Starting Up Malifaux: Hired Swords

“A sword never kills anybody, it is a tool in the killer’s hand” -Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Model Count: 7 (Viktoria of Ashes, Viktoria of Blood, Student of Conflict, Taelor, 3 Ronin)

Points Playable in Box: Up to 46 (All 7 models, max soulstones, max upgrades)

Strengths: High Damage Output, Sister Buffs

Weaknesses: Soulstones, Squishy Master

The Hired Swords box is definitely one the more melee-focused player will greatly enjoy. The damage tracks on all the model’s melee weapons are good to great (even the totem packs a decent sword), and a lot of the models pack some way around damage mitigation. Ronin ignore armor and have a trigger for a + flip on damage, Taelor gets triggers to prevent armor, hard to kill, or soulstone prevents in addition to ++ on damage against constructs (who often have great damage mitigation) or tyrants, and the Mark of Shez’uulupgrade will let a sister ignore just about anything (armor, hard to kill, hard to wound, and incorporeal). Once in melee, you also get the chance to unleash a lot of extra attacks. The main Viktoria gives other sisters melee expert, both Viktorias have a trigger to attack all other enemies in melee range, the totem can hand out fast, Taelor can grab a buff to get a free charge if your opponent summons something, and the Ronin have flurry. The howling wolf tattoo will even let your models flurry (or rapid fire) without a discard, allowing several models to use flurry in a turn without the crippling hand deficiency that normally brings (it also can be discarded to make a minion into a sisterfor a turn). Sword slashes will be flying all over the place. With all the cutting, it’s easy to miss the ranged weaponry people are packing: the main Viktoria and Ronin all carry decent guns (just that the Ronin are a little inaccurate). While turning the opponent into little pile of minced meat is preferable, the option is still there if you need to take it.

The Ronin and Taelor can almost be treated as a second mini crew and left to their own devices, because while the Viktorias do almost nothing for them, they do a ton to buff up each other to insane levels. On the base cards, both Viktorias share any healing flips they perform with all other sisters in play, and the henchman Viktoria gets a healing flip once per turn when she kills something. Both sisters also have a gang attack spell, the main one makes all sisters withing 6” move in and attack the target, and the henchman makes all sisters in 2” attack the target and then push away (both spells giving + flips on the damage). When performed back to back (through accomplice off of the Synchronized Slaying  upgrade) and perhaps including a Ronin if you used the tattoo that turn, very little will survive the barrage of cuts (maximum attacks is insane, 2 from the Ronin, 2 from the totem, 2 plus melee expert from the henchman Viktoria, and 2 plus her regular extra AP from the master Viktoria…10 attacks, most of them buffed. Of course, it would take an extreme amount of luck and strategy to set it up that perfectly). Each Viktoria also has two 0 action buffs, one for being close (2”) to other sisters, and one for being a distance away (6”) from all other sisters. If they’re huddled up, you can choose to give the sister bubble +1 to melee attacks and defense. If you’re keeping them doing separate actions across the board, you can give the Ashes Viktoria + to attack flips and the Blood Viktoria + to damage. The totem helps out as well (remember, she counts as a sister, so she gets all of these buffs) with the classic Sisters in Spirit, which lets her take a sister model within 6” and place it anywhere in base contact with her. Very helpful for positioning your charges and getting across the board.

That’s not even including the upgrades! Sisters in Spirit copies the ability off of the totem and gives it to another one of your sisters. The aforementioned Synchronized Slaying also gives a spell to give all sisters a + flip on attacks. Finally, and brutally when you consider the number of attacks you’ve got, Sisters in Fury has a spell that gives a straight +2 damage to all melee attacks any sister in play performs. Considering that the Viktoria’s weakest melee damage is already 3, this lets them absolutely demolish anyone they come into contact with. The one caveat to remember here is that each Viktoria only has 7 health, which is quite low for a master. While they have a few defensive tricks up their sleeve, don’t charge in without being sure you’ll kill several things! Retaliation can easily kill off a sister, and all these fancy buffs don’t do much good without multiple sisters in play, they’re quite AP intensive.

While not a huge theme of the box, there is a small but decent amount of survivability among the models. The Ronin are hard to kill, immune to charges, and get to defensive stance without discarding a card. Taelor’s both hard to kill and hard to wound, and the Student has armor 1, making her a tough little totem. Finally, the Viktorias both have a chance to get + flips on all defense and willpower duels, but only one of them gets it at a time, depending on how many cards are in your hand. On the preemptive side, both of Taelor’s attacks can push a model, and the Ronin’s swords have a trigger to let them push away, allowing for better positioning to run away (or charge at a juicier target without disengaging strikes).

The box’s huge glaring weakness is soulstones. Since Viktoria only has a cache of 1, you’ll have to put a large number of your points towards them if you want to have a decent supply to use. More importantly, with two henchmen in the box you’ll go through them quite quickly, since almost half of your crew will want to use them throughout the game. Luckily, nearly dead ronin can be sacrificed for extra soulstones if needed, but it’s still an expensive option.

Outcasts have a wide variety of options, and the Viktorias play well with everyone (or at least don’t have anything approaching a specific theme the crew needs to function well), so which way you expand your crew depends a lot on playstyle preference and the strategy/schemes. Powerful shooters are a great choice to compliment the Viktoria’s melee superiority, so Hans (extreme range and a variety of useful debuffs) and the Convict Gunslinger (high rate of fire with Rapid Fireand a trigger for extra attacks) are great options. On the other hand, between how many points you’ll be sinking into soulstones and high cost characters, the Desperate Mercenary and Freikorpsmann are good picks in order to have a decent number of activations and less expensive models to go snag an objective or two. Between the Ronin’s Seppukku  and the Desperate Mercenary’s  Take…this…to…my son, you’ll have multiple bonus soulstones near the end of the game to fuel one last super Viktoria rampage. While still in the public beta, the model for the Viktoria’s sister Vanessa is one you’ll absolutely want. Another sister (and an enforcer, so one of the sister buff upgrades can be given to her, just not Sisters in Fury: it’s a Viktoria only upgrade), she’s also looking like she’ll pack some healing and an excellent ranged attack, so she can hang back out of melee buffing and shooting.