Melee duels work basically the same as other duels and in M2E are fundamentally the same as they were in 1.5. A ranged attack that does physical Damage (Dg) will generally be against your Defence (Df) statistic though there are some that may be opposed by your Willpower (Wp).
When last we saw our protagonists they were in a serious debate over who was going to have to change outfit in order to avoid them clashing and had reached Melee range...
Attack Actions available to a model are listed on the rear of it's stat card. In version 1.5 of Malifaux any model without an Attack Action on it's card was presumed to have access to a generic 'Bash' Attack but this is no longer the case. If you don't have any Attack options available to you then you can't Attack at all.
Each Attack will have a Range (Rg) which indicates the distance in inches from the models base that it can engage another model. A value that you add to your card flip to in order to generate your Duel total which in the case of a melee Attack Action is (Ml), the stat that your target uses to Resist (Rst) the attack (in the above case it's Defence (Df) but it could easily be another stat) and the Damage (Dg) range of the Attack. This damage follows the usual Weak/Moderate/Severe format.
We'll presume that the Rotten Belle (B) is going to go first and as neither her nor the Guild Guard (A) can use soulstones this should be fairly simple...
She flips a 9 and adds it to her Melee (Ml) value for her attack giving her a total of 14.
The Guild Guard (A) also flips a 9 but as her Defence (Df) is only 4 this only gives her a total of 13 mean that she's currently losing the duel. She must now either Cheat using her Control Hand or take the hit.....
Which she does...
The mechanic for deciding how many cards we flip for damage is identical to that of 1.5 but I'll summarise it briefly here,
If the totals are equal then the flip is double negative (- -). That would be flipping three cards picking the lowest. If the result is in the 1 - 5 range then it would be a single negative (-). That would be flipping two cards picking the lowest. If the result is in the 6 - 10 range this would be a standard flip (no modifiers) and if the difference is 11 or greater then we have a positive flip (+).
In the above example the difference between the two values is a mere 1 making the Damage flip a single negative and as the Guild Guard (A) has no way of modifying this value so the Rotten Belle (B) needs to flip two cards and pick the lowest...
In this case the Damage (Dg) is Moderate and referring to the Attack Actions Damage Range we see that it is 1/3/4 so the attack does 3 Wounds (Wd) of Damage to the Guild Guard (A).
In case it's not obvious the divisions in the Damage section of an Attack Action represent the Weak/Moderate/Severe levels of damage.
The Guild Guard (A) has 5 Wounds (Wd). This total is indicated in her Stats and there are also an equivalent number of circles below the stat list for you to cross off in order to keep track of lost Wounds (Wd).
The new M2E cards can be marked off with a whiteboard pen without the need to laminate them like you had to with the 1.5 ones though many people still put them in card protectors...they fit in standard trading card ones..
The Rotten Belle (B) has a 2nd Action Point to spend so could attack again if she wished or in theory she could perform any other Action available to her...
We'll look at other possibilities in future tutorials...
Thoughts and comments are (as usual) most welcome.