Malifaux - Bayou Starter Set Preview

Malifaux is a skirmish wargame, set in a dark gothic fantasy, alternative 1900s. Crew building in Malifaux is slightly different from other wargames, in that while there are different factions, crews are built around keywords, and its sharing your crew's leader's keyword can be recruited, even from other factions, and other faction units that don't share the same keyword can also be recruited for a higher cost. This is where the Versilte keyword comes in, and units with the versatile keyword can be recruited within their faction for their printed cost.

Although all of Malifaux's rules are available for free online, getting into Malifaux for a new player has previously been complicated, so Wyrd has started releasing Faction Starter Sets, which contain everything new players need to start gaming in the world of Malifaux. In this article, we're going to look at the Bayou Starter Set, we'll look at what it contains, the different units in detail, and also look at what you can look at picking up next.

If you want to know more about Malifaux, you can check out our full guide here.

Bayou Starter Set

The Malifaux Faction Starter Sets are designed to be playable right out of the box, and also easily expand into the rest of the faction. All players need to add to the starter set, are the free rules which can be found on the Wyrd site here.

The Bayou Starter Set contains:

• Four Bayou Versatile Units and stat cards
• Bayou Themed Fate Deck
• Six General Upgrades (two copies of three)
• Ten Bayou Themed Scheme Markers
• Bayou Themed Measuring widget

The Bayou Faction Starter Set contains four pre-assembled miniatures, that just need to be attached to their bases and they're ready to use (and paint). The four miniatures are:

• Bo Peep - A gremlin riding a pig. As a Henchman, Bo Peep can lead the group. They have an aura ability that lets nearby friendly units heal for damaging other units during their activation. With a move of six, the ability to gain fast for an extra action by taking one damage, and a tactical action that can boost nearby Jockeys across the battlefield, they can drive very quickly into combat.
• Fluffernutter - A gremlin riding a rabbit. They're fast, and have a fourteen inch ranged rifle, along with the ability to take one damage, to deal one damage to all models within three inches of them
• Ruffles - A gremlin riding a chicken. They're the fastest of the four Jockeys and can move two inches when nearby enemy units cheat fate. By taking one damage, they can push other models within three inches, up to two inches in any direction.
• Stumpy - A gremlin riding a tree, or Waldgeist. The slowest of the Jockeys, but more durable. They can't be moved by enemy effects, and heal if they start their activation on severe terrain. They can also create their own serve terrain with the spread roots ability to reduce enemy movement.

All four of the Starter Set miniatures are jockeys and have three shared special rules. Ramming Speed, which boosts attack actions generated by charge, Stampede, which lets the unit take one damage after a charge, to deal one damage to all units it's in base contact with, and Trample, which lets them move through other models.

Bayou Next Steps

Where you go next from the Bayou Starter Set is up to you. The versatile keyword means they'll work with any of the Bayou Masters. Mah Tucket's crew and the Tricksy keyword have a lot of movement and can keep up with the jockeys. Or you could go the joint Bayou/Neverborn route with the Zoraida crew of Swampfiends. If you want to stay on theme with Jockeys, you can add a box of Rooster Riders and run them under Bo Peep. The Rooster Riders also shares the Tricksy keyword with Mah Tucket if you're heading that route.

Regardless of the direction you take your Jockeys, the Bayou faction is filled with comical randomness. The Bayou like big hats, moonshine and have great movement and damage-dealing abilities but tend to not be very durable in return.

The Bayou Starter Set miniatures can also be used in Wyrd Games' swamp racing board game, Bayou Bash.

The copy of the Bayou Starter Set used to produce this preview was provided by Wyrd Games.