The Dead Tau Project

How does that Ranged Stike Sequence work again?

2012-02-02T07:05:00.000-05:00

Ranged Strikes and Shooting into Melee

So, we have some new players starting to pick up Malifaux in our local group. This is an exciting time as I get to watch a whole new group of people get excited about the game and start to grow in their understanding of the rules. Its also a really helpful time as both an Experienced player and a Henchman. New Players come to the game with fresh eyes and specifically without the baggage that those of us who have played for more than 18 months have. They question things and get confused about parts of the fairly complicated rules in Malifaux. Now, I want to remind everyone that Malifaux can be a complex game as you play more. It falls very solidly into the "Easy to Learn, Hard to Master" style of game, even when compared to other Miniature War Games. The basics are very straight forward and you can play a good dozen or so games with just understanding the basics. Then you start to add the not-so-basic rules in and look at the complexities that come with creating combo's. Inevitably, a Malifaux player eventually builds up a strong set of combos, complexities, and tricks which add to the basics, then they run into a question that stumps them. I have found that some of these questions tend to be around mechanics in the game which seem to be very simple, but can have added complexity when fully explored. To be fair, my experience is this almost always comes after hearing a newer player say something along the lines of:

"That seems a bit unfair, is there some way I can use the rules to make that combo stop working that way?"

I often want to remind those players that Malifaux is a game of complex combo's. Sometimes those combo's seem unfair but as you spend time analyzing them they become more of a challenge or puzzle. I firmly believe there is nothing in the game of Malifaux that cannot be mitigated or overcome by something else in the game.

With that said, a lengthy discussion erupted recently about how the Ranged Strike Sequence works when shooting into a melee. Specifically, our local player could not wrap his head around the fact that the randomization of the shot onto a model in melee but outside LOS did not invalidate the shot. With that said, I did my homework and pulled out the whole sequence from the rules manual. I figured it might be helpful to share this with other players who read the blog, especially those who are newer player.

With that said, its off to the Rules Manual!!!

Strike Sequence (pg 42 in book)
1. Declare Target, then Check Range
2. Strike Duel
    a. Flip starting attack and defense totals
    b. Change Starting Totals or Pass
    c. Determine Final Duel Totals
    d. Declare Triggers
    e. Determine Success
    f. Apply Duel Results

RM Description: (pg 42)

A model must be within the attacker's LOS to be declared the target of a Strike. If there are no Targets within the attacker's LOS, the Strike fails. A model cannot target itself with a strike.

Once the target in LOS has been declared the target of the Strike, ensure that the target is in range by measuring the distance between the two models. All range measurements in Malifaux are made from the attacking model's base edge to the closest point on the target mode's base edge. If the distance is shorter than or equal to the attack's Rg, the target is in range; proceed to 2. Strike Duel below. Otherwise, the target is out of range, is not a legal target, and the Strike fails.

So, if we break that down and take it step by step, it goes as follows:

Step 1 - Declare Target, Then check Range.

For this step we can go to page 14, under the heading Declaring a Target. When I get there is says:

When an effect requires a target, the following should be determined in order:
1. First, check that the item in question is in the targeting model's LOS.
2. Then, check for any special situations that may allow or precent the item to be targeted.
3. Finally, check for talents/Spells that may allow/prevent targeting.

Lastly, we have a special situation for targeting called Firing into Melee on page 44. Its says:

Models may make ranged Strikes and CAst ranged attack spells into melee combat. Because the combatants in a melee are not standing still during the first, blah blah blah

The attacker declares the target of the ranged attack, and then flips one Fate card for the target and each model in the target's melee range as well as any enemy models engaged with the target, regardless of LOS to those models. Flip two fate card for models with a ht of 3 or more. The model with the lowest value card becomes the new target of the attack. In the case of models tied for the lowest card, the attacking model may choose its target from those tied models.

So the "Firing into Melee" sequence would be:

1. Identify the original target is in Melee combat
2. flip a fate card for each model in the melee range and any enemy models engaged with the target
3. Target changes to model identified by the lowest fate card
4. continue on

So, now we have a larger sequence that goes as such:

1. Declare Target, then Check Range
    1a. Declare Target
        1a1. First, check that the item in question is in the targeting model's LOS.
        1a2. Then, check for any special situations that may allow or prevent the item to be targeted.
            1a2a. Identify the original target is in Melee combat
            1a2b. flip a fate card for each model in the melee range and any enemy models engaged with the target
            1a2c. Target changes to model identified by the lowest fate card
            1a2d. continue on
        1a3. Finally, check for talents/Spells that may allow/prevent targeting.
    1b. Check Range
2. Strike Duel
    a. Flip starting attack and defense totals
    b. Change Starting Totals or Pass
    c. Determine Final Duel Totals
    d. Declare Triggers
    e. Determine Success
    f. Apply Duel Results

Ok, lets see if we can put this whole deal into practice, and toss in a couple special rules. Everyone seems to like picking on Hamelin the Plagued since the UK Masters, so lets keep with that. Hamelin has the following special rule:

Hamelin's Rule:
Bully: This model cannot be targeted by Ht 1 or Insignificant models.

So, a Fire Gamin (ht 1) shooting a tot in melee with Hamelin would go like this:

1. I want to shoot the Tot
    1a. I still wanna shoot the Tot
        1a1. I have LOS to the Tot
        1a2. Damn, the Tots in Melee
            1a2a. Yup, he's in melee with Hamelin
            1a2b. Flip Flip damn, I flipped lowest for Hamelin
            1a2c. Now I'm shooting Hamelin
            1a2d. Ok, lets shoot Hamelin
        1a3. Damn, Hamlin's a bully and I can't shoot him
    1b. Screw this, it doesn't matter any more... I just blew an AP

And that it. I know its a lot to digest but this really ends up happening very quickly.

2012 New Year Kick-off

2012-01-04T07:05:00.000-05:00

Call of the Webway by MajesticChicken

2011 has come to an end and 2012 is here. Apparently this year will see the end of the world, although I am not scheduling around that. Its a great time of year to take a look back over the past 12 months and make some plans for the year to come. Looking back at my January 2011 post, we can start to compare how much I accomplished. Starting Mid-January last year I also began using the Google Spreasheet shared by Rich of Warpstone Pile to track my gaming and hobby progress as a whole. While he claims to have no idea how many people are using his sheet, I am very happy with it! To that end, I am making some minor adjustments for tracking in 2012, specifically geared toward my focus on Malifaux.

I spent some time earlier this week looking over the various 2011 charts and stats I had pulled together. One of the things I had not done through the year was pull together the hobby (paint/assembly) tracking from 2010. I had a link at the top of the blog to what I had done in 2010, but had never pulled it into a spreadsheet. Well, this week I was inspired to do just that. It is neat to look at the comparisons between 2010 and 2011.

Hobby Points for the year
Here is a high level overview of the 2010 modeling and painting:

Not too bad for a year overall. going back and adding up the total hobby points utilizing the current method (including assembly), my 2010 hobby total was sitting at a comfortable 187 points. Thats a bit over what I was tracking on the left hand side of the board, but more accurate when comparing 2010 to 2011. Looking at the similar track for 2011 we see the following:

Less hobby points overall, and the months when my progress drops to 0 are not consistent. 2010 I did nothing painting or assembly wise in April and September, while this past year it was June, August, and December. I did have peaks of activity in July and November, but nothing overly crazy. Whats interesting for me to note really comes in on the next graphs, which certainly explains the larger totals in 2010 over 2011.

Hobby Points per Army
Here is a look at 2010 for hobby on a per-army basis.

You can pretty clearly see the decrease in Eldar models (40K in fact) being painted overall, and the swap to my fascination with Malifaux. Eldar starts dropping off in May of 2010, while my growth in Malifaux really ramps up around June. This will push a fairly large change, as Malifaux does not have tanks or vehicles which are worth significantly more painting points than infantry. In addition, even the large Malifaux models are not on the same scale as monstrous creatures in 40K. Add to that the lack of conversions and it brings you to look at the total points per month charts above in a new light.

So what was my hobby activity per army in 2011?

We still see Eldar on the list, but the numbers are really low. It was basically my side painting project for the year opposed to my primary painting. Malifaux guild was a heavy contender all year, although 2011 started with a fairly monumental effort to paint up Neverborn.

There is another graph available on the spreadsheet, but it is not as much use for me as others. It basically tracks army assembly vs painting. As I only really assemble models as I am going to paint them, the graphs are not as much use. I am keeping the calculations because it may be come helpful if I change my hobby habits.

2011 Expectations?
At the start of 2011 I had set out a couple expectations for myself for the year. The full post is here, but to sum it up neatly:

Hobby Queue 40K - I pretty much failed on the things I listed in my queue. On the DTP 40K side, nearly my entire list from last January is still outstanding.
Hobby Queue Dreamer - This was a smashing success and completed early in the year. I have not added anything to my dreamer list since I completed this though.
Hobby Queue Kirai - This was a failure. My Kirai crew is still in their boxes and not even begun.
Hobby Queue Lucius - This was a success. I have an entire Lucius crew painted up and have added to it over the year!
Play More Games - I am going to count this as a success. While I do not have stats for games played in previous years, I think I played more games in 2011 that ever before. By the end of the year I had wracked up 147 total games tracked (I did not track playtest games). The split for the year was:

40K - 3 games
WHFB - 6 games
Hordes - 11 games
Malifaux - 127 games

So how did I do overall in the year? What was the breakdown per army played? I have graphs for that!

I have to admit that these stats were actually fairly surprising to me. I played a lot more Guild than I had thought. I was expecting a fairly even split between Guild and Neverborn, but that was not the case.

This chart I find fascinating. There are a number of things you can pull out of this, and I expect some will use this to justify arguments I just do not agree with. When I look at win-ratio between my guild and Neverborn, I am far more successful with the Neverborn. I expect to hear (at some point this year) this being the justification that Neverborn are overpowered. I do not agree with that. Through playing a whole lot of games, I am really starting to understand the types of armies/strategies that my mind "clicks" with. These tend to be a health combination of the following:

Movement - I prefer to play with models that have more than an average level of movement within the game.
"Tricks" - I do very well with models/armies that require some "out of the box" thinking or "tricks" to make them work well.
Direct Board Control - Armies/Models that provide some level of board control in a direct method resonate with me. Covering fire lanes does not click well. Reacting to my opponent, creating new terrain, manipulating activation (including out-activation) are all things that "click" in my brain.

I think these factors of my play-style contribute more to the higher win-ration with the Neverborn over the Guild for me. It was only at the end of the year that I added Colette and Kaeris to my Arcanist crews, and my win percentage with Arcanists started to climb dramatically once I did. Colette, specifically, includes all of the factors above in how her crew functions.

2012?
So whats in store for 2012? What do I have in mind for my plans?

Gaming - I would like to keep this at similar levels this year as last. I plan to continue heading out for normal game night on Tuesdays at the local store at least 3 times per month. I will also be participating in tournaments this year, traveling to play as well.
Game Systems - I have picked up Hordes and added it to my repertoire of games I am playing. I expect that through 2012 my games of WHFB will drop to 0, although I am not ditching my dwarf army (or my not-yet-started High Elf army). I forsee 40K/Malifaux/Hordes ranking in the following order:

Malifaux - this is my primary game and I love it. I do not see that changing this year.
Hordes - this is a fun backup game and I can see playing it for fun. After my first tournament, I do not see playing tournaments.
40K - This will be relegated to a back-up game this year. I may pull it out to play off and on, but it has moved to a solid last choice for me.

Painting/Assembly - This falls into the so-much-to-do-so-little-time category. I have a lot of Malifaux models (different factions). I have a lot of Hordes Legion of Everblight models. I have a fair number of Eldar models left to paint (plus some new stuff from FW). If I should ever run short of models, I have a whole box of High Elves to paint up. Goal: with that said, my goal for 2012 is to become more consistent with my painting. I am going to strive to work on and complete at least 2 models every month. I expect there will still be surges of painting here and there, but consistency is my goal.
Tournaments - I will be attending Adepticon and Gencon this year for major tournaments. More on my overall tournament plans and commitments below, but briefly here are my goals.

Win 2 small/local tournaments in the first half of the year with Guild
Be on the top 2 final tables at Adepticon, with Guild
Play on the top 2 final tables at Gencon (faction undecided yet)

Competitive Malifaux Play in 2012?
I have some plans for competitive Malifaux play during 2012. I am playing Malifaux a lot, not just because its my primary games but also actually playing a lot of games. That is leading to my enjoyment playing competitively at the top tables. I aim to not sacrifice sportsmanship in any way (those who listen to Gamers Lounge know my stance there) and still land at the top tables regularly. Over 2011 I was successfully able to accomplish that. Despite where my final placement landed due to scoring systems, I have consistently played at the top 2 final tables in every tournament I participated in during 2011. At Gencon I was playing for 2nd place on the 2nd table, and at Adepticon I was playing for 1st place on the top table.

Year of the Guild? One of the Malifaux Henchmen (and one I consider a friend), Nilus, is a huge Guild advocate and player. He has declared 2012 as the year of the guild, and this idea has certainly taken off strongly. With 2012 just arriving, I am interested to see how many players nationally stick with Guild through the year. I plan to play guild and aim to do well. I am not sure I am committing for the full year, but certain for the beginning of the year through Adepticon I will play Guild as my primary Tournament faction.

Onto the new year!
So that's my initial 2012 thoughts in a nutshell. The new spreadsheet for game and hobby tracking is linked here. I am tweaking it a bit to add some additional statistic tracking in the sheet, I hope I can pull together everything I want to track. I will also be doing some minor restructuring of the blog over the next couple weeks to line up all the new 2012 information.

Pied Piper 25ss Malifaux tournament - 1/28/2012

2011-12-21T14:01:00.000-05:00

Battle Report - Kaeris v Kirai

2011-12-02T11:30:00.001-05:00

As part of our Winter Achievement league, I grabbed a game against Dan the other night. Dan and I do not end up playing each other too much in casual play, which is a shame. Dan is not only a great player, but also fun to play against. Well, fun until he decides something is broken and starts swimming for the deep end of the pool. For this game, I pulled out Kaeris vs his Kirai.

Set-up

Below is a picture of the board we were playing on. I had flipped Supply Wagon for my strategy, Dan flipped Escape and Survive. I was considering throwing down Colette, but was not sure she had what it took for Supply Wagon. Looking back, she may have been a better choice. This was my 3rd or 4th game with Kaeris, so I am still learning how she and her crew work.

I had a couple schemes left to get for achievments in the league, so I grabbed a couple of those. I decided on Stake a claim (placing my claim on the far side statue), and bodyguard. We flipped for deployment, with Dan setting up first, and deployed our crews. I announced both schemes, and Dan announced Betrayed by Spirits (Kill Kaeris with Ikiryo) and another scheme (I forget which). Away we went. We had corners deployment.

Our crews were:

30SS Scrap
Bill - Kaeris, 2x Gunsmith, SS Miner, 3x Fire Gamin, 5 stones
- Supply Wagon, Bodyguard, Stake Claim
Dan - Kirai, Lost Love, 2x Seishin, Datsu-ba, Shikome, Desperate Merc, Canine Remains, Insidious madness, 5 stones
- Escape and Survive, Betrayed by Spirits, ???

Dan's Crew & Deployment

Turn 1

Shikome started with prey on the female gunsmith. I started with the SS Miner digging up a SS. I wanted to play somewhat conservatively and burn some activations, even knowing he would be able to out-activate me. I know Kirai can move fairly quickly, so I was worried about moving too far forward and giving him a first turn strike.Dan began shifting forward slowly, with the Shikome swinging to my left and a bit forward, lining up for a run on the female gunsmith. I activated and moved my crew forward, taking positions where they could support each other in later turn or against a charge. Dan shifted forward as well, staying out of range of my guns and staying safe. He did kill off the merc and dog to grab some additional Seishin, a Gaki, and an Onroyo.

Turn 2

Things heated up quick on turn 2. This is where my unfamiliarity with Kaeris really started to show, as it was taking me excessively long to make decisions on my next activations and what to do. The Shikome moved forward to attack the female gunsmith, leaving her with poison and at 1 wound remaining. My male gunsmith moved forward and I looked to choose ammo. At that point I realized the gunsmiths have ammo to use against living, neverborn, and armored, and undead models. Unfortunately, none of those are spirits. With that in mind, I realized my gunsmiths would become marginalized through the game. I snapped off some shots, but didn't do anything significant. Datsu-ba and Kirai tossed out some spells that resulted (by the end of the turn) in turning both gunsmiths into Gaki. A fire gamin on the left charged the shikome, hurting it, and then Kirai swapped it with a Gaki to keep it safe. Ikiryo and the madness both moved up to engage Kaeris. I did learn some tricks with Kaeris to use vs Kirai. I was able to toss out a fair amount of burning counters, including a counter on one of the Seshin. I then used Immolate to kill of that Seshin and drop the resulting pillar of flame on Kirai. We ruled at the time that the resulting marker was not magical, although after revisiting the question on the rules forum, it appears that is a nastier attack than thought (the pillar is magical). Lots of models mobbed Kaeris, I lost both Gunsmiths and one fire gamin, and my miner grabbed melee master and buried. On Dan's side a whole host of spirits died, but Kirai and Datsu were able to keep him supplied with replacements.

Turn 3

The game was certainly turning against me, but judicious use of smoldering heart was keeping me in the game. During turn 3 Dan moved into full attack mode on Kaeris, bring a load of spirits forward to engage her. She in turn opened up with several stringed together ignites (turn it up!) and shared a bunch of burning counters with the spirits around her. Kaeris then finished with immolating the insidious madness and dropping the resulting pillar on Ikiryo and a Gaki. A new Onroyo moved forward, my fire Gamin ran up to kill the remaining Gaki, Kirai did some shifting around. The turn ended with Kaeris once again surrounded with 2 Shikome (1 with prey on her and 1 without) and an onroyo in range. Datsu was hanging out in the wings to clean up. I moved the Miner marker forward, positioned for popping him out next turn to engage the shikome with Kaeris as prey.

Turn 4

This turn became a bit of a blur. The Miner popped up and killed off a shikome. The other Shikome did some marginal damage to Kaeris. Kaeris once again tossed around burning counters and then burned down a fair number of spirits around her. Datsu moved forward and turned one of my gamin into a Gaki, the other gamin attacked the shikome but failed to kill it. The turn ended with Kirai positioned close enough to pull out Ikriryo for his attack to accomplish the scheme, Kaeris with 1 wound remaining, and a load of spirits still surrounding her. I had done an amazing job of pushing out damage and killing off spirits, but I was not getting Datsu or Kirai, so there were always more to come back.

Turn 5

Turn 5 saw initiative go to Dan, Ikiryo come out and kill off Kaeris. The rest of turn 5 and 6 was an assault on the wagon until it was smashed apart. The picture below is the end of turn 6, just after the last damage was put on the wagon (I only placed 2 markers, the third destroyed it).

The game ended as a loss, Dan 8 to my 0. I found myself at a real disadvantage with Kaeris being the only model in my crew who could fully engage Kirai's crew. To be fair, I only knew Dan was bringing Resser's prior to the start of the game, so it could have been very different. I really need to work on learning Kaeris with a fair number more games with her. I think she will be a load of fun to play, although I am wondering if she makes a good Henchman as Master. I am tempted to modify a list for this strategy to be as follows:

30ss Scrap
Rasputina & 8 stone pool, Kaeris, Essence of Power, Silent One, Gunsmith, Fire Gamin

I will have to try it out.

Alt Justice, Abuela, and an Eldar Model?

2011-12-02T07:05:00.000-05:00

Wait, what? Did the title really say an Eldar model? Quick, go back and check, I'll wait.

Damn, I guess it did. So, while painting up all the Malifaux I have been, I still have a full set of Eldar Harliquins sitting on my paint table. The Malifaux tends to push the 40K tree-huggers to the back of the tray, but occasionally one slips to the front. Its been a while since I painted up a 40K model, but I grabbed the Shadowseer from the tray last Sunday and laid down some pigment.

First though, the Malifaux:

Abuela - Perdita's Grandma

Alternate Lady Justice

Holy Crap, its a Shadowseer!

And that brings picture week to a close. I am not sure how much Eldar I now have, since my Army Builder has expired. I still have a boat load of Warmachine/hordes models to paint up, which is unlikely to happen anytime soon. I also have some more Malifaux (Always) to get to. Justice's Avatar, a tourney legal Executioner, Johan, another Performer and Mannequin, and an entire Kiria Crew. Lots and Lots more to do, and with December here new models are being released. I am looking forward to grabbing the Executioners and Angelica this month and next, to flesh out my Guild and Colette crews.

Fire!!! Sonnia Alternative Sculpt and Avatar

2011-12-01T07:05:00.000-05:00

Paint and picture week continues with Sonnia Criid. A ways back I posted some quick pictures of my avatar model, along with some quick pictures of the alternate sculpt. I figured I would pop them in the light tent for some better lighting and pictures overall.

Alternate Criid Sculpt

Avatar Criid - aka Cherufe

The pair of Fiery Ladies

Lucius and Crew - Pictures!

2011-11-30T07:05:00.000-05:00

Lucius, the leader of the Guild Special Forces. I have had him built for a while but never got around to a full set of pictures. I did complete painting my third Guild Hound this last Sunday, so that helped a bit with the picture taking. This whole crew was painted to a Table Top Standard, so nothing exceptional! Here are some pictures

Lucius - the Pimp himself

Woof Woof - Guild Hounds

Ryle

Lawyer

Guild Guard Captains - notice the Wyrd W on the left captain!

Drill Sergeant

Guild Guards

Lucius and Crew (missing 2 Austringers)

I realized as I was posting these that I forgot a couple models. My Austringers never jumped out of the case into the picture. Sad day, I will have to remember to rectify that at a later date. I will admit, I am really looking forward to the Wardens from Twisting Fates being released. I think they add an incredible amount to both Lucius's crew and the Guild in general.

Pictures Pictures Pictures

2011-11-29T07:05:00.000-05:00

As mentioned yesterday, I was blessed with time over the Thanksgiving holiday. I used some of that time on Sunday to not only get caught up on my painting but to also start chipping away at the horrible backlog of pictures I need to take. With that said, I plan to parcel out the photo's all week this week.

So, lets dive right in. Sunday one of the models I completed was my Male Gunsmith for my Arcanists. More importantly, he completed my Kaeris box set. Its a shame I was impatient and painted up the fire gamin prior to the league starting. If I had waited a week I would have been able to get the "Paint a new box" achievement. Ah well.

Here they are:


Kaeris

Fire Gamin (Denis, Precious, and Sparky)

Male Gunsmith

Female gunsmith

Soulstone Miners

Kaeris and Crew

That's all of them. I still have a Large Steampunk Arachnid to put together, but I am not in love with the model. For the time being, I think Kaeris will do just fine with the crew as is! Ahh, I must not forget the Johan who just showed up in the mail. He will be joining Kaeris soon!

Colette Commision Recieved

2011-11-28T07:05:00.000-05:00

A couple weeks ago I received a completed commission from my friend James over at 4-Ones blog. He had painted up my Colette crew for me, and they look fantastic. As I am sure you, faithful reader, are aware, I have been lax lately in getting pictures taken, never mind posted.

Thanksgiving weekend was a blessing on the time and picture front. I was able to knock out a bunch of models this weekend in addition to grabbing some long over-due pictures. I felt it was only proper to show off Jame's incredible work. Here they are, my new showgirls!


Colette, the girl herself

Cassandra

Performer and Mannequin

Doves

Coryphee and Coryphee Duet

Battle Report - Rasputina v Lilith

2011-11-25T07:05:00.003-05:00

I realized while cropping these pictures and uploading them that the majority of the battle reports I have posted have been vs eChris. From reading these reports the readers would think he is my only opponent. This is not the case. I think eChris likes seeing battle reports posted, so he consistently reminds me to take pictures during our games. As such, our games are the ones that get posted. With that said, here is another Battle Report to be posted. I really expected this to be a slaughter when I saw eChris put out his Lilith crew, but I jumped in with a smile.

Set-up

This was a game we played as part of our ongoing Achievement League. I am playing Arcanists in the League while eChris is playing Neverborn. We agreed to a 30 point game, flipped standard deployment, and flipped who would deploy first, resulting in my having first deployment. We were playing on a small village board set-up prior to the game.

We started flipping for strategies, with eChris flipping Line in the Sand and me flipping Distract. eChris contemplated burning a stone to re-flip but decided to stick with his choice. I proceeded to my case and contemplated what to take. My Arcanist choices were Kaeris, Colette, and Rasputina. I had had some luck with Raspy previously on Distract, plus I only had 1 gunsmith painted. I did not think Colette would be very good at Distract, so stuck with Raspy for the mission. At 30 points I figured I would take a fairly direct crew, grabbing 2 SS miners (MVP in previous games) and 2 Silent Ones to heal them up. I grabbed the essence and decided to sit on an 8 SS pool.

Upon selecting my crew, I glanced across to see what eChris was bringing so I could pick my strategies. He brought Lilith, 2 Lilitu, Lelu, a Tot, and the puking snake. With that in mind, the choice on schemes really fell to what I had left to accomplish for the league. My choices were Bodyguard, Breakthrough, Extermination, Eye for an Eye, Frame for Murder, Stake a Claim, Steal Relic, and Reflections of December. Looking over that list here were my thoughts:

Breakthrough - Not likely since I would need the miners for hitting power
Extermination - Very unlikely to near impossible
Eye for an Eye - tough but possible
Frame for Murder - Impossible unless I hide it, and this game was not worth hiding a Scheme
Stake a Claim - Not likely, but possible
Steal Relic - I did not want to be close to Lilith without attacking
Reflections of December - Possible, and I am not sure how many more games I will have with Raspy
Bodyguard - Possible, only because I will have a fair number of SS to prevent damage.

So, I ended up taking Bodyguard and Reflections.

30SS Scrap
Bill - Rasputina, 2x Silent Ones, 2x Soulstone Miners, Essence of power, 8 stones
- Distract, Bodyguard, Reflections
eChris - Lilith, 2x Lilitu, Lelu, Tot, Primordial Magic, 8 stones
- Line in the Sand, Holdout, Breakthrough

eChris's Crew & Deployment

My crew and deployment

Turn 1

My turn started in a fairly mundane fashion. The essence linked with Raspy, moved forward and cast pillars to cover up the middle dynomite marker. Following that the miners dug up soulstones for Raspy to use, and the Silent Ones healed the miners back to full. Each silent one, on thier activation, cast other spells to try and surge and stack my hand for later in the game. eChris used his turn more productively, sprinting and transposing models around the board and grabbing the first objective on the left of the board (from my perspective). He pulled forward and sent Lelu to work breaking down one of the pillars and activated a second objective as well. Not bad, 2 objectives on turn 1 is a strong start for eChris, and puts me a bit on the back foot.

From eChris's side of the board.

Turn 2

Turn 2 turned up the pressure with lots of action. I do not remember the exact steps of the turn (unfortunately), but to sum up it went something like this. eChris activated Lelu, smashed apart the second ice pillar, then moved over and activated a third objective. In conjunction, Lilitu drifted around the house and started luring one of my silent ones forward. I was pulled up, but resisted a couple times. My silent one activated and put up north wind, just covering Raspy where she was sitting. eChris moved his second Lilitu forward and pulled the Silent one the rest of the way into the scrum, but was not able to get any attacks through. To get some range, the second Silent one moved forward to get Raspy in range of North Wind, then popped the spell up. Lilith made a run across the street to position for the other two objectives. Raspy activated and blasted into the scrum, killing lelu with blasts and leaving the Lilitu's with some damage. Raspy finished her turn by putting up ice pillars to block Lilith from getting inside the building and grabbing her objective there. eChris ran his Tot to the back of the board, then followed up with the totem transposing one of the Lilitu's to get her to safety. I activated my miners, ate a soulstone for Overdrive, then moved forward and tunneled. At the end of the turn I shifted one tunnel marker forward (the corpse counter) and the second one to the left between the small and large houses. My goal was to threaten eChris's crew with 1 miner while the other went to deactivate dynamite.

From his side of the board

Turn 3

Turn 3 let me finish what I had started on the previous turn. eChris started by moving to threaten Raspy with his Tot. I responded by moving my silent one away from the objective and damaging the tot with her healing spell. eChris moved his rear lilitu forward to position near the center of the board and lured my silent one forward. My silent one moved closer to the tot, pulsed and killed it off. eChris moved the second Lilitu to the center of the board, getting Raspy, totem, and a silent one in melee range. Raspy activated, defensive stance, then walked out of combat. I forgot at that point to pull my totem to me with link, leaving it engaged. I tried to use my (0) spell to knock one of the Lilitu's down but failed the cast. I then followed up shooting my blast spell into combat. Flipping for the targeting in melee ended up with my targeting a Lilitu. I then flipped the red joker for my irresistible flip, realizing that had I remembered to snap my totem, I would have had that joker on my cast. I followed up with a cast and stone to drop severe damage on one Lilitu, and blast onto the second. This left one of them at 1 wound remaining, and the second at 2. Lilith then moved out from around the house, but I do not remember what she did. My totem dropped two more ice pillars to block Lilith from moving directly to Raspy next turn, then it came time for moving the Miners. Miner #1 moved to be next to Lilith, and #2 moved onto the far left objective. At the end of the turn the two Lilitu's healed one of them up to 6 wounds, and the other one died.

Turn 4

At the start of the turn, I brought both miners up from Tunneling. I won initiative (13 to a 12) and started with the Miner next to Lilith. He attacked 3 times, missing 2 attacks, and dived back below ground. Lilitu started by luring and killing a Silent One then moving forward to engage Raspy. The second silent one moved forward and pulsed near the Lilitu, putting 2 damage on her. Lilith activated, broke through the ice pillar and charged the silent one to kill her. Shatter had Lilitu down to 1 wound, and had Lilith had prevented most everything. Raspy activated and threw everything she had at Lilith, killing Lilitu in the blasting. The soulstone miner dug up another stone for Raspy, then the tunneled one moved over next to Lilith.

Turn 5 & 6

Turn 5 started with the miner popping out and then I again won initiative. The miner attacked and got a luck shot off on Lilith, killing her. Raspy then moved forward stand next to one of the activate markers. The non-insignificant miner shut off the far left objective. On turn 6 Raspy and the other miner shut off the remaining objectives.

The game ended with a win to me (very unlikely game). I think there were mistakes made on both sides, but the bulk came down to eChris focusing on his line in the sand early in the game and not picking apart Raspy's crew, allowing me to build up my stones and start picking apart his crew. Final score, Raspy 8 -> Lilith 2 (holdout).

BatRep: Rasputina vs Pandora

2011-11-02T12:30:00.000-04:00

Intro

The Winter Achievement League started up on Tuesday and I rolled out with Arcanists for this 6 week period. I have my Collette crew currently at the end of a commission, due to return soon for play. I also just picked up Kaeris who I am very excited to play. These two combined with Rasputina give me 2 masters and a Henchman to play around with for the league. With that said I rolled out with the only Arcanist models I had available, Rasputina and her old crew. I decided before getting to the store I would aim at getting at least 1 25 point game in, and make it a fun lark of a game overall. I had pre-picked my crew as there is an achievement in our league for picking a crew before flipping for strtegy and another for playing with nothing from the starter box in your list. eChris was willing to oblige, which worried me a bit as he is playing Neverborn for the league. At the end of the day, its all for fun so we rolled into the game.

Set-Up

We played a 25 point scrap. I took:

Rasputina - 8 SS pool
Essence of Power
Jack Daw
Hanged

eChris took:

Pandora - 6 SS pool
+ Avatar
2 Sorrows
Doppelganger
Candy

I had Contain Power, then Kill Protege (Candy) and Sabatage (on the statue furthest from me in the picture below).
eChris had Deliver a Message, and I forget his schemes.

Ok, so this was going to be a fun game, but still a bit tough. We used our ruins board and flipped corners deployment:

Turn 1

Turn one kicked off with me losing initiative to the damn negative flip from the Doppelganger. No worries, eChris started with linking his sorrows, clearly working to out-activate me. I linked up the Essence of power for my first activation, then moved forward to the fence. I followed this up with using Magical Extension to put two pillars touching my objective and just to the right side, blocking some LOS to my crew.

Following that there was a fair amount of movement, Candy moved up to hide in the small doorway of eChris's ruins, Jack moved up to touch my sabotage objective and put up Severed Ties (can't cheat or stone within 6 inches), Doppelganger copied Dementia and cast it on Pandora before moving forward on my left, hanged moved forward on my left. Raspy moved forward to position for next turn. As the last activation, Pandora activated, used her dementia to push forward into the large door of the ruins with a pacify on the Hanged. Once there she use her new LOS to try and cast a spell at Jack, but being unable to cheat she failed her Demetia flip and was stuck. She followed up with a Walk outside of Jack's Severed Ties bubble, then cast her spell at Jack (Project Emotions), failing to cause any damage but forcing Jack to run with her trigger. Unfortuantely, Jack ran to the closest board edge which put him standing right next to Pandora and her Sorrows at the end of the turn. Pandora tried to pacify Jack and push away, but was again unable to cheat or stone and failed to overcome Jack's WP.

Turn 2

eChris realized his only way to truly deal with Jack was to run him off the board with Pandora. I won initiative with a Red Joker flip in the negative initiative flip and started out. I knew I would have trouble while rallying with Jack so started by moving the Hanged over to face off with the Doppelganger. I wanted to force eChris to make a choice between killing Jack and losing his Doppelganger, or taking down the Hanged and keeping Jack around. eChris activated Pandora, forced Jack to run to the board edge, then pushed over to try and take down the Hanged. The Hanged took a couple wounds but lived through the attacks. Raspy then activated in companion, moving forward and dropping a couple blasts which resulted in the Sorrows both being killed, Candy taking some wounds, Pandora taking some wounds, and the Doppelganger getting hurt. It also resulted in the Hanged being taken out, but that was worth the sacrifice. The Doppelganger copied sweets from Candy, healing herself and walking forward a bit. Jack rallied on the board edge, and then Candy activated, used sweets on Pandora, and started to retreat toward the back of the board.

Turn 3

Turn 3 started with a loss of initiative again, I really needed to take out the Doppelganger. eChris started with Pandora killing off the Essense, putting a wound on Rapy, and pushing around the corner of the building to my left. Raspy was able to burn stones and cheat high cards to resist Pandora's assault. Thank God for eChris drawing a crap hand. Jack (rallied and not pacified) double moved toward Candy and put up his Severed Ties bubble. Candy moved to hide behind the building, Using Sweets to heal herself and position near Pandora. Raspy moved forward to Sabotage the terrain and then nuked the Doppelganger, splashing the blast damage onto Pandora who burned stones to resist.

Turn 4

Turn 4, with the Doppelganger dead, I pulled initiative. I did not want to go head-to-head with Pandora's WP while she could still cheat so I started by moving Jack behind the wall (next to Pandora and Candy) and putting up his bubble. Raspy walked twice to get outside Jacks bubble, then tried to hit Raspy with a spell (I think it was Self Loathing). A timely black joker let Raspy resist, and opened up Rasputina moving forward and nuking Pandora dead. Candy followed with a quick heal on herself, a run for the back of the board, and made herself harmless.

Turn 5

Turn 5 started with eChris winning initiative. He decided to go all or nothing, and moved Candy forward to face off with Rasputina. This was not a bad move, as it kept Raspy from casting her nasty spell. Raspy then followed up with biting Chill to take Candy down to 1, and tried to hit her with her stick which didn't work. I then brought Jack forward and hit Candy for 1 damage to kill her off. eChris unhappily reached into the muddle and pulled Candy of the board.

Game End

Our game ended 8-0, with a win to Rasputina. It was an interesting game overall.

Ever get the feeling you've been outnumbered?

2011-10-31T11:08:00.003-04:00

Fire Gamin

2011-10-25T07:05:00.000-04:00

I should name the little bastards......

I figured I would toss up a quick post with some not great pictures of my new fire gamin. I will be taking them for a spin tonight with Avatar Sonnia. Following that outing (or 2) I will be putting these little guys on the table with Kaeris in the upcoming Winter League.

Here are some other pictures. Honestly, I think they look better in person, so I need to get the light tent set back up to take some better pictures.

Battle Report - aSonnia vs Pandora - The Revenge!

2011-10-17T07:05:00.003-04:00

One of the benefits to my job is I have days when things are slower and I can work from my iPad and iPhone. These opportunities have been very rare lately, so when it looked like such a day on Friday, I jumped at the chance to grab my bag of models and head over to Huzzah Hobbies. eChris also has a job that gives him a flexible schedule, so we were able to meet up and get a game in. Apparently he felt Pandora deserved a little bit of revenge after our Tuesday game, so she came out with one of eChris's full on tournament lists.

So, the board was set-up and we flipped for a Shared Reconnoiter. I knew eChris was bringing out Neverborn, and caught sight of him pulling out his tourney crew. I was wondering how aSonnia would run vs his very hard Pandora tournament list, so decided to put her to a harder test and give 'Dora a chance for revenge. Reconnoiter is one of my least favorite strategies, but I thought that Sonnia would work well on this mission as Violation of Magic could spit out significant Witchling Stalkers. I started with a fairly straight forward list and then became stuck on the last couple points. I made a last minute decision to drop my starting Witchling Stalker, pop in two guild hounds, and go with 6 soul stones.


Our Board

My Crew:
Sonnia Criid -- 6 Pool
+ Sonnia, Avatar of Conflagration [2ss]
Desperate Mercenary [2ss]
Desperate Mercenary [2ss]
Guardian [7ss]
Guild Hound [3ss]
Guild Hound [3ss]
Santiago Ortega [7ss]
Watcher [3ss]

eChris's Crew:
Pandora -- 6 Pool
Primordial Magic [2ss]
Insidious Madness [4ss]
Insidious Madness [4ss]
Insidious Madness [4ss]
Stitched Together [5ss]
Stitched Together [5ss]
Stitched Together [5ss]

Now it was down to selecting Schemes. I went through my list and settled on Breakthrough and Exterminate Spirits. I figured I had a really good chance to take out the three insidious madness plus the primordial magic so exterminate should not be too tough. I also figured I could camp out with my watcher and then shoot down the board to grab breakthrough. I announced both schemes. eChris took Spread Madness and did not announce the other, leading me to believe he took Kidnap. No surprise that I was correct here. I figured it would be tough for him to kill Sonnia or aSonnia with casting Self Loathing on her, but it would be interesting to see how he pulled it off. We both deployed and flipped initiative for the start of the game.

Turn 1
I claimed initiative on turn 1 with a red joker flip. This was certainly not the time I wanted to see the Red Joker, but I tried to make use of it. I started out with the guardian trying to cast protect on Santiago. The flipped card failed to cast, and while I had a card in hand (an 11) that could cast the spell I really did not want to burn off a high card early. I tried again to cast protect and again the guardian failed. Not good tidings for the turn. Through the turn, I moved forward to get in position, tracking against eChris's cautious move forward. eChris was moving up and screening the board with Creepy Fog from the Stitched Together, keeping my LOS blocked to his crew. I finally activated Sonnia and moved forward, intending to put up a fire wall to screen one approach vs Pandora, and cast inferno. I ended up black jokering the Inferno cast, leaving turn 1 a great disappointment. eChris finnished up the turn with casting Dementia on Pandora and scooting across the board from his deployment zone (my right hand side) to the left side of my crew. At the end of the turn the guardian snapped to the Desperate Mercenary with Overprotective, aiming to get close to Pandora is possible, but still be within 3 inches of both Santiago and Sonnia. Board positioning at the end of turn 1 was as such:

Turn 2
Turn 2 I grabbed initiative again and had a charge lane open straight at Pandora. I decided to try my luck and declared the charge. In the opposed WP duel, Pandora won and shut down Sonnia's charge. I In return I put up a wall of fire to block the approach on that side of the board and put inferno up. Pandora kicked off her turn with a chain of pacify hitting a couple models, then she used two self loathings to make the Watcher run off the side of the board. The Guardian protected Santiago, female desperate merc moved and tried to take a shot at Pandora, failed, and brought herself down another wound (2 remaining). Pandora pushed back behind a building out of sight to stop the second uncontrolled shot. My dogs moved forward, cautiously, to get in position to go after a madness next turn, and Santiago went defensive stance and held his ground (he had taken 1 wd from Pandora). eChris positioned some more, coming forward with his Stitched, hiding a Madness behind a house on my right, bringing out his primordial magic. The last move, which I found very smart, was to move a madness forward on the left and take a shot at Pandora. Pandora won the WP duel to resist the shot and pushed back around the house to start next turn in sight of my crew. At the end of the turn, Sonnia hurt the male desperate merc and Santiago with inferno and the guardian snapped around onto Santiago to make a move on the Stitched next turn.

Turn 3
I won initiative for turn 3, the turn when things got ugly. Sonnia was facing two Stitched together in front of her, and then had another ST and the totem in a line behind. I knew I could reach them with my double blast, and I had a severe in hand. I activated Sonnia, burned a stone for Confiscated Lore, and let loose with a fireball. One stitched was behind a wall while the other was in the open, so I let loose with a fireball onto the stitched not in cover. Flipped, stoned, and the resist leaves me with a straight flip. I flip straight and get moderate damage, cheat to severe to drop 3 blasts but more important to do 3 damage on the blasts. First blast does 5 damage to the darker Stitched, 3 to the rear stitched, and kills the totem. I know I need to violate the mercenary or Pandora is going to scoot around the corner and ping him dead, so I launch that spell next, bringing out a witchling stalker in the house and engaged with the Madness just outside the window. With my last AP I place a set of fire walls between the stitched together and my crew. eChris activates Pandora and starts pacifying models. First pacify kills the female mercenary, second pacify hits the Guardian, third hits Sonnia. Pandora uses self loathing on one of the dogs, doing damage, walks once to get LOS, then pacifies Santiago and passes her third action. I have a witchling stalker and two dogs to activate outside of pacify. I activate the dogs in companion and move the first over next to the madness on the far right of the board (I did not have LOS to charge) and the "front" dog moved with his free walk then charged the madness, missing the attack due to the negative flip. eChris brings activates his madness next to the stalker, puts up the neg-WP bubble, and moves inside the house next to the stalker. The Stalker activates and kills the Madness, and puts up his neg-cast bubble. Stitched in the rear activates, walks forward next to his closer stitched. Guardian activates, heals himself, and shifts around to block LOS next turn between the Stitched and Sonnia. The other stitched activate and do some gambling with Santiago, lose Gambler, and position for turn 4.

Turn 4
Turn 4 was the single most important turn in the whole game. I started turn 4 with one manifestation requirement met and the ability to manifest for 1ap. We flipped initiative and I was able to grab initiative again. I planned out my turn and started with Sonnia. Sonnia manifested, replaced with aSonnia and putting the Madness beside the building within melee range (along with Pandora). I had a completely crap hand (nothing above a 5, 3 books) but started with Light em Up on the Stitched. I failed to cast the spell, but wanted to save my stones for the next spells. Second was to place two pyres, which successfully cast, placed in range to push onto the two Stitched standing next to each other. That was 2 casts (Casting Master) down, so I followed up with 1AP to push one pyre positioned in base to base with both Stitched behind the wall. My last action was to use my (0) to cast Searing Wave and use a soul stone to push the spell to be irresistable by everything. I had the trigger on the Ram and flipped 4 damage for damage. This put 3 wounds onto Pandora, killed the nearby Madness, put the darker Stitched on Does not Die, and pushed one of the other Stitched to does not die and hurt the third. Essentially all three stitched together would be sacrificed at the end of the turn. eChris activated his madness, put up the neg wp bubble, and activated terrifying. I activated the guardian, healed, and moved toward engaging Pandora, failing to swing at her. Pandora activated and pacified the Guardian and Santiago, pushing around to hide from aSonnia behind a house. I activated my first dog, failed the terrifying check, and ran to the board edge. The first stitched activated, gambled with aSonnia and failed, then gambled her life and failed. His last Gamble your life succeeded after I burned my last soulstone for a tie, then flipped the red joker on the double negative flip and followed up with another severe. That took aSonnia off the table and turned the game. The second dog failed his terrifying check and ran to the board edge, the second stitched started in on the guardian, killing him, the Stalker came out of the house and walked forward, Third Stitched tried its hand at Santiago but was unable to break through his stubborn WP. Reactivating the Stitched killed off the Stalker and Santiago ran down to hide on the far side of the house that Pandora was on. At the end of the turn the three Stitched sacrificed and Pandora chose to take the wound instead of going slow.

Turn 5
I needed initiative and the right card for this turn to swing in my favor, and thus the game swing in my favor. If I was able to grab initiative again and had a 10 in hand I could get off Leadstorm, putting 4 damage on Pandora remaining 3 and forcing her to use her last soulstone to try and survive. I drew my hand and had an 11, 13, 10, and three other cards in hand. I had the hand, no I needed the initiative. eChris and I flipped initiative and my deck punished me for earlier initiatives by serving up the black joker. Damn. eChris started with Pandora, Walking once to get LOS, Pacifying to push closer to the dogs, keep LOS, and bring Santiago down to Hard to Kill (1 wound remaining). He then hit Santiago with Self Loathing, punching through his stubborn WP, followed up by pinging the dog who was already at 1 wd remaining and killing it, then casting self loathing on the remaining dog and running it off the board with his trigger. His last action was for the madness to speed up the board to grab a second table quarter.

Final score:
eChris Reconnoiter 2, Spread Madness 0, Kidnap 2 for a total of 4
Bill Reconnoiter 0, Breakthrough 0, Exterminate Spirits 0 for a total of 0

eChris wins the game and Pandora gets revenge for the loss earlier in the week.

Battle Report - aSonnia vs Pandora

2011-10-12T13:02:00.001-04:00

Ok, so I snuck out of work on Monday and grabbed a game of Malifaux late in the afternoon. Not a bad thing, the day was a bit stressful and I needed a break. While I was out, local eChris (who also appears on Gamers Lounge from time to time) shared that he was really anxious to get his Pandora crew back on the table. See, eChris has been playing an awful lot of games lately with the Arcanist, and he had not brought out his Neverborn in probably a month or more. With that said, the way he asked me led me to believe we were looking at a "Hard" or "Tournament Style" game. You know, no hold barred face smashing goodness. I thought that sounded fun, as I love playing eChris and I had not tried aSonnia out in a tournament setting yet. We agreed to the throwdown during out regular Tuesday night gaming, and went to our corners.

So, that brings us to Tuesday night gaming and this Battle Report. I have had some requests on the blog for more battle reports, along with a fair number of requests to the podcast (for both battle reports and pictures of our painted models). I rolled into the store and eChris was ready to go. We picked out our crews and started setting up. He had just completed painting up some of his NB models, so pulled them out to play. I will say this, now, before the battle report. While his list was good, it is not fully up to the Tournament level of list he typically runs.

So, first the basics:
30 Soulstone game
Shared Destroy the Evidence
Standard Deployment

eChris's crew:

Pandora -- 6 Pool
Doppelganger [8ss]
Lelu [7ss]
Lilitu [7ss]
Lilitu [7ss]

Schemes: Hold Out & Assassinate

My Crew:

Sonnia Criid -- 7 Pool
+ Sonnia, Avatar of Conflagration [2ss]
Desperate Mercenary [2ss]
Desperate Mercenary [2ss]
Guardian [7ss]
Santiago Ortega [7ss]
Watcher [3ss]
Witchling Stalker [4ss]

Schemes: Subjugate & Raid

And that brings us to the board and the deployments. The crew pictures above (sorry for the blurry picture of my crew) show how we deployed, but here is the board as a whole.

You should be able to make out the wooden tokens at the center of the board then spread onto his side (these are my Evidence markers and the Neutral marker) and then the black bases on my side of the board (his evidence). One of his evidence markers is behind the ruins on the right of the board and cannot really be seen.

Turn 1

We flipped initiative and got underway. Turn 1 was, as is typical, a fair amount of maneuvering. I would be able to out-activate eChris, so I started conservatively by moving a witchling stalker forward, protecting Santiago with the Guardian and then shield bashing Santiago for 1dg, and drifting up with the mercs. I did not want to have Pandora run wild with incites/pacify or be grabbed (easily) with the Lilitu lures. For my crews, first turn positioning is important, while I can loosen up a bit starting turn 2. eChris had his doppelganger copy Dementia and Casting Expert, he cast Dementia at Pandora then walked forward a bit. The triplets shifted around, with Lelu positioning himself just inside the door of the ruins, Lilitu luring the Witchling Stalker forward to the fence, and the other Lilitu shifting to my left, sitting just outside the left side of the ruins. Pandora shot up the board by passing a number of dementia checks (requiring eChris to cheat 3 cards from his hand), got himself onto his closest objective to the right, but was out of range to cast anything when he got there. I moved forward with Sonnia, put up inferno and tried to throw a fireball at my witchling stalker. I measured range and found the Stalker was ~1 inch too far, so held onto the 10 of Tomes I was planning to cast with. My last move was to move up with the Watcher, sitting smack on the neutral center evidence marker. At the closing phase inferno knocks the two mercs down to a single wd and Santiago down to half wounds. Here is the board at the end of Turn 1.

Turn2

Turn 2 kicked off with a really good draw on my part. I had held onto the 10 of tomes from turn 1, and drew into my hand another 11, 12, and red joker. I took a look at the board and was ready to take initiative, and luckily flipped two high cards even with the negative initiative flip from the doppelganger. I started the turn with the Stalker charging Lelu, cheating high enough for a straight flip, tossing down the red joker, and doing enough damage (with Critical) to kill Lelu. I knew this would set eChris onto his back foot, but not push him out of the game. I still had to subjugate 2 models to turn them into Witchlings for my scheme, and had a ways to go on my strategy as well. The outside Lilitu moved forward and engaged the Watcher with her 4 inch reach, stopping him from destroying the neutral evidence. The Watcher jumped forward onto the evidence in eChris's deployment zone, getting out of melee with the Lilitu and opening her up for some shooting. The second Lilitu lured the witchling forward and smacked him around a bit. The male desperate merc moved over the wall to take a bead on the outside Lilitu, and let loose with some uncontrolled fire. Thanks to For My Family, and some judicious flips, he was able to get both shots off, hit with 1, and knock her down 2 wounds. The rest of the turn had Pandora ping some damage onto the guardian, Santiago, and kill both Merc's before I could turn them into Stalkers. eChris walked with his Doppelganger, mimic'd the Watchers walk, then walk again to sit on top of my evidence and engage the Watcher so he could not destroy it next turn. Sonnia pushed out a fire ball into the Lilitu, dropping her to 3 wounds remaining. This put me in a touch position, as I had the AP to kill the Lilitu, but could not do it with Violation of Magic to get the Subjagate. I decided to pass my last action, leaving Lilitu to slowly waste away, taking 1 wounds and dropping her into Violation territory.

Turn 3

Turn 3 started with my negative flip making me go second. I realize I cannot count on luck every turn. First activation went to eChris, who had the nearly dead Lilitu run behind the shacks to my left and try to hide from Sonnia. Sonnia moved forward (double walk), burned a soulstone to study her confiscated lore, and then let loose Violating the wounded Lilitu. Lilitu shriveled into a hooded Witchling Stalker, who was set in melee with Pandora. Lilitu lured the watcher away from the evidence, dropping wounds on him from Pandora, and killed him with her whip. My newly summoned Stalker put up his bubble of Magic hate and then tried to hit Pandora, only to suffer a point from emotional trauma and let Pandora push 4 inches away. The doppelganger copied the Stalkers sword and charged the Stalker engaged with Lilitu, but missed the attack. That Stalker activated, put up a bubble of magic hate, and turned his sword on the Doppelganger, bringing the skinless girl down to 2 wounds remaining. Pandora activated, put another wound on the slow stalker via pacify and pushed toward the rear evidence marker, back into his own deployment zone. She pacified Sonnia to push again to get out of the magic hate bubble, then cast self loathing at the witchling stalker. The Witchling hit himself with his own sword, taking him down to 1 wound. Pandora them finished her turn by pinging the Witchling, pushing onto the rear evidence marker, and causing the witchling to die and blow up, taking the doppelganger with him. This left the poor Lilitu in a fair amount of pain, but not dead. Santiago and the Guardian moved forward, took some pot-shots, but did not really swing the game any one direction. At the end of Turn 3, the board looked as such.

Turn 4 - 6

Turn 4 started with no negative flip as the doppelganger was dead. Even so, Chris won initiative and started the turn by Sacrificing his Lilitu for a soulstone, forcing me to focus on Pandora for my Subjagate scheme. The end of the game was fairly straight forward once that happened. eChris burned out my hand casting at Sonnia and Santiago, forcing me to play off the top of my deck after dispelling her spells. Sonnia cast inferno and then manifested, becoming aSonnia and moving down the board. Santiago and the Guardian positioned to destroy the center evidence, and the witchling ran for the rear evidence. Pandora successfully held off my ability to destroy the evidence and stayed as protected as possible from Sonnia, so I could not Violate her. I did a lot of positioning, resulting in Sonnia moving forward to destroy the rear evidence, Santiago and the Guardian destroying the neutral evidence and the other forward evidence, but I was unable to destroy the third evidence by the end of the game. Pyres could have killed Sonnia several times, but I was too focused on moving and trying to Violate her for my Subjugate scheme to just simply kill her with them. Here is the board at the end of the game, (that's a burning counter on Pandora).

The game ended with me achieving 3 points for Destroy the evidence, 2 points for raid, 0 for Subjugate while eChris scored 0 points on Destroy the Evidence, 0 for Assassinate, and 0 for Hold Out. Final score, 5-0 in Sonnia's favor.

Overall a great game, with some fantastic moves on both sides. I spent a lot of time trying for my Subjagate scheme, and ended up out of position to grab my last marker. eChris proves again that Pandora can hold off another crew handily even while all alone on the board.

Malifaux Winter Achievement League

2011-10-11T07:05:00.000-04:00

I am running this.

Caw! Caw! MF'er

2011-10-05T12:30:00.000-04:00

There are honestly a whole number of things I could and should be writing about in this blog post. I could be finally putting together my thoughts on how Malifaux gamers graduate through different "Phases" of understanding the game balance. I could be waxing poetic about my love for Twisting Fates. I could even be writing a deeply intellectual comparison on 40K vs WHFB vs Malifaux vs Wm/H. Am I going to do that, hell no.

Simply put, I figured I would write up a quick little blurb about the Austringer. As my friend Zee would put it, Caw Caw Mother Fucker. Yeah, that's an expletive. I will not even blame it on the after-gaming beer I had. Nope, dinner kept that well in check. Simply put, I had 2 great games during my weekly game night tonight and one of them returned the Austringer to the table (after a fair long absence) to a truely triumphant return.

After some minor harassment on the Malifaux IRC room today, I caved to some pressure and decided to try out Lucius as a Henchman vs Henchman as master. I do not prefer to play him this way, I honestly think he does better as a Henchman as Master. Regardless, I teamed him up with Sonnia Criid and her fiery avatar and went to town. Local player Dan dropped down some Marcus love and we had a fun game. What???? did you think this was a battle report. Go back to the top, this is about the Austringer! Check out the sweet Alternate Sonnia Criid over to the right though. Thats who Lucius was running around with all game. So, at the end of the game, Lucius, Sonnia, the Gov Proxy, and a Witchling were still alive and won me the game. Overall a pretty fun game and Dan is always a great opponent. Hell, check out his blog as he may actually put up a battle report.

Did I mention playing my second game with Lucius and the Austringers though? No? I thought I had. So my second game was against another local player, Brian. Brian is fairly new and picked up a bunch of Guild. He has been working through his new guild collection and really seems to be enjoying the game. He has been trying to catch me for a game for a while now, and we just got the chance to play each other tonight. I wanted to take something different, and had not played Lucius in a while. Since I had played him as a Henchman in my last game, I decided to bring him back to the table running a crew of his own. Brian and I decided to play a 35 point game and I spun up the Guild Guard/Special Forces crew. Guardsmen, Guild Hounds, Guild Guard Captain, and 2 amazing Austringers. Now, let me be fair here and point out that only 1 time in the past 6+ months have I brought an austringer back to the table. They just have not fit with my crews lately. Add to that the fact they have not really done much for me in the games I have played them. Well, they came back with a bang tonight.

I had taken my second Austringer out of my Malifaux bag to make room for Sonnia's Alt, so had to borrow one from Brian for the game. I got the two dudes on the table and both Brian and I were joking about Anemic under-performing birds. Well..... let me tell you. Caw Caw Mother Fucker indeed! In the first 3 turns of the game my two Austringers flipped severe damage at least 7 times. Even on negative flips these boys were whipping out the Severe/Moderate flips and tossing in the odd critical strike to boot! Granted, they could not deliver orders to save their lives, but they sure dished out the damage. Between the two austringers, the Drill Sergeants' Shooting Range, and Lucius buffing and giving orders.... DAMN! The Austringers took down Sam Hopkins, Ryle, an Executioner (nearly twice), and dropped damage on both Perdita and Nino. It was a fairly glorious game for them.

So, here is a little love for my friend Zee, who constantly espouses the value of the humble Austringer. It looks like I finally fed the birds the right bird seed.

So whats coming up on a serious note for the DTP? More Puppets (the set is nearly complete), and I owe a lot of pictures (Malifaux and 40K) to the blog. I need to get my light tent set back up here at home, pull out the SLR, and get some pictures taken. I have a rough plan for doing so, along with getting back to painting. Now that I am at the end of the year I am starting to get back to the hobby side of the hobby.

Puppet Wars Goodness!

2011-09-28T11:31:00.000-04:00

Last night (Tuesday) was my "regular" Tuesday gaming night, which I have not made it out to for over 3 weeks now. It was really nice to get back out to the store, hang out with friends, and get some games in. I was able to grab 2 great games of Malifaux, one vs eChris and the second vs Dixon. I am still playing around with my aSonnia lists, and they are coming together very well.

It was an even greater pleasure to show up and see a whole load of painted puppets from James. James has been working on a commission for me, painting up an absurd number of puppets for my Puppet Wars collection. I have to admit, they are coming out spectacularly! James has a great gallery of pictures with all the currently painted up puppets on his blog, 4-Ones, I strongly urge you to check them out.

Here are a few quick shots I took while we were photographing them.

Frontline Gamer - Imperium a Metaphore for GW???

2011-09-21T07:05:00.001-04:00

I wanted to pass on a link to a blog article I read yesterday. I really enjoyed this, and felt it was well thought out and a good overall read. Yes, its more GW-Unhappiness, but it makes for an intersting metaphore.

Front Line Gamer - Is the Imperium a Metaphor for Games Workshop?

Black Library Contest on Gamers Lounge???

2011-09-20T07:30:00.001-04:00

On the most recently released episode of Gamers Lounge, Episode 39 to be exact, I announce a new contest. I will not make those of you who are not Malifaux fans listen to the whole episode, but check out the first 15 minutes or so. First off, you might like it. Second, this is a shameless plug. Third, and most important, you can get FREE STUFF!!!!

I am starting to put together a new segment for the podcast reviewing books that I am reading. I am a voracious reader and knock out a book fairly regularly, but have not had many people to chat with on the podcast and do reviews with. eChris, a sometimes guest, has offered to review some audio-books with me, and we are starting with Black Library. In addition to this, the fantastic folks at the Black Library have offered to donate some books toward the endeavor. As I refuse to accept direct advertising, I am going to recycle (and in some cases just give away new) these books to the listeners.

The first contest comes to an end October 7th. Listen to episode 39 for the details. The prizes? Salvation's Reach by Dan Abnet, Red and Black (the audio book) by James Swallow, Thanquol by C.L. Werner, and the Sabbat Worlds Anthology.

Avatar Sonnia - My Little Tyrant

2011-09-12T16:00:00.000-04:00

Ramblings thoughts on Avatar Sonnia

Avatar Sonnia, our girl on fire. I have been playing a number of games since Gencon, with all the Malifaux games using Sonnia and her Avatar. We have a move in our local community to play lower level games, which means I have been looking at crews for either 30ss or 35ss. I think I am getting the hang of her, and figured I would ramble a bit on what I have found and my perception from the games.

So, let me step back slightly from aSonnia and type a little about Guild as a whole. I find that I need to retrain my brain to playing guild, as I am switching from Neverborn. Neverborn has a lot of "trickiness", which I relate more as multiple complex combo's that players percieve as tricks. Many of these combo's focus on movement of one type or another. Guild does not work the same way. I am finding that Guild is fairly straight forward in how they play, and is more in line with a boxer than a martial-artist. Surprisingly, this makes them a challenge for me to make work.

Now, the above paragraph does not mean that Guild does not have tricks and combo's to string together. Its just retraining my brain to pick out those combo's that I am working toward. So, that brings us back on topic (well, on topic for rambling) of Sonnia and her Avatar. I first saw aSonnia during play-test and was completely blown away by her. During play-test she was acknowledged as the most powerful avatar available, and was fairly game changing when she manifested. Through the different tests of the manifest game mechanic, she gained or lost in overall ease to get her on the table, but maintained the appearance (stigma?) of power. That said, she is not overly powerful or game changing in her final form as released in Twisting Fates. The play-testers and developers did a fantastic job of balancing her to the overall game while still keeping the feel of power.

So, let me type a bit on what I have seen of Master Sonnia's play-style and tricks before I look at the differences when she moves to her Avatar form. Sonnia Criid looks at first glance to be heavily focused on simply blowing stuff up. She has the largest number of blast markers in the game (3 blasts off her severe damage), does very decent damage (2/3/5), and has a unique ability to shift her blasts from her spell an additional 2 inches, allowing her to minimize positioning defenses more than other masters. At first glance you would think Sonnia works in a similar manner to Rasputina.

Looking deeper, I find a great deal of additional depth to playing Sonnia. First, there is the drawback that Sonnia required tomes in order to cast the majority of her spells. She does not have the tomes, and her casting targets are fairly high. To off-set this, Sonnia has the ability to use a (0) action, discard a soulstone, and gain +1 cast and a tome, making it much easier for her to get her spells off. This is nice, as it lets her big blast spell and her fire-walls (great for blocking out LOS and controlling charge lanes) actually work without requiring the perfect hand. While all of this is great, I really think Sonnia's strength comes from her other two spells. "Inferno" and "Violation of Magic" work in very different manners but both expand how Sonnia plays. Inferno does not need a book to cast making it easier to get off but will not likely be cast often, as it is a (0) spell. Being a (0) forces it to compete directly with her ability to gain a book on her cast. Violation, on the other hand, I find I use a great deal the more I play Sonnia. Violation typically inflicts only 1 WD on a target, unless that target has a cast stat higher than a 5. Keeping this in mind, it becomes an ideal spell to finish off a target. The final point of damage is not what makes Violation a great finishing spell, but its the other effects generated. I find I am constantly looking for models who are sitting at 1 wound that I can hit with Violation, both friendly and enemy models. When a model dies to Violation, they summon a Witchling stalker from the target before it is removed from the game.

Through the use of Violation, Sonnia turns into a summoning master who can expand or replenish her crew with fairly solid Witchling Stalkers. One of my normal opponents made the comment in a recent game that since I have begun using Violation of Magic, his games vs Sonnia have become much more challenging overall. I took this as a compliment, partly because I am new to using Sonnia and he had played another local player previously who primarily played Sonnia. As I spend more time playing with Sonnia as Master, and specifically as I look at Manifesting her Avatar, I look for additional tactics to make use of Violation in my games. One recent addition involves killing off the pitiful Desperate Mercenaries and turning them into Witchlings.

So, with that said, we have Sonnia Criid the Master who pushes out damage and does some summoning. We also need to look at the big sword she has strapped across her back. Sonnia is actually a fairly capable fighter when necessary. She can hit with her sword which has fairly decent damage of 2/3/5, nice for pumping out some close in damage when necessary. I, however, prefer one of the triggers on her sword. She has an automatic trigger that forces the opponent to discard 1 card per Ram, lets Sonnia draw a card, and heals Sonnia 1 wound. This works really well to deplete an opponents control hand, replace some cards in your hand, and slowly heal Sonia back up. I have a friend who claims this is the largest strength to Sonnia, although I see it more as a nice to have.

So, Avatar Sonnia, Avatar of Conflagration, Big Fiery snake thing, Cherufe'. That's right, I said it... Cherufe'. What happens when you manifest the avatar and what changes? The biggest change I have seen is an overall decrease in damage output, but increased reliability in that damage. aSonnia loses her blasts and moves to only having the capability to push out a single damage spell with any kind of respectable damage. That spell is now a pulse, which increases its reliability along with having a range of 8 inches. This combined with the damage mechanic (straight um-modifiable flip opposed to a modified damage flip) makes this interesting overall. aSonnia also increases that damage by handing out Burning Tokens. The downside to this spell is that it's a (0) to cast, competing with another (0) ability that allows her to heal.

She picks up a spell that, while similar to her Fire Wall spell as a master, is just simply better. Now the Pyres that make up the wall stick around until the spell is cast again. In addition, she gains an ability to push these pyres around including pushing them onto other models. Ouch. The Pyres end up doing damage to the models in a way that is not easy to avoid. Add those pyres as one method to pass out burning tokens, along with hitting people with her big fiery snake breath (The Salamander Melee weapon), and a spell called "Light Em Up" that simply hands out burning counters and you arrive to aSonnia having 3 distinct methods to give out burning tokens prior to using her pulse. Not too bad. Her list is then left with one last spell that is very familiar, that being Violation of Magic.

So, how have I been using my little tyrant in recent games? First, I admit that I look at aSonnia as an early game manifest. The earlier I can manifest her the better, as I feel she needs table time to be truly useful. While her overall damage tends to drop (in my opinion), I do feel its more reliable. I really like one of her tweaks in that her counter-spell ability has become a burning counter-spell, which now does damage to the caster when she counters their cast. To date I have not used her Melee ability as much, but find myself looking for lots of opportunities to use "Light Em Up" to pass out some burning tokens then pulse Searing Wave to pass out some damage. I also like the increase in casting ability (she jumps to a CA 8) which gets stronger when combined with Adaptive Mind, letting aSonnia choose Rams or Tomes on her cast. This helps get off those pesky spells such as Violation.

Pyres is another great spell that should be watched for opportunities to use. I have had some luck in dropping a set of pyres onto a board and then pushing one of those pyres onto a model or two. Typically, the model takes 3 damage for the pyre being pushed on them (plus a burning token), then another 3 (and a burning token) for activating on top of the pyre. I have not seen an opponent not move away as quickly as possible, but in the off chance they choose not to leave they take 3 more damage for completing an action in base contact with a pyre.

Lastly, don't forget the humble burning tokens at the end of the turn. When a model has burning tokens at the end of the turn, that model must choose to be either slow or take a point of damage during the closing phase. This is nice for models who are already low on health, as it weakens them more. In my experience, most players take the point of damage vs slow, but the odd slow here and there will help things out.

So, lets close out with a quick look at my personal aSonnia... my little Tyrant. Not the best picture, as I need to get my light box set back up, but its something. Here she is, for those that do not play in my local area.

Comments are welcome. Also, The Wasted Warrior has a really nice writeup on both Witchling Stalkers and Sonnia on his blog. Check it out!!!

Gencon 2011 - Master of Malifaux Round 4

2011-08-11T07:05:00.001-04:00

Round 4 found me at the second table, with only 4 unbeaten players in the tournament. In first place was Bunniegodd (from the Wyrd Forums) with his Mohawk of Doom!!!

Followed by Dixon (The Pharoh) aka DarcXON (from the Wyrd forums) who got munched on by a Beholder earlier in the day:

PgBSamurai (Palmer) (from the Wyrd Forums) was close behind Dixon and was my opponent:

Strategy in this round was Shared Reconnoiter, and I knew Palmer was playing Neverborn. I had seen him pull out Dreamer earlier in the tournament, and also saw him pull out Nekima and a single Lilitu earlier. With that in mind, I chose to go Dreamer instead of my FILTH list. The FILTH list was working well for me, but it just was not a strong match vs Neverborn, especially with the chance Chompy hits the table.

That said, I pulled out my reliable Chompy list, specifically geared toward Reconnoiter.

The Dreamer -- 7 Cache
3 Daydreams [6ss]
Alp [3ss]
Alp [3ss]
Alp [3ss]
Coppelius [9ss]
Insidious Madness [4ss]
Stitched Together [5ss]
Stitched Together [5ss]

Across from me Palmer turned out the following list (I think):

Lilith, Mother of Monsters -- 6 Cache
Primordial Magic [2ss]
Lelu [7ss]
Lilitu [7ss]
Nekima, The Dark Sibling [13ss]
Terror Tot Nephilim [3ss]
Terror Tot Nephilim [3ss]
Terror Tot Nephilim [3ss]

Ouch. I will admit I was a bit surprised to not see Chompy as I was at least partially expecting a mirror match on this. Looking at his crew I had some choices to make on schemes. I had pre-picked some schemes prior to the tournament that I knew would work well with both crews I was planning to take, and also fit with a variety of strategies. Of those, I only had a couple left. I knew I was going with Breakthrough, as it compliments Reconnoiter without putting all my eggs in the proverbial one basket. Its also a pretty straight forward scheme with Dreamer. I scanned through the rest and decided I would go with Grudge. I looked at his crew and realized a couple things:

I cannot grudge the Tot, they will disappear when they grow and I lose out on Grudge
Grudge on the totem is not wise, as its too easy for him to just kill his own totem
Grudge on Nekima is not wise, as I need Chompy to take her down reliably in this list.

That left me with the two twins. I decided to Grudge Lilitu, as I planned to hop out and paralyze her anyway to avoid the lures. With my plan set, we got ready to start the game.

So, my schemes were Grudge (Lilitu) and Breakthrough, his were Kill Protege (Coppelius) and Reclaim Malifaux.

This is a good time to point out where my head was at in this round. I was not overly happy with my scheme, but had settled on using grudge. I knew that to have any chance at first place, I needed Dixon to beat Bunniegodd and I needed to get as many points as possible beating Palmer. Dixon was only at +12 for his differential, so I went into the game ahead of him on the first tie breaker.

In retrospect, some of these thoughts contribute to my loss overall. Again, purely in hindsight:

Grudge was a really bad choice to take when the only melee hitters in my list were Coppelius and Chompy.
During the game I kept doggedly pursuing grudge, instead of giving up one of my schemes for lost and focusing on the rest
My list was good for reconnoiter, but knowing I was facing NB, this would have been a better list (which is another Chompy list I regularly play)

Neverborn Crew - 40 - Scrap
The Dreamer -- 6 Cache
3 Daydreams [6ss]
Coppelius [9ss]
Lelu [7ss]
Lilitu [7ss]
Stitched Together [5ss]
Stitched Together [5ss]

That said, lets get back to the game.

Our board was a fairly standard Terraclips set-up for the tournament, with a number of buildings, arched court-yards, and such scattered liberally around the table. I set-up behind a building in my deployment zone slightly back from the line. I was set-up to prime the Alp bomb and then bury to move down the table. He set-up on the line, in a straight line across the front of his deployment zone. He set Nekima in the middle, directly on the far side of an arched courtyard, directly across from my crew. We flipped initiative and I got first turn.

Seeing a list with Nekima as a lynch-pin, I knew I had to do something to her early to knock her down or slow her down. Knowing my opponent was at the top tables (so a high-caliber player) and a Neverborn player, I decided there was no need for subtlety. I activated Dreamer and 2 daydreams on companion and moved down the board. Using the Dreamer movement tricks I land Chompy within 1 inch of Nekima on the first activation, leaving Chompy with 1 Melee Expert and 1 AP left to use. The troubling factor at this point was I had to cheat 2 cards to get the casts off to do this.

I flipped my melee expert attack to be quickly reminded by Bunniegodd (it was so nice of him to watch out game , perhaps he was nervous?) "What about Irresistible?". Crap, we forgot that. I asked Palmer how he wanted to handle it, and we agreed to use the first card of the paired flip for the WP, then flip a new card for the attack. The first card passed, no worries, I discard it and flip a second card onto the paired. I believe he cheated higher to push the damage to a neg flip, but I still had a ram to trigger onslaught. Weak damage. I flip the irresistible for onslaught and have to cheat to pass (down to a hand of 3 cards, still holding an 11) and take attack #2. Paired flip, on damage, and another 2 damage. I move to my first AP, flip for irresistible, cheat again to pass (2 cards), he cheats up, I do not have a ram so I throw the 11 for "All Done" and stone to push for a higher total aiming for a straight flip. I flip a 1 or 2 and am still at a on the damage flip. Damn, I was only able to bring Nekima down half way, that's disappointing. I flip the first damage card and a Severe (I think it was a 12) comes up. Further disapointment (which Palmer felt with me... very cool opponent). I flip the second card for the and its the Red Joker. Damn, good luck finally. Palmer and I look at each other then I flip the additional card into the Red Joker. Another Severe (I think it was a 13). Nekima crumples to a 12 point hit and Chompy turns back into a little boy. Palmer is cool as ice with this, but I am pretty sure he was crying a little on the inside, I know I would have been.

The still-to-activate companioned daydream re-summons Chompy and puts him to sleep to pull dreamer back to my deployment zone, which I have to cheat my last card in my hand to accomplish. First activation of the game, I burn 6 cards and a soulstone, but get a kill on Nekima before he activated. I am willing to trade that.

The turn proceeds with him shifting forward and me continuing to prime my nightmares with Defensive Stance and such. At the end of the first turn, I try and bury everything with my last Daydream and fail to flip the necessary card. Very disappointing. At the end of the turn, Palmer has reclaimed 4 quadrants of the board, I have killed Nekima, and his Twins have shifted forward toward the middle of the board, separated a fair amount.

Turn 2, I draw my hand and have 1 decent card (something like a 10) and 5 cards fairly evenly split between 1's and 2's. I may have had a 3 in my hand, but I am not sure. Palmer gets initiative and activates Lilitu, moves around a bit, and lures Coppelius forward. I resist the double-take on the lure and activate Coppelius. Coppelius moves over to Lilitu, attacks and plucks out an eye. I figure I have the crow for the trigger now, so I should grab the eye and then attack on my second round to paralyze her. The Tot (the only living model around) does not run from the eye-plucking, I attack again, and fail my irresistible check. Lelu activates and charges Coppelius. Hits Coppelius, attacks with his Melee Expert and our flips leave him at a on his damage. He flips the first card and its a weak. Yay me! He flips his second card and its the Red Joker. In a wonderfully karmic play, he flips the additional damage card for the red joker and its another severe. Coppelius goes down in a pool of goo.

At this point the game gets incredibly intense. For the rest of round 2, through to round 4 (or 5) we have a back-and-forth running battle of my trying to maneuver to get melee attacks on Lilitu and him moving around the board to grab his reclaim malifaux. I spend 2 turns trying to take down Lilith with Alps and a stitched together before successfully taking her down. He whirlwinds and kills 2 alps before missing 1. (after becoming slow). It was an incredibly challenging game, fought tooth and nail throughout.

We come to the final activations of the final round and the board is as such:

Palmer has all 9 sections of the board reclaimed (2 points)
Palmer killed Coppelius (2 points)
From my side of the board:
- He has Lilitu in the far right board quarter, near the center line of his deployment zone
- He has 1 tot (wounded with 2 wounds remaining) on the back of the board, mid way across the far left of his deployment zone (I guesstimate ~8 inches from the tot on the right).
- He has a tot mid-way to my deployment zone on the left.
- He has nothing in my back right deployment zone
- I have my stitched in my back right quarter (1 point)
- I have the Insidious madness just over the line in my left hand board quarter.
- I have dreamer, an Alp, and a day dream left to activate.

Basically I have 1 chance to pull this out.

I activate Dreamer and a Daydream on companion, buries the insidious madness and the alp, and passes. Dreamer decides he can fly, moves into the far left quarter, and summons all his friends (cheating to get all my friends). I put the Alp as far forward toward the Tot as possible, and the Madness back to contest the near left hand quarter. Alp activates (Palmer was out of activations) and charges the Tot, ending on the far board edge 1 inch away from the tot. Charge attack flips and I miss the tot with nothing in hand to cheat to hit. Game over.

If I had been able to hit the tot and get at least moderate damage, the damage plus the slow effect would have killed it and summoned another alp, which would have put 2 significant models in his deployment zone for my breakthrough and contested the far right quarter. The end of the game ended as follows:

Palmer:
- Reclaim Malifaux (2 points)
- Kill Protege (2 points)
- Shared Reconnoiter (1 point)
Bill
- Grudge (0 points)
- Breakthrough (0 points)
- Shared Reconnoiter (1 point)

For a 5/1 loss. My final record was:

2 Win, 1 Loss, 1 Draw (7TP)
+12 Diff
23vp
9th place

It was an incredible day with some fantastic opponents. I would like to think I gave my opponents fun yet challenging games, and I hope I challenged Palmer, as he certainly challenged me. Everyone was fantastic and great sports. I went from a draw to the second to top table playing for 2nd place. Not too bad for a tournament showing in my book.

Next year I plan on winning.

Gencon 2011 - Master of Malifaux Round 3

2011-08-10T10:59:00.000-04:00

I have to apologize to my 3rd round opponent, I do not remember his name. As an admission, I was doing really good with names until about 3am Saturday night/Sunday morning and then they slipped right out of my damn head. Its thanks to Dixon that I remembered Stan's name. So, if this is you, please post on here and let me know!

Round 3 strategy was Shared Claim Jump, and my opponent had declared Outcasts. In pre-con planning, this was one of the strategies which I felt was ideal for the FILTH list, plus outcasts were one of the fair matchups for the list. With that said, I jumped back to the same list that served me well on round 2.

Pandora -- 8 Cache
Primordial Magic [2ss]
Desperate Mercenary [2ss]
Lilitu [7ss]
Lilitu [7ss]
Nekima, The Dark Sibling [13ss]
Terror Tot Nephilim [3ss]
Terror Tot Nephilim [3ss]

My opponent busted out Leviticus with the following list:

Leveticus, Steampunk Necromancer -- 2 Cache
Guardian [7ss]
Killjoy [11ss]
Rusty Alyce [8ss]
Steampunk Abomination [3ss]
Steampunk Abomination [3ss]
Steampunk Abomination [3ss]
Steampunk Abomination [3ss]

One of my local players played Levi pretty heavily for the past year plus, so I am very familiar with his threat range and other nastiness. With this, I was very comfortable going into the game.

I do not remember his schemes, but I took Kill Protege on Killjoy, and bodyguard.

At the start of the game my opponent and I discussed the terrain set-up and agreed that the Sewers drawn on the Terraclips mat would all serve as difficult terrain. Bridges and such were all open terrain, and the buildings stuck to the pre-defined terrain rules. The Claim Jump was set-up in the center of the board, with an "arched bridge" to the right of it. Basically this was a set of walls with an arch facing me and an arch facing him. Anyone on the claim jump could not see into the "bridge" or to the other side, but people on the "bridge" could see through.

My set-up was nearly identical to my round 2 set-up, with the puking snake on my left instead of my right. He set-up with a Waif inside a building on my right, 4 SPA's in diamond formation to pull themselves forward, Rusty Alice to my left, and Levi behind the SPA's. The guardian was behind the SPAs and next to Levi.

The first couple activations of turn 1 for me worked out the same, with the exception that I had a 12 in hand. Merc Defensive, Nekima defensive, smacks the merc, cuts for blood, gives out masks, moves forward, Tot kills the merc, gains blood, Nekima gains blood, grows.

This time I remembered to have my Merc hand out some healing with Last Noble Deed to Nekima, giving her a 2 point bump back toward full. I then have my Puking Snake move forward through some buildings, staying out of sight.

During all my set-up actions, his SPA's had moved forward and sheltered behind the bridge building, near the claim jump. He had moved in such a way that on the 3rd move forward he ends up leaving one of the SPA's behind and lonely. I am not sure what happened here, as I have not seen someone misplace SPA's before, especially not a player who could make it to the 3rd round of the masters with wins. That said, I saw the separation and knew I had to capitalize on it and stop the Desolation engine from coming on the board.

I activate Lilitu #1 and flip to summon her brother (Lelu), cheating the 12 from my hand and sacrificing the Tot. Now I have a chance to fire up the bond/super lure combo starting turn 2. Lilitu moves forward 1 time, and lures the "tip of the spear" SPA into B2B and kills it. Now there are 2 SPA in B2B at the corner of the "bruidge", and 1 SPA ~4 inches further back. My opponent starts inching Alice up on my left flank, keeping her behind buildings and out of sight. I move forward with my second Lilitu and chain-lure the remaining 2 SPA behind the bridge, killing them both. Levi activates and moves to the left side of the board, sacrificing himself to bring out KillJoy on the far-side of the "bridge" from the claim jump marker. The rest of the turn was a little positioning.

End of turn 1, I have a ball of nastiness mid-way between my deployment zone and the claim jump, he has Alice to my left (hidden out of sight), Killjoy and a guardian to my right (with the bridge between them and the claim jump), an SPA sitting near mid-board about 10 - 12 inches in, and Levi comes back to the Waif at the far side of the bridge from me.

Turn 2 starts and I pull 3 high crows into my hand and get initiative. Pandora starts, tags the SPA with Pacify, pushing forward down the board. I get LOS onto Levi, toss out a PE with a crow and stone it. Levi fails to resist (burning a stone), the waif makes her resist, Levi runs for the board edge. Pandora drops PE on the guardian, then I tag it with pacify and push back up the board, leaving myself out of charge range from anyone. Rusty Alice moves forward and takes a bead on Pandora. Opposed WP duel stops her shot and leaves her in the open. Nekima activates, defensive stance, gives out masks, and moves forward toward the claim jump. Levi activates and clears his falling back, but does not do anything else (specifically does not do anything to kill himself). My young nephilim moves forward toward the objective. Waif activates and passes. Primordial magic moves forward. Killjoy comes out on my side of the bridge, lining up for a charge next turn. I see my chance and activate both Lilitu's and Lelu. Lilitu #1 moves forward, chain lures the last SPA, and fails a cast which I let go. Second Lilitu stands still, chain lures Rusty Alice to her death, chain lures Killjoy to his death, Killjoy tries to smack her with his slow-to-die and fails vs her irresistible, then she walks toward the objective. Lelu activates and moves toward the objective. My opponent is looking pretty frustrated at this point. His guardian shifts around a bit to try and hide and the turn ends.

Turn 3 my opponent does not draw a new hand due to Levi not dieing. I activate and run through the Nekima standard operating procedure (SOP), able to now move her on top of the claim jump marker. Levi activates and walks back toward the Waif, keeping a bit cagey. Pandora scoots forward a bit, pings the guardian, and tosses out PE to give it a neg flip before coming to rest on the wall of the bridge closest to the Claim Jump and within the 3 inch target. Guardian activates and moves up the bridge, Lilitu moves slightly and chain lures the guardian to its death. Waif passes, I move the rest of my crew to strategically position around the claim jump marker, all within 3 inches and most out of sight of Levi, but with good LOS to cover the approaches.

Turn 4 starts, Waif activates and passes. Nekima activates, DS, gives out masks, passes. Levi passes. Primordial magic passes. My opponent looks at me and points out if we are both going to keep passing, then we might as well call the game as he cannot do anything and I already sit on 8/0. We call the game. Game ended 8/0 win for me. Record was now 7TP / +16 Diff / 22vp

His list was not the typical Levi list that I am used to seeing, and I think was at a disadvantage from the start. I was able to throw out my lures with 6's several times and he had little chance to resist. (guardian within 6 inches of Nekima is at WP 4, looking for an 11 to resist the 14 cast on the lure). Levi could have jumped into my line turn 4 and after to do some damage, but I am not sure it would have gone in his favor or he would have been able to turn anything. I have time to throw Nekima, Young, and Lelu at the waif to kill her, and could easily take down Levi. By turn 4 he had no stones left and I was still sitting on 5.

Gencon 2011 - Master of Malifaux Round 2

2011-08-09T11:12:00.002-04:00

Here we go, round 2 of the Master of Malifaux from Gencon.

Round 2 I played Mike? (Names are quickly slipping from my head...) and his Resurectionist Crew.

Round 2 was Shared Treasure Hunt, and playing Ressers. I had already planned to use my "Filth" list. Now, I want to point out that this list was the primary list I was planning to take to Gencon, simply because this was the Masters tournament and I felt this list was broken. It did not fail to deliver as expected. (and for that I actually feel bad for my opponents. I would never bring this list out in a friendly game, and am unlikely to bring it back in a tournament).

FILTH
Pandora -- 8 Cache
Primordial Magic [2ss]
Desperate Mercenary [2ss]
Lilitu [7ss]
Lilitu [7ss]
Nekima, The Dark Sibling [13ss]
Terror Tot Nephilim [3ss]
Terror Tot Nephilim [3ss]

His list, as best as I can remember was:

Nicodem, The Undertaker -- 5 Cache
Bete Noire [9ss]
Canine Remains [2ss]
Canine Remains [2ss]
Canine Remains [2ss]
Canine Remains [2ss]
Canine Remains [2ss]
Mortimer, The Gravedigger [7ss]
Rotten Belles [4ss]
The Hanged [8ss]

For this round I chose (I think) Hold Out and Kidnap on the dogs.

We had a fairly straight line down the center of the board with a fair amount of terrain to hide behind, but not a lot to block LOS. The Treasure was set mid-board between us and I deployed in a knot at the edge of my deployment zone. Lilitu #1, Pandora, Lilitu #2 in a line. Nekima behind that line, Merc to her right, Tot to his right, Tot #2 to my left in a building, Puking Snake (Primordial Magic) to my right in a building.

He deployed Dogs on the line in the center, ready to run for the treasure, Mortimer in the center of the dogs. Bell was set to the left of the dogs, back a bit from the deployment line, and Nico was hiding behind a building to the right of the dogs. Hanged hid out in a building and Bete was off the table.

So, my list works in a fairly prescriptive manner. Turn 1 went along these lines:
I get initiative:

Merc activates and goes defensive stance (my opponent and I joke about 3 hungry women leering at him must make him nervous)
Dog moves toward the treasure
Nekima goes defensive stance. Gives all Nephilim Masks on their cast, Cuts herself for 1 blood, Melee Expert hits the Merc (I cheat weak damage), Moves 4 inches to in front of the line of Girls (Pandora, 2 Lilitu's)
Dog moves toward treasure
Tot #1 smacks the Merc, killing him, gains 1 blood (Nekima gains her second blood), grows to a Young. At this point I forget to use the Desperate Merc's healing ability on Nekima, minor glitch.
Dog moves toward treasure
I do not have a 12 in my hand, so... Lilitu moves forward 1 move, starts with Luring one of the Dogs. Dog fails to resist, lure auto-triggers double-take, keeps luring until dog is in base-to-base, and dies from a combo of whip hits and Pandora's 1 dmg. Lilitu targets dog #2 and does the same thing, killing it as well.
Mortimer moves forward and buries himself, my opponent makes the comment that he is not going to play around with letting mortimer get lured all over.
Lilitu #2 moves forward and lures a dog, dragging it in and killing it. Bete pops out of the dog. Lilitu fires up her last AP to lure bete to her death. Bete does "1 with the night" and goes back under the bed.
2 Dogs move forward toward the treasure
Tot #2 casts sprint and shoots out to the Treasure, sitting comfortably on top of it, planning to pick it up next turn.
Belle moves forward and lures the Tot 5 inches forward.
Puking Snake moves forward through the buildings on the right
Hanged comes through the building to get a bead on the Tot.
Pandora activates, walks twice to get in front of Nekima and the Girls. Pacify on the front dog, push 4 inches, pacify on the Hanged, push 4 inches, PE on Mortimer, tagging the hanged and a dog, push 4 inches, pacify the Bell, push back, pacify the last dog, end the cycle.
Nico wanders out from behind the building and positions for a bead on my crew for round 2.

Round 2 ended up much nastier than that. I drew a high crow in hand so started with Pandora first. Pandora uses Pacify to shoot down the board and gets in range of Nico. I drop a PE on Nico, forcing him to run to the board edge. I push around dropping some more PE and pacifies before shifting back toward my line. He activates Mortimer first and buries himself. I activate Nekima and give everyone masks. He attacks the Tot with the Hanged, but missed. I still have no 12s in hand, so I activate a Lilitu and lure the Tot back onto the treasure. I then lure another dog to its death, Bete jumps out only to face another lure and death. This time she does not go back under the bed and stays dead. I can see my opponent getting frustrated. Nico activates and rallies. Tot activates and picks up the treasure. Belle lures the tot, making him drop the treasure. My other Lilitu lures the belle to her death, then switches and lures the hanged to his death. 1 of the casts in that chain failed to cast, no worries on that as I have plenty more. Dog attacks and kills the tot. Young jumps forward to grab the treasure. Puking snake moves forward.

Round 3 Nico walks back up the board, Mortimer buries himself. I shift the whole line forward and then shoot Pandora up the table as much as possible. I was either in range, or was in range at the start of round 4, but I end up dropping a PE and self loathing on Nico. Nico runs off the board smacking himself in the head with his cane. Mortimer flings dirt in a laughing moment at Nekima. Nekima charges Mortimer and hits him with her big sword. Lesson learned, never fling dirt at the Nephilim Princess! At this point the game is over, the young picks up the treasure and walks back to my deployment zone. Game ended 8/0 win for me. Record was not 4TP / +8 Diff / 14vp

More reports when I get another break from work to write them!

Gencon 2011 - Master of Malifaux Round 1

2011-08-08T12:53:00.002-04:00

Well, Gencon is over and I am on the road on the way back. Magical technology lets me post while I have my road-trip partner driving. Over the next several days I am going to get my battle reports posted for the Master of Malifaux tournament I played on Saturday.

Some quick statistics for anyone who is interested. Wyrd claims that the Master of Malifaux was the largest tournament to date (I believe it was at 32 people). I wonder if thats accurate, as I believe the UK Malifaux GT hit 40 players. Regardless, this was the largest Official Wyrd run tournament to date and the competition was exactly as I expected it to be. I had 4 rounds vs great opponents, even though I ended up playing broken (not fun) lists in 2 of my rounds. My opponents still held up to the pressure and NPE factors of my list and we joked and had a good time.

Further statistics on the tournament:

Faction breakdown:

10 neverborn
7 outcast
6 resurrectionist
4 arcanist
3 guild

Final round - top 2 tables:

Table 1 was Dreamer/LCB vs Avatar Zoraida
Table 2 was Dreamer/LCB vs Lilith (grow list)

Final Standings

1st. Neverborn
2nd Neverborn
3rd Outcast.
Top 8 places were 4 neverborn, 3 outcast, 1 resurectionist (in 8th)

Lets jump into my Round 1 of the tournament:
Master of Malifaux Round 1

Round 1 I played Stan, who was a whole lot of fun!

Round 1 started out with Shared Turf War and I was matched vs Outcasts. My plan had me choosing 50/50 between my 2 lists. Turf War has me working to get my crew to his half of the board, and into his deployment zone to max my points. I chose to take my Dreamer list:

The Dreamer -- 7 Cache
3 Daydreams [6ss]
Alp [3ss]
Alp [3ss]
Alp [3ss]
Coppelius [9ss]
Insidious Madness [4ss]
Stitched Together [5ss]
Stitched Together [5ss]

My Opponent set down Gremlins across from me, consisting (if I remember correctly) of:

Som'er Teeth Jones -- 3 Cache
1 Giant Mosquito [2ss]
Bayou Gremlin [2ss]
Gremlin Taxidermist [6ss]
Hog Whisperer [5ss]
Piglet [3ss]
Piglet [3ss]
Slop Hauler [4ss]
Slop Hauler [4ss]
Warpig [8ss]

Looking at this across the table I chose Reclaim Malifaux and Steal Relic as my schemes. I thought this would work out well vs So'mer, plus I have the movement to reclaim Malifaux and still push through to the opposing side of the board.

We both deployed and after setting up, I noticed I had a straight shot to toss Chompy/Dreamer down the board and possibly take Som'er down first turn. I started to activate and set my crew for an early bury (Defensive Stance, etc), waiting for him to activate a load of models. I finally reached the point of decision and So'Mer was hiding right behind the wall of one of the buildings. I looked close, the building wall was ht 3, Chompy should be able to see over it, and I companion activated the 3 day-dreams and Dreamer. Daydream/Chompy/Dreamer/Chompy shuffle and I place chompy next to the wall of the building, within 2 inches of So'mer, inside the building. I declare the attack and my opponent asks if Chompy can see So'mer from inside the building since there are no windows. At this point I realize my error, I am not allowed to even place Chompy inside the building. FAIL! I pick up Chompy and measure all my other options. Nothing comes to mind. I place Chompy at my best choice of location and only have a Bayou Gremlin to kill, who dies promptly. I trigger "All Done", then use the daydream in my deployment zone to pull Chompy/Dreamer back home and use the third DayDream to bury everyone.

That was annoying. I have now tagged the three zones. End of Round 1 I have tagged the three Reclaim zones in my deployment area, the insidious is forward ready to grab one of the next areas, I leave 1 Alp out and forward to grab the next area, and have a Daydream positioned in the center to summon up another nightmare to grab the middle section.

Turns 2 and 3 are a lot of positioning on both our accounts. I continue to reclaim sections of the board, Gremlins run forward and snap off shots at random nightmares, one gremlin makes a charge for my deployment zone on the right side of the board (he has staked a claim on a piece of terrain there as well), and the insidious madness was fighting two piglets. The Warpig made a run forward, but Chompy jumped out and killed it dead (making bacon I might add.. Bacon makes everything better). I also left an Alp behind to try and head off the Gremlin making a sprint for my deployment zone on the right side of the board.

Turn 4 started on my side with another run on So'mer and a group of gremlins who had not left his deployment zone. Day Dream jumps forward and calls up the big boss, Chompy. I have the plan in my head and its all planned out. Chompy will Melee expert So'mer and hit him. If I onslaught I will take it, cheating low if I have to in order to not kill off So'Mer. I will use my 1st AP to steal So'mers relic (I have a 12 in hand and can soul stone), then finish the Gremlin Boss off with my 2nd AP, attacking and triggering "All Done" (I have a 11 of Books in hand) to put the boy on the table. Dreamer will activate with 1 AP remaining, summon all his friends ( I have a 3 of masks in hand), make them terrifying, and then the turn will be over. The turn starts out well, Chompy attacks and flips a high ram. I do a fair amount of damage and So'Mer has no stones left. Chompy Onslaughts and hits So'Mer again, bonus! I look over my hand, look over So'mer's health, then attack again and hit. I toss the book out, flip damage and kill So'mer. At this point I try and figure out what I am going to do with 2 AP on Dreamer. Chompy is "All Done", Dreamer comes back out with 2 AP and 2 (0), Summons all his friends as planned, makes them terrifying, decides he can fly, and scoots over to be ready to grab another quadrant for reclaim Malifaux. We activate 2 or 3 other models before I realize.....

FAIL!!

I forgot to steal the damn gremlins Relic. Best I can now score is 6 points on the game.

At this point I am fairly frustrated with myself for losing track of my schemes. Coppelius clears out his deployment zone, the pigs kill off the insidious madness and the Alp is just not fast enough to catch the gremlin running for my deployment zone. We have some small skirmishes but the game ends with Dreamer having reclaimed Malifaux, I have more models on his half of the table than he has on mine, his gremlin and my Alp are playing ring-around-the-Stake-a-Claim. Our final scores are tallied and we end up with a 6/6 draw (I get 4 points for Turf War, and 2 points for Reclaim Malifaux).

That Draw set us up at the exact middle of the tournament, as the only draw in the round.

Its Gencon, Master of Malifaux is going on now

2011-08-06T10:05:00.000-04:00

So the tournament is here, and by the time you start reading this I should be well into Round 1 of the tournament. So the question is, what did I end up choosing to take?

I made the decision a couple weeks back not to take an Avatar list. Avatars are nice, but based on the pre-release rules as I understood them, they are not really tournament worthy. Sonnia Criid and Justice are ok for tournaments, but not fantastic. I was strongly considering taking a Criid Avatar list until I came across something else.

Locally while testing this list we termed it the FILTH list. This was first discussed by Mike on his blog, and he determined it was just not a fun list to play, especially against. Through some thinking and discussion, I thought that sounded like the ideal tournament list, so I started testing it.

FILTH
So we start with Nekima and a couple Lilitu's, and build from there. Here is the list I ended up taking into today's tournament.

Neverborn Crew - 40 - Scrap
Pandora -- 8 Cache
Lelu [7ss]
Lilitu [7ss]
Lilitu [7ss]
Nekima, The Dark Sibling [13ss]
Terror Tot Nephilim [3ss]

So you are already cringing, I am sure. The basics here are Nekima giving the Lilitu's masks on thier cast so I can chain lure models to their death. Add to this Nekima's and Lelu's hitting power for finishing models off and this gets nice. Pandora adds a whole new dimension to this, removing those pesky immunities and pushing damage out there as well.

To be fair, this list sounds a lot nastier than it actually is. Through a variety of play-testing, I find that this becomes weak vs a strong Zoriada list, Dreamer list, and Lilith list. The low model count also provides some bad match-ups vs some of the Arcanist lists. With this in mind, I am keeping a second list in faction as an alternative.

Dreamer
Neverborn Crew - 40 - Scrap

The Dreamer -- 7 Cache
3 Daydreams [6ss]
Alp [3ss]
Alp [3ss]
Alp [3ss]
Coppelius [9ss]
Insidious Madness [4ss]
Stitched Together [5ss]
Stitched Together [5ss]

Max is a great standby for me, as he fits my play-style and addresses many of the weaknesses that have popped up with the FILTH list. Dreamer works well for me against most match-ups, so will be my choice for Arcanists, Neverborn, and possibly for Outcasts. I have options to swap around my build, but the build above is a great control crew with a large number of significant models.

So, wish me luck, I hope things are well underway at this point. I expect to get some results up here over the next week after Gencon!

Over a Month since the last update

2011-08-02T07:05:00.003-04:00

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.

Terraclips - a review

2011-06-27T07:10:00.001-04:00

I just posted a review of the new Terraclips Terrain system coming out from Wyrd Miniatures. The review and article are posted on the Gamers Lounge blog, and was discussed in Gamers Lounge episode 34. Thank you for taking the time to look over this short photo-review of the Terraclips Streets of Malifaux kit provided for preview by Wyrd Miniatures. Also check out Gamers Lounge episode 34 where I speak with EricJ about the product, review my experience building it, and get some additional information from him regarding Wyrd's goals and intent for it.

Review link here - the review just did not port well from Wordpress to Blogger. Read it on the Gamers Lounge blog.

Malifaux Overview

2011-05-26T07:00:00.000-04:00

Friends of mine, Dan from Mongoose Blog and Mike from White Rabbits Legendary Blog put together a write-up for a new player in our community briefly describing the different Malifaux masters. I really liked it, and contributed some to the discussion as well as pulling some information from the Malifaux Tactics Wiki site. I wanted to repost it here, as I think it is a great description of the Malifaux Masters/Crews.

The Guild

Lady Justice - Justice is a melee hammer. No one hits harder then her, no one really lives when she wants them dead. She has an ability called sword style where she can buff up her sword strikes. There are 2 kinds of Lady J crews that I have seen work well. There is a the swarm, where you take a ton of cheap guys with decent guns and swords, and kick major butt with mid-range shooting. Once opponents close, Justice steps in and clear out anyone who made it into melee. The other is the elite model list. You take the best of the best models you can. In the list I saw the cheapest guy was 7 points. Since Justice doesn't do a ton to support her crew, you have a lot of bad asses roll up with her and kick ass in melee. Both lists work well in certain strategies, and a lot is player preference. She also has an advantage when dealing with undead and construct based (Ramos/Collodi/Leviticus) crews, she can clear away the counters (Scrap/Corpse) those crews need to rebuild.

Perdita - Perdita is a shooter with pretty much no equal. She is hard to hit, very fast, and shoots her gun in melee as well. So there really is no safe spot from her, she can even ignore cover. Her crew 90% of the time will be mostly her family members. The Ortega family can all companion for a really nasty turn of death. They all shoot, and are all VERY deadly from range. The crews biggest weakness is being engaged in Melee. Even that can be dealt with. Perdita is incredibly resilient, but her crew are softer and do not take a hit well.

Sonia Criid - Criid is a Spell Caster. She can dish out serious fireball type spells that can rip through an entire crew. She is also a magic hater. She can stop opponents spells and the better a mage her opponent is the more horrible things she can do to them. Her crew is very user choice. you can take a crew of all mage haters, or a crew of elite models who dont need master support. In my experiences the Elite force is generally better as Criid doesn't do much to support her crew.

Hoffman - The Hoff uses machines. He is a cripple who is in a mechanical harness and just clicks with machines. his crew is odd. They play a kind of speedy turtle shell that can pass their damage around to which ever model they see fit. Then it kind of burst out with very sturdy hard to kill machines who can do decent damage. The other big thing with Hoff's crew is they are nearly immune to some of the mind tricks (wp resistant) other crews push out. Overall, the crew is very expensive point wise, but incredibly resilient.

Lucius - Lucius is tricky. His limited crew works with some fairly low end type guys, guild guards. Even his "heavy hitters" do not pump out a lot of Damage on their own but rely on a combined arms approach. He, of everyone in the guild, supports his crew the most and loses well over half his capability when not running his own crew. His limited crew (Special forces) can do some cool "alpha strike" type things, but is pretty tricky to make work. Focusing on any single part of his crew can take it apart quickly and make it tougher to play. Overall, its the "Average" crew (average movement, average attack, average resiliency) with a couple tricks that can be made to work.

Resserectionists

Seamus - Seamus has a big ass Gun. He can only fire it once per turn, but it does amazing damage. His other abilities are very control oriented, he can hurt opponents Willpower, and stop them from moving too close to Undead models. He is also a tough sob. He heals when things die, can heal off his damage spell, and is generally tough to kill. Its takes a pretty focused effort to take him out. A standard Seamus crew uses the undead hookers, which is the only model he can summon, and a few models with guns. Seamus likes the mid-range shooting game a lot.

Nicodem - He is the spell caster of the ressers. He has a wide range of spells that go from Summon new undead, aoe damage, or a control spell that prevents a target from activating (paralyzed). He also can turn all the corpse counters in zombies. The zombies don't do too much, but they can swarm, and he can pass off attacks to them so he doesn't get beat up too bad. Nicodem also can take 2 birds which act as Arc Nodes for him, allowing him to cast through them. His crew is very wide open. He can take any undead model from any crew. And its all players preference.

McMourning - This is a strange guy. He is a glass cannon in melee, with several spells designed to work in melee for him. But his big ability is he can summon Frankenstien monsters. And generally 2-3 per game. This is a huge boost because he drops 7 point models in the middle of the field. His crew is almost always a lot of cheap models. Mcmourning needs body parts and corpses to make his monsters and generally isn't picky about slashing his own models to ribbons to make them into Golems.

Kirai - Kirai is a support Master. She can only really use Spirit models. But she is fantastic with them so there is no real reason to take non-spirits. She can summon new spirits, swap 2 spirits locations, heal spirits, and debuff enemies vs spirits. She damages her self a lot, and many games played with her all the damage she takes is from her own spells. Her crew is an assortment of different spirit models. with lots of Seishin, these are little chump spirits she can take, they can heal her, body guard her, and generally die for her.

Molly is last, she isn't out yet so there's pretty much no info on her. She seems control based.

Arcanists

Ramos - Ramos is the machine master, he uses mostly constructs in his crew. He is a very good Summoner, summoning spiders and balls of electricity. He also has a really good range damage spell and he can support his machines with his spells. One his other cool tricks is that he can force his own machines to blow up and deal auto damage to enemies. He has some cool tricks and can becomes somewhat resilient to damage via armor, but is fairly slow moving.

Rasputina - The Ice witch is mostly about throwing out massive damage spells. She also has decent support spells, she can make terrain and armor up her crew with her spells. She is awful in melee and that is her big weakness. Her crew is usually ice themes models designed to either buff her spells or be mirrors for her to cast through. She can use ice models as short range arc nodes. Rasputina is the typical Fireball throwing D&D mage, but with ice instead of fire.

Marcus - Marcus is fast. Like ridiculously fast. He makes speedy Gonzalez look like regular Gonzalez. Marcus is also a beast master. His big down side is that he needs to cast a spell to be awesome, without it he is below average. He needs to activate early in order to get his spell going. His crew is beasts, all sorts of beast from any faction he wants. His crew is quick and hits moderately well. Not super hard, not bad though. But on the whole none of them can take a hit. Marcus can be really good once his play style is mastered, but is tough to learn how to play to that level.

Colette - Collette and her crew are all about movement. She has some very expensive models that are very resilient, but overall her crew is not about attacking the enemy. She has a number of tricks and is a fairly complex master to play. Her spells swap around her totem (doves) and the models in her crew, bouncing them around the table and in/out of combat. She has a limited selection of combat abilities, and those she does have do not target the typical DF/WP like other models in the game.

Kaeris - Kaeris is a henchman, with a very limited set of models she can take. She has also not been released yet, so there is very little information.

Neverborn

Zoraida - Baba Yaga, the bog hag, the voodoo master, etc. She is completely control. She doesn't really have a lot of her own to damage you with. But she's got great support for pretty much everyone out there. A few key things: she can create a Voodoo Doll and attach it to an enemy model (other than the master). From then on, Zoraida can cast her spells on that model easier, and can do so regardless of range or LOS. Also, that model slowly begins dying of poison. Another big thing is the spell Obey. She's not the only master with it, but because she starts with the suit it needs, she's the best at it. She can pick any friendly or enemy model and cast the spell at them. They resist with WP. If they fail, you get to use that model for one action or a charge. (You can choose to fail the resist if it's against your own model so it automatically works if you successfully cast it). So that big scary monster that you sent after me? It just charged and killed your own guy. Or my big scary monster? He charges you outside of his activation so that I can still activate him and attack you more. Finally, she's surprisingly hard to hit having a lot of maneuverability and a nice bonus to her defenses. Because of how she works as a support master, she can work with just about any crew out there for NB.

Lilith - The mother of monsters. She's also the Master of Malifaux - she can see through terrain, move really fast, switch the positions of people around her, hit really hard, and has the best defense in the game (tied with Perdita). She's all about speed, speed, speed and then hitting so hard your mother feels it. She doesn't hit as hard as the other big two melee masters (Lady Justice - Guild, and the Viktorias - Outcasts), but she is probably the most survivable of the 3 due to her high Defense. Her crew tends to be other fast-moving models - usually the Nephilim. They hit really hard and can attack you from angles you didn't expect (why run around the building to get to you when I can simply fly over it?). Also, they have a neat mechanic where they can get blood for killing people and then use that blood to grow into better versions of themselves.

Pandora - The girl that opened the box and let out all the woes of the world. She is all about WP duels. All enemies within 12" of her lose their immunities to WP duels. If an enemy fails a WP duel within 12" of her, it takes a wound. And she has a lot of WP-based spells. So she runs around slinging spells at people and making them lose life that way. Nickle-and-diming her opponent. Also, she's got one of the best triggers in the game. If she casts a spell on a Crow and you fail the resist, you run away in addition to whatever else you would do. One of her spells is an AOE. So she can drop it and make everyone under have to test and if they fail, they run away (if she got the Crow). To target her, you have to win a contested WP duel against her (which does damage to you, then, if you lose). Also, if she wins a WP duel, she gets to move a little. So while she has only a walk of 3", she can really moter as she starts WP-dueling people around her. Her crews tend to also be very WP-based models, increasing the damage done by her one damage per failed WP duel ability.

Dreamer/Lord Chompy Bits - Here is the crazy kid and his nightmare friend. The kid and Lord Chompy Bits work together as one master (like the two Vikis are one master). The kid is all about controlling his own crew - he can remove them from the board to protect them, and he can pop them out elsewhere to ambush a model. He's also very fast and can give boosts to his models - either giving them all terrifying, or possibly more attacks, etc. He has a couple of situational debuffs too. Lord Chompy Bits is a melee beat-house but fairly fragile. Usually he'll pop up, do a ton of attacks, and then disappear back into the kid before the enemy can get a chance to attack him back. He's pretty slow, though, and fragile. His crew tends to be all Nightmares - they are pretty much all glass cannons. Hit really hard but die to a stiff breeze. That's why it's important to be good at burying and unburying your nightmares to make sure they can stay safe.

Collodi - This is the Henchman for Neverborn. He's not out yet, so not a lot on him yet. But he's "death by 1000 cuts". He's a puppet master and he works well with his marionettes. He's very slow, but the Marionettes can pull on their strings and yank him along with them. They hit for very little damage each, but they can move fast and attack a ton of times.

Outcasts

Leviticus - He is tricky. Leviticus only draws a new hand of cards if he dies. He also comes back to life very easily. So there is a wierd balance of die every turn while still doing cool things with him. His main abilities focus on killing a single model every turn. And he is VERY good at that. I usually say he has point and click death. His crew can take any undead or construct model from any faction. So its a very eclectic crew that generall has 3-5 elite models in it since he can't really support them while hes dead.

Viktoria('s) - Two for the price of one,the Viks are the proverbial Glass Cannon, but with great offensive ability comes great vulnerability - its not just coincidence that they are the Red and Black Jokers in the Puppet Deck. They want to get into melee and kill everything. Then run away as needed. Most Vicki crews use Von Schill, he is a henchmen who can kick some major butt. They prefer a crew that doesn't need their help to function.

So'Mer Teeth Jones - Som'er Teeth Jones (nicknamed Som'er) is a tricky, but rewarding master to use. He can be a bit daunting for beginners, but if you stick with him you can have your opponents cursing you and your gremlins! There are many masters in Malifaux who run into the fray with swords drawn contagiously yelling battle cries; Som'er is not one of them. He is more comfortable in your deployment zone using his actions to spawn more Gremlins, Pigs, and Giant Mosquitos to catapult (sometimes literally) at your opponent. He also has a decent range of spells to maneuver your crew around the board, and heal them. Playing Som'er can sometimes feel like a war of attrition as you grind your opponent down with sheer numbers, and even potentially discard their control hand! In other words, the Boss gives the orders, the gremlins do the dirty work. But, hey, that's how things are done down here in the bayou. The guy in the top hat does not need to toss the slop!

Hamelin -He's the walking embodiement of plague in Malifaux. He has a very small crew selection available to him, but they are highly synergistic. He's primarily a control caster with some swarm built in. Each piece of his crew fits together to make a whole.

Rats. These guys come in bundles. You only start with a few out there, but once they start swarming together, they can do a lot of damage. Each one passes you a bit of plague which makes later attacks hurt more. So while each may be doing only 1-2 points of damage, when you've got 5-6 of them out there, it adds up. They can also do a trigger to permanently lower your WP by 2.
Rat Catchers. These guys run around with the rats. Whenever a model within 6" of them dies, they make a new rat. So if your enemy comes in and cuts down two rats... two rats appear in their place. If your rats overrun one of your enemy's models, a new rat appears.
Stolen. These are children that have been lured into following Hamelin (he's patterned after the piper luring rats and children out of town). They have only one wound and no attacks. But they are surprisingly hard to kill (you have to pass a WP test just to attack them - they have harmless), and then if you do kill them, you may become paralyzed from the horrible realization that you just killed a child, and all your models nearby lose WP temporarily in realizing that someone just killed a kid. Finally, when a kid dies, no matter where he was on the table, he makes a new rat.

Finally, Hamelin himself. Like the Rat Catchers, he makes new rats when people around him die. He has a spell against WP that can turn a model Insignificant for the rest of the game (Insignificant models are generally worthless for scenarios and schemes). He can't be targeted by Insignificant models, and Insignificant models have a hard time hurting the Rat Catchers. So those killed Stolen that dropped your WP and the Rabies from the Rats that dropped your WP? Those make sure you can't do your missions or attack Hamelin anymore. And if you do find yourself in the spot where you can kill Hamelin, if there's a Stolen on the board at the end of the turn, he just replaces that Stolen as a brand new Hamelin. Oh, and every turn he can summon a new Stolen as a (1) action.

There are a couple other models in the crew (Nix and the Obedient Wretch) but that's the basic of Hamelin. Lots of control and lock down. Really hard to play against, and not a lot of fun for your opponent. Hamelin is what we call a Negative Play Experience (NPE).

Von Schill - He can be the leader or a minion, like Lucius, Molly, and Kaeris. As a leader he can only take Freikorps with him. He is a very solid leader, he is tough, hits hard, and supports his crew really well. Also his crew is pretty good. Big weakness here is that outside of Von Schill everyone only has 6 wounds.

Ophelia - Ophelia is a gunfighter, capable of dishing out good amounts of damage from a distance. She leads a crew of her most trusted kin on raids against human settlements, using her prowess with her pistolas to bring back loot. All of her kin are companioned to Ophelia, allowing them to activate together and get the first strike! She is also the only Henchman that Som'er may take, and she is key to his Crew. However, Ophelia is more than just a trigger finger. She also has a host of abilities to enhance the gremlins around her, making her a fun and useful tool to any gremlin list, whether it is led by Som'er or herself.

If this interested you, check out the new Malifaux Tactics Wiki. Its a great site and a good way to get more information!!!

Annual Price Rise Bitching?

2011-05-18T12:17:00.001-04:00

So that time of year has come again, the season when GW decides that they need to raise thier prices, again. Many have pointed out that GW does this annually, and every year gamers whine and bitch, then keep buying the products at the higher prices.

I really hope this year fills the hole as the proverbial straw on the camels back. I am certainly noticing a distinct difference in a number of posts within the wider blog-o-sphere, with a level of animosity that seems more intense than years earlier. Here is a nice swathe of blogs I have read, and refer other readers to.

So this is my blog, let me get some of my thoughts out there for those who are interested. I curtailed my GW spending last summer with the price rise in 2010. I recently posted on a Facebook comment thread that since May 2010 I have spent less than $200 on GW products. This is not entirely true. I did some thinking and here is my support to GW directly:

Tape Measure and Templtes for a game at the GW St. Thomas store (supporting the Manager there) - $30
3 Ruined Towers and 1 Witchfire Tor from Huzzah Hobbies (my local game store - GW is at a 10% discount here) - $155.25 retail
Grey Knights Codex from Huzzah Hobbies (my local game store - GW is at a 10% discount here) - $29 retail
1 can Chaos Black Primer, 4 pots of Citidel Wash, 2 pots of Citidel Paint (my local game store - GW is at a 10% discount here) - $37.20 retail
2 Island of Blood box sets (my local game store - GW is at a 10% discount here) - $180 retail
1 box Dark Eldar Reavers (my local game store - GW is at a 10% discount here) - $34.75 retail

So there we go, a total of $466.20 retail of which I actually spent less than that due to discounts at my local store. I know, thats an awful lot of money for curtailed spending, I agree. It actually makes me sad to see I even spent that much, although I can say its far below what I have spent in years past. From an economic and business standpoint for GW, I am one of the loyal customers I imagine they do not want to lose. My typical GW spending from 2007 - 2010 was on average $150 per month, plus around $500 for Christmas specials, plus paints, glue, and primer as needed. Lets see, that is an average of at least $2,300 per year, plus the odd $3 purchase of hobby supplies.

Is the assumption that I spent less money on my hobby last year than I did in the years before? I can say that I have not. In fact, readers of this blog are very aware where the bulk of my money has gone. Its gone to Malifaux. I have also picked up a used Privateer Press hordes army, and picked up some Forge World.

So, lets talk about Forge World for a moment. Forge World is making resin and on average, their resin is overpriced, especially when you look at what Spartan Games and Privateer charge for their resin. Add to this the other companies who work with resin, and there is a distinct "tax" to purchasing the Forge World resin models, a GW Tax. FW is in the process of working through and releasing a new Imperial Armour book, and a line of new models for the Eldar. I love my Eldar army, and this really excites me.
It also saddens me, as I am now stuck with the conflict that as long as I keep purchasing Forge World I am also supporting the overall sales and business practices of GW. FW is part of GW and profits and success on the FW side only reinforce overall practices at GW central. I fear what impression the GW management would get if FW sales spiked while their own fell.

So what does this mean overall? Does it mean I am joining the ranks of interwebz bitching over a price rise. Well, yes. Honestly, I am disgusted with GW's treatment of the Australian market. I am disgusted with the continuous price hikes with no real reason. To that end, I am endeavoring to purchase no additional GW products over the next year. P3 or Reaper paints, Krylon sandable primer, and no more models or Army books or Codex's. Malifaux is simply a better game anyway, and I love the support the company gives.

Will I be getting rid of my Eldar? Simply no. I have a 5th edition 40K rule book and my existing Codex's. Basically I am confining myself to playing with my local group once the game progresses into a new edition or new codex's come out. Will I buy the new Eldar codex once it is released? Probably not. I will find a way to continue to paint on the DTP and if that means stopping playing 40K so be it.

What about WHFB? Well, I have 2 armies. I have Dwarves that are assembled and painted. I have High Elves who are un-built and waiting for my attention. This should be good for years to come. But what happens when those new Army Books are updated and released? Same as 40K, I either play with the old books in a local group, or they also get shelved and I spend more time playing other games.

So what about FW? Lets be honest here, I am going to pick up Imperial Armour 11 and some of the new stuff coming out. I will be giving it a much closer look and thought before picking it up. I have a Titan, maybe I will pick up a second. I want a Phantom, but may not end up buying one next year as planned. A lot will depend on the climate of 40K. I will probably pick up another Reveneant, as a pair would be nice on my shelf. FW also adds into playing in a local group with friends, as I can use the modified rules there and not in larger games.

So whats the future? Well, it looks like more Malifaux (if that's possible) and an increase in PP games. I have a Legion army, time to look to more games there. I will continue to work on my DTP until its completed, and I owe some pictures to the readers.

Thus go my thoughts.

Hobby Status - First 4 months of 2011

2011-05-02T07:05:00.001-04:00

Well, we are a third of the way into 2011 and after the last 2 weeks of very little news, I figured I would pop on and write a quick post about what I have been up to. Earlier, in January, I wrote about some of the changes to the blog and the addition of the hobby tracking spreadsheet. This has been a boon, and very helpful in tracking my overall hobby. It also gives me an opportunity to share some of the progress with the lighter readers, ie. those who do not want to wander over the the spreadsheet directly.

So, what has the crafting, assembly, and painting front held so far this year?

Fairly cool, isn't it. As you can see, I spiked during February with a real flurry of painting and modeling around my Neverborn. This was a lot of work putting together and painting up my Dreamer crew. Starting in March, and then really picking up steam in April I have begun knocking on my Guild crews for my self-proclaimed "Summer of Guild". Of note is the steady low number of Eldar that squeak through every month. To this end, there are a couple things in the works. I am still knocking out the random Harliquin over time. I also received a fair amount of Forge World recently, including a Lynx, 2x Warp Hunters, 2 full squads of Shadow Specters (plus Exarchs), 2 Wraith Seers, and 2 conversion kits for the new Corsairs. I put together my first Corsair model this weekend, using a couple bits here and there, and primed him. I will be painting him up in Biel Tan colors to see how it looks with the wings. I also commissioned a friend of mine to paint up my Lynx. I am looking forward to how that comes out.

This year I decided was going to be more focused on playing that it was on hobby, as a change from the past several years. This is one reason my painting and modeling is somewhat slow. Its important to keep in mind that I need to reach double the painting points as last year to match my "output", since I have added in assembly to the tracking, effectively doubling my points. Even with that in mind, the playing stats are kind of cool to look at.

I have tracked 55 games so far this year. Of note, I have not tracked the majority of my Malifaux Demo games, as they are not really games and typically only played with 4 models on the table. I also have a fair number of other games that for a variety of purposes cannot be tracked. Even with that, its fun to see that over half my games have been played this year with my Neverborn for Malifaux. This makes sense, due to the number of practice games and preparation I did looking toward Adepticon. Now that I have switched over to Guild for my regular games, I am seeing the Guild number rise. I am sure this will jump up quickly with the next couple tournaments. Adepticon also helped my Dwarf numbers, as I got a fair number of games in with them as well.

I love this sheet as well. This is my win/loss/draw with the different armies I am playing with. Overall, my guild is certainly suffering, but I am getting back into practice with them.

So, whats the plan moving forward? More of the same really. I do need to get back to pushing on my photography, and get more pictures of the new stuff posted. In addition, I need to get back to photographing my old stuff as well, to make it accessible in the army lists. I guess the last hallmark I hit recently is 7700 points of Eldar. I am looking forward to getting some sporadic games in with the new stuff, along with planning an apocalypse game over the summer. I am also really looking forward to the new IA book fro Forgeworld, especially with all the new Eldar coming out.

Adepticon Malifaux 35ss Scrap - Round 4

2011-04-15T07:05:00.002-04:00

Round 4, the final round of the tournament, and I find myself at the top table competing against the so-far undefeated Dixon. Funny enough, Dixon is actually from my local play group and we had carpooled to Adepticon. It was also nice to see that across the top 2 tables, 3 of the players were from my local Malifaux play group.

So, the game was Shared Claim Jump, and our lists were as follows:

Me: Pandora, Jack Daw, 2x Hanged, Stitched, 7 stones
His:Viktoria, Von Schill, Convict Gunslinger, Freikorps Librarian, Taelor, 6 stones
My Schemes:Bodyguard (Pandora), Steal Relic
His Schemes: Gather Soulstones, Bodyguard (Von Schill)

After seeing 3 games over the past 3 days played with the Dreamer, I have to imagine your wondering why I chose to switch things up in my final game. First, I had tested this list against Dixon in our local store prior to coming to Adepticon and he was simply terrified of what it could do. Even with the small model count, the list can be fairly devastating. Secondly, the mission was shared claim jump. I was also taking Steal Relic in the game. This list is really good at board control, with Jack Daw taking away cheating and soul-stones and Pandora making things run. Jack is really tough to take down as well. Add to this Pandora and Jack's high willpower and the added damage from failing Steal Relic, and I thought things would work well.

As a note, Dixon and I replayed the game once we got back to VA, with me using the Dreamer list I had envisioned before Adepticon. I should not have switched up, as the game was clearly in my favor, and the flips were not far off how they played in the tournament.

Turn 1 & 2

The game starts out with me moving from behind some terrain toward the center of the board, using the Stitched creepy fog to stop any stray shots or charges from occurring. Dixon moved his line forward, setting up for a turn 2 frenzy. He was cautious however, keeping just far enough back to force me to extend myself should I get initiative. Turn 2 kicks off with him getting initiative. He begins to shift forward, keeping his Vik's in reserve and working to out-activate me. I am in a tidy little ball of terror, carefully blocking all his approached to force terror checks on any charge or move toward me he makes. He tries to position some targets to entice me out, but I see the Vik's primed for the charge so do not take the bait. Instead I move up to about 6 inches from the center marker and dig in. Defensive Stance's all around, cloaked with Terror. I am all activated and the Vik's launch into thier attack. Vik's run up, switch, and pop into combat with Jack, Hanged, Stitched, and Pandora all within range of his Whirlwind. Attacks start flying and the Hanged drops first, Stitched drops and grabs Reactivate, and then the Vik's turn thier attack on Pandora. Whoops, Pandora stops the attack cold and Vik takes a quick point of damage. Dixon has burned a whole load of Soul Stones by this point, but clearly he is betting the farm on this round. He starts up the Whirlwind shenanigans again (he has nearly drained his hand, but what a load of cards he had to cheat with) putting the first attack into Stitched and then whirlwind onto Jack. I flip Jack's defense, not terribly worried, and the Black Joker makes an appearance. Ouch, this might hurt a bit. Dixon smartly works through the his stonesand remaining hand to whirlwind away as much of my hand as possible, bringing me down to 1 card. Last, Dixon takes control of Jack and attacks my other hanged, flipping into a high mask and killing the Hanged. Stitched pops some damage into Vik and Dixon uses his last stone to survive the gamble from Stitched, and Stitched sacrifices at the end of the turn.

Turn 3-5

Turns 3 through 5 played out in a nearly identical fashion for the rest of the game. Pandora would activate and force as much as possible to flee. Dixon would activate and rally what he could, moving back in after rallying. Jack would try and kill anything he could. I spent the game burning through my stones to keep things fleeing and occasionally kill a model. We had a couple questionable rules calls from the judges (Fleeing models who rally cannot take any actions... not correct) but overall it was 3 turns of the same.

Turn 6

We had a bit of an audience at the end of the game. I had chosen to not steal the relic from the Vik's during 1 turn due to a bad initial flip on my cast, so was hurting from a VP standpoint. Pandora was alive, but I could not get over to the Vik's with enough AP to steal their relic. On the final turn I worked to push everyone possible out of the circle around the objective. First cast stoned a low card and Von Schill resisted. Second Cast was also resisted by Schill, leaving Schill within the area of control. I had to choose to cast on the other 3 models (Convict, Librarian, Taelor) to force them to flee, cast, stones, and they start flipping resists. Librarian flees, Taelor Flees, and the Convict flips a red joker, the only card in the deck that can keep him in the game. Game ends and we measure up. At this point I find out that one of my pushes from Incite was not enough to get me completely within the required control zone, giving Dixon 1 model completely within, and me 0. The game ends, I have 2 points and Dixon gets 6. A fantastic and challenging game (my 2nd most challenging all weekend, behind one of the Wyrd Developers, Zee) and a very solid win to Dixon.

Overall I am very happy with how the tournament and Adepticon weekend as a whole worked out. I went from the mid-tables after a first turn loss to playing for 2nd place in the tournament. Had the score been reveresed (me 6, Dixon 2) I would have grabbed first place on the weekend. I ended up with 20 points, placing me in 6th place overall.

Goals Accomplished???

As a footnote, while I did not achieve a top 3 finish in the Malifaux tournament, I still feel I accomplished my goals for playing int he weekend. One of the other games I played was against Zee, one of the developers at Wyrd. I wish I could remember the whole game to post a battle report, but very simply I cannot. We played a 50 point scrap (single master), Dreamer vs Kirai. My game against Zee was easily the most challenging game of Malifaux I have ever played. I can comfortably say that without taking anything away from any of my other opponents. Over 2 1/2 hours we went back and forth with multiple small interactions each turn, each of which is equal to the challenging tactical interactions I normally see turn a game. I ended up defeating Zee 8 to 0. At the end of the game, Zee commented that he felt it was one of the best games of Malifaux he had ever played. That comment, plus the crowd of 10+ spectators will warm a place in my memory for quite a while.

Adepticon Malifaux 35ss Scrap - Round 3

2011-04-14T07:05:00.000-04:00

Game 3 I found myself facing off against my final WHFB opponent from Friday, Matt Birdoff. For those who are not familiar, Matt is part of the Warmongers club out of NY, and a top WHFB player. He is a fantastic opponent, and one of the top sportsmen I have played against. I was glad to face off against him, as I was making my way back to the top tables and was happy to see he was sitting up there as well.

The round was Shared Contain Power. Our lists and schemes were as follows:
Me: Dreamer/LCB, Lelu, Lilitu, 2x Stitched Together, Coppelius, Day Dream, 5 stones.
His: Pandora, Primordial Magic, Doppelganger, Stitched, Candy, Teddy, 8 stones.
My Schemes:Hold Out (Announced), Eye for an Eye (Announced)
His Schemes: Eye for an Eye (Announced), I do not remember his second scheme

Turn 1

During the Friday WHFB games, Matt made mention that he was not worried about beating me in WHFB, as I would have a chance to pay him back during the Malifaux tournament. I hope I kept him thinking this as looking at Pandora across the table is a bit intimidating to me. Pandora is simply a tough match-up for the Dreamer. Playing Neverborn, I beleive Dreamer is one of the best matches for Pandora, as Lilith and the Nephilim just do not have the WP necessary. With the dreamer, I am fairly confident I can pick apart Pandora's crew and Dreamer has at least some oppurtunity with WP 8 vs Pandora's WP 7.

I will also make note in the beginning that Matt chose his scheme well. It was amusing to have him listen to my schemes and then declare the same "Eye for an Eye", as that left him with 2 points for schemes based on me completing my own schemes. Typically opponents are supposed to pick their schemes prior to hearing what the opponent is choosing, but in this case we were joking around and I was not too worried about it.

Jumping into the game I deployed Lilitu and Lelu on the 6 inch deployment line, with the Stitched next to the Dreamer. As usual, I kept Coppelius buried for use later. Normal turn 1 tactics, defensive stance and terrifying. Matt pushed his doppelganger a bit too far up and I was able to jump forward with Lility and lure the doppelganger into my own lines. A quick snack alter and Lelu had cleaned up the doppelganger, taking her off the board. Not a bad start to the game. Matt shifted his models forward with caution after that, and popped the puking snake (Primordial Magic) into a building with nice line of sight to the center of the board. After burying the nightmares, Dreamer scooted a short way forward and prepared to start playing.

Turn 2-3

Its been a while since the games, so turns 2 and 3 ran together a bit for me. Essentially there was a fair amount of scooting around the center of the board. Pandora bounced around dropping damage and making things flee. Lelu, Lilitu, and Coppelius fought a grand melee vs Teddy, Stitched, and Candy in the center of the board. The key in this round was Pandora killing the day dream, popping out Chompy. Cards in hand kept me from putting chompy away again, chompy's wp kept him from actually attacking Pandora successfully (2 attacks, 1 made it though, did not kill her).

Turn 4

Going into turn 4 the board was cluttered in the center. Chompy is standing alone to the right of the center of the board. Pandora is 4 inches away after pacifying him, Teddy and Candy are engaged with Lilitu and Coppelius, My remaining stitched is mid-way between the center of the board and my deployment zone, Puking Snake is sitting in the building just out of Chompy's reach. Pandora activates on initiative and throws out a Self Loathing on Chompy. Chompy stones to meet her cast and fails to resist, and kills himself. Dreamer pops out, waiting for Pandora to complete her activation. Pandora pacifies Coppelius and scoots back toward her deployment zone. Dreamer activates and I realize I cannot get to Pandora. Dreamer flys into the building (no cover here... big mistake) and shoots at the puking snake. I fail to hit it, snake activates and fails to cast. Lilitu activates and lures Candy forward, then takes 2 shots at Teddy. Teddy is floating low on wounds, but stays there until the end of the game. Teddy activates and rips Coppelius apart, taking damage but living with 1 wound due to his regenerate. Stitched activates and tried to duel with Pandora. He fails, takes some pings, but Matt cheats to keep my damage low enough to keep me from reactivating. I will admit that at this point of the game Matt appeared to have unlimited soul-stones, although that had more to do with his flipping well than anything else.

Turn 5

Turn 5, initiative again goes to Matt and Teddy activates. Duelling flips between Lilitu and Teddy result in no damage on Lilitu. Dreamer activates, decides to fly, shifts around a bit, and takes another shot on the puking snake. Pandora activates, she moves for LOS and tosses out Self Loathing on Dreamer. Dreamer burns off the last soulstone but fails to resist, getting hit for 2 damage (reducing to 1 due to spirit). The tough part here was Pandora's flee trigger went off, and Dreamer runs to the edge of the board. On the plus side, Pandora has no line of sight to Dreamer, so cannot force him off the board for the points. Instead Pandora shifts around to get line of sight on Dreamer for the start of turn 6. Stitched activates and gambles with Pandora, failing, dieing, and gaining reactivate. Candy does something but does not really affect the game. Stitched reactivates, Gambles with Candy to kill her, then gambles with Pandora and brings her to 1 or 2 life remaining.

Turn 6

I am worried here, going into the end of the game with Dreamer falling back and on the edge of the board. I win the initiative flip, rally dreamer, and take a gamble. I cannot move, but it looks like Pandora is within 12 inches. I take the shot with Twist Reality, pass the WP duel, hit Pandora, and flip for damage. Red Joker on the damage guarantees death, and Pandora leaves the board with her puking snake. Teddy proceeds to clean up Lilitu, leaving the board with Dreamer on the board edge and Teddy in the center. Game ends.

Scores are added up with Dreamer and Teddy are alive (2 points for Eye for an Eye), Teddy is in the middle of the board (2 points for Hold Out), and Dreamer got the kill-blow on Pandora, giving me 4 for Contain Power. Another 8 point round and a very challenging game. I look forward to playing Birdoff again, as he is a fantastic player. For someone new to Malifaux, he seems to be getting the grasp fairly quickly! If the rest of the Warmongers play similarly, they will be a club to watch out for on the upcoming Malifaux Tournament Scene!

Battle report for my final game will be posted tomorrow.

Adepticon Malifaux 35ss Scrap - Round 2

2011-04-13T07:05:00.000-04:00

Round 2 found me at mid-field with my 2 point loss coming out of round 1. I was surprised that I was only mid-field, as that meant there were a fair amount of 0's and 1's scored on the first round. Regardless, I knew I had to push hard for a max score on this round if I wanted to get back to the top tables. Round 2 was shared Destroy the Evidence, which is one of my favorite strategies with the Dreamer, so I once again dug into my Dreamer bag of Tricks. My opponent this round was a young gentleman (10 years old) who had played in the Cake tournament Friday night against some of my local club. He was playing Perdita and an Ortega crew. To be honest, my biggest worry at this point was that maxing my score was going to make me a bad guy for beating up a kid. The day was just not going my way.

To make things worse, Shared Destroy the Evidence is an ideal strategy for the Dreamer Alp Bomb, as alps give the dreamer number and are significant, allowing them to destroy the evidence markers. Our lists and schemes were as follows:
Me: Dreamer/LCB, Coppelius, 2x Stitched, 2xDay Dream, 4x Alps, 5 stones.
His:Perdita, Abuela, Nino, Francisco, Santiago, Papa, 5 stones.
My Schemes:Breakthrough (Announced), Kidnap (Papa, Abuela, Santiago)
His Schemes: I do not remember his schemes

Turn 1

We get underway with me deploying at the center of the board, putting all my nightmares out and keeping Coppelius buried. He puts the Ortega's out in a line across the middle of the board and I can see this is going to be a face-off at the Adepticon Corral! I take the initiative and start out with some typical shenanigans. Defensive Stance and the Alp Neg Willpower bubble starts popping up, and the stitched go defensive stance. On his side, Papa runs up toward the middle of the table, with some support from Santiago and Francisco. Mid-way through my turn the dreamer activates (2 alps plus the stitched in Def Stance, 2 alps not), pop the terrifying bubble, buries everyone, and flys 7 inches up the board. Companioned Day Dream heads forward 6 inches and unburies one of the non-activated Alps out onto the neutral evidence marker. Second Day Dream pops up the board and unburies Coppelius next to Papa. Over the end of the turn, the Ortega's shift around a bit, alp destroys the neutral evidence, and Coppelius paralyzes Papa.

Turn 2 & 3

Turn 2 and 3 were a flurry of activity. Essentially, I win initiative again on turn 2 and activate dreamer to shift around a bit and bring all the nightmares out. 2 alps cover two of my mid-field objective markers, Chompy pops out and eats Sanitago before triggering "Alll Done", Coppelius eats Papa, triggering boom and killing 1 alp, and the Alps pop out and slow/damage Abuela and Francisco. Over the turn Perdita and Coppelius are shot at by Perdita and Francisco, Abuela and Nino fall to terrifying and begin to run away, and things are looking grim for the Ortega's. Come the end of Turn 3, I have destroyed all my evidence markers and Chompy has killed Abuela and is threatening Perdita. Of the Ortega clan, 3 turns has sown their downfall, with only Perdita left alive. Of the nightmares, 1 Stitched and 2 Alps have fallen. Coppelius grabbed 2 eyeballs however, successfully summoning 2 additional Alps to keep me at 4.

Turn 4-6

My opponent wins initiative on turn 4 and starts running away from the nightmares toward the end of the board. I let him scoot away and after a double move he takes a shot at the big guy. I look over the board and want to give my opponent a good game, so take a moment to think through how to do that. I bury Chompy, bury the nightmares on the table (leaving 2 day dreams and a stitched on the board), and then dreamer scoots to the far corner of my opponents deployment zone. One daydream pops out a stitched next to Dreamer and then moves toward Pedita. The other dream and Stitched move forward as well, giving her some targets to shoot at. Turns 5 and 6 consisted of Perdita, 2 Day dreams, and Stitched sparring around the middle of the board, with Perdita successfully killing all 3 nightmares.

End of the Game

Come the end of the game, I had claimed a full 8 points (2 for Breakthrough, 2 for Grudge, and 4 for Destroy Evidence) and my opponent had 0. Despite the score, he appeared to have enjoyed the game and I was happy. Preparation for round 3 began in my head, as I was headed back toward the top tables with 10 points vp across the 2 rounds. Battle Report for round 3 will be posted tomorrow.

Adepticon Malifaux 35ss Scrap - Round 1

2011-04-12T07:05:00.000-04:00

Round 1 of the Adepticon 35ss Scrap started with me facing a great opponent playing Rasputina. I am horrible with names, and as such I cannot remember my opponents name, probably because I am getting old.

My first round was Shared Slaughter. Our lists and schemes were as follows:
Me: Dreamer/LCB, Lelu, Lilitu, 2x Stitched Together, Coppelius, Day Dream, 5 stones.
His: Rasputina, Wendigo, 2x Hoarcat Pride, Ice Golem, 2x Gamin, December Acolyte.
My Schemes: Kill Protege (Golem) - Announced, Assassinate (Tina) - Announced
His Schemes: Grudge (Coppelius), Kill Protege (Coppelius)

Ok, so first off notice he did not announce his schemes. No worries here, as he was a great guy and told me up front that he had only played 5 or so games prior to the tournament. So, we start out the game, I deploy everything on the board in the middle of the right side of my deployment zone except Copperlius who I keep buried. He deploys everything on the line across from me and drops the December Acolyte in my deployment zone, behind a building and out of sight.

Turn 1

The game starts with him getting initiative. He begins moving up and I begin the dreamer shenanigans by activating the Stitched and putting them in defensive stance. He cycles through a bit of his turn, and I finally come to Dreamer. Dreamer and the Day Dream activate on Companion, Dreamer makes all the nightmares terrifying, then "I can Fly" over toward the December Acolyte, popped out Chompy and Coppelius, and Chompy proceeds to eat the Acolyte. Day Dream activates from the Companion, shifts slightly to the side, calms nightmare to put Chompy back to sleep, then magical extensions to bury all the nightmares on the board, leaving Dreamer and a Day Dream out.

Turn 2

Turn 2 kicks off with my activation. Dreamer scoots up the board and drops the Coppelius, Lelu, and Chompy into combat with the Ice Golem, dropping a Stitched out next to Dreamer, and Lilitu on the other side of Dreamer. Chompy activates and uses Melee Expert and 1 attack to put some damage on the Golem. Golem activates and drops some damage on Coppelius. Coppelius activates and paralyzes the Golem, returning to attack and grab an eye counter. With that done, Coppelius hits a nearby Gamin, paralyzing it as well. I eat the eye and flip 2 healing flips for a total of 3 wounds healed. He activates a Hoarcat and walks in toward Coppelius to try and make an attack. He ends up in both Lelu and Coppy's terrifying range, fails his flip, takes damage from Coppelius for fleeing. Lelu activates and goes wild on the Golem, killing it. I check off my Kill Protege and start to look at how to line up on Rasputina. He activates Rasputina and brings her up the board slightly, then starts blasting into Coppelius. After a number of biting chills and two big Decembers Curses, Coppelius and Lelu both drop, giving him 14 points. At this point he announced he has accomplished both his schemes by killing Coppelius. I advise him this is not possible, as he cannot declare two schemes targeting one model. He looks shocked, a judge is walking by, and we ask the judge for how to rule this. The judge rules that you can target two schemes at the same model, so I make a note to chat with the judge after the tournament. I am grumpy, but we can still push though. There was a little more moving around, but nothing too intense at this point.

Turn 3

So I head into turn 3 with my eye on the prize. I draw my hand and am fairly confident I can end the game right here. Score going into the round is:

Him: 2 scheme points, killed 16ss so far
Me: 2 scheme points, killed 14ss so far

I gear up and start the turn, winning initiative. Dreamer and Day Dream activate, Day Dream picks up everything (magical extension) and moves 6 inches up the board toward Rasputina. Dreamer flys up the board and casts frightening dreams, cheating to get "All My Friends". Chompy comes out 3 inches out from Rasputina, 2 Stitched come out within 3 inches of Rasputina, and Lilitu comes out next to Dreamer. Chompy activates and launches his attacks on Rasputina. Through a series of onslaughts, Chompy drains his hand to 1 card remaining and all his stones to keep Raspy alive with 2 wounds remaining. Chompy uses his 0 to summon a Day Dream, the new Day Dream activates and pulls Chompy back next to a Stitched and puts Chompy to sleep, returning Dreamer to the table.

My opponent is a bit rocked at this point. At some point during the onslaught the judge had called 10 minutes remaining so we were looking to finish our turn. Raspy activates and tries to walk away. She walks once and shoots a bite of winder and a blast toward a stitched together, dropping him to 1 wound but I cheat to stop the overpower. I activate the hurt Stitched and Gambler with Rasputina to get rid of the card. At this point I smile as I have a 13 in hand, and he has no hand, and I have already flipped the black joker during Chompy's attacks. I have 2 actions left, declare "I Gamble Raspy's life" and put my hand on top of the deck and time is called. With my hand on top of the deck I shockingly look at the judge and ask if I can complete the flip and duel. Ruling is no, game ends immediately, add up points as things stand.

Final score is 2 points for me, 3 points for him. I smile and congratulate him on the game and keep reminding myself (in my head) that I need to be a good sportsman and not get grumpy. Granted, I would not have maxed my score but the Stitched killing Raspy would have put me at 4 scheme points plus 3 strategy points (24ss killed vs 16ss, he has no leaders left), for a total of 7 after my first game. No worries, on to my second game (posted tomorrow).

I have returned

2011-04-06T10:31:00.000-04:00

Adepticon was fantastic, easily as good if not better than last year. I am back and mostly unpacked, but now I have to catch up on the work I missed over the 4 day hiatus. Post-Adepticon reports will be coming this week and next.

Adepticon Bound!!!

2011-03-29T07:05:00.002-04:00

First let me say thank you to Wyrd for the fantastic art that starts out this post. This is from the Gaining Grounds Malifaux Tournament document Wyrd released. If you have not already picked up Malifaux, what are you doing????

So, I am Adepticon bound! I am very excited to be headed back to Adepticon for my second year at the big event. This year I am planning to head out with 3 other friends from my local play group for a good road trip to Chicago. I am also looking forward to meeting up with old friends I have not seen in a while who will be attending as well.

For the local crew, (and a couple notable remote friends), I pulled together some $$ and sprung for a set of Gamers Lounge t-shirts for them to wear. I know, shameless promotion and all, but I think it will be cool to have a whole group of folks there showing their allegiance to the podcast.I will be porting along the recording equipment as well, and I expect to get some decent recording done similar to last year.

Adepticon is, at its core, a gaming convention. With this in mind, what do I have planned for gaming? I have 3 events I am registered for, one each on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I will close out the weekend with a last big event, the Poker Tournament/Mixer, which I am very much looking forward to. Everything is packed away, so I will not have too many pre-con pictures to share. With that in mind, however, I will talk a bit about what I am bringing.

Friday
Friday morning (11am-ish) I will be carting out my Dwarf's and partaking in a sound beating by 4 opponents in the Warhammer Fantasy "It's How you Use it" 1000 point tournament. This is interesting, as I only have 4 WHFB 8th edition games under my belt so far. I think the Dwarf's are pretty straight forward, as I can mostly ignore the magic phase on my turn. Overall, I am honestly just expecting to get in 4 games and have some fun. I will be looking for Equinox and his Dogs of War during the tournament. If we happen to play I have thrown out the challenge that the loser needs to buy the winner drinks that evening. My wallet is prepared!

Friday evening I plan to help out the local Chicago Wyrd Henchman by running Malifaux Demo's and whatever else he needs. Friday night there will also be a informal Q&A with some notable Wyrd Employees, Dave Bowen, Drew, and Zee. Drew is better known as Wyrd Sketch on the Malifaux forums, and Dave Bowen is one of the fluff and background writers for the game. I am hoping, at some point during the evening or on Saturday, to pull Zee into a Malifaux challenge game.

Saturday
Saturday I will be back in the action first thing with the morning session of Warhammer 40K Combat Patrol. This beast starts early at 9am, so I will be missing out on a pilgrimage to Lou Mitchels for breakfast. C'est La Vie, onto the beating. I will be bringing a similar list to last years combat patrol to the table, carting out the Dead Tau project for a second year in a row. Even with the possible inclusion of Wave Serpents this year, I opted to stick with last years mix of War Walkers and Dire Avengers. While I expect to do better here than I do in the WHFB tournament, I really am not expecting more than an even win/loss ratio. It will be fun to get some 40K games in, but I am not putting much stock in the games overall.

Combat patrol is due to end at 2pm, which provides a whole lot of time for podcast recording, pick-up games, and socializing. I expect Saturday night to be the core of a party-con atmosphere, similar to last year. I expect I will be easily located near the Hobby Talk HQ guys, and I am looking forward to hanging out with the Phil again this year. Lest I forget, the TEW and Independant Characters crews will be floating around as well, which just adds to the fun.

Sunday
Sunday is Malifaux day. Up early at 8am, I will be bringing out my Neverborn for 4 rounds of Malifaux goodness in a 35ss tournament. There are already a number of predictions and, dare I say, whinging about expectations that the Dreamer/LCB is going to sweep the tournament. I will say up front, I am bringing the Dreamer/LCB along with Pandora and Lilith. I have the most experience with my Dreamer crew based on previous tournaments. To be fair, I made the decision to use him as a master, and Neverborn as a faction, specifically because I have a fairly expensive, customer sculpted, one of a kind miniature to stand in for Dreamer. I figure there is no better place than Adepticon to pull Max the Dreamer out to play. Now, I will admit that the Dreamer crew is very flexible, and I also think I am a damn good player.

All that being said, I am aiming and hoping for a top 3 finish in the tournament. While only the top 2 places are getting prizes, I will be happy to come in top 3 out of 32 players. Regardless of how I finish, my Neverborn will be headed back to the case for regular play after Adepticon. I have been working on additions for my Guild off and on, and plan to switch back to them after the tournament.

I am really looking forward to the competition at Adepticon. I am expecting the nation-wide draw to bring out a fair number of solid players, and to really give a good look at what the competitive Malifaux landscape is currently like. In addition, this will give me some insight into the best structure for the NOVA Open Malifaux tournament I will be running in August.

Road Trip
My road trip days are Thursday heading out and Monday heading back. I have already started planning our trip out, which is solely based around what cool restaurants we can stop at on the way. We will be headed out via Columbus OH and Indianapolis, looking to stop at some of the Food Network/Travel Channel featured restaurants. I also need to find a Tim Hortons along the way. Around or a bit after Mid-Day I expect we will be stopping in Columus, so if your interested in meeting up with the me and/or some of the Gamers Lounge crew, let us know in the comments here or on the Gamers Lounge site.

Monday, as we start the road trip back, I expect to stop at Lou Mitchells for breakfast before we get on the road. I love this place and my schedule over the weekend looks like it will hamper my desire to stop in. If your in the Chi-Town area and didn't get a chance to meet up with us during the weekend, let me know and I will try and include you!

Pictures!!! We love those Nightmares.

2011-03-07T07:05:00.000-05:00

Anyone who knows me or has read this blog for a while can fairly easily guess that I am a completionist. Whats that you ask? Well, it simply means that when I set out to do something I tend to do all of something. When I started the DTP, I bought up all the Eldar I would need to have a "complete" army. When it came to putting together the Nightmares used in the Dreamers crew, the same thought process came through. In previous posts I showcased my 2010 splurge, Max the Dreamer. Recently I completed the rest of the crew and Friday I finally had the chance to take some pictures of them. Now, I will be adding an additional Lilitu to my collection, as I have seen some rare situations where having 2 Lilitu with my Lelu would be nice. Overall, I have a very solid crew of Nightmares to support any of the ways I can dream up to play the Dreamer.

So without dragging on much further, lets start taking some looks at the pictures! First, here is the "Group Picture" that every happy parent puts on their mantle.

Its a fair number of models, and if you notice, Max has taken his center place, replacing the normal Dreamer model. No fear, I painted up the little boy on LCB's shoulder all on his own, but the pictures were washed out and need to be retaken.

So, you have likely been grabbed by the monster in the background. That is an Official Wyrd model, its the Gencon 2010 Nightmare Version release of Lord Chompy Bits. Lets take a closer look. I am very happy with the way he came out, although I spent a fair number of days trying to figure out what colors to use. At some point I should go back and give the extreme bone highlights another wash and highlight to soften the extremeness of the color. Overall, I think it came out pretty good for table top quality. As anyone can see on my tracking spreadsheet, he has seen the table a fair amount!

That very quickly brings us to one of the other nasties in the Nightmare crew. I am speaking of Coppelius, ol' squid face himself. Coppelius was a whole lot of fun to paint, although I decided on purple for his jacket opposed to black. I am very happy with how he came out. In person his skin has a slight greenish tint to it, but only slightly. Its enough to make you look twice and feel something is just off about him.

That brings us to Coppelius's friends, the Alps. Coppelius has the ability to summon Alps during the game, should the circumstances align. When you add this to the fact you can buy Alps straight into the list, I thought I might need a couple Alps come in sets of 3, so I picked up two blisters of them. The challenge was the color choice I went with. I actually had to have my wife come act as my eyes during one point in the painting because I could not differentiate the shades on the model. Everything worked out well as I brought the tan/browns lighter and the green/browns darker. To date I have not been able to get more than 4 onto the board, but I expect it will eventually happen.

That leaves the Stitched togethers bringing up the tail end of the crew. I have not played a whole lot with these boys, but the little bit I know makes them fairly fun. When you consider how much they look like "Oogie Boogie", they are models I really like. I am looking forward to using them more frequently in my lists.

That brings me to a couple other models I have worked on since the beginning of the year and not grabbed pictures of. Many of you who have picked up the Lilith box set know that you also need Young Nephilim for the crew. Tots have an ability which allows them to grow into the Young Nephilim during the game. Along with this, Young Nephilim are fairly good buys for their points. With this in mind, I put together the following two.

That brings me to nearly the close of the recent bout of Neverborn painted up. I have Lilitu primed, and she will be painted fairly quickly. I also have a Doppelganger and a Primordial magic I will be painting up soon as well. That aside, Lucius and Ryle have found their way onto my painting tray. I have a whole Guild crew that just received primer, but Ryle actually received a full paint job this past weekend. To close out this post, here is a picture..

Tournament After Action - Malifaux

2011-03-01T07:05:00.010-05:00

Have no fear, my intrepid readers, I did not change over to Lucius at the last moment before playing in the tournament this weekend. I stuck with the Dreamer / Lord Chompy list that I outlined previously. Why did I go with the Lucius puppet then? Well, honestly I just like him. He is one of the pictures in the new Rules Manual that just released from Wyrd Miniatures. On the Rules Manual, we will be discussing it on the next Gamers Lounge podcast, but up front let me just say it rocks. Kudos to the rules developers and kudos to the artists, great work!

So, the outstanding question is how did the tournament go? Let me jump right into that. So, I had sent out some feelers to see if anyone in my local store and club community was interested in car pooling up to this. I like to drive, so it was not for free ride potential, but more for the camaraderie at and after the tournament. It completely blew my mind when not only did we have 8 other people interested in heading up, but only 1 dropped out. For a group of gamers, that's incredible. The 8 of us loaded up the cars and headed an hour north into the state of PA to find Neverland Games and attend the tournament. I can imagine it may be a little overwhelming, as we brought 8 people to up the whole tournament to 12 total.

The store is very nice, and the town is a typical quaint small town, similar to where I live. Overall, very nice. Now, this is also a good time to point people to a couple other blogs that also cover the tournament.

Jay talks about the tournament over at Blood and Blades
Dan talks about the tournament over at Mongoose Blog

Ok, onto the crazyness. The format of the tournament was 4 rounds, flip for strategy from the core strategies each round, choose your schemes each round. Schemes could not be duplicated through the tournament. This is a challenge scenario in the best of times, since you are then choosing 8 schemes form the list, which gets pretty small when your playing a fixed list tournament. Not every scheme is something every crew can accomplish. On top of that, some schemes can no longer be taken in conjunction with certain strategies. As everyone was getting their models out and ready to play, I had the crazy idea for a side bet. What if a bunch of us chose our schemes blind? Then, we would measure through the tournament who best accomplished their schemes and the loser would buy a round of beer for the winners. Yup, that's what we did. Four of us (Myself, John, Jay, and Chris) all participated in the side bet. Crazy!!!

With that out of the way, we got our round 1 pairings and we were on our way.

Round 1 - Dreamer vs Nicodem

Round 1 I was paired up with Dan, running Nicodem. This was the match I expected to have the largest challenge with, so I was happy to get it settled turn 1. To be honest, going into the tournament I considered Dan my toughest competition. So, Dan rolled out with:

Nicodem +5 Stones
2 vultures
2 Rotten Belles
2 necropunks
Bette Noir
Convict Gunslinger

We were on a fairly rocky board, very reminiscent of a badlands or desert setting. In addition, we had the Earthquake special scenario rule in play, which allowed each of us to push the opponents models 1" in a single direction at the start of the turn unless they had float or fly. I flipped Reconnoiter for my strategy (most models in at least 3 quarters of the board at the end) and had pre-chosen Kidnap and Hold out. I looked over Dan's list and decided on both Belle's and the Convict for my kidnap. Dan had slaughter, grudge (lilitu) and kill protege (coppelius)

I started the game with everyone but Chompy on the board in a back corner near the dreamer. The new Rules Manual specifies that no effects clear if the models are buried at the end of the turn. This is great, as not only can the Alp's put up their -1 wp bubbles but Dreamer can make everyone terrifying, then bury them. This way everything comes out terrifying 13 when I drop the nightmare bomb.I proceeded to do this, and Dan moved up the board. I did let Lilitu lure one of the Vultures who came to close, giving a nice snack to her brother Lelu. Not a bad first turn, everything was going well.

Turn 2 had Dan moved forward into a fairly tight little format, which gave me a fair amount of hope. I drifted up the board a bit, staying out of range, and popped the twins out to play around a bit. I was able to lure one of the belles close, but did not get much damage on her. Dan used his other bell to bring the hurt belle back to his lines, keeping his formation tight. This brings us to the infamous turn 3, and a critical fail on the dreamer. I look at my hand going into turn 3 and I am happy. I have 3 masks in my hand so I should have no problems moving up, bringing out Chompy and "all My Freinds" to drop the bomb on Dan. Dreamer moves forward, over extended a bit, and flips his cast. All I needed was a 3 of Masks, which was sitting in my hand to be cheated. Up comes the Black Joker. Hrm, bad things do indeed happen. I stepped back from the table for a moment at that point, as I needed to come up with a strategy to recover. I did not like my chances with just a day dream protecting Dreamer, and I did not think I could do much summoning 2 single models with magical extension. I decided to sacrifice a day dream to bring out my entire crew into his lines. That was a tough call, and certainly set the tone for the game.

At this point Nico kept Coppelius under constant rigamortis, letting Chompy take a dose of his own medicine. Dan's convict cleared off Chompy with some incredible trigger happy flips. I have to admit that its a lot of fun to see good luck and cool actions like that, even if I am on the receiving end of the pain. I was able to clean off the convict and the other belle, gaining my kidnap but it was incredibly hard fought. I ended up with little Max running for the back of the board to hide on the last turn of the game. apparently Dan thought I had bodyguard, but even with that mistake he was out of position to make a break for my hold out. He successfully wiped off everyone but the dreamer, giving him 4 full points for slaughter.

Round 2 - Dreamer vs McMourning

Round 2 saw me rocking up to the table to face off against another member of our group, Bryan. Bryan runs a very ugly McMourning list that utilizes dogs and Datsu Ba to nearly double the size of his crew on the first turn. Basically the dogs fuel his crew with corpse and body part counters for McMounring to summon Frankensteins and Datsu to summon Gaki and Onroyo. This board was setup with building ruins and an impassable castle wall along one side. We flipped shared "Remove the Evidence" as our strategy, and I had pre-selected Grudge, which I chose Sebastian and Breakthrough. His list was:
McMourning +8 stones
Datsu Ba
3 Dogs
Crooked Man
Sebastian

Deployment was pretty much the same, with everyone but Coppelius on the board. A key here was I setup Lilitu approximately 1.5 inches back from the front of my deployment zone. During the first turn I started putting up my Alp WP bubbles and Bryan starting out putting damage into his dogs to get them low on health. I am familiar with the strategy and saw he has dropped Datsu right on his deployment line, in a place I could move up to get a clear line of sight on her. I measured and moves up my 10 inches, thinking I could lure Datsu out of range of Weigh Sins and throw off his cycle. I did not want to get too far away from the dreamer, as I still wanted to bury Lilitu when he activated. I set Lilitu down and declared the Lure with my casting expert. Quick measure and I was 1 inch out. Bryan looked a little rattled, but not too badly. I completed my turn by putting up terrifying and burying all my nightmares, then moving forward with the Dreamer and a Day Dream.

Turn 2, I pop out an Alp onto the neutral objective (with the day dream), and then proceed to sac the objective. Bryan moves up and takes a shot at the Alp, but misses. Bryan moves most of his crew up to engage mine, using McMourning to take a shot at the Day Dream and killing it. In return, I pop out Chompy in melee with McMourning. McMourning proceeds with his remaining AP (rule clarification in the rules manual) and tries to land Wrack with Pain on Chompy to stop his summoning another day dream. I flip like crazy and succeed through cheating and stones to resist all the casts. Excellent! Chompy goes to town and flips fairly average, doing decent damage to McMourning leaving him with ~6 wounds. Chompy summons a Day Dream, and the shenanigans start. New Day Dream leads Chompy out of combat with lead nightmare, then tell him to go to sleep and puts the Dreamer in play. Dreamer decides he wants to play with all his friends, and drops the entire crew into a grand melee. Lilitu/Dreamer/Daydream all sat in a ball just outside of the scrum and there was a big mess of McMourning, Sebastian, 1 Gaki, Chihuahua, Crooked Man, 3 Alps, and Coppy all in combat. Slightly to the side was a second Gaki and Lelu. I do not remember the whole order of activation, but Lilitu lured Sebastian into the melee, and also lured Datsu into the melee. Sebastian activates at one point and goes slow (taking 2 damage from Alps) and fails his terrifying checks twice, taking coppelius's damage and dying. Grudge taken care of.

At this point the best occurence in the tournament (for me) happened. I activated an Alp and actually got a hit off on McMourning. I flip my cards and the red joker comes up. I flip weak damage to follow up and set of this chain:

Alp hits McMourning with Red Joker + Weak damage
McMourning takes 4 damage and goes recieves slow
McMourning takes 3 points of damage from the Alp's for recieving slow
McMourning dies
Alp next to McMourning summons a new Alp with McMournings face

This was the first time I got the Alp Cascade to spawn a new alp. At this point, the game was in a dire situation for Bryan. Turn 2 ended with 1 Gaki, Bete, and Datsu surrounded by 4 Alps (all slow and failing tests) and coppelius. Lilitu, Lelu, Dreamer, a Day Dream, and a Gaki at 1 WD are to the side of the combat, and 2 corpse tokens left are on the board. Turn 3 we alternate activations, with Bryan activating Datsu, going slow, taking damage, and healing. I activate Lelu and start attacking the Gaki, Making him eat the last 2 counters before dying. Bette activates and dies to slow. Time was called, so we had 1 turn to complete our game. Day Dream and Dreamer companion activate, Day dream jumps to the middle of the scrum and buries all the nightmares. Dreamer flys over the battle and lands, bringing out all his friends with everyone on 1 of the 3 remaining objectives. Everyone activates and destroys an evidence, giving me 8 and Bryan 0.

Round 3 - Dreamer vs Lady Justice

Round 3 I got to play the Lady Justice crew in the tournament. I very happy with this match-up as I am very familiar with Lady J. In addition, he was running a very different crew than I have previously tried out, focusing heavily on high damage output and melee. This was going to be a challenge for me, as I truly believe one of the best match's for Dreamer is Lady J and her hard to kill crew. We played on a forest table, where the entire table was forested granting cover and reducing line of sight to 3 inches. I knew from the start this would be to my benefit. I flipped Claim Jump, with Assassinate and Stake a Claim pre-selected. He had slaughter, and chose kill protege though I do not remember his second scheme. His crew consisted of:
Lady Justice +7 Stones
Executioner
Ryle
Scales
Samael Hopkins
Santiago

I started in the same way, putting up terrifying and the alp bubbles then putting my toys away. I drifted up the board and he moved forward on turn 2. Turn 3 I saw an opening and dropped out LCB on Lady J. My first attack was stoned and missed, letting Lady J riposte on me, dealing 4 damage. I followed that up with a round of LCB getting good flips, Lady J with bad flips, and Lady J dieing. Chompy gets put away, Dreamer comes out and drops the crew onto the remaining crew. I was not thinking and dropped Coppelius out as well, which gave him the opportunity to have Sanitago go crazy with trigger happy and take him down. Coppelius was the protege, giving him 2 points to tie my 2 point scheme. Then a grand melee launches between the executioner and Lelu. Lelu was very hurt but was able to kill the Executioner. Executioner turns with his slow to die and kills one of the Alps, healing up. At that point I realized this was not going to go well. I needed to split his crew up and gang up on them one at a time, which was going to be tough with only a 3 inch LOS limiting Lilitu's lure.

Turn 3 I got initiative and the Dreamer decided the big Guild men were no fun to play with. He promptly picked up all his toys and ran for the back corner of the board. I used the day dream to put out the twins, with the hopes of healing up Lelu at the end of the turn. Watching his movement over the turn, I realized I had positioned them wrong, and put Lelu away before he could be picked off. 2 turns of movement brought the guilders on top of Dreamer and his dreams, so Dreamer stomped his feet again and ran for the objective. Turn 5, I drop everything on the objective. Turn 6 Ryle pops off a second Alp and game ends. I claim 8 points, he gets 2 for slaughter and 2 for kill protege.

Final Tally

At that point, the TO decided to wrap up the tournament and cancelled the 4th round. Points were totaled and I ended up with 20 points and in first place. Overall, our crew took the top 3 places in the tournament, with John taking second with Marcus and Dan taking third with Nicodem. Prop's go to Dan for being the only player all day to keep me from winning, and keep me from maxing my score.

At the end of everything I was also the only person to land all 6 of his pre-declared schemes. Go me! It was a very fun day, very much due to the camaraderie in our group. We had a lot of fun and there was a whole lot of jesting going on through the day. I will also admit its nice to land first place against a fairly challenging field.

So whats next? Adepticon. I now have my eyes on a top 3 finish at Adepticon, I just need to figure out if I am running with Neverborn or going back to Guild to do it.

Malifaux Tournament Preparation

2011-02-23T11:59:00.004-05:00

Its been an interesting month so far, which has kept me from updating the blog overall. I have several models for my Dreamer crew which are painted, but no pictures have been posted. My wife grabbed the camera on her Girls week away, when combined with trying to find it once she returned has put a hard stop to my picture taking activities. I will be updating my pictures soon, with the completed crew up on the blog.

More important to the title and push of this post is my preparation for an upcoming tournament I will be attending. There is a Malifaux henchman a little over an hour away who is running a 35ss fixed list tournament this weekend (Feb 28th) and I will be attending. I am truly looking forward to this, as in my local group I am the person coordinating events, so I do not get to play in the competitive ones.

I decided on a departure from my loved Guild lists featuring Lady Justice and started practicing with the Dreamer and Lord Chompy. I love my custom sculpt model and this is a fantastic opportunity to put him on the table. This is one of my largest considerations for future tournament (Adepticon??) as well. So I put together the following list, and to date have played 8 tournament prep games with it, running a record of W:6/L:1/D:1.

Neverborn Crew - 35 - Scrap

The Dreamer -- 6 Cache
1 Daydream [2ss]

Alp [3ss]
Alp [3ss]
Alp [3ss]
Coppelius [9ss]
Lelu [7ss]
Lilitu [7ss]

There are a couple things I have learned about this list and some basic strategies I use overall. I have to admit that it has taken me most of my 8 games to fully get the rules straight with the crew, as there are a lot of rules and interactions to remember. This is certainly not a straight forward crew to play. Its complicated and takes a lot of thought and planning.

Dreamer & LCB

As a dual master, we get two models to play around with in our master slot. These two operate fairly different from the other dual-master in the game (Viktoria). Our Master can only have one aspect on the table at a time. This is also part of our strength, as the same rule (One Master) that restricts us to one at a time allows for some of the activation shenanigans that make us so dangerous. Basically, there are multiple ways for these two to switch back and forth. However, when they make the switch everything in the game stops and the model who just came out (LCB or Dreamer) gets to activate immediately. To put this in perspective, the order of process could go as follows:

Perdita activates (fast) and gets 3ap.
Perdita uses 1 ap to shoot a Daydream (Dreamers Totem)
Day Dream dies, popping our LCB into combat with Perdita
LCB immediately activates and spends his Melee Expert +1 and 2 AP to go wild on Perdita, killing her
Perdita does not get to use her other 2 AP because she is dead.

There are a number of uses for this ability, with the one detailed above being only the most rudimentary. I use the ability fairly often to swap LCB and Dreamer in and out of dangerous combat situations and reposition on the board.

To be honest, LCB has performed as one of the scariest hitters in my list. When dropped into charge range, or preferably into melee range (3 inch melee range) LCB has rarely failed to kill what he is dropped on. Even when pulling a black joker for damage or hit, he still tends to kill his target then get pulled back from combat and turned back into the dreamer before he takes return damage. I find this can be a boon, both on his ability to intimidate my opponent and on the reliability to remove a model. The trick to this is to pick your target carefully. It takes a careful combination of suits in hand (I love rams for onslaught) and positioning for a choice between weapons. Teeth have a 1 inch range, but put poison on the target, while claws have a 3 inch range and are paired.

The Twins (Lilu & Lilitu)

The twins are fantastic and fill a couple roles in the list. I use Lilu as a back-up melee hitter, keeping him as support for either LCB or Coppelius. He can also drop out of hiding to eat weaker models as needed. This works well with the board control abilities that Lilitu has. Lilitu fills to primary purposes in the list that are of nearly equal importance. One of these is to sit within 3 inches of the dreamer and be a target. The Dreamer cannot be targeted if there is another nightmare that COULD be targeted within 3 inches. When this is combined with Lilitu's irresistible, she provides a great buffer for the Dreamer. Add to this the second role of using Lure for board control and she becomes great. With Lure she can pull opponents models out of position and potentially drag them into range for one of the melee monsters in the list to pop out and eat them.

Coppelius

Squid face himself, Coppelius works really well in this list, and fills a fairly unique role. Coppelius works well in combat with Melee Expert and a solid CB of 6 with his long clawed fingers (his primary weapon). He even has a respectable 5 defense and 10 wounds to go with it. Regardless of this, I find he goes down fairly quickly to any serious focus while in combat. I really look to Coppelius for two primary roles in the list. The first of those roles is an automatic trigger on his attacks that paralyzes target models. This is great as it provides me control of melee, being able to paralyze 2 or 3 models in the combat and freeze them there. Added to this is his secondary role of potentially plucking an eye out and forcing morale duels within 3 inches. This is a great trigger, as the eye can be useful for summoning more alps or healing Coppelius later in the turn. However, the most important is forcing additional morale checks. Based on these two roles, I find that I either drop Coppelius out on a model who has seperated themselves and I need to lock down (i.e. Candy) or I drop him into the primary "Bomb" melee to provide additional support.

Alps

Alps are annoying, and that's their primary role in the list. I do not view them as a critical part of the list, but more as the filler to allow the rest of my list to work within the game. Alps have an ability to force WP tests in a 4 inch bubble that can give a model Slow if it fails the test. When this is combined with the Dreamers ability to make nightmares terrifying, Alps will cause a fair number of tests when dropped into melee with multiple models. This rarely causes enough damage to actually kill something (Alps cause damage to anything receiving slow) but it will burn off a fair number of cards from the opponents deck and hand in addition to putting a couple minor points of damage here and there. I find the most important aspect of Alps is the psychological effect they have on my opponent. First, its very difficult to ignore Alps because they are in your lines and the slow and terrifying COULD become problematic. Second, opponents tend to be afraid of Alps summoning more alps. Due to these concerns, opponents tend to focus at least 1 round of actions on removing the Alps from the game. When I can time this drop to turns 4, 5, 6 it gives me breathing room to lock up my own objectives while my opponent focuses elsewhere.

Tricksy Tricksy

So, I have mentioned dropping the models and popping them out a couple times. That's one of the largest advantages of the Dreamer/LCB crew. I start with the models buried (if not during deployment, during turn 1) and have the ability to un-bury/re-bury the nightmares throughout the game. This provides me the ability to pick my own battles both in positioning, timing, and scope. During my practice games I find that I have yet to engage before turn 3. In addition, it often benefits me to move around the board and avoid engagement until turn 4, then pick my battles very carefully before overwhelming my opponent. This ability is quintessential to how the Dreamer plays and is key to any strategy when using him. To date, this has become a challenging quandary for my opponents. They have to choose if they are going to let me wander around unmolested, risking that I pull my victory points early and put them at a disadvantage, or if they are going to force a confrontation which may not be to their advantage. While they are struggling with this, I focus on my strategies and schemes, while watching for opportunities to jump on mistakes they may have made.

For those who are interested, check out Karn987's tactica for the Dreamer hosted on Tabletop Geeks.

Malifaux Brawls

2011-02-09T11:26:00.000-05:00

Last night I was out at my normal gaming Tuesday night and had the opportunity to play a Malifaux Brawl. Whats a Malifaux Brawl you ask? Let me enlighten you!

So, a "typical" game of Malifaux consists of 1 master and typically between 25 and 35 soul stones for a crew. This typically results in between 5 and 7 models on the table for the game. Wyrd provides guidance for larger games which they have termed Brawls. The differences are as follows:

So this leaves us with a fairly large game. John and I decided to go with 50 points, and set up his city board as a 4x4 board as recommended in the first Malifaux rule book. I settled on using Guild, he decided to go with Arcanists, and we agreed to flip for deployment type and a shared strategy. Deployment ended up as Diagonal, which is 12 1/2 inches from a center line, and the strategy was Shared Supply Wagon. I then sat down to put together my crew.

Before I list out my crew I will make a note. Both John and I initially bought our crews to ~40 points, leaving ourselves with a maximum sized soulstone pool remaining. Both of us then realized our mistake as we added in the Cache from 2 masters. This certainly changes the game, as even with my guild crew who start with mid to low soulstone cache's, I started with 6ss in my pool just from the cache. This meant that unless I purchased at least 44 stones worth of crew, I was losing out on soulstones. John was already at an 8 soulstone pool just from cache, so he needed to buy up at least 48 stones worth of crew. So here were our lists:

**As an aside here, I just put this chart together and did the calculation for our game last night while I was typing up this post. Clearly, and in very good humor, we can see why I lost so badly. While I am sure John did not realize he was over on his point, I will take a great deal of pleasure calling him a cheater in future games!

As you can see, this is a lot of models on the table. I made the choice to play with some of the more expensive models that I do not typically field together. John went in the opposite direction, throwing in a couple big beasties then bulking out his crew with cheaper models. For schemes, I chose Grudge (Silent One), Assasinate (Rasputina), and Bodyguard (Perdita). John chose Hold Out, Sabotage, and another one I am unsure of. With that, we setup on the board and went to town.

My set-up played into my strategy for the game. I deployed the Austinger and Nino in a building near the middle of the board and the rear of my deployment edge, with Nino on the roof and the Austringer hidden inside. Perdita, Judge, Sam, and one Death Marshal deployed to my left, with the options of moving up the center of the board (there was an open path there) or heading into a building near the center/left of the board. Lady J and 2 Marshals deployed to my right, well up toward the center of the board at the tip of my right hand deployment zone. The Peacekeeper deployed near the center of my deployment zone, just ahead of my wagon. I set-up so that the Wagons 6 inch movement would get it to the center of the board within 3 turns.

Over the turns of the game, Perdita and company moved into the building mid-field and to the left, bunkering down and preparing to rush out into an open area between the houses. It took 3 turns to get everything ready to open the door and rush out, which also game John time to fill the "courtyard" with ice pillars, giving me extra cover but also creating a turn of movement to get through the courtyard. The Marshal boxed Sam, then Perdita opened the door and obeyed him forward behind the ice pillars. The idea was to get the marshal around toward Tina and the Silent one (who had stuck together in Johns deployment zone, hiding behind a building) and then pop out Sam for some witch-hunting goodness. The Judge was backing them up on the way out. I figured this would work well, as even on the chance the Marshal was killed, then Sam would pop out early and get an extra round of shooting in. Unfortunately, while the plan worked, our time at the shop forced a quicker end to the game, ending us at the end of turn 5. Sam and the Marshal did a good job, but only the silent one was killed (with some damage flowing over onto Tina) before John rushed with Marcus and took shots with Hans to clear out the riff-raff.

Through the game, John was also able to get his molemen, Marcus, and the Jackalope into the center of my board, successfully taking down the peacekeeper and the wagon. John had some incredible flips against my wagon, flipping 3 severe damages in a row to take it out in one turn.

Opinions of Brawls

I really enjoyed our game, which is something that typically happens when John and I play. From a timing perspective, John and I are fairly slow players when playing against each other. I believe we are fairly evenly matched from a skill standpoint, which contributes to our hobby games taking up a fair amount of time with each of us analyzing our moves and studying the board. We have not played a competitive game, so I am not sure how much quicker those would be. Even with our slower pace, this game still took ~3.5 hours to complete 5 turns. I believe the size of the board (will address this next) contributed to this along with our slower pace. I do feel that a Brawl is going to be an afternoon affair, similar to putting together a 40K Apocalypse game.

Board size is something else that is a consideration. The first Malifaux rulebook recommended a 4x4 table for Brawls. Rising Powers changes that to a 3x3 table, which I think is the right size. Even with the larger number of models on the table, I believe a 3x3 table provides enough room to maneuver, while still creating the opportunities for engagement with the opposing crew early in the game. It took a solid 2 turns for John and I to position our crews from our deployment spaces before we could begin engaging each other. A smaller board would have opened up this opportunity earlier, allowing for a more engaging game. In the future, I will certainly stick to the smaller board.

While I would like to keep a comparison of Brawls with 40K apocalypse, I do not feel that is the best way to look at it. 40K Apocalypse is all about the spectacle, with titans and super-heavies deployed on the board. The Malifaux brawl was fun, but there is not the same level of Spectacle in the game. It is more of an increase in tactical gaming, adding in additional options to a normal game. In our game, John and I both used similar tactics, effectively running 2 separate crews on the same board. These overlapped nicely, but were still operating fairly independently. Another option would have been to run as one large crew with all the hitting power of two masters. In Malifaux, its more about the tactics and balancing how to achieve 4 different game objectives while keeping your opponent from achieving theirs.

At the end of the day, I would be up for another Brawl. I would try and block out a larger amount of time, possibly an afternoon to play.

Something a bit different, a little humor.

2011-02-04T12:47:00.000-05:00

Most of you probably do not know this, but I grew up in New England. I spent the first 18 years of my life living with 9 seasons in the wonderful North East of the US. (Early Winter, Winter, More Winter, Spring, Mud, Black Fly, Summer (2 weeks), fall, indian summer (2 weeks)) I no longer live there but try to visit regularly in the very short summer season. Anyway, my mom recently sent me this bit of email humor. Its been out there a while, but was enough to make me chuckle so I figured I would share.

August 15 - Moved to our new home in Massachusetts. It's so beautiful here. The lake looks so majestic. I can hardly wait to see it snow covered. I'm going to love it here!

October 14 - Massachusetts is definitely the most beautiful place on earth. The leaves have turned all the colors and shades of red and orange. Went for a ride through the park and saw some deer. They are so graceful. Certainly they are the most wonderful animals on earth. This must be paradise, I LOVE IT HERE!!
November 10 - Deer season will start soon. I can't imagine anyone wanting to kill such a gorgeous animal. Hope it will snow soon. I love it here. Those red and orange leaves have covered my yard. Looks like a magnificent multi-colored carpet. HOW BEAUTIFUL. Raking and cleaning up the yard will be an opportunity for invigorating exercise in the cool crisp air.

November 15 - Ah, more leaves and more exercise.

November 18 - Jesus, still more leaves. Guess it's best to wait until they've all fallen before I rake again.

November 25 - Finally, all of the trees lost their leaves and with today's final raking it's over for this season. Chiropractor suggested I use a lawn maintenance service next year. Only four blisters became infected. Should probably remember to use gloves.

November 30 - What the f...? Where did all of those leaves come from? Had a little wind last night and the lawn is covered again. Oh well, they'll just have to wait until spring.

December 12 - It snowed last night, FINALLY. Woke up to find everything blanketed in white. It looks like a postcard. We went outside and cleaned the snow off the steps and shoveled the driveway. Had a snowball fight (I won) and when the snowplow came by and we had to shovel the end of the driveway again. What a beautiful place. I Love Massachusetts!

December 14 - More snow last night, I love it. The snow plow did his trick to the driveway again. I Love it here.

December 19 - More snow again last night. Can't get out of the driveway. Can't to get to work. I'm exhausted from shoveling. F...ing snowplow.

December 22 - More of that white shit fell again last night. As if dealing with the leaves weren't bad enough, now I've got blisters all over my hands from shoveling. I think the snowplow hides around the corner and waits until I'm finished shoveling the driveway. The asshole.

December 25 - Merry F...ing Christmas. More frigging snow. If I ever get my hands on that son-of-a-bitch who drives the snowplow, I swear I'll kill the bastard. Don't know why they don't use more salt on the roads to melt the f...ing ice.

December 27 - More white shit last night. Have been inside for three days except for shoveling out the driveway after that plow goes through every time. F...ing gloves got wet and then froze on my hands. Doctor said it was just a mild case of frost bite, disfiguration is probably only temporary. Can't go anywhere, car is stuck in a mountain of white shit. The weatherman says to expect another 10 inches of the shit tonight. Do you know how many shovels full of snow 10 inches is?

December 28 - The f...ing weatherman was wrong. We got 34 inches of that white shit. At this rate it won't melt 'til summer.
The plow got stuck up the road and the bastard came to the door and asked to borrow a shovel. After I told him I'd already broken six of them shoveling all the shit he pushed into the driveway, I broke my last one on his f...ing head.

January 4 - Finally got out of the house today. Went to the store to get food and on the way back I hit a damned deer that ran in front of my car. Did about $3000 damage. F...ing beasts should be killed. Wish the hunters had killed them all last November.

May 3 - Took the car to the garage in town. The thing is rusting out from all the god damn salt they put all over the roads.

May 10 - Moved to Sarasota, Florida. I can't imagine why anyone in their right mind would ever live in that God forsaken state of Massachusetts.

Testing mobile posting

2011-01-28T21:00:00.001-05:00

This is a test. I have been searching for a while for a solid piece of blogging software for my iPad. This just may be it.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

An Interesting look back

2011-01-24T07:05:00.000-05:00

Wow, January 2, 2008 I started this blog. its a little over 3 years old now and I was doing some looking back at how things started. First off, to the left is one of the first pictures posted. It was not posted as a lead in to the article as it is now, but as part of the initial post.

Another thing struck me as pretty interesting, damn cool actually. So I recently put up a very long post that included a look at what I "Had NOT" accomplished for the Dead Tau Project. Well, on reflection I should also look at what I have accomplished compared to my goals 3 years ago. Lets see, back in the first post here is the list of what the entire Dead Tau Project would look like:

Quoted from my first post:

So the list I have so far is going to look something like this:

HQ
1 Avatar (Forgeworld)
1 Autarch with jump pack, mandi-blasters, fusion gun, Power weapon
1 Farseer with swords
3 Warlocks with swords

Elite
5 Firedragons plus 1 Exarch
4 Harliquins with Kisses plus 1 Shadow Seer plus 1 Troupe Master
9 Howling Banshees plus 1 Exarch with mirror swords
9 Striking Scorpions plus 1 Exarch with Scorpion claw
5 Wraithguard

Troops
9 Dire Avengers plus Exarch with Twin-Catapults
9 Dire Avengers plus Exarch with Twin-Catapults
5 Pathfinders

Fast Attack
9 Swooping Hawks plus 1 Exarch with sunrifle
9 Warp Spiders plus 1 exarch with twin Spinners and Power blades

Heavy
4 Dark Reapers plus 1 Exarch with Tempest Launcher plus 1 Exarch with Shurican Cannon
2 Falcon Grav Tanks
1 Wraithlord with Sword and Bright Lance
3 War Walkers with Shurican Cannon and Scatter Laser

Misc
3 Wave Serpent Grav Transports with Twin-linked Missile Launchers

Holy wow Batman! So from my original list the only thing I am missing currently are the Swooping Hawk Squad, 4 Harliquins, and 4 Striking Scorpions. Ok, color me surprised.

I guess the nice thing about this is this is really why I started the blog in the first place. While it has grown to more than my original hopes and goals, this is a great reminder of the fact I started the blog to track progress. Based on my initial humble goals, I think I have knocked this project way out of the park!

I give you, Max the Dreamer

2011-01-21T07:05:00.000-05:00

I am not sure if I mentioned this before, or if I saved it for this post. If I did, skim ahead to the new information.

At the end of last year I decided to treat myself a bit and commission a project I had thought about for a while. After reading the story of the Dreamer and Lord Chompy Bits in the Malifaux book, I thought it would be very cool to have a model that looked like Max from Where the Wild Things Are to stand in as my Dreamer. I did some searching around, emailed with a couple commission sculptors out there, and settled on one I was happy with. I came to an agreement with Drew from Garden Ninja Studios for the sculpt, and after some discussion he set-off to work. Shortly after Thanksgiving my custom sculpted Max showed up on my door-step.

For those who are not familiar, The Dreamer and Lord Chompy bits are two models that function as a single master in Malifaux. To the right are pictures of what the released Wyrd Miniature of the Dreamer looks like, along with a picture of Lord Chompy Bits. As you can see, the Dreamer is a fairly straight forward little boy, and I think Max provides a very characterful replacement for him. I also think that Max will look great alongside the fairly monstrous (in so many ways along with size) LCB.

So that bourhgt me into the holiday season. As I have mentioned, my holiday plans did not gel as I had wished, and I did not get Max onto my painting table until just prior to the new year. I decided that he would be a priority, and chose his crew as my crew to be painted for the club Malifools monthly painting contest. I just completed painting him up yesterday, and am finally ready to show him off a bit. Here are some solo shots of Max.

Now, in his crew the Dreamer also has 3 totems he can link, called Day Dreams. On the same day I painted up Max I completed painting his totems as well. Although the whole group is posted as the lead-in picture to this post, here is a close-up of the Day Dreams.

These were all a whole lot of fun to paint, and the twins fit well into their crew. Now to get LCB painted up, along with some of the other nightmare models and I can start practicing playing with the crew.

Statistics, Hobby Tracking, Blog Updates

2011-01-20T07:00:00.001-05:00

Things are a changing with the Dead Tau Project. For those who have been following the blog for a while, this is not a surprise. You saw last year that I developed a fair addiction to Malifaux and started talking about that on the blog. I have also, in the past, talked sparingly about my forays into WHFB.

Well, those will continue to happen on the blog, along with some discussion about Privateer Press Hoards as I begin to learn that game as well. Basically, I am broadening my mini-wargaming horizons and that is reflected in the changing topics on the DTP. To that end, I made a couple changes to the blog that many of you probably missed, since they are so minor. Primarily, I adjusted the description at the top of the blog to better reflect the blog topics. I am also going to be shifting the Army list in the column to the left, probably adding in multiple sections for multiple armies and game systems. I have some thoughts on this, and if they work out it will be pretty cool.

So, not too scary so far, right? What else?

Lets add some actual tracking of my overall hobby? My friend Rich over at the Warpstone Pile has done some incredible work on his hobby tracker using Google Doc's to create a wonderfully complex spreadsheet. He has a great post explaining his project and how to get your own copy of the spreadsheet here.

What does this mean to the DTP? Well, I have grabbed a copy of his spreadsheet and loaded it into my own Google Docs account to perform some of my own tracking. The nice thing about this is the spreadsheet creates some graphics that I can use to depict my hobby activity. These work out well, and will let me do some more granular tracking, especially when it comes to my playing.

So, one of the initial changes is the new tracking I am using for my paint progress. I am still based on the Lone Pilgrim paint points, but with some slight shifts to the points. Here is the rubric I am using for points:

I also have some tracking on there for assembling models that I may not have gotten to paint yet. I thought that would be something interesting to track, although I usually assemble just prior to painting as I try not to play with unpainted models.

The second piece, and the one I am really interested in, is the play tracking. Using the spreadsheet I will be able to publish charts like the following:

These will become very interesting, along with the raw data that will let me see how I do vs certain opponents and also against specific armies. These are linked on the side of the blog, tracking my overall progress.

So, there we go! The big changes here and coming shortly to the DTP for 2011.

Getting caught up and started with 2011

2011-01-18T11:59:00.000-05:00

Wow, 2011 is here and its been at least 3 weeks since my last blog update. A lot has happened over that time, and a little has gotten painted, so lets jump right in and get caught up.

I had the goal to use my holiday time to knock out the remaining models to "complete" my Eldar army, The Dead Tau Project. Unfortunately, life will often conspire to destroy any plans we make. Over the entirety of the holiday I was able to get approximately zero work done on my Eldar. For that matter, I got almost nothing done from a hobby aspect at all, due to some issues that cropped up with Family and such. Bleh. That basically brings me into the new year with still a fair amount to go for a "complete" army. So whats left you ask?

Hobby to Do
So I have a "queue" of sorts where I have a load of models and such that I have to build. Over time those models make it into my Queue on this blog, tracking what I am currently building and painting. The larger collection of to-do is stacked neatly in boxes on my hobby table, waiting to be pulled out to the small collection of 2-4 projects I have sitting on my hobby-tray. There is also a hobby closet that store assorted future projects and extra bits and such. So, for the Eldar, here is what is in the queue waiting to wander into the assembly mode, or in the assembly/painting queue already.

Titan - I still need to do a fair amount of touch-up on my Titan
Phoenix Base - I want to make a base for my Phoenix
Storm Guardians - I have a great box to do some kit-bashing for my guardian squad.
Dire Avengers - 9 more plus another exarch. This will bring me to 3 squads of DA
"Seer Council" - This is my winged council
2x Replace Pulse Cannon - Funny enough, these are built but need to be primed and painted
5x Fire Dragons - I want to bring the squad to full size
Fire Dragon Exarch - Need one with a Fire Pike
5x Scorpions - Bringing the squad to full size
Scorpion Exarch - Need one with a scorpions claw.
9x Swooping Hawks
2x Swooping Hawk Exarch - Playing around with weapon load-outs
3x Shining Spears - I have a mod in mind using the DE Jetbikes, just need to knock it out and see how it looks
Harliquins - These are still grey on my painting table.

Thats not even the whole of it. I also have a fair amount of Malifaux in the queue as well. For example:
I am currently working on:

Dreamer and Lord Chompy Bits
Coppelius
3x Day Dreams
2x Stitched Togethers
6x Alps

Although, I did get some of this crew already completed. As a quick break to the wall of text, here is a look at the "Twins", Lilu and Lilitu.

I will put up a closer look at them later. They work in multiple Neverborn crews, although I primarily picked them up for my Dreamer crew. I also have my splurge from last year, which is a custom sculpted Dreamer model. I have not painted him up yet, but he is on the table with my Nightmare version of Lord Chompy Bits.

So to continue on with my mildly overwhelming list of to-do, I also have a Kiria crew to paint up including:

Kiria
Ikiryo
2x Onroyo
Datsu-Ba
5x Seishin
3x Gaki
Lost Love proxy

And then I have my Lucius crew to round out the full Malifaux crews in the queue:

Lucius
Ryle
Guild Guard Captain
Lawyer
5x Guild Guards

So, on the positive side, I at least know what I have to work on and it should be plenty to keep me occupied during 2011. This is not even contemplating my High Elves that are sitting in a box in my hobby-storage.

Games

Ok, here is a little irony for you, dear reader. On a recent episode of Gamers Lounge, I actually made the declaration that 2011 was going to be a year of gaming focus for me. This means that even with the fair amount of hobby I have outstanding and planned, I want to actually focus on playing more this year than in the past. I have already made some strides toward this, getting a couple games in since the beginning of the year. I am going to try and get better at remember my games and writing up some bat-reps for the games I play to put on the blog. I also have some distant hopes of writing some tactica, specifically for Malifaux, at some point. That last might be a bit of a stretch, but we will see.

Malifaux

I have already gotten 3 games of Malifaux in this year, which is impressive as my normal gaming night (Tuesday) and my work travel schedule tend to conflict on a regular basis. I got two good hobby games in with my Cult of December crew, using the newly released Silent Ones with the crew. I wanted to try these out, as they add some interesting dynamics to Raputina. First off, they are the same cost as the December Acolyte, but are already Frozen Heart. This is fantastic as they have 2 additional abilities that really help the crew out. Primary is an ability called "Perfect Mirror" that allows Rasputina to bounce spells through them with only a -1ca opposed to the normal -3ca. Second is a spell called North Wind, which extends the range of ranged strikes and spells by 3 inches. My two games were both losses, but not horribly. I found that the Silent Ones add an interesting dynamic to my Tina crew, forcing additional thought on my activation order.

My third game was against a new crew, the Freikorps headed up by Von Schill. This is an interesting Outcast crew headed by the Viktorias and buying Von Schill as a henchman for them, played very well by one of my regular opponents, Dixon. I brought out Lilith and my Neverborn. I am trying to get some experience with my Neverborn to make a decision between them and Guild for the Adepticon tournament. In this game I rolled out with the Lilith starter box, plus the twins. This was a fairly overwhelming victory to me, with the game pretty one sided with the Terror Tots running around grabbing my objectives and my Mature, Twins, and Lilith causing mayhem in his crew. Dixon just did not have the tools to deal with all the parts of my crew.

40k

I played my first game vs Dark Eldar using the new codex, and it was a good deal of fun. I was at the St. Thomas Games Workshop with some friends for the stores 1 year birthday, and had dragged out my bag that was pre-packed with 1850 points of Eldar. This is not my normal Eldar list, but something a bit more tournament focused, as I packed it with an eye toward helping my friend James practice his Tau list. I had Eldrad, a Seer Council in a Wave Serpent, Fire Dragons, Dire Avengers, a Fire Prism, and a Night Spinner. When my opponent set-up he put down a whole mess of Raiders. I am not sure what his exact list was, but I know he had 2 flyers (the bomber I think), several squads of witches, two squads of True Born, some incubi, the popular Archon (husk-blade, soul trap, etc), and 9 jet bikes. I know there were 9 jet bikes because I learned an important lesson. Apparently blade-storming Dire Avengers will delete a unit of 9 reavers without blinking. I mean delete. I did not realize this prior to shooting at them, but the AP on the Shuricats beats the save the reavers have, and a blade storm is enough to put 9 wounds out there. Ugly. Overall the game was fun, with me looking to be up going into turn 5. Unfortunately, my opponent (who had the bottom of the turn) kept his mind on the objectives and I did not make my last turn swoop for them like I normally would have. In the end, this was a 4 objective mission, ending with him holding 2 objectives, me contesting 2, and me holding 0. Ouch, win to him.

WHFB

Last on the list of games played are two WHFB 8th edition games I played as part of an escalation league I am participating in. Huzzah Hobbies is trying to get their WHFB scene up and going, and started up an escalation league to kick-start it. I decided to drag out my Dwarfs to take part, which is nice because I am getting to learn 8th edition slowly. The way the league is setup is good for me as well, especially considering my work schedule. Basically, it started at 500 points and adds 250 points every two weeks. Then, players are required to get 1 game in at each point level and record thier points for that game. If you miss a game at a point level, you can play a make-up game later in the league and count that toward your points. With this in mind, I have been able to make it out for games twice, knocking out 2 games each of the times I was able to make it. The first two were during the holiday (500 and 750) and this year I was able to get in my 1000 and 1250 games.

My 1000 point game was against Brettonians, running 1 knight lance, 2 trébuchet, 2 units of archers, and 1 block of peasants led by a Knight on foot. We played the "Battle for the Pass" scenario, which sets up the table long-ways and makes the long edges impassable terrain. I brought Dwarf Lord on Shield bearers, a Thane BSB, a block of Long beards, a block of hammerers, and an Organ gun. The Organ gun is still ugly in 8th edition, primarily due to no to-hit requirement for the shots. We ended our game a bit early (the end of turn 4) but it had already turned in my direction. The Hamerers and Lord were in a forest (which we played wrong and I lost half the squad to moving through dangerous terrain), the organ gun had just held to a charge of Knights, and my longbeards plus BSB had swept the footmen and both archer squads from the table.

My 1250 game was a fortitude game vs Warriors of Chaos. This is the mission where you count up banners and your general to determine the number of "fortitude points" your army has. For our game, when one side was reduced to 2 fortitude points the game was over and that person lost. I brought a Lord on Shield bearers, BSB Thane, Runesmith, block of Long beards, block of hammerers, block of warriors, and the organ gun. I had a total of 6 fortitude for the game. My opponent brought a Nurgle wizard, block of khorne warriors, block of undivided warriors, block of marauders, and 3 dragon-ogres. I believe he had 5 fortitude. In this game we played the forests correctly, but still had a Venom Forest which counted as dangerous terrain to move through. Once again I lost a fair number of hammerers to the forest. I also lost my Lord to the nurgle spell that picked him out and put a wound on him. I was able to wipe out the marauders, force the Khorne warriors to break from combat (after tearing down several of them), and knock down 2 remaining dragon ogres with my 15 warriors on the turn the dragon-ogres charged. The Organ Gun then tore apart the wizard when he stuck his head out and the game ended with me winning.

Wrap-Up
That brings us to the end of a long post. I have some thoughts on next posts, specifically talking about my initial thoughts on WHFB 8th edition. I am now 4 games in and learning the changes. Thats another post though.

So lets wrap up with a closer look at the Malifaux twins. First up I have the boy, Lilu. I am a little disturbed that even with the light-box, his eyes were washed out to a white instead of the pink I painted them.

Then we have my girl, Lilitu. I tried a new technique on this model, painting "transparent" material for her dress. I really liked the way it looked in the example pictures from Wyrd, so tried out a quick technique. Overall, I think its a good first try, although I will be trying to perfect it moving forward.

Merry Christmas Malifaux Style

2010-12-20T17:52:00.001-05:00

Merry Christmas! That's right, my Christmas holiday vacation started today, and I made great use of it by sleeping late and being lazy all day. I did get some modeling completed over the weekend, which is service a dual purpose for me. First, Saturday was the deadline for Huzzah Hobbies Christmas Ornament challenge. As the owner is a friend of mine and confronted me with the "Bill, I expect big things from you for this contest", I had to make sure not to disappoint! The result was a Malifaux Christmas model/diorama of Miranda riding in a sleigh of presents with Waldgeist pulling the sleigh. All of that is lead by Rudolf the red nosed Jackalope!

This was certainly an ambitious project, especially considering the time line I set for myself (approximately 2 weeks).It came out looking good and I am happy with the results. I will probably do some little touch-ups here and there and will certainly put more snow flock on the bases.

I will also be using the model for the club Malifools December painting challenge. I have seen one of the compeitors and I have to admit his painting is better than mine, so I expect he will walk away with the Malifools prize.

So, with a wish of Merry Christmas to everyone, here are some of the pictures of the work in progress.

Pure Irony - Rules Interpretations

2010-12-15T13:36:00.001-05:00

I think it is important to start this post off with a couple disclaimers and acknowledgments. I fully expect that some of my readers, specifically those in my local play group, will take offense to this post. To those readers, I want to point out that its not you, its me. Next, I want to acknowledge the pure irony in writing a post about "whiny bitches" actually makes me (in some ways) a "whiny bitch" as well. Next, it is important to disclaim this post is more of a stream of consciousness post to get some of my thoughts on the subject out there as opposed to a well constructed argument for or against something. And lastly, at the end of the day I respect all of your opinions that contradict mine, your all entitled to your opinions no matter how wrong they are.

(see what I did there, trying to make a joke and lighten the mood?)

Perhaps its the stress and anxiety of the holiday season that's upon us, and perhaps its just my broken way of approaching games. Its even possible that I have actually matured over time and grown past the childishness of rules lawyer-ing. I have been increasingly annoyed lately with a trend in rules interpretation for games that I have seen.

Why is it that when a rules is interpreted, players always look for ways to "break" the rule set or gain an advantage or just be contentious?

It seems to me that if there is a way, taking war gaming in general, for a rule to be interpreted that makes the game:

Less fun for the opponent
Makes a model/unit be percieved as "over powered"
Can cause extensive arguments about language

then that is the interpretation that many players will jump to, in stead of giving the rules the "benefit of the doubt". It almost seems that gamers look for reasons to argue and become frustrated with their games instead of looking for reasons to enjoy their games fun. I see some of this in competitive attitudes, and even more-so I see this attitude in internet discussions about gaming in general. Funny enough, I see this attitude play out regularly in some of the local play groups I watch and/or participate in.

I am doing some personal reflection on this to see how much I have also contributed to this phenomenon. Most likely I will be as deeply implicated in what I will term "Whiny Bitch Syndrome" as any other gamer. Come on now, I have a blog and a podcast, so I must be one of the worst offenders, right? (see sarcasm in last sentence for those who missed it) Sarcasm aside, I do not like this trait and endeavor to minimize or remove it from my own gaming personality. I am trying to understand why gamers as a whole (or at least my perception of them) prefer this approach over an alternative.

What are the alternatives you ask? What a great question. What is gamers were to give a rule set the "benefit of the doubt"? Instead of constantly looking for ways that a rule can be "twisted" or "broken" or interpreted to reduce the fun for ALL players of the game, what if we assumed the rules were written to make the game MORE fun for all players. What if when we looked at a rule and had the reaction of:

"Wow, that rule seems out of line with common sense"
"Wow, I can really take advantage of this"
"Wow, that will certainly start an argument"
"That rule is stupid and I am going to quit playing because of it"

we instead think to ourselves:

Thats probably not whats intended, is there a way this makes sense
My interpretation would reduce the amount of fun my opponent has, could this be interpreted another way to increase both of our fun
I'm just trying to be argumentative, let me take a breath and see if this makes sense in a way I don't have to argue about it

I know its sacrilegious to pick up a theme that the infamous Jervis Johnson (ala Games Workshop fame) runs with, but whats so wrong with just agreeing with our opponent before the game to how things will be handled for maximum fun? What wrong with siding with an interpretation (in game no less) that benefits our opponent because that would make the game play out in a highly cinematic way. Even worse, what if we interpret things in a way that gives a benefit to our opponent because the game is fun and arguing about a rules interpretation reduces everyone's fun in the game?

To use another cliche, "Why can't we all just get along?"

Do any gamers out there notice that in the majority of cases, rules are interpreted by the game developers to NOT overpower single models / units in games? Have any of you noticed that, more often that not, when something happens in a game that makes you (and often your opponent) react with:

What the hell, now that rule interpretation just doesn't make sense

the developers tend to FAQ/Errata against that rule interpretation?

Lets be fair as well, rules developers are people too. More often, they are gamers, and sometimes they make mistakes. I believe that games developers try to make their games "balanced" which typically means that when a model / unit has a rules that could unbalance the game, that unit / model is given a drawback or weakness in the rules that brings it back into balance. When that is missing, your probably reading too much into the rules. In addition, I believe that games developers try to make their rule-set easy to understand. I believe that more often than not, if the rule is highly complex and confusing to understand than your reading WAY TO MUCH into it. You just might be TRYING to complicate the rule for some reason.

Do you, Mr/Ms Gamer, really believe that the rules developer tried to make the rule system over-complicated and hard to understand?

Why can't we step back once in a while and assume the developer was trying to use the simple understanding?

In conclusion:

If your reaction after reading a rule is close to "HA HA, I got you... this screws over", your reading it wrong.
If you could interpret a rules as complicated or simple and your choose complicated, your doing it wrong.
If you have even the slightest thought of "I can get a huge, unbeatable advatage with no disadvantage from this rule", your interpreting it wrong
If you read a rule and think "Now this can't be right, I bet this will make a great internet discussion", your probably right, but what your really looking for is an internet argument
If the rule makes the game LESS fun for EITHER player, you are misunderstanding the rule (possibly on purpose)

Ok, enough rambling.

Apocalypse - Marines vs Eldar

2010-12-14T10:16:00.000-05:00

Last friday was my friend Jay's birthday, and he wanted to play Apocalypse for the afternoon. I was all for the idea and worked things out to have the afternoon off. So, we ended up with a 4 player Apoc game, 6K per side. Jay showed up with 3K of his Howling Griffons, Chris showed up with 3K of Ultra Marines, and I showed up with 6K of the Dead Tau project. We used some fairly straightforward rules to make sure the Apoc game was fun, and not too far over the top.

1 super heavy per side
1 flyer per side
No orbital bombardments or the like
No flank-march stratagem

So we setup across 2 tables, with a bridge spanning the middle. Here are some shots of the board prior to deploying armies.

We got started and began our afternoon of playing. I will say that although this was only my second game of Apocalypse, I really enjoy playing the games. The large number of models on the table create an environment where when things get interesting and the combat starts, there are so many opportunities for "cinematic moments" that its mind blowing. Also, walking around the tables and seeing the views from different perspectives, all of fully painted terrain and armies, is inspiring for 40K games.

Something about the way Apocalypse is played frees my mind to look at the fun aspects of the game and create opportunities for fun combats as opposed to looking at the tactical means of winning the game. I think part of this is the fact that at larger points, trying to be tactical on the whole board is overwhelming to the point of being absurd. In our game, from my perspective, one of the best moments was watching at the bridge between tables as the Phoenix court of Khaine (my favorite Apoc formation) charged a solid line of marines and tanks, including the disembarked terminators attacking the Avatar. That would have been a fantastic battle to see, had we had the time to play on into the next turns.

At the end of the day, the most important goal was achieved. We all had fun, we got to field some truly large models (2 titans on the table), and everyone left having enjoyed a day of 40K. I realize this makes me sound a bit like Jervis in his Standard Bearer articles, but I have to admit I am starting to find that side the most important part of my games lately.

Harliquins and Additional Updated Pictures

2010-12-10T07:05:00.003-05:00

So I actually started on my Harliquins... they are no longer ALL grey and sitting on my paint tray. One of the clowns has drifted into the display case and is now standing, lonely, looking at all the other squads. I have to admit, even without doing checks/diamonds these guys still take ~3 hours each to paint. A fair amount to bite off since I have 15 to complete for the squad. Well, be be fair, only a lot to bite off when I look at a goal of completing the DTP before the end of the year.

Overall, I do not think these guys are paint contest worthy, but I am very happy with how they came out. Lets take a quick look!

So while I had her in the light tent taking pictures, I figured I would snap a couple more pictures of the army. Here are some additional updated pictures of the other models. As promised in comments from the most recent post, here is the Wraithlord.

And my War Walkers:

So no the question is, can I come up with additional lead-ins for blog posts with Harlequins... potentially 1 at a time? Maybe posts when I complete a couple of them.

Update Arrives

2010-12-03T11:16:00.000-05:00

As promised, the update arrives with new pictures. I have "completed" one of my Nightspinners, along with actually getting the bulk of the Phoenix completed. I also am still working through photographing my eldar army with the new light-tent, and replacing some of the pictures I had previously. You should notice the blue background updating with additional frequency on the Flickr slide-show on the right.

Now, let me start with a quick definition on what "completed" is defined as, in relation to the night-spinner. I have been bouncing between 4 vehicles recently (Titan, Phoenix, 2x Nightspinners) and I noticed while I was photographing this that I had missed a couple things. I will be going back and adding some grey highlights to the vines on the tank, along with continuing to touch up the gems across all the vehicles. I have updated my gems on one of my wave-serpents and I think the schemes looks really good on vehicles. Its now a fairly stretched out projects to go update the scheme on all the vehicles in the army.

So, lets get to the pictures. Here are two shots of the Nightspinner:

I also wanted to show some of the updated pictures. Nothing has been touched up on these models, just the camera and light-tent are changed.

Update Incoming

2010-11-27T23:32:00.000-05:00

I hope everyone had an excellent Thanksgiving. I know here at the DTP I was able to get a couple things painted up for the Tanksgiving event incoming tomorrow (Sunday). Pictures will follow this week but the DTP has added the completed Phoenix pictured earlier and a new Night Spinner to the vehicle ranks. I also have a host of clowns primed on my desk, waiting for brush.

Dead Tau Project ..... with 70% more Dead Tau

2010-11-11T07:05:00.002-05:00

Yup, thats right.... only 70% more. I am working the mix back to 100%, and will be satisfied when we start hovering around 80% for sure! Regardless, I am loving my new Light Tent, and have been snapping a number of pictures with it.

So, the rumor in the title indicates there would be pictures of more Dead Tau. Well, I would not want to be called a liar, so lets get on with it. First I took a couple pictures of the Avatar I put together a while back. Just a refresher, but I really wanted some better pictures to put in the photostream.

Not to bad if I do say so myself. I am happy with these pictures and feel they are far better than the previous ones. It definitely reminds me that I have some touch-up to do on the gems and should get to that.

After taking those pictures, I figured it would be good to get a few pictures of the Phoenix Court of Khaine.

I also may have mentioned at some point that I was "done" with the titan base. I do not believe I have posted the pictures of the final product, so this is as good of a time as any. The pins in the picture (on the base) are marking where the feet of the Titan will set into the base and glue down. It is hard to find the holes without these markers, so I kept them in.

Four posts in a week, I am wearing myself out.

Gaining Ground Malifaux Tournament - After Action

2010-11-10T07:05:00.000-05:00

Lets see, its Wednesday now so its been 4 days since I ran my second Malifaux tournament. Not bad, only 4 days and so far a post every day on the blog. So on Saturday, November 6 I ran the local Gaining Ground Malifaux tournament at Huzzah Hobbies. Overall the tournament ran smoothly, with 7 players showing up.

Let me provide a bit of context to start out, then I will get to the pictures and after action reports. To start with, Wyrd is currently working on putting together an official tournament system. Toward this end, a test system was provided to a select group of people in order to get feedback on it and help improve the overall system before its released broadly and officially. I was one of those select few, and this tournament provided a solid chance to give the rules a Beta run. I have to say that the rules are solid with (in my opinion) only a few area that could use improvement. While I will not likely run all my tournaments using this system, it is certainly a solid system for competitive tournaments.

So the basics are:

Each player chooses a faction at the start of the tournament.
Games use Standard deployment for each game (6 inch deployment zone per side)
Players flip strategies at the start of the round. There are 4 strategies possible, and if the same strategy is flipped by both players then its shared
Players "buy" their crews at the start of each round, within the faction they picked.
Players pick 2 schemes each round.
Round Matching is determined by Victory Points
Awards are given for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place based on VP
In the case of an odd number of players, a bye (buy?) system is in effect

Now, I will happily say that the "pick a faction, buy your crew each game" system worked out in the tournament on Saturday. I am still unsure if I like this system overall, as I truly believe it gives the person who has the most models in his/her faction a distinct advantage in the games. To be fair, the winner of the tournament played the same crew all 4 games. Second and Third place each changed their crews every game. Last place switched his crew up, and the middle of the field guy played the same crew all the way through. As such, the results do not demonstrate my belief in an advantage.

The biggest challenge we had with the games was the time-limit in the current Beta system. The time limit was set-up for 1 hour games, with a 15 minute window at the start of the game to determine strategy, schemes, crews, and deployment. 60 minutes of play time was not enough time for players to complete their games. We had some very experienced players who were only able to knock out 4 turns before time was called. This being the case, I strongly recommend 90 minutes of play-time for the rounds. I think solid players can knock out a good game of 6 turns in 90 minutes. On the other side, I believe the "start of round" time of 15 minutes could be brought down to 10. In our case, the first round took up the full 15 minutes as people learned the system, but after that the average was around 7 minutes before people started playing.

One other addition, which I really liked and received some solid positive feedback on was related to schemes. In Malifaux, each scheme (you pick 2 per game) is worth 1 point if accomplished, and an additional point if announced. In this system, if you announced your scheme and did not accomplish it, then your opponent scored a bonus point.

All in all, the day was a success and there were great games played throughout. The end of day standings were:

Resurrectionists (Kirai & fixed crew) - 29 points (our of a possible 40)
Guild - 28 points
Arcanists - 26 points
Neverborn (Pandora & Fixed crew) - 20 points
Resurectionists - 14 points
Outcasts - 14 points
Resurectionists - 11 points

Here are some quick shots of the boards. I did not grab pictures of 2 of the boards, the Bog board from the previous tournament and a new board set-up as a "Religious Village" board.

We had a new Scrubland Board (all fixed terrain board)

The Ruins board

And John's very excellent City of Malifaux board

Players Choice
Even though it is not an official part of the Gaining Ground format of the tournament, I did include a separate prize and contest for Players choice. I asked that any of the players with a fully painted crew from within the faction they were playing display thier crew for a players choice vote. 6 f the 7 players set their crews out.

At the end of the voting, there was a tie between 2 crews. After a tie-breaker judge was brought in, this was the second place choice:

And Dan with his Kirai crew took the Players choice award (along with 1st place in the tournament)

Dan has a good writeup on his blog about the day, I recommend checking it out.

I want to close out this post with a couple action shots I took through the day:

These were cool, as one if the Witchling Stalker in the building looking toward the Onroyo, and the second is the Onroyo waiting for the Stalker to charge through the building, and meet up with all the other spirits outside!

Pictures Pictures Pictures

2010-11-09T07:05:00.000-05:00

I recently picked up a light tent from Amazon to use when taking pictures. Its the one on the side here, and I have to say that it is great. The very simple addition of the diffuse lighting and the backdrop has improved my pictures overall. Well, to be fair I am also using a new camera (my wifes point and shoot vs our SLR), but I have used that before and these pictures are better.

So, toward that end I have snapped some new pictures in the light tent. Some of these are the new models I have painted up which have not been seen widely. Others are new pictures to replace the old ones I took previously. At the end of the post I will also have a peek at one of my new models thats in progress (mostly complete).

So here we go. First we have the Masters collection. We will start with Lilith, who is newly painted. She is part of one of the Demo crews I am painting up, as well as the goal for my October Malifools Painting challenge.

Following her we have my favorite, Lady Justice with her totems. My picture of Lady J did not come out as nice as I liked (a little blurring from an unstable camera) so I will be retaking her picture with a tripod.

Next we come to Rasputina and Lilith. Lilith is from my wifes crew, although I am starting to consider playing her as I also have a Dreamer/LCB crew to paint up. This would give me a nice Neverborn faction (Dreamer/LCB, Pandora, Lilith) to play for tournaments.

Then we have a group shot of the Ortega Family. This is the Ortega box set, which is my other "Demo Crew" that's painted up. This was my painting challenge for the September Malifools painting challenge, which I did not complete on time. The crew does make a nice addition to my Guild set, which is the primary faction I plan to use for tournaments. My goal is that post-January I will have Perdita, Lady J, and Lucius as my masters, with a full contingent of Guild to back them up. Here are the Ortega's.

Overall I am very happy with the light tent. The simple change to diffuse lighting and the backdrop makes a big difference to the pictures, as I mentioned in the opening. With that in mind, and after the 3 month break I mentioned previously, I have my first pictures of a 40K model in a while. These are still work in progress, but the Phoenix is mostly complete. My plans are to do one more layer of white on the panels, clean up the green edging, highlight up the gems, and put transfers on the model. Its really only an afternoon of painting to be complete. Here are some peeks at the WIP.

Thats all for now. I have a Mature Nephalim to paint up, then its on to completion for the Phoenix and starting my Titan.