The Malifaux Fourth Edition beta has finally come to an end!  The last tweaks have been tweaked, the last questions have been answered, and almost all of the rules that just flat-out don’t work as written have been fixed (sorry, Bete Noire).

The app is already rolling out to those lucky enough not to be in thrall to Tim Apple, and the first official World Series event of Fourth Edition is taking signups as I write this.  I have updated the Faction Focus articles to Fourth Edition, but there are two keywords that don’t show up in those articles – because they’re brand new.  Today, I am inaugurating a new series of Malifaux articles: Crew Focus.  We’ll get down and dirty with the details of each crew, how it plays, strengths and weaknesses, and some tips and tricks from experienced players.  And we’ll start with the two newcomers from the Malifaux Fourth Edition starter set: the mad robots of Ampersand and the aquatic nightmares of the Banished.

Forget It Jake, It’s Robot Town

Ampersand is an oddity: a community in the Badlands populated entirely by sentient constructs.  People aren’t always kind to machines that think, and sometimes those machines think “I’ve had enough.”  Of course, sometimes they think that while their former owner’s blood is dripping from their knuckles, which only provides more incentive to flee.  Other machines seek out their own kind from preference, or because they’re afraid that inquisitive humans will take them apart to see what makes them (literally) tick.

These machines, whatever their origin story, wind up under the protection of the Clockwork Queen.  She’s a bit eccentric, but aren’t all small-town mayors?  The important thing is that she keeps her clockwork charges safe.

Gameplay-wise, both versions of the Ampersand keyword synergize with Remains markers, as robots on the run learn to patch themselves up with whatever’s at hand.  Clockwork Queen’s Matriarch of the Machine form is a straightforward beater who controls the enemy crew’s movement with Staggered tokens, while her title form, The Paradox, plays more technically, letting her crew use each other’s actions while charging up a massive laser.

Engage Ass Beating Protocols

Let’s start with Matriarch of the Machine – specifically with her crew card.  Repair Bay is (almost) as straightforward as crew cards get: One Robot’s Trash lets you convert Remains Markers directly to +twists to duels.  Any duels, so it works offensively, defensively, and even when you’re trying to get off a key tactical action.  You will want a source of Remains Markers to power this ability up, but fortunately, the crew does not want for those.

The crew card action, Fixer-Upper, costs a Soulstone, but as a Signature action it fits comfortably into your activations.  It heals a friendly model a hefty 3, and pushes them 2″ for each raise – and, with a TN of 3, you will be getting up to 5 raises, so that’s a significant push.  The On Your Heels trigger lets you go with them, too.  This is a fantastic action, even for a Soulstone: three points is a chunky heal, but you may end up targeting someone nearby at full health just to cheat in a 13 of masks, push them 10″, and teleport to their far side.  Not bad mobility for a Signature.  The only downside is the short range, 3″, so make sure to plan ahead if you’re planning to use this as a slingshot.

Clockwork Queen, Matriarch of the Machines

Matriarch of the Machines has a solid stat line for a Master: 6 df, 5 wp, the standard 14 hp, and Armor +1 make her reasonably durable, and at Mv 7 she’s quite speedy.  Creative Salvage lets her generate Schemes or extra Remains markers when killing enemies, which she will likely do a lot of, largely thanks to Improvised Tech.  +2 damage for Impact Tokens instead of +1 seems marginal, but it really adds up.

Her main attack, Clockwork Gauntlets, isn’t that impressive at baseline at only damage 2, but with a raise value of 3, if you’re willing to burn good cards on it you will stack that damage up impressively high (especially with Impact).  She also has a once-per-activation attack-again trigger in Broken Spring, albeit at the cost of 1 damage (minimal, especially with her access to healing), and the always-helpful Stagger trigger.

Her second attack, Shattered Crystal, is her ranged option. It’s got Range 10 and a heftier Damage of 3, although as a magic attack it won’t benefit from Raises.  It automatically Staggers the target and allies within 2″ of them, which is a hellish penalty – at Mv 7 you can feasibly walk 14″ and then shoot 10″, tagging an enemy crew in their deployment zone before they unpack and making their life miserable.  The Dismember trigger lets you create more Remains markers near the enemy, while Coordinated Attack lets another friendly punch the person you just shot.

Her signature tactical, Voltaic Blast, also makes Remains markers, this time wherever you want within 8″.  The newly created pile of junk pulses out a little damage sometimes, but mostly you’re just using it to make the Remains marker – although it can heal friendlies or hand out Impact.  Probably the most straightforward use of this is to activate the Queen with an Impact token, hit someone, then use this to reload the Impact before hitting again.

Bucket Bot

The Matriarch’s totem, the Bucket Bot, might as well be called the Bolster Bot.  It has Armor, but ineffective defensive stats and a weak attack mean you do not want this guy anywhere near the action.  As he is significant, he can hold a backfield objective while pumping out Remains and making your crew more durable with Bolstered tokens (he also feeds the Matriarch Impact tokens).  He’s a solid utility totem, but that Oil Spill ability is more cute than good; anyone who can reach him won’t be hampered by a little bit of rough terrain, and they will likely kill him fast.

Overall, this version of the Queen is a bit of a flank brawler.  I wouldn’t run her right up the middle, but she’s fast enough to dart up the side, kill something important, and then start lobbing Shattered Crystals into the center.  Her crew card provides plenty of crew support without having to do it herself.

Paradox-Absorbing Crumple Zones

Moving on to the Queen’s title form, The Paradox, the first thing I notice is that Trash Heap is a power bar card.  In this case, you power up by removing Remains markers – but the only on-card way to do so is a passive, end-of-activation removal to heal 1.  That’s fine, but it’s a bit slow and low-impact by itself.

So what does the Power Bar do?  Well, it scales up to 6 (pretty high, as these things go), and it powers up the TRASH CANNON.  Any unique Ampersand model can fire it: it’s a short-ranged magic attack that simply deals scaling damage based on the size of the power bar and drains it to zero.  Luckily, it only drains if you hit, so once you’re full, someone is getting torched for 6 damage.  Presumably they’re getting brained by a ballistic washing machine.  Overall, though, this is a bit of a low-impact crew card… at least, on this side.  The array of tokens is more interesting, including as it does the unique Improvised Part token. This allows models to declare tactical actions printed on the cards of non-master allies within 6″.  You only get one before removing the token, but that opens up amazing possibilities, as we will see below.

Clockwork Queen, The Paradox

The Paradox switches her other form’s Df and Wp, and is a lot slower at Mv 5, but is otherwise the same (armor included).  She doesn’t have Matriarch’s double-impacts or Creative Salvage, but once per turn she can instantly gobble up a Remains marker that would be placed within 6″ to infuse a Soulstone.  An ability to reliably print Soulstones is great, and she even has a good spender: her defensive ability, Reverse Gyros, lets her spin a soulstone to move someone who attacked her 6″, which is long enough that it will often both keep you safe and disrupt your opponent’s plans.  It doesn’t reduce damage, though, and she doesn’t have the massive healing potential of her original form, so beware.

Her main attack, Explosive Calibration, is an interesting one – Range 12 and Stat 7 (vs Mv) are both impressive, but it requires a Remains marker near the target.  The damage it deals is based on the distance between the marker and the target, capping at 4.  It then eats the Remains marker and makes a new one touching the target  If you can reliably get 4-damage hits off with this it’ll be great, but it’s not easy to set up – the best way to do it is probably to ping-pong one marker between multiple targets, hitting one for 8 and the other for 4.  It also loads the cannon very quickly if you do this.

Her second Attack, Exploit Vulnerability, is an odd one.  Also a long-ranged magic attack, but much weaker damage-wise.  You can remove Staggered from the enemy to summon Self-Repair Bots (of which more later) into base contact with them, which is cute.  It has crit strike, which is always nice to have, and the Lost a Wheel ability to make a Remains marker within 4″, which is more significant (since it turns on Calibration).

Finally, Quick Weld, her Signature, hands out an Improvised Parts token.  We discussed these, but they’re cool and super versatile.  You can also hand out Impact tokens at the same time, or teleport into base contact with the target for a Soulstone, which given the ability’s 8-inch range is a nice get out of jail free card.

Goop

Her totem, Goop, is (like the Bucket Bot) slow and not particularly sturdy.  Don’t let Hard to Kill fool you; this thing is not hard to kill if the enemy wants to.  It hands out Improvised Parts freely as long as you can keep it near friendlies, but definitely hang back with it.

Goop’s melee isn’t great, but Staggering enemies at least turns on his boss’s summon.  His tactical are much more interesting: there are three, and they’re all Signature actions, which gives you a ton of versatility.  Spilled Bolts simply creates Remains within 6″, turning on many other crew abilities, and occasionally Staggering and even damaging enemies near the marker.  “That’s Still Good!”, on the other hand, hoovers up a Remains marker to teleport Goop around and maybe even Bolster him.  Finally, Repurpose Parts lets you eat tokens off friendlies or enemies (though enemies can discard a card to prevent it).  You can also spend a soul stone to draw up to two cards, though typically this will only work if you are targeting a friendly as an enemy will just pitch a card to stop you (and you have to spend a Soulstone before they choose to do that or not).

The Paradox lacks her original’s raw power, but has a lot of finesse.  Printing a Soulstone per turn is very cool, but you will likely cash in a lot of these teleporting around with Quick Weld.  Mostly she’s going to Explosively Calibrate to charge up the big ol’ trash laser.

With the Help of My Robot Friends

So let’s take a look at the rest, shall we?

Steiner

This murderous ballista-equipped piano (?) is the crew’s 10-soulstone beater.  He’s beefy with 13 health, but with so-so defensive stats and just Armor to keep him safe, he’s not too durable.  He can pitch a card to Bolster an ally, which is not but not really headline news.

Both of his attacks are pretty hefty (and Piano Hammer has a great name), but the bow is a lot more impressive with its raise value of 3.  Pulled Here and There is a neat trigger for dragging enemies off objectives or pulling them off roofs.

Steiner’s signature action, Play You Out, is the kind of thing that has always been good in Malifaux: aoe movement helps you unpack, and though the range is short, Steiner’s 50mm base means you can catch everyone you need to.  It’s only once per activation, but since it gives you either a 3″ movement or a free attack, it’s a good action even later in the game.  This is probably the best action to copy with Improvised Parts, and handing out lots of Parts means even you cheap crappy minions will be pushing your whole crew up the board.

The Fortune Teller

If Steiner is a hammer, Zoltar here is more of a set of tweezers.  She’s reasonably fragile, even with Armor, so you may not be able to make best use of Chatty.  Same with her melee – stat 7 is good, but with only 1 damage even the incredibly named “Outlook Not So Good” trigger isn’t that impressive.  And you do not want her close to enemies.

Predict Your Death is a better attack, not least because you can do it from safety.  The text is a bit odd, but rigging your opponent’s deck is always good, especially if you’re immediately going to swing on them with another friendly – and remember, Forewarned is Forearmed doesn’t specify a melee attack, so you can shoot someone with Steiner’s bow or even the Trash Cannon (after discarding the best card in their top 3 and putting the worst on top).  The tome triggers are a nice consolation prize, and ranged Scheme marker creation is always good, but you’ll really love this when you can set up a one-two with the Cannon.

Intuition is just flat-out great on every model that has it, and as a Signature, you will do this every time.  Straightforward.  Remember this is also copyable with Improvised Parts and is a strong candidate.  Overall, the Fortune Teller is sort of a grab bag of abilities that doesn’t really come together, but if you have the space in your list she’s decent support.

The Kitchen Sink

The Kitchen Sink is a bit of a Swiss army knife… or, I guess, one of those weird kitchen implements that nobody can remember buying.  Bad defensive stats but lots of health mean that if you’ve got the healing support it should stick around for a little while, especially with Armor, and Don’t Turn Your Back is just a strong rule on everyone who has it (especially given how strong Don’t Mind Me is this edition).

Continuing the string of incredible rule names, Assorted Slashing, Dashing, and Mashing Implements is a pretty impressive melee attack: stat 6 3 damage is stock-standard for a beater, but the four triggers are what really make it work.  Power Surge makes it do serious damage, at the cost of some backlash, while Sproing sends the target flying.  Gold Wiring is cute, though sometimes it’ll help the opponent more than it helps you, and Arms Go BRRRR (with four Rs) will sometimes just be a nice little bit of bonus damage (though it will blitz Hamelin’s rats into chowder).  The trick is that you have to declare a trigger, and all of these have at least some circumstance where you might not want to, so be prepared to cheat even if you are hitting.

Like Paradox’s totem, the Kitchen Sink has a wide spread of Signature tacticals.  Improvised Ammo hands out Impact tokens (which are, you will recall, great with Matriarch, and just good elsewhere), while Distress Beacon pumps out Remains markers and hands out some Bolstered.  Finally, Fire Hose can either reposition a friendly or force an enemy to discard to avoid being pushed off a point.  It’s the weakest of the three, but sometimes useful.

The Sink is pretty card dependent but if you’re willing to go to the casino, or cash in your hand, you’re going to get a lot of work out of it.  It’s pricey, especially alongside Steiner, but there are circumstances when you really just want to fling enemies 6″ or stuff a bunch of rats in a blender.

Mr. Ambrose

Every crew needs a model that can interact-walk-interact, preferably with some ability to ignore terrain or climb easily.  Here’s yours.  Ambrose is very speedy, especially with Expert Climber, and just hard enough to remove to require opponents to dedicate effort to it.  His 12″ aura transforming Remains markers into Severe and Hazardous terrain is cute, but you will be eating them so fast that they’re not likely to affect enemies that much.

Extended Claw is a nice surprise on a model like this; while Ambrose is mostly a scheme runner, a 3″ range 3 damage attack is solid, and it even hands out a little dash of healing (to himself and others).  His gun is a signature action, so he can technically play gun turret, but it’s short-ranged and low-ish damage – though the “It’s Magnetic?” trigger is very strong, especially as you can fling someone 6″ with the Kitchen Sink and then hit them with Ambrose’s tractor beam to really kidnap them into beating range.

Ambrose’s tactical is, really, why you’re taking him – Interacting as a signature action is very strong, even at the cost of damage.  The TN is high here, so you will want to save a card for it (and probably won’t be able to do it too much with Improvised Parts), but when you need it, you have it.

Self-Repair Bots

The first of Ampersand’s two minions, these are a bit more fragile than Mechanical Misfits, but… in an odd way.  5 health with 5/5 defensive stats is “get murdered” territory, though Hard to Kill means it’ll take two attacks.  The bots have a crappy melee attack you never want to use, a not-quite-as-crappy ranged attack that can make Remains (and can cash them in to shoot for 3 damage, but not super reliably, since you must remove it before you see if you hit with your stat 5 attack), and a very odd tactical.

Reform Self costs a soulstone, and… kills yourself.  Sort of.  You need a Remains marker within 10″, and you basically turn it into a full-health Self-Repair Bot, which is summoned but does not gain a Summon token, while killing yourself without getting a Soulstone for it.  So you die and rebuild yourself?  There’s a trigger to let you keep all of your tokens and one to let you drop a Scheme.  This is basically a full-heal and teleport 10″ but with odd extra steps.  This does let you drop the Summon token off of the ones that Paradox summons, at least

I think it is pretty common that someone will just shoot your crappy 5 health bot twice and kill it, but they do need to hit it for 5 in the first instance to make that work, and some crews can’t reliably do that.  They are Hard to Kill models that really punish opponents for leaving them at HtK, at least

Mechanical Misfits

Finally, we get to our stock-standard Crappy Minion.  These guys have a surprisingly beefy health pool considering their cost.  That’s really it, though: they don’t have a Signature action, and their attacks are both very bad.  Improvised Ammo is useful (especially with Matriarch), but where these guys are really going to shine is with Improvised Parts.  That both gives them a signature action and gives them a lot of utility, such as with Intuition or Play You Out.

Also, you just need dudes to stand on points and take Interact actions.  They’re good at that too.

And the Rest

The one versatile here I will specifically call out is the Hodgepodge Emissary – because it gains the Ampersand keyword, its Plenty of Wares action can be copied using Improvised Parts.

Ampersand is, fitting its Starter Box status, a pretty straightforward crew.  You have beaters.  You have a scheme runner.  You have some interesting support choices.  You can use Matriarch to just beat face and power up your attackers with +twists and heals, or you can use Paradox to share your unique models’ excellent tacticals with their cheap minion friends.

I hope this guide was helpful to those of you who, upon realizing the weakness of your flesh, were disgusted by it.  These machines are a lot of things, but weak they ain’t.  Go forth an beep boop, my friends.

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