Returning through the breach

 Hey people, it’s been a long time since the old Malifaux blog has been in action but I’m back gaming in the world of Wyrd so I thought it was about time the blog got some action too. (After starting this I realised how rusty I am blogging just to warn you early)

Unlike the old days I’m not playing Malifaux, I dropped out before M3e and never made it back. This time I’m playing Wyrd’s other (better?) game The Other Side. Which is an army scale game instead of skirmish, you take the role of a commander or often two commanders in a full game and several units of soldiers, maybe some artillery, and if you’re doing it right a Titan unit that stomps all over the battlefield.

Before I go into a full rundown of the game it might help to explain how I ended up here. I’ll start by admitting that I was less than appreciative of TOS when it hit Kickstarter, I couldn’t see the need for it and it seemed too bulky, with the full armies and massive models. I was vocal in my dislike and once it funded I promptly forgot all about it.

Fast forward a year or two and we’re in a pandemic I’m at home, between games and out of things to paint, a few old Malifaux friends are talking about TOS, a few models catch my eye and I’m curious so I have a brief look online and order a single model. Just as a painting project obviously, Kassa arrives, not the crispest of models but ideal for what I wanted, something quick to paint. Turns out she’s a joy to paint, simple work but looks good.

Well now it would be rude not to buy the rulebook right? Just to learn what I have, maybe watch a few videos, ask a few questions… then before I knew it I have a full force and lockdown is relaxing and I’m online looking for games. 

Now I’ve had a few games and the game turns out to be great. It’s really fun without being silly, it’s tactical without being confusing. 

So now I’m back where I was with ‘faux all those years ago arranging games, introducing players, asking Arran how all the actual rules work. 

Okay so that’s how I got so now I can give a run down of what the game is and how it works 

First thing you’ll need is to pick a faction, there are currently four main choices for this split into Earth and Malifaux categories.

You have Kings Empire, they’re the British empire army they have lots of guns

The other earth option is Abyssinia, a technology advanced African civilisation, they are your elites.

Next there is the Malifaux options. The cult of the burning man are as the name suggests a cult that worships the burning man in the sky above London. They’re full of movement tricks and magic

The last main faction are the Gibbering Horde, a endless stream of sea monsters that got pulled through a breach and dropped on Earth, they are hungry and they’re a horde. 

A game is played as either single commander for small games or two commanders for full games, each commander brings along a certain amount of scrip (points) usually 25 but stronger commanders bring less and weaker one bring more. This is a really simple way to balance out stronger leaders.

Once you have your commanders and your scrip you can hire a company, when you hire a unit you don’t do it by individual models you hire a full unit, this can be nine models split over three teams to make a single unit or it could be a single model. Having to hire in fixed unit sizes means there's less wasted points also less spam.

So you have an army now, I guess you need a war? At set up you and your opponent both flip a card, these two cards give you your initiative, your deployment, and your operation. Nice and easy, there is only operation going on at a time so there is a lot less to focus on than with Malifaux ( I know I keep comparing against 'faux but I assume if you are here you know 'faux). I'm not going to go into detail about the operations as that seems like a separate post.

Playing the game is nice and fast paced, unless you're both playing very cagey you can start fighting and mostly start scoring VP straight away. And despite the size of the armies on the tables things move quickly, when you activate a unit the first thing you do is give them an order. Either Advance (move and action) Focused effort (move and gain a token) Rush (move and move). Each team in a unit gets the same order but can move independently (within 8inchs) and take separate actions.

Because of the size of the units and the ability to reinforce (if you have a reinforcement token then during clear up each turn you can add up to two models back to a unit) when you need to this isn't really a game of wiping armies off the table (but you can if you really try) the focus is more of giving tough options and scoring VP.

There are more things involved like upgrades, envoys, stratagems, etc but this gives you a rough idea of
the game and how I ended up back here. I'm going to try and make this a regular thing again whether you read it or not. The next post will be a run down of how my Abyssinia force has come together and what I plan to do next with them.

We've had a couple of local meet ups to play which have been going well and a few of us are chatting about the idea of setting up a tournament in the near future which should be fun.  

So give me a shout if you're playing TOS too, share your painting models with me, and hopefully I'll be back soon with another post.