Malifaux for Beginners - Poison

Editors Note - This tutorial is for version 1.5 of the Malifaux rules and has been left available for reference only. Some Malifaux 2nd Edition Tutorials can be found here...as well as quite a few of these old ones, lol.

Several of the effects in Malifaux are represented by tokens of various kinds like Blight, Burning, Poison etc. and somewhat confusingly these all operate in slightly different ways.

Let's look at Poison...

Poison is usually associated with a weapon of some kind,

Though it may also be inflicted by other means,

When a model is hit by an attack with the Poison (#) or affected by an Ability with Poison (#) the number of tokens the target has is increased to the appropriate number (#) after the attack is resolved. If a particular Ability, Spell or whatever works differently then it will be indicated in the description.

Each time a model that has Poison Tokens attached to it begins an Activation it suffers one Wound (Wd) per Poison Token it has and then one of the Poison Tokens is discarded.

Admittedly that sounds a bit convoluted but as you'll see from the example it really isn't.

Example 1.
The Rogue Necromancy has decided to take a bite out of a passing Desperate Mercenary.

We'll presume the Rogue Necromancy (A) is successful in it's Fangs Strike against the Mercenary (B). After the attack has been resolved as normal we move on to the Poison effect.










The Rogue Necromancies Fangs are Poison (2) so we place 2 Poison Tokens (P1 and P2) next to the Desperate Mercenary (B).

On Activation the Desperate Mercenary (B) takes a Wound per Poison Token (2 in this case) and then one of the Poison Tokens (P2) is removed.













Example 2.
It's worth noting that Poison Tokens don't stack. Should a model with Poison Tokens attached be Poisoned again, then the total number of tokens is increased to the Poison number (#)...like so...

The Rogue Necromancy (A) has again attacked the Desperate Mercenary (B) and has Poisoned it again.

This is incorrect. The attack is Poison (2) but he player has added 2 additional Poison Tokens (P2 and P3) to the total (P1) on the model rather than increasing the total back to 2 (as indicated by Poison 2).











This is correct. The Fangs Strike is Poison 2 so the total number of Poison Tokens is increased back to the total of 2.












Example 3.
The Desperate Mercenary is having a particularly crappy day and is now in a fight with a Showgirl...

The Desperate Mercenary (B) is still Poisoned and is now in melee with a Showgirl (C). The Showgirl has used the 'Sirens Call' Spell to Paralyse the Desperate Mercenary in anticipation of using the particularly nasty 'Poison Gift' Action in order to inflict Poison (4) upon her which she promptly does.

The Desperate Mercenary's (B) Poison Tokens are now increased to 4 as the newest Poison attack is higher than the original one.

On it's Activation the Desperate Mercenary (B) will take 4 Wounds (One per Poison Token) and then remove one Poison Token (P4) reducing the total to 3.











To summarise then.
1) The attacked model has Poison Tokens equal to the Poison (#) number placed on it.
2) When it Activates the model takes a Wound (Wd) per Poison Token and then the number of Tokens is reduced by one.
3) Should the model be Poisoned again the number of tokens is increased to the Poison (#) number.
4) Should a subsequent Poison attack be of a lower number (#) than the number of Poison Tokens already attached then the total is unchanged...it's already the victim of a more deadly toxin...

If you have any questions, find any errors with this tutorial or would like some further examples then feel free to leave them in the comments section below.