Malifaux - Asami Tanaka

My first expansion product was by recommendation, and that was the Jorogumo box. These models are absolute killers and are very useful for just making stuff dead when you need it, and they were recommended as a good way to shore up Asami’s weaknesses against some opponents.

In terms of painting I wanted to do something way more exciting than Wyrd had done (essentially shades of grey). A bit of googling and I found Trichonephila Clavata. Originally native to Japan but now common in some parts of the USA, this species is commonly called the Joro spider. I even found one reference that stated this spider was the inspiration for the Jorogumo myth. As you can see from the image below the colouration of the female spider is amazing and looks incredibly alien.

This was an easy decision and I am very happy with my paint jobs on these models (which are massive by the way). I feel they capture perfectly the bright almost cartoony style which pervades a lot of ancient Japanese folk art.

This was easily enough models to play a full 50 soulstone game of Malifaux and I had a good many games with these before buying anything else, mainly because
a) the Jorogumo are expensive models ‘in-game’ and
b) Asami requires a significant resource pool of soulstones to be kept in reserve (i.e. not spent on models) to fuel her in game summoning ability. Yes, you get to make more toys. Mwahahaha.

Just to be clear, this is not hugely exceptional. A core box and a single expansion is sufficient models to play many of the masters in Malifaux. This means that, due to free downloadable rules, for £80 or so you can be up and running playing Malifaux most of the time.

The only other game asset you will need is tokens and markers. Most markers used on the tabletop have a fixed size and many companies do after-market options in card, acrylic and MDF, although I bought 30mm bases and used stickers to create my own very cheaply.