Wyrd Releases: Arsenal Boxes Wave 1

Return to the land of Malifaux, with all your favorites updated for a new age.  Today we look at the updated unit cards for version 2.

With the advent of Malifaux second edition the game has made a lot of strides forward in accessibility. However, there are those who have a lot of the old models with old stat cards. Enter the arsenal box (In Arcanist, Guild, Resurrectionist, Neverborn, Outcast, Gremlin, and Ten Thunders flavors).

Each box contains the stat cards for all three masters included in the core second edition rulebook, as well as the assorted minions, henchmen, enforcers, and peons. Essentially, it’s three starter boxes worth (generally, but not always, Master/Totem/Henchman/3 duplicate minions) and a couple of other in theme pieces for each master. Each “rare #” piece is included as many times as you could take it in a crew, and generic minions have 3 copies each if they’ve already been released, and 1 copy of the card (for proxying) of unreleased models (such as the samurai and monk of the low river in ten thunders).

Also included are the upgrade cards for each faction. Each master’s crew has master specific cards, and there are a group of generic ones available to all in faction pieces. For the upgrades available multiple times it supplies as many as you can take. The guild one contains a bonus, the Hair Trigger upgrade that was left out of the book.

The stat cards for each model can be obtained with the model itself when it gets rereleased in plastic, and the crew specific upgrades are included in the crew box. However, the arsenal boxes are the only place you can currently obtain the cards for generic upgrades. You can utilize the upgrades in the book in a pinch however.

The cards themselves are beautiful. With the simplification of models, they no longer unfold into a large card, so they can be fit into a standard sleeve so dry erase markers can be used to mark off the damage and write down conditions temporarily. They’re glossy and more durable then the original fate decks or first edition stat cards, but they aren’t the slippery plastic-ness of the newer fate decks. It’s a nice balance between the two.

The only issues I have is the boxes themselves are incredibly stiff the first time you open them. I’ve ripped the top on a couple of them until I started really working at them. Also, players who had extensive cross faction groupings (such as Leviticus plus his large collection of cross faction undead and constructs) will have to pick up multiple decks to make the crew function again.