Over a Month since the last update

So its been over a month since my last update. I have been a bad blogger, I am sure. Lots has been going on and July as a whole has been pretty crappy. The month started off with my Dad passing away and me doing a quick shuffle of travel plans to get my family of 5 3/4 of the way across the country to try and help out my Mom and family. That's never a good way to start out a month. Plus, funerals bring out the deepest dysfunction in a family, which true to form is what happened in this situation. That ended with another unexpected (and last minute) shuffle to get my entire family of 5 back home.

This was followed up by my being needed in NYC for a week of work in the office. I have not worked in an office in over 3 years now, and being in the corporate office was not a way for me to relax. So, after a week up in a city I am not fond of, I return back home with more responsibility and an additional work load.

That said, the travels at the start of the month required my cancelling our family vacation to London, leaving the family home at the start of August. In a bitter-sweet turn of events, this opened up my opportunity to attend Gencon this year. I was not planning on attending Gencon until 2012, and now I will be making the trek out to Indianapolis for the largest gaming convention in the world. This brings me to current events.

Gencon starts this week and Wyrd Miniatures has a whole slew of things for me to spend money on. 7 Avatar's are being released, a number of Alternate Master sculpts, a brand new game (Puppet Wars), and a new rule book. This is all very exciting, along with the newly released Terraclips making an appearance. This has driving my shopping list high-enough that my wife feels emboldened (and entitled) to a Disney trip early next year. Yay!

Gaining Grounds - Master of Malifaux

That brings us to the next big reason I am heading out to Gencon. The Master of Malifaux event on Saturday. This is a 40ss scrap run using the Gaining Grounds tournament document. I am really looking forward to this, as it has been acclaimed that I do not know how to play Malifaux because I end up losing in tournament to newbies. I have hope that this event will provide some truly stiff competition, and give me a good feel for how my Malifaux skills and my local play group stack up competitively against the rest of the country/world. I have a couple things to consider for lists to take to this tournament. Within the format chosen, I am aiming for as many VP as possible, which means maxing out my schemes and strategies each round. I am down to a choice between Neverborn and Guild for this, both of which have advantages.

Whichever way I decide to go, I have the option to use one of the Avatars that is being released at Gencon. For the Guild, there are 2 Avatars coming out, Lady Justice and Sonnia Criid. Both are fantastic looking models (Criid at the opening of this post, Justice to the left), and viable for tournament play. Neverborn receive one of the masters I play, Pandora,  as a released avatar. There has been a fair amount of commentary on the Wyrd forums about if Avatars should be used in tournament play or not. The official stance is Avatars are released, so the are eligible for play. The community concern is that this gives playtesters an advantage in the tournament.

If I were to use an Avatar in the tournament, I have a couple challenges to overcome. First, I would need to grab time on Thursday and Friday to paint up the Avatar models I wanted to use. Second, I have the same amount of time to become comfortable with the final version of the Avatar Rules. Both of these are challenges I feel comfortable overcoming. I was not originally planning on attending Gencon this year, so missing out on some time at the con is not a huge loss for me. Then again, I am not sure I want to put the time in painting at Gencon when I could be wandering through the halls and playing more games.

So that brings me to the next challenge, which is do I feel that the Avatars (at least my understanding of them) are appropriate for the tournament. I expect I will see 1 or 2 avatars at the tournament, but not too many. I have some solid lists I am comfortable playing, which do not use the Avatars yet. While Avatars may catch my opponents by surprise, I do not believe a top Malifaux player will be caught out and at a disadvantage against them.

With this in mind, I find it unlikely I will be using an Avatar at the Master of Malifaux event. I have some other 40ss lists to consider, and feel pretty comfortable meeting the challenge of the tournament with those lists. Overall, I am really looking forward to the tournament.

We will see how things go.