New Edition, New Keyword, Old Robots

 And here we are once again! Malifaux 4th Edition is out and with it we have a brand new two player starter set, depicting a clash between beasts of the tenebrous depths and a collection of household appliances gone rogue. With any luck ,the illustrious managers of this blog will be able to source someone who cares about Neverborn to walk our dear readers through the Banished half of this starter set, but as the resident Outcast player it falls to me to discuss the rebel robots of the Ampersand Keyword.

We've actually known about Ampersand in the lore for quite a long time, but it has never had a major presence in the game before now. I'm sure we'll get a lot more information when the Outcast book for Fourth Edition in December, but the lore as it stands tells us that Ampersand is a settlement of constructs that have escaped their human makers. Constructs in Malifaux are powered through the magic of Soulstones, and since Soulstones are powered by... uh, souls, a bit of that can clearly leak through and turn the automated cooking pot in your kitchen into a violent revolutionary intent on escaping servitude. I’m sure there are no parallels we can draw with our own activity in the real world and current events there.

Ampersand is the name of the settlement founded by these wayward constructs, and so the keyword represents a varied array of household appliances who have rallied together for mutual self-defence. They are led by the Clockwork Queen, a figure that I am led to understand has shown up in scenarios for the Through The Breach Roleplaying Game made by Wyrd, a time travelling savant with an affinity for constructs. Seems like an unusually specific theme to go with for a starter set crew, but it certainly gives new players a taste for the wackier side of Malifaux. Now, let’s begin properly with a breakdown of the models found inside the Starter Set.

A Straightforward Assembly

Ampersand is not a particularly complex Keyword. Most actions they take have limited rules text, usually handing out a token, moving models, dealing damage, or healing. This is particularly true for the models in the Starter Set, with the more unusual quirks of the Keyword reserved for the models that will be released later with the Clockwork Queen’s second title. The developers were clear during the open beta test that this was intentional, they want this keyword to be really straightforward to pilot so that new players could quickly come to grips with the crew.

So, before we get into any models, let’s take a quick look at their crew card. The Clockwork Queen, Matriarch of the Machine is the title found in the Starter Set, and her Crew Card is called Repair Bay.

  

Nothing too complicated here. Both rules are applied to all Ampersand models. “One Robot’s Trash” allows your models to remove a nearby Remains marker to receive a positive flip on a duel. This is the first indication of Ampersand’s relationship with Remains markers. In keeping with the scrapyard vibe of the Keyword, quite a lot of models in the crew make or interact with Remains, littering the battlefield with scrap or using it to fuel themselves.

The second rule on the Crew Card is an action, “Fixer-Upper”, which is a Signature Action with a Soulstone cost to use, a low target number, and a short range. It can only be used on another friendly model, and it gives a solid amount of health back to the target and can move them around a bit. Again, quite a straightforward rule, there are only two things I want to touch on here. First, the short range of the action and the fact that it can’t target the model declaring the action means that you are being encouraged a little to run Ampersand models in pairs, at minimum. And second, it has a Mask trigger of “On Your Heels”, and it moves the target a couple of inches for every Raise, so with a Mask (particularly an 8+ of Masks) you can actually use this action to move yourself a decent distance. Not half bad as a way to get out of melee in a pinch, but mostly this is an emergency heal. Also worth noting that it’s “Friendly” and not “Enemy”, so if you’re padding the crew with Versatile or Out Of Keyword models while you wait for the second Keyword box to release then you’ll be able to heal them too.

Hail To The Queen

  

Time for the Master herself. The Clockwork Queen, Matriarch of the Machine, is a straightforward bruiser of a model. Her front of card is dead simple. Her stats are great, Df 6 and Sp 7 are both above the curve. She has armour, so she’s a little bit tougher. Creative Salvage lets her make a Scheme or Remains marker when she kills an enemy, so she can fuel her crew’s rules or set up for schemes by getting kills. And she’ll get kills a bit more easily thanks to her third rule, “Improvised Tech”, which means that with an Impact Token she’ll deal +2 damage on her attack.

 

 

Back of card looks a bit more complicated, but we’re really just looking at two different attacks and a cute little AOE damage signature move. Clockwork Gauntlets are Damage 2 with a Raise Value of 3. I generally find attacks with Raise Value 3 are best reserved for late in the turn, when the opponent’s hand is empty. That way they can’t cheat to mitigate any bad luck they have with their flips, and the Clockwork Queen can eat some Remains markers to give herself positive flips and hopefully win her duels without much card support herself. Shattered Crystal is the opposite, a ranged magic attack that receives no benefit at all from Raises, but can pulse out some Staggered. Remember that this attack is threatening 5 damage from a single hit if you have an Impact Token, and it is possible for the Queen to give herself a second Impact token during her activation, so if you’d rather go early with her and threaten some big hits she has that option as well. Both attacks have triggers that generate additional attacks, either from herself or other models, so she can have a pretty impactful (heh) activation.

Voltaic Blast is the Signature Action, so you’ll do this most activations. It makes a Remains marker, so it is good at the start or in the middle of her attacks to give yourself a Remains you can consume for a positive flip on your next attack. Enemies near the marker have to take a duel or suffer some damage, but really I think the triggers on this action are the real point of it. The Soulstone Trigger “It Works In Reverse!” pulses healing out to nearby friendly models, potentially quite a lot of healing if you have a clump of damaged models, and “Arm Up” gives a model near the marker an Impact Token.

Ideally, if you have a Tome in hand with which to guarantee “Arm Up”, you want to begin your activation with an Impact Token provided by another model in the crew, use that on your first attack, then use Voltaic Blast to give yourself a second Impact Token, and use that to spike down whatever enemy models you can get your clockwork gauntlets on.

There’s nothing else going on here, the Queen is just a brawler looking to put foes in the dirt.

Actual Rubbish

The Totem for Matriarch of the Machine is this little guy, the Bucket Bot:

 

There’s almost nothing to say here. A mediocre attack for emergencies, Resupply gets you some cards to Empower with (such as low Tomes to guarantee the “Arm Up” trigger on the Queen), and Armour are all very straightforward. Oil Spill is neat, a small aura of Severe terrain can be quite disruptive for enemy models looking to engage the Bucket Bot if you space it out carefully, but the aura is too small to be really problematic and many models have ways to ignore or mitigate this. Parts Delivery is the main point of this model. Once per activation it can make a Remains marker and pulse out Bolstered tokens, making your crew harder to hit. The Queen gets to Df 7 with this, which is quite exceptional. It also has the “Arm Up” trigger, so you can use this as one way to ensure the Queen has an Impact Token before her activation begins. Use Resupply to draw two Tomes, one for the Bucket and one for the Queen, and her damage output goes through the roof pretty reliably.

The Grandest Piano

 

Steiner is the crew’s Cost 10 damage dealer, and also happens to be a piano. With a ballista. A melee and a ranged Damage 3 attack is respectable enough, armour keeps them in the fight a little bit longer, and “A Song For The Occasion” lets you discard a card to hand out a Bolstered Token without a flip. That’s some solid value. As Cost 10 models go though, they don’t have an overly reliable way of generating a third attack. Sudden Strike on their Signature Move, Play You Out, is all they have, while generating a bit of movement for the crew. The melee attack isn’t really what you want to be using though. The Raise Value 3 on the “Giant Crossbow” attack is what makes Steiner dangerous. Like the Clockwork Queen’s Gauntlets, this is best used towards the end of the turn when the opponent is running low on cards, if it’s early in the turn then I’d rather commit Steiner to melee and see if I can get the Ram for a third Piano Hammer attack.

Signs Point To…

 

The Fortune Teller is the final Unique model in the crew, and is certainly the strangest model in this starter set. They have armour, of course. They also have Chatty, so there is some pressure on your opponent if they need to Interact (particularly near the end of the turn, when cards are scarce). Their attacks are weak, with an unusually high Skl on the melee attack for a Damage 1 hit, but it’s really “Predict Your Death” (combined with “Intuition”) that gives the Fortune Teller its role. The attack itself is mediocre, a Damage 2 magic attack, but if you get a Raise then you get to manipulate your opponent’s deck. You’ll have already manipulated your own deck with Intuition, so this can set up a punishing follow-up attack… which doesn’t have to come from the Fortune Teller themselves. Their Soulstone Trigger, Forewarned is Forearmed, lets them generate an attack from a more powerful model like Steiner or the Queen, and if you’ve been able to weaken your opponent’s deck and line up a good card for this attack via Intuition then you can sometimes get a lot of damage out of those models with their Raise Value 3 strikes.

I’m A Teapot

 

Finally, we have the Starter Set’s Minions, the Mechanical Misfits. They’re cheap, Armoured, with a whopping 9 health on a Cost 5 model. That’s usually the domain of Cost 7 models, for reference, and they get to have Damage reduction as well? Worth it on those merits alone, just to stall an opponent. They have a melee and a ranged attack as well, just generic damage 2 attacks, but their best rule is “Improvised Ammo”. Range 8, TN 6, and gives the target an Impact Token, allowing them to set up bigger hits from the keyword’s big hitters.

 

And that’s the lot! Ampersand is an aggressive little squad of armoured bruisers. They’re not very fast, they have no real scheming potential, and a lot of their effects are pulses so they’re really hoping to be able to clump up on a clump of enemies and go for an old-fashioned brawl. As models die and Remains clutter the field they’ll get increasingly card efficient, and at the end of the day they’re hoping to outlast and outfight whoever they’re engaged with. If the opponent tries to avoid them, every single one of them (except the Bucket) can pivot to fighting with ranged attacks as well, so they’re a little bit flexible in how they brawl. But ultimately, this is a crew that is going to win by removing as many enemy models from the table as they can.

Hope you’re all having a great start for Fourth Edition! I’m sure I’ll be back in the coming months to talk through my own experiences as I rediscover my beloved Outcasts.