Mr Suitcase

I wanted to get away from talking about M1.5 vs M2e and the recent debates about the future of Malifaux. These topics are important but I've done a lot of that lately. This is going to be a bit awkward as I can't really delve into the more strategic M2e topics until we have a final rules set.

So I want to talk about a topic we got into on a recent episode of Tartan Skirmish Radio. During our conversation Dave, the host, asked us;

Do you pick models to fit your case, or your case to fit your models?

I'm in the latter camp, for the record. Although this has spurred me to finally put down some thoughts on virtual paper.  One of the selling point I give when I'm henching Malifaux out to new players is how cheap the game is to get into. You can start playing full size games with about £50 worth of minis, which contrasts heavily with the costs of some games on the market.

What isn't as clear is how many minis you need to really start competing at Malifaux. As you select your crew after you know your opponent's faction and the objectives of the game you need more models than the standard game size to be competitive. But how many more?

At this point my inner nerd is screaming, EVERYTHING!

That however isn't true. I've been competing with two masters and around 80ss of Guild in the early 1.5 season in the UK, and currently hold best guild general for the UK. So clearly model count isn't everything.

So how much do you need? The more models gives you more options, but models in Malifaux require a certain amount of finesse to use well so having everything is probably more hindrance than help.

I've found most crews have a 'core' of their build for a given master. In my beta Ramos M2e crews that's; Ramos, Joss, Electrical Creation, and two Molemen. This totals to 22ss naked, around half a crew. Clearly you're going to need options in the remainder of the crew, so I'd say double the remaining stones to give you an option in every slot as it were. So this gives you 1.5 times the basic crew size of your games, which at the moment looks to be 50ss, making your requirement 75ss/crew.

My case of choice from KR Multicase

This leads to another complication, how many crews? Which really means how many masters. Well not every master is suited to every strategy and scheme combo. So let's say two masters/crews to cover the bases. That means, IMO, we're talking about 150ss to cover most situations.

Around 150ss should easily come in at under 40 models, so even if some of them are on 50mm bases you should easily be able to Malifaux inside any army transport system. I'm interested to hear what other people think about this.

How many models do you carry to a game? How many of those do you use?