I have a pretty crappy history with wargames, so why am I drawn so inexorably into the horrors of Malifaux?

Oh god, it’s happening again. I swore the last time was the end and that never again would I engage in this sort of behaviour, but here I am, squinting, scalpel in hand, ready to make my first cut. Miniatures wargames, man. Here’s a brief history of how crap I am with wargames – I have thus far failed to get started in Warhammer 40K (more than once), Warmachine, Dystopian Wars and probably more besides. It always happens the same way:

1. See some cool artwork and miniatures
2. Kid myself that I’ll just casually pick some up “Just to paint them”
3. Buy an entire starter box
4. Buy a rule book
5. Buy several supplementary rule books and read them cover-to-cover
6. Acquire more miniatures, probably from a second faction
7. Start assembling and painting said miniatures
8. Complete one miniature after several false starts and over multiple weeks, to my unrealistically high standards
9. Realise just how god-damn many miniatures there are. Oh god.
10. eBay

Notice how I don’t include the trivially minor matter of actually playing the game? That’s because I utterly suck at committing to a wargame and seeing it through to the end. You know how people wonder how Games Workshop stay in business? Yep, I’m part of the problem.

Oh, hello there Malifaux, You’re awfully pretty…

Wyrd Miniatures’ Victorigothiwild-westernsteampunkhorror game is a genre mash-up par excellence, pitting everything against everything else in a stylish skirmishes within the titular nightmare city; Immediately, I hit stage 1. This time though,things were different: I skipped stage 2 and hit stages 3 and 4 with alarming rapidity and this is where you find me – hook, line and sinker. So what makes me think that things will be different this time? Am I more mature and able to exercise a little restraint? Do I find myself with more free time to devote to a hobby? Has my willpower transformed from a floppy, soggy shoelace into a solid iron bar?

HAH! NOPE! But Malifaux has plenty of things going for it that will stave off the inevitable collapse, maybe indefinitely:

1. I have an actual pool of players this time who will actually go further than army lists and uncut sprues of plastic – and we’re all total novices, getting in on the ground floor together. And with Facebook there’s…
2. Peer Pressure! Ok, so not too healthy, but each painted miniature I see, spurs me into actually slapping some paint around for a change. This is made easier by…
3. Small army size. Malifaux plays with small ‘crews’ of a handful of miniatures; my first set consists of six things to build and paint. I should be able to manage that because…
4. Unique models! Rather than painting a squad of the same damned soldier over and over again, I get variety to keep my interest. Even the same type of miniature is posed in a different and dynamic manner.
5. The game looks very different from every other miniatures game I have seen. This is mostly due to its use of a card deck instead of dice, a neat twist that gives a totally new feel and an extra layer of gameplay. Also, it’s relatively short and not too hard to learn.

I have already picked out a cheap crew containing only six miniatures and a theme of setting fire to things, then doing it some more, followed by blasting it into ashes. Seems like it should be simple enough, so expect to see more of my tentative wobbles through the Breach into the twisted world of Malifaux.

Now which one should my second crew be…?

Like its big brother Malifaux, Puppet Wars eschews dice rolling in favour of a deck of cards to drive the game. The Puppet Deck is fundamentally a standard 52-card deck with the usual four suits and two Jokers, but there are a few slight changes which I shall detail.

Your Puppet Deck cards are numbered from 1 through to 13 (Aces being low in this game, but worth two of their suit) and will be of one of four suits; Crows, Tomes, Rams, or Masks. Whenever you want to do anything with your puppets, you will usually be required to match a card requirement of both number and suit, for example ‘3 Crow’, or multiple suits like ’12 Ram, Tome’.

Like a regular deck, but creepier.

There are also two Jokers, one red and one black. The Red Joker is worth 14 and double any one suit of your choosing, making it the ultimate wild card. The Black Joker is one card you do not want to see; not only is it worth zero and has no suit, but if you flip it from the top of your deck then whatever you were doing automatically fails.

It’s a hard to tell which is good and which is bad, so they colour coded them.

Why would you be flipping a card from the top of the deck though? Don’t you have a hand of cards? Actually, you get both. In Puppet Wars you will have a hand limit of 4 cards which increases and decreases based on the number of Workbenches (bases) you own. You play Turns comprised of five rounds and you draw one card at the start of each round. Players then choose one card from their hand in secret, and reveal them simultaneously, with play order determined in ascending order from the lowest card played.

Remember the number and suit requirements? This is where the sneaky stuff begins. In order to animate your puppets, or bring more into play, you must play a card that has a value equal to, or higher than their animation requirement and matches the suit, or suits needed. This means that playing a low numbered card to ensure you play earlier in the round will limit you to activating only low-cost puppets.

The Judge’s animation cost is 5 Ram, here are two ways a player could animate him.

When a puppet takes an action, you flip a card from the top of your deck, hoping to again equal or beat the required number, or at least match suit. If the flipped card isn’t enough and assuming the Black Joker didn’t come up, you can then play cards from your hand to replace the number on the flipped card and/or add to the suit. This can make the difference between passing and failing an action, but as your hand of cards is small and you only draw one per round, you’ll soon realise that you have to manage your hand and pick which actions are vital and which you’ll allow to fail.

Here’s an example of the Puppet deck in action:

In the image below, the Judge is attacking Bete Noire. He flips a number of cards from the top of his deck equal to his attack statistic of 3 (the third circled number on his card). He has to beat Bete’s defence of 6 Crow (the second circled number) in order to cause a rip. The cards flipped are 11 Mask, 8 Tome and 7 Mask, so any of these numbers beat the required 6, but none of the cards match the Crow suit requirement. The Judge select the highest number – the 11 Mask – and plays a card from his hand; the Ace of Crows to fulfil the requirement and cause Bete some damage.

FIGHT!

Intelligent management of your Puppet Deck and cards is vital for success in Puppet Wars and is certainly an interesting alternative to the standard dice-duels found in the majority of wargames. There’s something about playing cards that lends itself to Puppet Wars’ grungy, old-fashioned aesthetic and the alternate suits work harmoniously with the games alternative dimension theme. The cards themselves are actually plastic and won’t easily wear out, though they are a bugger to photograph!

When I next revisit Puppet Wars, I will be showing a little more of the puppets themselves and their abilities, both ‘alive’ and ‘dead’! until then, please don’t pull any loose threads, you’ll have an arm off!