Our biweekly coverage of Malifaux continues! In today’s faction focus we’re looking at the weird nad wonderful warriors of the Arcanists.  Remember that you can also check out the accompanying video on Danger Planet, the premier source for Malifaux video content!

Welcome to the second Malifaux Faction Focus article! Today we’ll be focusing on the working men and women of Malifaux—the Miners and Steamfitters Union. What? The Arcanists? Never heard of ‘em, bud.

Never heard of ‘em.

The Lore of the Arcanists

It’s impossible to talk about the M&SU without talking about the Arcanists, and vice versa. That chafes some good, honest Union men and women, who just want to put in a solid day’s work for a fair day’s wage without being wrapped up in shady magical criminality. But that’s just the way it is—the two organizations work in symbiosis, the Union providing legal cover to the activities of the Arcanists and the Arcanists providing magical muscle to the Union to counterbalance the might of the Guild.

The M&SU got their start in 1899, following the Northern Hills Mine Disaster. A Soulstone mine flooded after torrential rain, trapping the miners within and killing many of them. In the aftermath, a miner named Erick Ulish rallied the survivors and their peers to form the Northern Miners Union. Ulish and his fellows managed to scrape together enough money to hire mine safety engineers, and that was how Victor Ramos came into the picture.

Ramos was, and is, a genius beyond compare in all things mechanical. His innovations increased mine safety a hundredfold, and when he proposed integrating his engineering corps into the Union itself, everyone agreed—so the NMU became the M&SU. Ramo’s constructs worked alongside living miners, his pumps kept mines safe and dry, and his skill at organizing was second to none. He leveraged labor power to build the M&SU into an organization that could rival the Guild. When Ulish died in an unfortunate mining accident, naturally Ramos stepped in as the new Union president.

Unbeknownst to most, Ramos was living a double life. In addition to running the M&SU, he was also the head of the Arcanists, a criminal underground of mages who trafficked in smuggled Soulstones and provided shelter to magical fugitives. Of course, they didn’t think of themselves as criminals—they were freedom fighters, seeking to share the gift of magic with everyone outside the stultifying grip of the Guild. The Arcanists seek knowledge whatever the cost and count a dazzling array of mages within their ranks. The only thing they have in common is a desire to practice magic outside the auspices of the Guild.

The two organizations lived in uneasy harmony, with Ramos’s force of will and personal power keeping them alloyed together. This could not last forever. As Ramos grew increasingly confrontational with the Guild and increasingly ruthless in his pursuit of power—Toni Ironsides, the Union’s chief legbreaker and Ramos’s top lieutenant—made a fateful decision. She turned him over to the Guild. In exchange, the Guild relented in its persecution of the M&SU. Ramos now sits in a jail cell in Vienna, the Guild headquarters, and Ironsides leads the M&SU. However, all is not well within the ranks of the Arcanists. Ramos’s other top lieutenant, Anasalea Kaeris, took Ironsides’s betrayal badly, and the two women are at each other’s throats. If the M&SU and the Arcanists are to survive, they need to be of one mind, and right now their leaders are three steps from open warfare.

Why Should I Play Arcanists?

The Arcanists are one of the most diverse factions in terms of appearance. While the Guild are mostly some variety of cowboy, or cowboy cop, Arcanists can be anything from cannibal ice cultists to dazzling showgirls to animal-human hybrids to, well, robots. It’s a weird and wonderful lineup, and if you were drawn to Malifaux by the word “steampunk,” the Arcanists are where you’re going to hang your needlessly sprocketed top hat. In fact, sometimes it’s a little hard to justify why two Arcanist models would fight side by side– before, you at least had Victor Ramos’s force of personality, but now there’s not even that. (He’ll be back someday, folks, never fear). Insofar as the Arcanists have a unifying theme, it’s their quest for knowledge, although sometimes that’s knowledge of the forbidden sort. Their symbol is thus the Tome, the second of Malifaux’s suits.

The diversity in their appearance is matched by diversity in their playstyles. Perhaps no other faction does as many different things as the Arcanists, and your opponent will never know just from your faction declaration what to expect.

Play Arcanists if:

• You like synergy crews. Malifaux is a synergy-focused game, but the Arcanists take it to the next level, with most of their crews requiring interlocking parts to unlock their full potential.
• You like a balanced approach. Arcanist crews can shoot and fight, and while individual crews tend towards one end of the spectrum or the other, it’s rare that you won’t have options for both.
• You really like the Weird West. Arcanist crews are aesthetically strong– a crew of striking miners, a cannibal cult, a cabaret. Your crew will present a powerful theme.

The Masters

Colette du Bois

Colette only ever wanted to be a star. She didn’t come to Malifaux to mine soulstone or make her living on the frontier. Prospectors and frontiersmen were out there, risking their lives and getting filthy rich, and when they got back to Malifaux City they were in the mood for entertainment. And that, Colette and her Performers can provide.

Not that kind of entertainment. They’re stage magicians, you pervert. But showing a bit of thigh helps bring in the punters.

Colette is a consummate showwoman, dazzling audiences every night with a cunning array of stunts and sleight of hand. In a reversal that would make Penn and Teller proud, it’s all real magic, of course– but cleverly disguised so as to appear to be merely a very tricky illusion. The magic is powered by Soulstones, and that’s Colette’s entrée into the Arcanists; she’s a smuggler par excellence, in charge of bringing illicit Soulstones through the Breach in both directions. The wealth this provides funds the Star theater and helps Colette protect her girls and keep their hard-won freedom.

On the table, Colette’s crew distracts and stuns the enemy with feats of skill, disrupting their attacks and moving them around. She herself is as slippery as an eel, and while Performer crews aren’t going to be stacking up bodies, they’re extremely adept at scoring the strategies and schemes that determine who actually wins the game. Colette’s title form takes this a step further, spreading Decoy markers that

Play Colette du Bois if:

• You’d rather Entrance and Slow enemies than kill them outright
• It’s not enough to win games unless you look absolutely fabulous doing it
• You’re really into the “getting tabled but winning anyways” aspect of Malifaux

Anasalea Kaeris

Anasalea Kaeris is not a particularly complicated woman. For a long time, she served as the Arcanists’ chief troubleshooter. When she saw trouble, she shot it. With fire.

Kaeris was Ramos’s chief disciple and right-hand-woman, and has taken his betrayal and ouster rather badly. Insofar as the Arcanists and the Guild have begun to fissure, Kaeris leads the Arcanist half of the split. I am far too sophisticated a writer to resort to cheap tricks like calling her “hot tempered” or “fiery” but she does have a certain… aggressive bent, and her anger at the Guild (and those members of the M&SU who she sees as betraying Ramos) does tend to boil over at the slightest opportunity. It’s surely not helpful that Elijah Borgmann and his Firebranded, an Earthside fraternity of anarchists and arsonists, have made their way to Malifaux and are stoking Kaeris’s worst instincts. And that was before the Burning Man appeared in the sky…

On the table, Kaeris is, unsurprisingly, a master of pyromancy. The Wildfire keyword likes to spread it around, both setting enemies on fire directly and dropping Pyre Markers onto the table that roast anyone who comes into contact with them. Fire isn’t picky, though, and while the primary goal of a Wildfire crew is to drop it onto enemies’ heads, many of them don’t mind being on fire themselves; they can cash it in for various effects, from preventing damage to healing. And of course the Fire Gamin and Golems, elemental creations of pure fire, don’t mind it at all. Kaeris herself is fast and mobile with her mechanical wings, and capable of tossing flames all over the place… or simply picking up a troublesome enemy, flying into the sky, and letting them drop.  Her title form spreads the gift to friends as well, letting them beseech the Burning Man for aid.

Play Kaeris if:

• You think subtlety is for cowards
• You specced into PoM Pyro in vanilla WoW
• You really like fire puns

Toni Ironsides

The other side of the Arcanist/Union divide is led by Toni Ironsides, current president of the M&SU. At the climax of Second Edition, she made the difficult decision to turn Ramos over to the Guild. His monomania had put them all in danger, and he had forgotten the working men and women who put him where he was. Not Toni– the daughter of escaped enslaved people, she never forgot her origins and always fought for the proletariat. She still stands up against Guild tyranny, but now she has her hands full keeping Kaeris and her die-hards off her back as well. Toni was the Union’s chief legbreaker before her promotion to President, and she’s used to doing things herself. She always protects her people, and they protect her in return.

Currently, Toni and Kaeris have reached an uneasy détente. The women don’t like each other, but Kaeris understands why Toni did what she did, and Toni understands why Kaeris is the way she is. It’s a fragile truce, earned only after the two of them nearly killed each other, but with the rising threats in Malifaux the Arcanists and Union need each other. They have to stand together, or they will all fall separately.

On the table, Toni is a brawler par excellence; once she gets stuck in and starts breaking legs, she’s savagely deadly in a fistfight. Her crew are fighters, too, and like any good Union man or woman, they are stronger when acting side-by-side. Her title form takes Union politics more seriously, and directs her underlings in a controlled riot.

Play Toni Ironsides if:

• You want to play as the objectively most morally upright and righteous person in the setting
• You get bored when your crew’s leader isn’t punching things
• You do your best work when there’s two outs and a full count

Sandeep Desai

Poor Sandeep Desai. All he ever wanted was to study. Raised in a temple in his native India, Sandeep studied the arcane from a young age, mastering elemental magic and summoning elemental spirits (or Gamin) to do his will. Unfortunately, the Guild would not leave him in peace. Sandeep’s teacher was executed by local Guild officials for speaking out against Guild tyranny, and in a blind fury, Sandeep took up his master’s cursed gada. Letting out his repressed rage, he unleashed Banasuva, the elemental spirit bound within the gada. The two of them took their revenge, but Sandeep realized he had burned his bridges and become a wanted criminal. He fled to Malifaux, partially to escape Guild justice, but partially to gain control of his rage and his elemental powers. Banasuva, imprisoned in the gada long ago by a nameless hero, is a fiery and destructive presence, and Sandeep is forever trying to repent for having set him free.

Now, Sandeep works with the Arcanists, training young magical talents and instilling in them the values of calm, control and serenity that he learned growing up. These Academics learn from their master the art of summoning and binding elemental Gamin. Fire, ice, wind, metal, poison… the elements bow to Sandeep and obey his commands.

On the table, Sandeep leads his crew in meditation, giving them spiritual insights which they can spend on a variety of helpful effects.  His title form conjures elemental gamin from the raw aether, combining them into more powerful golems.

Play Sandeep if:

• You don’t mind buying every model you could conceivably field, since you’re gonna summon them all
• You are one of those sickos who enjoys the interlocking buff gameplay of Adeptus Mechanicus
• You can do a dead-on impression of Robin Williams in Aladdin

Rasputina

Many Arcanists are at least nominally members of the M&SU, if only for cover purposes, but Rasputina won’t even give them that. Brought to Malifaux as a convict laborer, serving time for a terrible crime, she escaped into the snow-capped Ten Peaks mountains. She would have frozen to death on the slopes, but for the intervention of a powerful evil from Malifaux’s past: the slumbering tyrant December.

December’s cult based themselves in the Ten Peaks, and the Tyrant himself lent his power to Rasputina, elevating her and molding her to his will. The cult is made up of vicious cannibals, and Rasputina soon proved herself equal to the task of taming them, killing the corrupt old high priests and taking their place. Her power, direct from December, is far greater than theirs was, and with her at their head the cult of December is far stronger and more active than ever before. December has made several attempts to ascend and regain his former power; each has been thwarted, and he has taken a back seat, letting Rasputina run the show. She is also starting to realize that perhaps he does not have her best intentions in mind. Still, without his power she’s just another escaped convict, and she won’t go back to that life. Not ever. Her alliance with the Arcanists is a strained one, mostly out of convenience, but for now she needs them and they make use of December’s frozen power.

On the table, Rasputina’s crew is a bit of a hodgepodge, mixing human cultists with inhuman ice spirits and monsters from the Ten Peaks. They make use of December’s control over ice, littering the board with jagged Ice Pillar markers and using them for various effects. Rasputina herself is a classic ice mage, hurling bolts of frost at opponents and chilling the blood in their veins. Enemies facing December find themselves slowed, staggered, and ground down into icy nubs.  Her title form can carve those ice pillars into living ice sculptures or refract her magic through them.  Also, I got through that entire writeup without saying “chill out” even once.

Play Rasputina if:

• You like to grind your opponents down one piece at a time
• You like puns, but prefer them cold instead of hot
• You like Sandeep’s crew’s aesthetic but want to paint half as many models

Cornelius Basse

Hailing from the Oklahoma Frontier, Cornelius Basse is a lawman’s lawman, straight as an arrow and respected by all.  His stoicism and fairness made him plenty of friends and earned him the love of one woman, and though she passed before they could marry, she left him a hot-blooded and fierce daughter, Bernadette.  Unfortunately, not everyone shared the Basse duo’s sense of justice, and when Bernadette’s path crossed that of a corrupt judge’s son, she was forced to kill him in self defense.  That was the end of Cornelius’s burgeoning career as a sheriff– he fled American “justice” through the Breach and stumbled right into the hands of the Guild.

The Guild knew that they had leverage over Basse.  And the Guild always uses its leverage.  Malifaux’s frontier is expanding all the time, and the Badlands is a lawless place.  Basse was the right man at the right time.  Paired with the retired Executioner Jonathan Reichert, Basse pater and fille set out to bring the law with them… but the Explorer’s Society had been watching, and they made contact as well.  Torn between two masters, Basse rejected both, especially since the brutality of the Guild and amorality of the Explorers rubbed his lawman’s heart wrong.  He has gone rogue and been welcomed into the Arcanists, who encourage him to do what he knows to be right.

Basse’s Frontier keyword focuses largely on ranged combat, but these rugged survivalists know how to take care of themselves, and the crew has plenty of incidental healing to keep themselves topped off.  Basse deputizes his followers, handing them badges that give them little bonuses and sometimes catch a bullet for the wearer.  His title form sets bounties that his followers can claim, and sets clockwork traps to catch his fleeting quarry. Frontier models are also good at taking best advantage of terrain, and incautious opponents may find themselves ambushed from below by a massive, tunneling sandworm.

Play Cornelius Basse if:

• You want to play the setting’s second most morally upright character
• You like to give you models little rewards for being good boys
• You enjoyed Dune in theaters, but you think the 1990 original with Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward was better

Damian Ravencroft

Damian Ravencroft always loved puzzles.  One of the most enduring mysteries he encountered in a long career was Sonnia Criid’s Yellow Crypt: how did she transform rogue mages into mindless, magic-devouring Witchings?  Damian, committed to freedom of inquiry for those of a magical persuasion, decided to find out.  He undertook the most dangerous gambit of all: allowing himself to be captured and reduced to Witchling form, he stored his memories and intellect in a puzzle box.

The plan worked, and when Ravencroft figured out how to open the box, he escaped Criid’s clutches with his talents (and sanity) intact (well, mostly).  His erstwhile handler, Bellaventine Thorpe, followed him into exile… and followed him on his next expedition, as well, when he unearthed the geode prison of the Tyrant Witness and became Her avatar.  He still believes in strict self-control, but now he has the Tyrant-granted powers of order to help him enforce it on others, too.

Damian’s crew is highly flexible, taking advantage of their broad suite of triggers and Adaptable tokens to pick the right tool for the right task.  His title form harnesses Witness’s unleashed power to impose a terrifying order on the battlefield, cancelling enemy abilities while channeling their abilities through each other to form a nexus of power.

Play Damian if:

• You like your puns chess-themed
• You always pass the turn with UU untapped
• You do not need any phony god’s blessing, but are enlightened by your own intelligence

That’s 2/8 factions down. Next time, we take a look at the spooky scary monster faction, the Neverborn!

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