Variant House Rule: 40-Minute Malifaux

[TedPro]

I was inspired by Dustcrusher's blog post to try to write up variant rules for a fast game of Malifaux. Along with my friend lifeblood, we kind of hammered out rules and tried them out.

They're fun! We played a full game in 40 minutes (from setting down my minis bag to shaking hands in the last turn), and it was exciting and felt like it had the same balance and action as a Malifaux scrap, just on a smaller scale.

Here are the rules we ended up with for a Fast Game:

1. Play on a 2' x 2' board. Do not flip for terrain type or special terrain. Just use whatever you have. Keep 2-4 terrain per square foot, of course.

2. Play a 10 soulstone limit when picking crews. Don't pick Avatars.

3. Instead of the usual Strategies, flip and use the following chart for each player: 1-4, Claim Jump. 5-8, Slaughter. 9-12, Turf War. 13 or Red Joker: Pick from these three Strategies. Black Joker: Opponent picks from these three Stategies. (If you get the same Strategy, it's a Shared Strategy as usual.)

4. For the first scheme, each player picks one of their two faction schemes, or takes 2 soulstones more.

5. For the second scheme, each player takes their unique Master scheme, or takes 2 soulstones more. Henchmen playing as mercenaries just take 2 soulstones more.

6. Use standard deployment.

7. Hand size is reduced by one card for all players.

8. Game play lasts 4 turns, with no flip for optional extended play.

Try it out! I'd love to hear feedback.

[Vmag]

So a skirmish version of a skirmish game? Seems interesting. How'd you choose 10SS?

[TedPro]

So a skirmish version of a skirmish game? Seems interesting. How'd you choose 10SS?

Hee! Well put, vmag.

10 soulstones seemed like the smallest number that could still support every Master's different tactics. Big enough that you can take one big model or a bunch of little ones. And it's a nice round number.

[Fancy_Hat]

I have not tried these out yet, but a few suggestions from thinking about it:

15 SS might be a better point, this is usually what I demo at, as it allows the Master and two lower SS-costed minions and one "special" minion. For example, I usually run Seamus with two Rotten Belles and Madame Sybelle against Von Schill with two Freikorpsmann and the Freikorps Specialist.

You may want to simply say the Core strategies instead of limiting even moreso, but that shouldn't really matter.

I don't like being forced into choosing from two possible scheme choices. I would recommend simply having each player choose only one scheme, and not giving a SS bonus for not choosing the second.

Limiting the SS cache to 6 might also be something to consider. (This goes along with the idea of one less card, so it scales the same as between a Scrap and a Brawl.)

I would recommend naming it something. I am thinking a Bout or a Spar (Goes along with the naming of Scrap and Brawl).

Otherwise it seems great and like a good idea, definitely something to consider using for demos, since those take extra time simply due to explaining/teaching the rules, playing a shorter version of the game would help mitigate this somewhat (although I would recommend not reducing the number of cards in hand for a demo, so as not to confuse a potentially new player).

[CrouchingMoose]

Tiney flaw i see at first glance is that this appears to give ranged crews an earlier advantage. Some models feel like the have a ramp up time and this close starting distance could give those models with long range killing power a decent advantage.

An example of this would be if you deployed poorly and rasputina won initiative, well now she activates first, walks once, and is now within range to decimate the opponent's crew without even activating their first model. Personally, that would be worse than the now errata'd Dreamer Slingshot, since the lack of retaliation if from the opponent not having any models left.

[LordZombie]

Doesn't look too bad. I am going to get the group to try it out tomorrow. I will post up the results.

[Dustcrusher]

Nice work- I still need to get my version of this idea written down for testing purposes.

What CrouchingMoose said is one of the reasons my take on this would be minion only- I've decided that henchmen would be too strong for something this small as well, thus high-level minions leading lesser minions. This would also serve to speed things up a bit more since few minions have more rules and abilities than a master or a henchman (if any of them do).

Oh, and my cute name for each game is a "scuffle"

I ran a 15 point 2x2 game with Destroy the Evidence as the only scheme. Seamus/Sybelle/Belle vs. Lady J/Judge/Death Marshal. Got to the point where I would've had to execute flawlessly with Seamus to win, and I had no soulstones left.

It worked pretty well, I think, and the prospect enjoyed it.

[TedPro]

15 SS might be a better point, this is usually what I demo at, as it allows the Master and two lower SS-costed minions and one "special" minion.

True! 15ss would work well, too. I picked 10ss because I figured it would be faster, without totally distorting the whole game.

You may want to simply say the Core strategies instead of limiting even moreso, but that shouldn't really matter.
I don't like being forced into choosing from two possible scheme choices.

Many of the Strategies kinda fall apart on a scale this small, so I picked three that would work well on this scale.

I did the reduced scheme choices so that you'd spend less time picking schemes, which always seems to add 5 minutes to the game.

I definitely like your idea of just picking one scheme, though -- I'll try that too and see which one ends up working better.

Limiting the SS cache to 6 might also be something to consider.

Yeah, lifeblood suggested that too! We kinda went back and forth on that.

Soulstones seem a little too plentiful.
My only concern was, if you limit the soulstone cache to 6, then Masters like Pandora and McMourning, who start with 6 soulstone cache, would have to pick EXACTLY 10 soulstones worth of minions, or their soulstones would go to waste.

The other possibility was reducing your soulstones by 2 across the board, but that would make things very strange for Outcasts.

I would recommend naming it something. I am thinking a Bout or a Spar (Goes along with the naming of Scrap and Brawl).

Spat?
Scuffle?
Hissy-Fit?

---------- Post added at 10:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:21 PM ----------

Doesn't look too bad. I am going to get the group to try it out tomorrow. I will post up the results.

Please do! I can't wait to hear how it worked out!

[nilus]

My thoughts,

Like others have said I think 15 stones works better. 10 seems to small.

As for Strategies, I would replace Slaughter with something else. Maybe Escape and Survive. I have lots of issues with Slaughter and I am not sure how well it would work at that low of stone cost.

Honestly it might be worth developing some low stone Strategies specific for this kinda format.

Overall I like the idea and would love to keep developing it as a community. A new games store just opened close to my house so this sorta format could be great for a lunch break game during the week.

[Sarsnick]

10SS is really rough.

For some masters, there are required models like the Dreamer who needs to spend at least 4 stones for 2 daydreams.

That leaves with you with just 6 SS worth of other models.