get into position, and then shout for them to spring their trap before the Redcoats knew what was going on.  It all worked pretty well.

One time, I had a couple of my guys on rooftops while a Redcoat walked down beside the building under them.  He started to realize I wasn't the normal guy and I ordered my men to attack.  The guy on the rooftop dropped with his knife and plunged it deep into, and killing... the dog sitting next to the Redcloak.  The Redcloak was startled but had the presence of mind to pull out his gun and shoot my friend in the head (he survived the hit - it probably really hit him in the leg).

Sometimes I wonder how my team of ineptitude is actually going to achieve anything in the upcoming war.

Proper Chair Etiquette
Once I got away from the missions in Boston, I started wandering the countryside.  It was winter and snowy, so I figured I was probably cold and when I passed a tavern, I stopped in to warm up.  I muscled up to the bar, but no one wanted to talk to me.  I mean no one.  Weird, right?  Most games I play, I can usually throw the bartender a few gold for a drink or something.  Not in the colonies, evidently.

So I decided to go sit down at a table and listen to the music that someone was playing.  I walked by the table and moved to the chair.  Now I know I can sit on benches - I've done it before - but the best I could manage was standing on top of the chair.

I turned around to leave, but I couldn't!  I was stuck behind the stupid chair!  I finally figured out how to leave by leaping on the table and walking over it until I got to the other side.  Note to self: taverns are for chumps.


Clarity of Directions
Later, I finally tracked down a woman who really did not like me.  I mean, I don't know why she wouldn't.  I've only stalked her for miles through the snow and kept tracking her down.  And insulted her (only out of ignorance).

But finally she was okay with me enough to give me a chance.  So as we stood in the middle of the wilderness, snowcapped hills and forest all around us, she said, "Close to here, there's a hill.  Meet me there."  Then she headed off.

Really?  Close to here there's a hill?  Lady, there are four hills in my immediate field of vision.  You want to give me some more guidance than that?  If it wasn't for the tracker that popped up on my map, I'm pretty sure that would have ended poorly.

 
So my day two of Assassin's Creed went a bit better than my first day.  I am enjoying the game, but I think I'm enjoying making fun of it a little more so far.  Dan and I were talking about the beginning - he's going to be happy to stop playing the British guy and start playing the Native American character.  Personally, I love the British character.  He's got attitude, and he's proper.  It's the kind of roleplaying character I love to play.  Dan, on the other hand, doesn't like all the talking and smugness about him.  I say that's the best part.

Battle Report: Jakob Faces Zoraida's Younger Self

Dan and I went by Bill's house to do some podcasting, and afterwords we decided we'd go ahead and grab a game.  Dan played Mei Feng against Bill's daughter, Bianca, who's learning to play Colette.  Bill and I faced off on the other table.  Bill had just commented that he was undefeated against me in 2013 and I felt that simply could not stand.  So I pulled up my bag (currently filled with Ten Thunders) and tried to figure what to take.  I decided against McHammish since I've been playing him almost exclusively lately.  And I've been watching a couple other people playing Jakob lately and forgot how much fun he was.  So out Jakob came.  We decided on 35 stones and went to town.

My Crew: Ten Thunders
List: Jakob, Hungering Darkness, Beckoner x2, Stitched Together x2, 10T Archer, Wastrel (Feather), 7 stones

Strategy: Supply Wagon

Schemes: Breakthrough, Spread Brilliance (I think that's what it's called - the HD-specific one)

Since I was playing the list as a 10T list, I felt like I had to take some things that wouldn't be available to Jakob in a normal Neverborn list.  I decided on taking a Wastrel and assigning him my Breakthrough objective, and then took an Archer to make my list more Ranged than melee.  It meant I had only one dedicated-melee model (the Hungering Darkness), but I felt the Stitched Togethers might do well there too since they're short-ranged, high-damage models.

Bill's Crew: Neverborn

List: Zoraida w/ Avatar, Nekima, Terror Tot x3, Desperate Merc x2, Beckoner, 7 stones

Strategy: Claim Jump

Schemes: Kill Protege (10T Archer), Stake a Claim

Bill went with a standard Zoraida grow list.  He also hasn't played Avatar Zoraida that much, so he wanted to give her a try too.

The board was set up with several large clumps of trees and tall structures to block LOS all over the place, but then also had smaller pieces of rubble that would give people places to grab cover as they advanced.  We flipped for deployment and got Corners with Bill deploying first.  He kept his crew a bit back from the front of the corners line, making sure I couldn't reach him as fast.

I deployed my crew up front since I figured I would want to be contesting him early and try to kill off as much as I could before he was able to bring the full weight to bear against me.  I didn't have anything as long-ranged as Lure to try to disrupt the growing, but I did have the Beckoners and Archers.  Bill didn't give me much of a chance to shoot down the Desperate Mercs with how they were deployed, though.

TURN ONE - ZORAIDA INITIATIVE

This turn started out pretty standard on Bill's side with a bit of preparing to grow.  The Desperate Mercs went into Defensive Stance.  Nekima cut herself for a blood, grabbed Masks for all the Tots' spells, and slashed each Merc dropping them to 1 life left.  Both Tots hit their targets and Grew to Youngers.  Then Zoraida Obeyed one of them to Mature.

Meanwhile, my crew was advancing and grabbing cover.  I put up some fog, but not as far forward as I should have (I was playing cautiously with my Stitched, not wanting them to get cut down too fast) and Zoraida was able to drop a Voodoo Doll on one of my Beckoners.  I advanced Jakob into melee with the Beckoner so that if she activated, the only thing she could attack would be Jakob.  Not ideal, but better than having her kill off my Archer.

Near the end of the turn, Bill advanced with his Beckoner and tried to cast Come Hither on one of my Beckoners.  He passed Irresistible, and then we realized that she was flipping at a pair of (-)'s because she was Brilliant.  It resulted in a failed cast, and my realization that I needed to kill his Beckoner right quick.  Huggy moved up twice, then cast his Obey-like spell on her, forcing the Beckoner to charge Huggy, though she did not do any damage.

At the end of the turn, Huggy sapped a wound off of Bill's Beckoner.

TURN TWO - JAKOB INITIATIVE

I started with Huggy again, killing the Beckoner in a single hit, and then trying to make the lone Terror Tot who had run up last turn run towards me.  Unfortunately I was out of range and wasted my last action as I just repositioned slightly.

Zoraida Obeyed my Beckoner to attack Jakob and she hit, but I prevented the wounds meaning Jakob didn't take any poison either.  Bill finally got his first Crystal Ball off to start getting towards manifesting, though it cost him a soulstone too.  Zoraida then cast Bewitched on the Beckoner, meaning she could not cheat for the rest of the turn.

I moved my Archer forward, cast Yojiro for more damage, and Focused a shot on the Terror Tot, hitting and then cheating a Severe in to bypass the hard cover's Armor bonus and kill the Tot anyway.  He used his Voodoo Doll to Obey the Mature to charge one of my models, just working on bringing the Mature up the field and into range.  Recognizing that my crew was pretty vulnerable to a Mature's assault, I tried to figure out what to do next.  I wanted my Stitched to kill him, I think, so I had to out-activate him.  Fortunately I had the model advantage.  I activated my Voodoo-Dolled Beckoner who took two wounds and she shot the Mature, hitting to give him Brilliance and reduce his Willpower by 1.  I shot again and did another wound.

Nekima and the Younger moved up while my second Beckoner shot Nekima twice, missing both times and my Wastrel moved out to be away from where I expected the Mature to land.  I wanted to keep him alive if possible.

Sure enough, after regenerating one for being close to Nekima, the Mature charged in at one of my Stitched Togethers and triggered Knock Aside, shoving my Stitched Together back and then trying to jump on my Wastrel.  I was able to hold him in place with my Huggy and Beckoner.  He turned to attack... something else (Jakob, maybe?) and didn't do any more wounds.

Bill was out of models, so my Stitched Togethers went to work.  The first one dropped him down to 4 wounds left after building my hand a little, and then the second one dropped him to one wound left and walked away after building my hand some too.  At the end of the turn, Huggy sapped the last wound off him and the Mature died.

TURN THREE - JAKOB INITIATIVE

I was starting to get a bit confident.  I had killed off three models without taking much damage back.  Plus, I just drew the Ace of Masks and Nekima was in range of Jakob.  I flipped, won initiative, and looked over the board.  I would have to hit all three times, I figured, in order to kill her.  I had two Severes and the 1M.  Jakob activated, ditched a card for a third action and started shooting.  I had to hope my stones would push me into straight-flip range since I knew it would take all three shots to kill her.  Two soulstones, two Severe cards, and the Ace of Masks later, I killed her on the last shot, leaving Bill with Zoraida, a Younger, and a Voodoo Doll.  It wasn't looking likely that I'd get Spread Brilliance.

The Zoraida Obeyed the Younger to charge into melee with my 10T Archer.  Both of our hands were depleted a bit from the fight between Jakob and Nekima.  He was able to use a mid-ranged Mask to get Flay, but then only got Weak on the damage, dropping the Archer to 1 wound remaining.  Zoraida then turned into a Raven and flew 20" on to the Stake a Claim and Claim Jump.

I had to figure out how to kill the Younger without spilling blood onto the Archer.  My only shot I could think of was my Stitched.  I had to move up within 6", got more cards from Gambler, and then tried to Gamble My Life with him.  I hit, but didn't get to the 7 wounds I needed.  The Younger activated and locked up two points by killing the 10T Archer, then charged my Stitched for 4 wounds, hitting the Rotten Contents trigger to put a wound on Jakob, the Poisoned Beckoner, and the Younger.

My other Stitched killed the Younger, then started moving towards Bill's Deployment Zone.  With Obey as an option out there, I would need two models to lock up Breakthrough, I figured.  The Wastrel followed him on foot.

Meanwhile, the Hungering Darkness started moving towards Zoraida.  My Poisoned Beckoner dropped to 1 wound remaining and tried to shoot Zoraida, but failed.

My last Beckoner tried to Focus a shot on her, but Zoraida used a Soulstone to push the duel beyond what I could hit.  At the end of the turn, Huggy sapped a wound off the Beckoner that had one wound and two Poison on her, killing her.  Poor girl.

TURN FOUR - ZORAIDA INITIATIVE

Zoraida activated and cast Crystal Ball, using Bayou Two-Card on the 11M initiative flip to get her second use of the spell.  She then Manifested, ending up on the Stake a Claim marker, but also in melee with the Hungering Darkness.  She put up the bubble that allowed her to cycle her hand when other people cheated or used Soulstones, then zapped my Beckoner with Pins and Needles, dealing 5 wounds and 2 poison to her while filling her hand up with 5 new cards.  Her last action was to try to Obey the Beckoner.  He used a moderate Mask and then a Soulstone, but I was able to resist with my 13.

I had my whole crew left to go since the Voodoo Doll died.  Jakob moved up twice and then cast Dead Man's Hand, forcing him to drop 3 (of his 10+) cards and getting a 3, 3, 5 for myself.  Yay.  I guess.  The Hungering Darkness attacked and hit aZoradia (he was running low on soulstones and I had a hefty pile left) cutting her wounds down by a bit and giving her permanent Brilliance.  I attacked again, but he used his Soulstones to push me out of range of hitting without flipping VERY well.

Meanwhile, one of my Stitched and my Wastrel moved into Bill's deployment zone while my last Stitched, not wanting to be used against my own crew with aZoraida's uber-Obey, ran and hid behind some terrain.

TURN FIVE - JAKOB INITIATIVE

I flipped a 12 and he flipped the Black Joker for initiative.  He had one soulstone left and decided not to risk it on the Initiative here.  (Turned out to be a bad idea, since his next two cards were 13s, but who could have expected that?)

I decided to activate both Jakob and Huggy together.  Jakob charged aZoraida and Bill thought for a while as to whether this was a ploy to force him to use his last Soulstone or not.  With Huggy staring down at him, he decided to hold his soulstone for prevention flips.  Turned out it was no ploy at all as I dropped the Ace of Masks for damage, then flipped another Severe for 8 wounds.  He had five left so it meant the only prevention flip that would work was the Red Joker.  Which, of course, he was holding in his hand.  So that wouldn't help.

The game wrapped up there.  Turn six involved me grabbing the Breakthrough and we tallied points.

FINAL SCORE:
Jakob 6 (4 Supply Wagon, 0 Spread Brilliance, 2 Breakthrough)

Zoraida 2 (0 Claim Jump, 2 Kill Protege: 10T Archer, 0 Stake a Claim)

I found Spread Brilliance to be an annoying scheme to try to achieve in this game.  I couldn't keep any of his minions alive (except maybe the Beckoner) without worrying about them becoming melee beat-sticks and wrecking my crew.  I didn't have enough Control aspects of my crew to really go for keeping models alive but not contained.  So that was two lost points straight away.  If I gave Brilliance to Zoraida, she could lose it by Manifesting (unless she was close to a Beckoner, but Bill knew that and wouldn't let that happen if he felt threatened by the scheme), and I couldn't give it to a Voodoo Doll because he'd just sacrifice it to make another one.

A fun game to get back to Jakob with.  Though I used Dead Man's Hand only one turn the whole game, and he killed two models by the end of the game with his hold-out pistol (Nekima and aZoraida).  Not his normal game.  I never saw the Red Joker in my hand, but the Ace of Masks on those two turns certainly made Jakob deal more damage than I intended to this game.

Assassins Creed 3: The First Day

I started playing Assassin’s Creed 3 last night after several weeks of dealing with the fact my computer would not install the game (a whole new story that ended with me having to upgrade to Windows 8).  I figured it would be fun to put down some of my initial thoughts.  I have not played either of the first two games.  This one was interesting to me primarily because of the American Revolutionary War aspect.  That time period has always interested me.  I actually have ideas in my head about running a pre-Revolution roleplaying game at some point, but like so many of my ideas, it may just stay in the “wouldn’t that be fun if I did that” category.

Anywho, back to Assassin’s Creed 3.  I knew next-to-nothing about the game before I started.  Imagine my surprise when I start off somewhere in the future.  And I’m being given a lot of information about the Templars.  And Assassins.  And weird computer artifacts.  And all of the sudden I was in a holodeck-like computer program.   Wow.  This is lame.  In my Revolutionary War story, I don’t even live in that time period?  I’m just going through a memory of that time period?

But that’s okay.  I’m sure by the time I’m mixed up in the game, I’ll forget all about the stupid premise.  I mean really, why bother with any of it?  Why not just have the story in the historical time period and be done with it.

Anywho, I started out in London in an Opera House.  I had to kill a guy who was sitting in one of the box seats.  So I had to find a subtle way to get to him without being noticed.  Awesome – having just come off of Dishonored, I love this kind of thing.  I started following the hints around the map and managed to climb part of the interior wall.  Until it got to a point where it said I had to climb out along the wall into the main audience area.  Wait.  How is that supposed to be subtle?  I assumed someone would see me straight away, but nope… they were all ignoring the obviously-dressed, grunting man who was climbing all around the opera house.  Wow.  Must have been a very enthralling show.

I got back stage, made a ton of noise as I climbed across the stage without being seen (I only messed up a bunch of their props and setting pieces, so I wasn’t THAT obvious), and then made it to the box.  There was an awesome cut-scene where I killed the guy, and then I had to walk out of the opera house as the body was discovered and people were questioned all over the place.  I have to say, it was pretty cool how tense they made that part of the mission.

Next step – I’m off to the Colonies.  I spend a couple months on a boat (which takes over an hour of game time and is remarkably boring).  I get in a fight with some sailors, everyone hates me, and someone tries to kill me.  Oh, and I climb around.  A lot.  I guess this is all just getting me used to the gameplay, so I’m fine with it.

I finally get to the Colonies and start off.  There’s someone there waiting for me to arrive and he starts telling me about what’s going on.  Red dots keep appearing on my screen which I quickly learn are the British.  Okay, so my screen will let me know when the Red Coats are near.  Red is usually reserved for enemies, so I decide to walk up to one of them.  He ignores me.  Then I see a woman with a basket of apples trip and spill her apples.  Some guy grabs one and bolts while the woman yells, “THIEF! STOP HIM!”  I’m a good guy.  I take off after him.  He ducks down some stairs in an alley.  I follow him, and he stops running and turns to face me.  Uh oh, is this going to be a fight?

Then he drops the apple and it starts floating in midair, and he walks away casually, ignoring me.  I’m mesmerized by this floating apple and can’t seem to figure out how to pick it up.  After a moment, I realize the real ploy… I stopped watching the thief!  Did he escape!  I turn around and find him a few steps away, leaning against a wall.  “How dare you steal a floating apple!” I want to yell at him.  Instead, the only thing I can do is walk into him repeatedly.  He doesn’t seem to care, but it makes me feel like I did at least something to him after his magic-apple-incident.

Later, I find a bunch of rifles leaning against a board.  I pick one up.  Then I drop it and pick up another one.  Then I just leave with it.  No one seems to care, though one person did comment as I walked past, “That man really shouldn’t be armed.”

No worries.  As soon as I talk to Ben Franklin, my new rifle disappears.  Ben Franklin tells me about his Almanac.  Find the missing pages!  Okay, we’ll see how that rolls.  I go to buy a new gun and sword (the only two things it seems this store sells) and then head to the tavern where I am told that my first mission is to recover a box of research so that my new friend can figure out where I’m supposed to go next.

I head to find a guy who’s tracking the thieves, only there are too many of them for him.  Not too many for me, though!  I pull out a rifle and shoot the lookout, then climb into the thieves fort and sneak along.  I find some guns and shoot one of the bad guys and take aim and… whoa, it takes a while to reload these things.  Oh yeah… ball and powder.  That’s right.  Maybe I should just grab another gun that I’m sure they left sitting here already loaded and… OH MY! I’m being stabbed by four people!  I pull out my sword and make short work of them.

We make our way through the fort to the research and find the leader.  We spend some time offering each other the opportunity to leave without being killed.  I pull my gun on him and aim it.  Then he starts pulling his gun on me.  SHOOT HIM!  SHOOT HIM!  But I don’t.  I wait for him to aim it at me first before shooting him in the head.

A brief fight later and the cut-scene reveals that my shot at his head ACTUALLY hit his leg.  These things are dreadfully hard to aim.

I start picking the pockets of every dead man I can find, grab a gun and head out to fight some more.  Shoot, shoot, shoot, and more shooting.  Soon they’re on me and hitting me.  I kill them with my sword.  We keep moving.  More guys, this time with some on the rooftop.  We kill all the ones on the ground, then I try to shoot the guys on the rooftop.  My gun won’t work.  I think it’s loaded.  I start picking the pockets of the dead people on the ground for more bullets.  Fortunately muskets are terrible aim and I can just wander around without worrying.

No dice on the bullets.  No idea what to do.  I stare at the building for a while as I’m being shot at and then flash back to my days climbing around the ship.  I can climb!  I guess that hour of boring gameplay was worth something.  I run up to the building, climb it, and stab one guy.  Then I climb to the chimney and leaping-stab another guy.  Awesome!

We keep walking.  More people, more inability to shoot a gun, and more stabbing with my sword.  Soon we’ve escaped with the research.

Next task, find some dude that’s on my list of sympathetic-to-my-cause people.  I head in and find his home has been trashed.  Where could he be?  I start trying to track down some rumors, listening to conversations people are having and soon have a new goal… FIND MORE CONVERSATIONS!  So I tell my ally to meet me somewhere and I’m going to go high to listen in.  Um… really? Okay.  Evidently my goal of going high to listen in on conversations involves me climbing to the top of the highest point in the city.  Now I know that I personally am partially deaf and could not hear conversations from that height, but I’m pretty sure no one else could either.  Sure enough, my ascent to the highest point in the city ends with me leaping into a bale of hay.  Um… why did I just do that.

So I get out of the hay, wander around, and climb some more.  I find a conversation I’m supposed to be listening in on and sit in a tree above them.  Unsure of what I’m supposed to be doing, I accidentally fall out of the tree (this one’s completely on me) and a Red Coat comes around and starts yelling at me.  I run away from him and find another conversation.  I hide behind some boxes with a couple other people standing nearby and listen in on the conversation.  But soon the Red Coats are there too, yelling at me.  Damn… I’m doing something wrong.  Maybe if I… wait… did that Red Coat just stab me?  Well, I’ll stab him right back!  Uh oh.  He’s got friends.

And that’s the story of how I got chased around Boston by an army of Red Coats and then shot down by a gun line as I tried to climb a building to escape.

Better luck next time…  Despite my making fun of a lot of it, I am really enjoying it so far and looking forward to seeing what happens.  I know I've barely scratched the surface and I'm probably still in the part that's teaching me how to play the game.

Rule Changes in Malifaux

Jonas Albrecht on the Malifaux boards posted a blogquestion about what people would like to see in Malifaux II, should it ever come.  I started thinking about it and decided I’d try to come up with some of my thoughts on what I would like to see changed in a future version.  I’m going to steer clear of talking about any specific models because I think that would be another article entirely, but for the core rules, these are some of the changes I would like to see explored.

Drain Souls

This is a very fluffy, and unfortunately problematic, part of the game.  I love the concept that a master can suck the souls out of his minions to fuel his magic.  Unfortunately, in almost every game I’ve seen it used (which tends to be a very small sample size because my local playgroup pretty quickly agreed it shouldn’t be done), it was not used to gain soulstones but rather to kill your own models to avoid giving points for strategies and schemes.

But in the end, it is a part of the fluff of the game.  I would like to see it remain in the game, but it needs to be changed such that when it happens, your opponent gains a VP for each model drained, or that it cannot target models that are the subject of any revealed schemes or strategies, or that if it happens, it grants the VPs for revealed schemes and strategies.  I’m no rules-writer, but that’s what I would like to see happen with Drain Souls.

Schemes / Strategies

Overall, I feel like the current selection of schemes at strategies needs to be reworked on several levels.

1.       There are a number of strategies that just feel like repeats of each other.  Distract and Contain Power, for example.  I’d like to see 13 very different strategies.

2.       The current strategies feel like they favor speed armies more often than any other type.  This gives an undue advantage to the faster factions (generally Neverborn).  I’d prefer to see more strategies that favor a wider spread of tactics.

3.       There are too many strategies and schemes that can be blocked by killing your own models.

4.       There are several schemes and strategies that can be achieved by certain masters with almost no chance of stopping them.  Deliver the Message with a Zoraida crew, for example.  I’d like to see no strategies that are virtually unstoppable.

5.       Some faction-specific schemes (Archanists, for example) are mind-numbingly simple while others (Ressers) are quite a bit more difficult.  I’d like to see them all balance out more.

Terrifying / Non-Living Models

I’m combining these two categories together.  Terrifying is an extremely powerful ability because Fall Back is such a huge disadvantage.  Terrifying is also a useless ability because there are so many non-living models out there.  My ideal situation here would be to decrease the effect that Fall Back has on models, and also decrease the number of non-living models out there.  That alone would make Terrifying-based crews and strategies more feasible.

Instead of fleeing off the board for a turn, and then not being able to move for another turn, maybe the model’s next activation must start with an advance until the model is outside the model that Terrified it’s melee range, and then the model is at a (-) flip to anything it does that turn.  If it is terrified outside its own activation, it just single-moves away and has a (-) flip to anything it does on the following turn.  The model can still move, can still attack, etc., but just has a penalty to do so.  Obviously it would need to be tested to see if that also is too much, but the idea I’d like to see is for Terrifying to impact more crews, but be less of an impact to models when it happens.

Pre-Measuring

I love pre-measuring.  When a game calls for pre-measuring, I’m usually pretty happy.  I don’t understand why people are not in favor of it.  I’ve heard the calls that it will slow down a game as players try to measure every possibility, but I have found the opposite to be true in games I play.  When I get to a turn, I usually know what I want to do.  It then becomes a matter of me calculating the odds of it working.  Inside that calculation is range-guessing.  If I know I’m in range, often I will go ahead with my plan.  If I don’t, I spend longer trying to make guesses as to whether I’m in range or not based on other information and it just slows the game down.

I don’t like losing because I was 1/2" out.  I don’t like winning because my opponent was 1/2” out.  Just institute pre-measuring and be done with it.

Loaded Keywords

There are a lot of rules out there that could be simplified by loading more keywords and deleting ones that are similar.  Why do we have Fly and Float?  They’re close enough – let them combine to one.  Why do we have Scout, Arachnid and Shambling?  Combine a lot of these rules and get rid of the annoying instances of trying to remember the details of why one version is better than another.

Clean Up Confusing Rules

There are two examples that stand out in mind at the moment.  Towards versus Directly Towards (is there a difference between them at this point) and how to calculate range when height is involved (if I remember right, it’s different depending on if you’re shooting a gun or stabbing someone with a sword).

I don’t want this to come across as if I’m not happy with the Malifaux rules.  For the most part, I love them.  I rarely come up in situations where a rules dispute happens, and when it does, it’s usually pretty easy to resolve.  But if we’re talking about our wishes, these are what I would like to see.