We continue describing different Malifaux factions, and now it's a turn for the Resurrectionists - fearsome necromancers who's strive for knowledge has brought them on the edge between Life and Death.
After briefly considering the Freikorps, Tara decided to strike out on her own, gaining a reputation for her uncanny ability to sense when Neverborn were around – and then being able to dispose of them quickly. Then she met Obliteration.
Obliteration invited her inside his prison and she claimed a piece of him, bringing him out into the world. At the crest of her power, when the world was standing before her, a sniper took aim and she was left for dead. It was only through the quick thinking of Karina, a woman she had also brought out of Obliteration's prison, that she was able to recover. It was not the recovery she was hoping for. Karina had raised Tara in death rather than healing her back to health. Either through Karina's skill or Tara's connection to Obliteration, she maintains complete autonomy from her master, able to act in death as she had in life.
Tara’s box comes with six models, including Tara herself. Her totem and assistant Karina provides support for her crew, while the mysterious Nothing Beast floats unimpeded through walls, hunting down its prey no matter where it might hide. The Void Wretches are smaller versions of the Nothing Beast, and their speed and lack of physical bodies make them the ideal minions for carrying out Tara’s wishes.
Tara is a member of the Outcast and the Resurrectionist Factions. She approaches the game very differently than most, using odd tactics and abilities to try to push the game in her favor. She can work well with virtually any Crew as her unique playstyle can benefit nearly everyone.
Time is Tara’s strength. With the ability to give out Fast, remove models temporarily from play (called burying), and gain Reactivate every turn, Tara has more control over AP than any other Master. Since she is capable of having 6 AP of her own, she can accomplish many tasks that other Masters might balk at. While her sword and her gun aren’t amazing attacks, they are solid enough that, coupled with her additional AP, she is able to put out the sort of damage that more combat focused Masters can.
Tara’s Upgrades begin taking her massive amount of AP and shaping it into a playstyle. Eternal Journey allows her to copy the action of a model she’s buried. Knowledge of Eternity gives her the ability to give out Fast and Slow or bury a friendly model. Obliteration Symbiote lets her unbury models and take control of them. Dead of Winter gives her more hiring options and debuffs enemies with fast. By selecting a few of these Upgrades and the pool of general Upgrades available to her as an Outcast or Resurrectionist, Tara is able to fit to the player’s style more precisely.
Molly.
Miss Squidpiddge was an up and coming journalist when the Breach reopened. Her intelligence and gift for ferreting out the truth made her a household name in Malifaux, particularly on the day that Seamus brutally murdered her. She made headlines again mere days later, when he crashed her funeral to publicly resurrect, and then steal, her body. From then on, she followed him obediently as one of his girls.
Seamus was not aware of the deeper truth to Molly’s resurrection though. She has been killed on at least one future occasion, but reanimated by his continued use of the cursed Gorgon’s Tear. Her long term connection to the Gorgon restored her mind and some of her will, allowing her old personality to surface more. She has even been able to publish investigative articles in the Malifaux Times, despite the reluctance the editors have to publish material from the dead.
Her returning intelligence has also brought independence to Molly, and in recent times she has bucked Seamus’s commands and set out on her own. Even Seamus’ belles, normally unswervingly loyal to him, can be convinced to obey her. So far, she has used this freedom to build as much of a “life” for herself as she can. She is even able to enjoy the company of the living occasionally, if she is sufficiently careful.
Molly has become a symbol to those undead who have some semblance of will. Feared by humanity and rejected by their creators, they flock to her side.
Molly Squidpiddge’s box comes with six models, including Molly herself. Philip and the Nanny serves as her henchmen, and together the two of them create a single henchmen with plenty of unique tricks. The Necrotic Machine serves as Molly’s totem, while the Crooligans provide her crew with a group of exceptionally slippery minions who excel at capturing an objective before fading back into the mists.
Molly is the only Undead Resurrectionist Master; she and her ensemble of forgotten creations seek to take back the night which is rightfully theirs. She is a tricky Master who is hard to kill and can even use summoning offensively. Belles always work well in her lists, but depending on which Upgrade she takes she will likely want either Horrors or Spirits as well.
Molly has a good variety of tricks up her sleeve: she can give enemy models penalties with the Whispered Secret Action, cause damage using Revelation, buff her Crew, and summon. Her summoning spell, The Ones Left Behind, is interesting because she brings her models into play by sucking the life force out of the enemies around them. This means that she can use her summon aggressively, damaging enemies while dropping one of her Undead in their midst. On the other hand, if there are no enemy models around, the model she summons will not survive. Her tendency to stay near the enemy coupled with her great defenses makes her a Master you want to keep near the Action.
There are two Limited Upgrades available to Molly: Forgotten Path and Forgotten Life. Forgotten Path allows her to summon Spirits and grant Black Blood to friendly Spirits and Belles near her (the Black Blood Ability creates an acidic spray, damaging nearby models when the model with Black Blood is damaged). Forgotten Life does the same thing for Horrors. This allows her to summon models into the middle of the enemy, sap their life force in the process, and then force them to deal with the acid-spewing monster that is left next to them. All in all, Molly is an adaptable and resilient force to be reckoned with.
Kirai.
Kirai’s ability to control the spirit world was unlocked when her fiancé was killed protecting her from an assassination attempt ordered by his father. His final gift to her, a serpent ring with emerald scales, was all she had left of her old life. Though neither of them knew it, this ring was connected to the ancient entity known as the Gorgon. Through this, her grief and sense of hopelessness was able to break through the barrier to the afterlife and call on the spirits that dwelt there. She was even able to hurl part of her own soul, twisted by her desire for revenge and fueled by the Gorgon’s influence, into the physical world to take her revenge.
While she was initially unaware of her abilities, Nicodem realized the truth after seeing the brutalized remains of her victims. He took great care to ensure she accepted his tutelage, hoping to use her to summon sentient spirits back into his own creations. His plans were interrupted when The Plagued arrived to claim the Gorgon’s ring and release the Red Cage.
Since then, Kirai has begun to understand her own powers much more. She now no longer feels the pain of her loss so deeply, and with her immediate need for revenge sated, she has turned her mind to other plans. She has been unwelcome and cast aside since birth, her given name a permanent reminder of her family’s rejection, but she now feels she has the power to reshape her destiny.
Kirai has since found more acceptance and friendship from the dead than she ever got from the living...
Kirai Ankoku’s box comes with seven models, including Kirai herself. Her totem, the Lost Love, devotes his afterlife to healing Kirai’s allies, while the Onryo are focused more on harming their enemies with their ghostly powers. The Ikriyo is Kirai’s inner spirit made manifest, and it appears only when it is time to exact revenge upon someone who has dared to harm Kirai or her allies. Kirai uses her Seishin as fodder for her more powerful spirits, but even on their own they’re capable of sacrificing themselves to invigorate a more powerful ally.
Kirai is the living embodiment of revenge, and the Resurrectionist Spirit Master. Her vengeful Spirits seek out the enemy wherever they are and tear them to ribbons. Her Crews will be mainly comprised of Spirits, but adding a few Living or Undead models is generally a good idea.
Kirai is primarily a support and summoning Master who relies on buffing, manipulating, and summoning friendly Spirits to achieve victory. To summon a new Spirit, she must target a friendly model which will suffer an amount of damage depending on the summoned Spirit’s Wounds. Because of this, models with high Wounds, such as Flesh Constructs, may be decent additions to a Kirai Crew. Also, whenever a Living or Undead model near Kirai suffers damage due to an enemy Attack, she can summon Ikiryo (a fearsome Spirit of vengeance) in base contact with the enemy that did the damage. Offending Kirai can be a dangerous proposition.
There are a number of ways in which Kirai uses her Spirits. She can easily summon small Spirits, called Seishin, which she uses in a number of ways: she can sacrifice them to boost her Casting, redirect Attacks to them, use them to swap places with other Spirits, or sacrifice them to draw cards. Kirai’s Upgrades give her even more fun options for making use of her Spirits. Kirai is a solid support Master with some fun tricks which will surprise your opponent; and if you’ve ever wanted to summon the enraged spirit of revenge behind that annoying sniper on the ridge, now you can!
