Malifaux

"Bad things happen"

—First page of the rulebook

Malifaux is a 2009 Miniatures War-game set in an alternate history/universe/dimension. The bulk of the story has taken place in an alternate dimension accessible through a magic gate known as "the breach", found in California.

In the setting magic has existed for centuries, as observers noted it was becoming weaker over time, in the late 1890s a portal was found in California that lead to another where magic was still strong thanks to Soulstone, a stone that radiated magical power. On the other side of the portal the first explorers discovered an empty city; Malifaux. After an initial colony was setup and a mining operation to extract and ship the soulstone to Earth was up and running, the breach that spanned the two worlds collapsed, years later the rift reopened with city found to be empty of human presence. The game is set 4 years after the breach reopened, round about the year 1900 in the city of Malifaux where the ruling body, known as The Guild controls the mining and shipping of Soulstone, and maintains the only "Safe" area in the city.

The game's setting is described by creator Nathan Caroland as "Steamvictoriohorrorwestpunk".

There are four main factions, within them there are sub-factions that revolve around variations on the theme of that faction, leading to considerably variety between "Crews" and their Masters, the ones who lead the crews into desperate, violent battles in horror city of Malifaux:

The Guild: Currently in charge of running Malifaux, they operate the mines, deal with the convict labor and try to hold off the predations of the other factions. Predominantly themed on Facism and cowboys, their sub-factions include the Witch-hunters who are basically licensed mage-cowboy facists hunting unlicensed non-cowboy mages, the Ortega Family of facist Mexican gunslinger cowboys, and the Death Marshalls crazy coffin-wielding undead-hating facist cowboys. Overall this is the Jack-Of-All-Trades, Masters Of Shooting faction and depending on which Master is taken can be capable of pouring ridiculous amounts of fire on models left in the open, spell-spamming their opponents into submission or just rigorously applying steel to rotting flesh.

The Arcanists: Comprised of several semi-secret groups led by mages that are opposed to The Guild's stranglehold, they form a very loose alliance aimed at fighting The Man. Their sub-factions include a Genetic engineering druid cult, an Ice magic worshipping cult and the Miners and Steamfitters Union (the guys who patch-up those steam-powered doom spiders, not a cult). The Arcanists are a trick-based faction that rely on spells to help get the job done, they are quite varied across the Masters in terms of play-style and have more spell-dependant Masters than the other factions.

The Resurrectionists: Token Undead faction, although each of Masters are a quite distinct flavour of necromancy. The Resurrectionists are mages who are fascinated with death, souls and unhealthy surgery, they stand apart from The Arcanists due to Ethical differences. Sub-factions include Undead Hookers led by a Jack The Ripper Ersatz, Punk-Samurai-Zombies, as well as a standardised Frankstein-type scientist with stitched-up Zombies. Despite all sharing the common traits of Undead, a common theme is moderately sized crews rather than spamming hordes, although this is a viable for some Masters, a lot of the time they can replace casualties rather than simply increase their numbers, making them handle attrition better in longer games, in addition to their replaceable traits they tend to have slightly tougher models than the other factions, at the cost of speed and range firepower, the Mighty Glacier faction essentially.

The Neverborn: Unlike the other factions, this group is comprised of the original inhabitants of the dimension that Malifaux exists in, and they want their land back. Sub-factions are Voodoo ghouls, Demon-Vampire Hybrids, bizarre child-like entities of sadness and finally the sentient nightmares springing forth from a possibly insane 8-year old's mind. The Neverborn favour a hit-and-run strategy, lacking any real tough units they rely on sheer speed, morale affecting abilities and unusual tricks to strike and withdraw before any damage is sustained, veritably the Fragile Speedster faction.

Outcasts: Not a major faction but a small group of models that can be recruited by the larger groups, with a large variation between Masters, this faction is very similar to the Mercenaries and Minions factions from War Machine and Hordes.

The game itself is thematically similar to Games Workshop's Mordheim skirmish game, and shares some similarity with Deadlands.

Tropes used in Malifaux include:

After the End: This is one probable way to describe what Malifaux was like when first discovered, and when humanity entered the city after the second breach.
An Ice Person: Rasputina, and most of the cult of December, including December himself
Anti-Magic: Sonnia and the witch hunters are specialists in using this, especially against arcanists
Badass: Anyone who volunteers for night patrol outside of Downtown after surviving a prior experience. Anyone who fights Lord Chompy Bits and survives. Death Marshalls, the Outcast faction. Generally non-badasses are defined as Guild Guards, civilians or corpses that aren't trying to kill you.
Badass Longcoat: Most humans wear coats or robes that look like coats, the gremlin La Croix clan.
Badass Family: The Ortegas, both story and game-wise. The La Croix are a gremlin family seeking to emulate them.
Bad Boss: The Governor General, gremlin society, Nyghtmare prior to meeting The Dreamer.
The Beast Master: Marcus, who controls many kinds of creatures native to Malifaux, and even modifies some of them to best serve his needs
Blind Weaponmaster: Lady justice, armed with an especially big sword
Crapsack World: When the native inhabitants include things that regularly mind rape your species on your home reality for sustenance, its hard to argue that this isn't a horrible, horrible place.
Creepy Child: The Woes, Baby Kade and worst of all The Dreamer.
Cyborg: Some characters in Malifaux have mechanical limbs, like Ramos and Nicodem
Eldritch Abomination: The Neverborn and other natives, except for the Gremlins. The tyrants seem to be this even to the neverborn.
Enfante Terrible: Everyone in the Creepy Child entry above. The Dreamer especially.
Everythings Worse With A Teddy Bear: and that teddy bear is about to hug your guts and eat the gooey mess that remains.
Expy: Seamus is an expy of Jack The Ripper, with a bit of Joker seasoning, the difference being that Seamus carries the period equivalent to Desert Eagle, raises his victims as zombies, uses large explosions as subtle distractions and zombie horde ambushes when he decides to drop the subtlety.
Eye Scream: Coppelius feeds on eyes, making him quite an outcast to his fellow nightmares. According to in-game mechanics its possible for him to remove more than two eyes from human skull.
Fan Nickname: LCB for Lord Chompy Bits, N-Bomber/Dream Bomber/Dream Ghengis/Nightmare Khan/The F***ing Kid for The Dreamer, Doom Bear for Teddy, The Family/Mexican Winchesters/Gun-tegas for the Ortega family, Green-tegas for the La Croix family, The Eye Guy/Eye-Flayer for Coppelius, Ice Bitch for Rasputina, The Hoff for C Hoffman.
Fluffy the Terrible: Lord Chompy Bits, The Dreamer's "Imaginary Friend" actually Nyghtmare, the King of Nightmares, he tried to scare the boy who would become The Dreamer and devour his mind through the fear, but was in fact defeated and befriended/enslaved by the mysterious child.
- Teddy, a giant teddy bear with a psychotic grin, teeth like kitchen knives, psycho eyes and a love heart on their chest.
  - Common in general with The Neverborn.
Fragile Speedster: The Dreamer is the squishiest, fastest Master in the game, he even lacks a decent offence attack, pity that killing him cures that last one in the most brutal way possible.
Game Breaker: There's a lot of people hoping for a nerf to The Dreamer to weaken his Nightmare-Bombing-Reburying-Retreating shenanigans. The Ortegas are also considered pretty overpowered as despite being the anti-Neverborn group in The Guild, they perform equally good against any other crew and practically auto-win unless the map is flooded with terrain, or they're going second against The Dreamer.
Glass Cannon: Neverborn crews that aren't Fragile Speedsters
Green Rocks: Soulstone, it may in fact eat the souls of people as they die in its presence.
Hand Cannon: Despite not being a gunfighter, Seamus uses one of these for people he doesn't intend to raise for anything more complicated than expendable zombies.
Handicapped Badass: Hoffman and lady Justice, a paraplegic engineer and a blind swordswoman. Both can fight against the terrors of Malifaux and win
Hollywood Voodoo: some of Zoraida's abilities, including a voodoo doll
Hot Witch: Zoraida in her avatar form
Humanoid Abomination: With the exception of The Dreamer and Zoraida, who are human this applies to all Neverborn Masters and a few of their followers.
The Hunter: The Ortega family are a Mexican Cowboy variant.
Improbable Aiming Skills: At first, it seems like Perdita Ortega is able to shoot bullets in a curve. Later it is explained that reality itself is changing so she hits the target
Improbable Weapon User: Seamus uses a bag of tools to butcher his foes, Death Marshalls use magic coffins they haul around to fight zombies. Sebastian, Mc Mournings assistant uses a steam-powered buzzsaw to harvest organs for his boss.
Infant Immortality: Subverted, children aren't normally brought into Malifaux, so if you find any child alone and unafraid in the rough areas of the city letting them live could be the last mistake you ever make, except for The Dreamer, killing him is just as bad as letting him live His friends will pop into existence right in front of you and Mind Rape you before eating you.
I Was Quite a Looker: Zoraida was, as evinced by her Avatar of Fate form.
Japanese Mythology: Spirits invoked by the resurectionist Kirai tend to have the form of oriental creatures and ghosts
Last Breath Bullet: The "Slow to Die" ability some models have allows this.
Lethal Joke Character: Seamus, a well dressed dandy of a serial killer who loves to raise hookers to form his entourage, has a stupidly powerful pistol as his second most deadly attack. His most deadly attack is whacking someone with his carry bag of tools; it doesn't do damage, it just kills the model outright unless the player controlling it discards 2 cards or 2 Soulstones, considering he can't use the handgun more than once a turn, the tools are best way of making sure something dies.
Mad Scientist: Dr Douglas Mcmourning, who started as a coroner for the guild, and now is an insane necromancer who likes to combine body parts to create new kinds of undead.
Magicians Are Wizards: Colette Du Bois and some of her stage girls. Colette was a normal magician and illusionist before coming to Malifaux.
Mass Super-Empowering Event: Crossing the dimensional barrier between Malifaux and earth can awake the magical potential of and individual, if it doesen't kill you. Another example is "the Event" in Rising powers, who made already powerfull individuals capable of assuming more powerfull forms.
Mecha-Mooks: Used mostly by the guild and the arcanists
Mechanical Horse: Several chariots in Malifaux use horse shaped robots for locomotion. The mechanical rider rides one
Metagame: There is small tournament scene in the US and UK, currently its dominated by Ortega crews for their superior shooting and all the Neverborn crews for being able to Alpha Strike the enemy or put them in an unbreakable death-lock on the first turn.
Mind Rape: The Nightmare sub-faction of the Neverborn is entirely populated by creatures that feed on bad dreams, except for The Dreamer and Coppelius...
Murderous Mannequin: Mechanical version, used by Collete and her showgirls as dancers, assistants and bodyguards.
Mystical Plague: Hamelin started a epidemic in Malifaux after being posessed by a tyrant of disease. It's also part of his tactics for fighting enemies.
- Pandora does this as a game mechanic to everything in her presence, whats worse is that a spamming passive ability and often proves fatal to anyone in range.
Oh Crap: Seeing a child in the swamps around Malifaux is a prelude to it ripping your entrails out and/or calling for its Teddy...
- Pretty much everything in the Neverborn would cause this reaction, they are after all likely to feed on your fear.
Our Gremlins Are More Inbred: They hang out in swamps, playing banjos... PADDLE FASTER!
Perverse Puppet: Several of the neverborn are demonic toys, especially Collodi, a living puppet AND puppeter.
Plaguemaster: Hamelin the plagued.
The Pollyanna: Outcasts faction has that cheerful minion girl named Taelor. Her optimistic demeanour is, however, very well justified.
Powered by a Forsaken Child: It is implied that soulstones absorv the soul of the recently dead. Using the stones energy may completely destroy the soul inside.
Robot Master: Hoffman, Ramos and Leveticus
Rock-Paper-Scissors: The original Masters were designed as a balanced counter system with one master to counter a specific faction, as the number increased this has shifted a bit, especially with the introduction of The Dreamer and some buffs to Lilth and Pandora. The Ortegas were an exception to the originals as they're good against everyone.
Shout-Out: Hoffman and Coppelius are a shoutout to Der Sandmann, a German horror story. Seamus is an Irish Jack the Ripper. Pandora, Lilth and Zoraida meet together in the first rulebook like the Fates or the witches in Macbeth. The gremlins are all swamp dwelling rednecks who like banjos, they even have a special rule called Deliverance. Sue's name, description and ability list are one long shout out to Johnny Cash.
Spider Tank: The leviathan, capable of destroying ancient temples and creatures made entirely of death.
Squick: The Neverborn as a faction are defined by being this, Resurrectionists, especially Seamus also check this box.
Squishy Wizard: Rasputina and Nicodem aren't going toe-to-toe with anyone any time soon. The Dreamer technically is one but is disqualified due to the mechanics of his interaction with Lord Chompy Bits. Leveticus is squishy but subverts it by coming back to life constantly, in fact its best if his controller makes sure he dies every turn to take advantage of refreshing their hand every turn.
Steampunk: 25% of the game is Steampunk, 25% Magic, 150% Horror and 200% Awesome.
Surveillance Drone: The watcher, a bat like machine used by the guild as form guarding certain areas
Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Two cases actually, Deadlands and Mordheim
Swamps Are Evil: They are full of gremlins, murderous pigs, evil witches, giant mosquitos and dirt golems. Of course, in Malifaux every single place is evil
Swarm of Rats: A favorite of Hamelin even before becoming the plagued
Technopath: Hoffman, who can control robots with his mind, in his sleep, even if the machines in question don't even have brains
Was Once a Man: the Neverborn were normal people before the end of old Malifaux
We Can Rebuild Him: Ryle, Hoffman's older brother, who was caught in a magical explosion when crossing the breach, great part of his body and mind were destroyed during the incident, and to survive Ramos had to transform him into a almost mindless cyborg
Wicked Witch: Zoraida, an old witch who lives on the swamp and walks around topless
Zerg Rush: Surprisingly not the main tactic of the undead faction, but the Neverborn like this; The Dreamer is infamous for his ability to start with just himself on the board, fly right into the enemy's face and then drop the entire crew onto his victims and transform into Lord Chompy Bits, one of the most powerful models in the game, kill whatever the player chooses, transform back into the little boy and withdraw all nightmare models, removing them from the table, bar The Dreamer himself... in the first turn. Albeit this does leave the kid vulnerable to being murdered, in which case all those models drop out again and can attack again...