Starting Up Malifaux: The Guild’s Judgment

Boom! Headshot…time to land some critical hits on those pesky undead with the Guild’s Judgment crew box.

Model Count: 6 (Lady Justice, The Judge, Scales of Justice, 3 Death Marshals)

Points Playable in Box: Up to 41 (All 6 models, max soulstones, max upgrades)

Strengths: Adaptable Crew, Critical Strike on all Non-Totem Models

Weaknesses: Hyper Specialized Master

The unnatural and the evil stalk the streets of Malifaux. These include thieves, murderers, neverborn, corrupt mages…and the undead. Lady Justice leads the death marshals (AKA the Guild’s Judgment crew box) on a never ending crusade to wipe the undead off the face of Malifaux. How can you help her do her good work?

Out of all the starting crew boxes, this one is probably the most balanced for attempting any scheme thrown at it. It’s got ranged, melee, some decent movement, a little bit of survivability, some control elements, a little bit of scheme manipulation…pretty much if you get thrown a scheme or strategy, the crew should have a decent shot at any of them. The crew has decent stats across the board for most of the models as well. Of course, being so adaptable, almost none of the abilities are going to be as strong as a specialized model, but when your opponent gets in your face, that sniper’s going to crumble while a Death Marshal just calmly shrugs, pulls out his peacebringer blade and skewers the opponent through the heart.

The Judge is going to have no issues swapping it up between shooting and melee, as his weapons are pretty close to each other (if you had to pick one, he’d probably prefer to be cutting people, his sword’s slightly more accurate and includes a ram built in). Both weapons have decent damage, as well as the Critical Strike trigger, and an interesting set of mask triggers called Blades and Bullets/Bullets and Blades. Basically, if he hits you in melee he can attempt to shoot you in the face as a free action, and if he shoots you he can attempt to throw his sword at you. No triggers on the free attacks, so they can’t Critical Strike or chain together more attacks, but he can make 4 attacks out of 2 AP, if the cards are willing. If he’s out of position, the Unrelenting Leader upgrade even lets him make attacks through his minions: the spell makes a non-leader friendly model make a (1) melee attack, and can trigger to do it again. He’s also got some decent control actions, as he can take a (0) to try and push an opponent 5” towards him or a (1) to do some damage (with potential bonus damage against the undead) and make them discard a card for every walk or charge that turn. The Judge is probably also the hardest model in the box to kill, with a decent chunk of hit points and both Hard to Wound +1 and Hard to Kill. With the upgrade, he’s also Stubborn, so WP based attacks will have trouble hitting him. Finally, he’s probably target #1 for any crew that’s powered by markers, because any model he kills doesn’t drop scrap or corpses. A powerful denial ability against someone trying to raise a ton of undead.

Death Marshals are all pretty much mini-Judges. Hard to Wound +1 makes them a little tougher than average, and when they die they get to place a free scheme marker. Both their Peacebringer and Peacebringer Blades are pretty much identical to each other, with average accuracy and damage (the gun has +1 severe damage as the only difference) as well as the Critical Strike trigger. Unimpeded gives the crew some ability to navigate through terrain. Their Pine Box gives them one of the most interesting controls in the game. It’s very short ranged, but if the opponent fails the WP resist, they get buried and removed from the board. Each time the Death Marshal activates, they get a chance to beat the Marshal in a WP to WP duel. If they win, they get unburied next to the Marshal, if they lose they stay off the board for another turn (it also pops a model back out if the acting model dies). While this is absolutely brutal if they keep failing the duel (it can target anyone, a master or henchman that runs into a stream of bad luck and misses multiple turns can spell doom for a player), it also has some interesting tricks. Most importantly is you can bury your own models, and then march the Marshal up the board through the cover of forests, preventing your hidden model from getting shot to death.

The Scales of Justice is a minor buff machine. As a totem, its stats are well below average and its bash attack is nearly useless. An aura grants a small Willpower buff to nearby allies, which in addition to being defensive gives your Death Marshals a small advantage over most models in keeping their captives buried. Balance the Scales can let you draw cards if your opponent has more, which is useful but in no way guaranteed (they may have a good hand they’re burning through pretty fast, or may be using a lot of abilities that require discards). Finally, Tip the Scales can give a + or – flip to a model’s next duel in a turn. Unfortunately, it requires a high card to cast (11+), so in a lot of cases it needs to be cheated to pull of, and you could just save that card to cheat with the ability you’re trying to buff. However, it can make an opponent unable to cheat on an important flip, or let you cheat if you have a lot of decent cards in hand.

The box’s great weakness is also a huge strength: its master is a hyper focused melee powerhouse. She has a few buffs as well, but they’re largely tied into her hitting stuff, so if she’s not getting into the thick of things she’s not doing very much at all. Her two (0) actions are pretty much for guaranteeing that she gets from one melee to the next, as one heals the nicks and cuts she gets, and the other gives her soft cover against most shooting (a dedicated sniper will completely ignore it, but very few models have the 13+” range required). The Justice Unleashed upgrade allows her a third (0) to wipe corpse and scrap off the table, and a (1) to do a medium pulse which damages all undead and spirits, ignoring Armor and Hard to Kill. That’s…about it for her non-melee specific tech.

As for combat, she’s a BEAST. Getting into combat, she ignores Line of Sight for charges. The Implacable upgrade will give her Bulletproof +1 for arriving safely and prevent models from running away once she’s engaged. Last Stand adds in the unimpeded ability and when she charges nearby Guild Marshals can push with her towards the target. Hitting people, her sword has above average damage and accuracy, with a built in Critical Strike trigger and a + flip on damage if you didn’t charge. Two more triggers can be added through Vendetta’s upgrade, one for + flips on damage and one for an extra attack. Once you outright murder the target, they don’t drop any corpse or scrap and all friendly minions within a decent sized bubble gain + flips to their melee and shooting actions.  Finally, if she fails to kill, she has a trigger to hit the opponent back if they miss her in melee (though the damage flip gains a -, and it has no triggers, it’s still potent…at minimum a free 3 damage).

Lady Justice doesn’t do much of anything else however. She has the standard 3 AP with decent move, so she’s a little mobile for scoring location based schemes, but largely her defenses are a mild heal, large pool of hit points, and making your opponent not want to chance missing her. Concentrated fire can easily take her down, so a big part of using her is figuring out the best spot to charge in. Maximize damage, minimize chances she’ll be killed outright, and try and do it again.

For expanding your crew selection, the guild overall has some great choices. They historically have a strong selection of amazing low- to mid-cost models, your Death Marshals being one of them. Packs of Guild Guard can be annoying, with armor and some bonus points in defense when bricked up, and the ability to sniff out nearby scheme markers. Guild Austringers have a weak, but very accurate long range attack, which gets even better range when focused, and the ability to give orders to friendlies so that they can take interact actions without spending their own precious AP. Witchling Stalkers can be a nasty combat piece, automatically handing out burning and exploding when dying. Most Guild players will want a couple of these options for their crews.

The Lone Marshal deserves special notice, as he’s another Guild Marshal model, this time a powerful ranged attacker on a highly mobile horse. Sadly, he’s not out yet as he doesn’t have a 1.5 edition model (a Pale Rider or Lucas McCabe can make a great proxy, especially since neither of those have official rules yet), but he’s on the official release schedule for the next couple of months.