Editing Malifaux (section)

== Game Mechanics ==
Malifaux is unique among miniatures games in that rather than rolling dice, players draw from their own deck of cards to please [[Tzeentch|Random Number God]]. Actions can have ''positive'' or ''negative'' twists, which means that you flip over more cards and then take whichever is higher/lower, depending on the type of twist. Players also have a hand of cards they can use to ''cheat fate'' and replace an already flipped card with one that is better. Some models' abilities only work if a certain suit if played, so there's an advantage to keeping good cards in your hand to pull nice actions. Players have the option of purchasing official decks or simply using a deck of regular cards, with the devs helpfully pointing out which of the real card suits corresponds to their fanciful made-up ones.

The army-building mechanic is also pretty unique; players first generate a scenario, then hire their Crew using an agreed-upon number of ''soulstones'' (totally not [[Deadlands | ghost rock]] guys![Don’t they do entirely different things?]) that set the level of the encounter. Each crew needs to be lead by a ''Master'', which gives a few extra soulstones for use and dictates the faction of the Crew. When you're starting, this doesn't really matter, as you'll use the same Crew for everything, but in tournaments, all you're required to do is point out your faction beforehand, only choosing your Master when you figure out what sort of mission you'll need to play. A typical game is 50SS in size, which is about the size of one of the starter boxes, plus one or two extra models.

Any soulstone not spent on hiring can be spent in-game by certain models to gain advantages on flips, generate new models, healing, etc. Certain Masters benefit from a large stash, and others demand that you fill the board with units before the game starts.

Victory is determined through pre-generated victory conditions. There's a big general one, but players can also take ''schemes'', which are like miniature objectives. They earn more victory points if they announce them beforehand, which possibilities ranging from getting the first kill to assassinating the opponent's Master to simply being a dick the whole game. There are also Master-specific schemes, some of which are retardedly difficult to pull off and others which practically occur automatically.