Bag Of Malifaux 29th July

[Dogmantra]

Another local tournament run by Dr Dave! He is good to us. This time at a different store because in Bournemouth we have loads of em. It was a 4 round regular gg2017 tournament at Bag Of Holding. We ended up with 13 total players, most of the more tournamenty locals as well as the crew from a few hours away who always graciously make the trek down to the south coast whenever we have a tournament (seriously you guys are the best!). For those of you who read my last tournament report, sadly this one did not go so well for me, I ended up taking 8th, but it definitely felt like I can learn from my losses. It was still a Gremlin victory, as Lukas took the top spot with his Gremlins, so it's basically my victory also.

I played Gremlins as usual, but next tournament I'm considering going solo Yan Lo for funsies. I didn't play solo Som'er though!

(as usual, this is all from memory so forgive my lack of detail in places)

Game 1 was against the always lovely Ben Sime, who I am fated to face every tournament (I think we've played each other 3/4 times we've been at the same event)

Turf War
Standard Deployment
Claim Jump
Eliminate the Leadership
Leave Your Mark
Show of Force
Mark For Death

I felt pretty good going in.

I played

Som'er with Dirty Cheater & Family Tree
Old Cranky
Sammy LaCroix with Encouragement
Francois with Stilts
Burt Jebsen with Dirty Cheater
Slop Hauler
Merris LaCroix
Two Bayou Gremlins

Ben played

Marcus with Trail of the Gods and some other upgrades
Myranda with Skin Walker and Imbued Energies
Carlos Vasquez with Practised Production
Two(?) Molemen
Malifaux Raptor
Rougarou
Canine Remains (I think it was this? he had some little non-moleman thing)

I took Claim Jump and Leave Your Mark, Ben took Leave Your Mark and Show of Force.

I felt pretty good going in because Ben said he couldn't remember how to play Marcus, and last time I played against him during a Sandeep kick when he was playing Sandeep and won. The good feeling did not last super long. I did a standard start, Old Cranky + Sammy for card cycling, Som'er summoned twice and moved up, most people just moved up towards the centre, while Ben moved Carlos and a Moleman down my right, the Rougarou and a Moleman down the left. Marcus ended up towards my right and of course the Raptor buried and popped out way out of range in my deployment zone. I won turn 2 initiative and chained Burt/Francois. Burt went for and killed a Moleman, popping Myranda out, then Francois went for Marcus. This was where it first started going a little wrong. I had a pretty great hand and Ben made the mistake of using a fairly low Tome to shunt the damage off to Myranda from a Francois hit. I cheated to make it straight and was going to drop an 11 in when... Black Joker. Ouch. The 10 damage shunted to Myranda would have killed her on anything but a RJ prevention flip. So my alpha strike was really not very useful, and I was punished hard by losing both Burt and Francois to Marcus and Myranda (who turned into a Sabretooth Cerberus). Having spent all my good cards, even with Encouragement, Som'er missed several shots and didn't seem to be able to hurt anything. The one thing I did manage very nicely was Sammy rooting the Rougarou into place and then summoning a Stuffed Piglet off an enemy Scheme Marker. I managed to get Merris to do Claim Jump and my Bayou Gremlins mostly just pottered around a bit. Having lost my two big hitters, the Cerberus turned its eye towards my middle blob. I did okay holding it off, but the Rougarou made its way towards me too and started chomping on Bayou Gremlins while they attempted Claim Jump. I zoomed Merris up into Ben's deployment zone to drop a marker for LYM, but Marcus used his silly walk bonus and spent 3AP walking across the table to deny it. He just didn't manage to engage her, so next turn she flew off and dropped another one. Really, this is where it started to become an uphill battle, the rest of the game was mostly me slowly being attritioned while I failed to put a dent in Carlos, the Raptor scored off Practised Production and Merris was killed (although the burning did kill the Canine Remains and allow me to score off that one LYM marker). I did get a piglet off Som'er's pig prodder though, so score!

The big mistake I made was acting too aggressively with Burt and Francois, way too aggressively. I had the activation control, and I think doing some Som'er blasting on the Rougarou might have been more effective, or even just stalling until it was a bit less of a commitment would have been good. At worst, they're fairly competent shooters so I could have done that. Being too aggressive with key models was a bit of a theme this tournament and my other loss was for a similar reason. It particularly hurt here because I could no longer contest Show of Force, and with Francois gone my only real hope of killing Carlos vanished with it. It left me with no cards as well for Som'er to hit, and I was kicking myself watching Lukas set up for game 2 because I had a spare stone and totally should have put Do Over onto Som'er, it could have drawn me some more cards for his end of turn blasting (or at least burnt some crap ones).

I ended up losing 10-4. I don't remember the exact count but I remember scoring everything at least once. I think I got two from the strat, and one from each scheme.

 

Game 2
Headhunter
Flank Deployment
Claim Jump
Eliminate the Leadership
Covert Breakthrough
Frame for Murder
Dig Their Graves

This was a decisive victory for me. I won 10-5 because I got the Bye. I was surprised that the first rounds were so close that a -6 differential was lowest. In my experience you usually get someone winning really big early, but I guess the first round was pretty well balanced. It was kind of disappointing that I didn't get to play, but eh, it's a four round tournament and you can't really complain too much about a free win. I bought myself a hot chocolate from Cafe Nero with whipped cream and marshmallows and had a chat. The biggest disappointment was that I didn't get to inflict Fingers on someone in Headhunter.

 

Game 3 was against Liam Goodman.
Interference
Close Deployment
Claim Jump
Covert Breakthrough
Set Up
Leave Your Mark
Accusation!

... well, I'm Gremlins playing Interference, what do you expect? I played:

Ulix with Husbandry, Dirty Cheater and Liquid Bravery
Penelope
Old Major with Corn Husks and Saddle
Mechanised Porkchop
Two Bayou Gremlins
Slop Hauler
Lightning Bug
Pigapult

Liam played
Lillith with some stuff
Primordial Magic
Nekima with Fears Given Form
Doppelganger
Rougarou
Johan
Two Terror Tots
 

I took Covert Breakthrough and Leave your Mark because pigapult. Liam took Claim Jump and Accusation.

So this is one of the few times I've not played Som'er in a tournament game. It was obviously a tossup between Ulix and Som'er but I figured against Neverborn the way to stop my summon factory is to hit me hard and fast in melee and pigs can withstand that better than Bayou Gremlins.

It was a very stationary game for me. Despite the Close deployment I sat right back at my edge of the board and did the usual setup with the Mech Porkchop and two Bayou Gremlins dropping Scheme Markers to summon my first turn Warpig. Liam moved forwards down the middle with one tot and Lillith, the Doppelganger and Rougarou down the right and another tot down the left. Primoridal Magic just sat at the back. Nekima and Johan were noncommitally floating around the middle. Lillith dropped her illusionary forest right in front of my Warpig summon and in that moment I have never been more greatful it's not FLIPPING Ice Pillars because Old Major used a Ram to push the pig up, and it killed the Terror Tot. People don't rate the Mechy P, but a War Pig with to attack and to damage is nasty. It was quite hurt though and I got greedy, using the ram trigger to go for Johan instead of Eating My Fill and turn 2 I lost that pig immediately. The Lightning Bug went up to try to tie up the Rougarou and Doppelganger. The Pigapult flung my two freshly summoned Piglets up the board, one to fight over the left Terror Tot who had dropped a Claim Jump marker, and one nice and far back to start trying to scheme. It also threw a Bayou Gremlin up there but he had already activated and so was paralysed next turn. Turn 2 I got myself another War Pig thanks to a Drunk & Reckless Bayou Gremlin and did the same thing pushing it forward and sending it after Johan, who I almost managed to deal with. I also got two more piglets and flung another pair of pigs and a Bayou Gremlin up the board. The Terror Tot got a lucky severe on a negative and actually killed the first pig I sent after it, but I replaced it with one of the freshly flung piglets. Two low Ml and damage models trying to hit each other when they're both Df 6 is quite funny. One of my schemey piglets that I sent up there was screwed over by the Primordial Magic, I'd forgotten to account for it with Set'er Off, so I spent a couple of turns flailing at it with a Piglet but managed a lucky randomise into it with the Bayou Gremlin for the kill, and my stuff up in Liam's deployment zone could begin scheming. From here it was essentially the same sort of thing, I used the Pigapult to deny Claim Jump and win/tie all the corners. I transitioned to less summony Ulix in order to Prod Old Major to fight off Lillith and the Rougarou who had killed the Lightning Bug and come to try to shut down my summoning. I still got a couple more Piglets out, but no more War Pigs. The Pigapult spent a turn shooting instead of flinging and finished off Johan after he killed my War Pig. And my wall of pork managed to fend off Lillith's attack.

It ended up being 10-1 to me, with the 1 that Liam scored off Accusation on Old Major, keeping him engaged despite the fact I had Penelope and Ulix to push him around. I do well at the passive playstyle of Interference Pigapult but I wish it wasn't such a no brainer.

I think one issue Liam had is that I kept tying up and killing his cheap scheme runners so he was forced to use things like Nekima to run Claim Jump and contest corners rather than get in there and murderise me. The issue was with my extreme activation control I could just drop a piglet anywhere I wanted to stop him from scoring Claim Jump, and Corn Husks didn't help since I could also discard them.

 

Game 4
My big win put me back higher on the board and I faced George Hollingdale. We both got 3 out of 3 wins in the last tournament we were in and I just pipped him on differential, had there been a fourth round then we would have faced off so I feel like this was a conclusion not just to this tournament but also the last one. I'd seen him playing McMourning all day and that was my first mistake. I tried to tailor and I threw away a big advantage.

Extraction
Corner Deployment
Claim Jump
Dig their Graves
Accusation!
Undercover Entourage
Hunting Party

I really was not a fan of this scheme pool. I brought

Som'er with Dirty Cheater, Liquid Bravery and Can O Beans
Two Skeeters
Francois with Stilts and Do Over
Burt with Dirty Cheater
Sammy with Encouragement
McTavish with Mud Toss
Slop Hauler

George took
McMourning with stuff
Chihuahua
Sebastian
The Valedictorian
Rafkin
Nurse
Belle
Canine Remains

I took Claim Jump and Hunting Party. George had Claim Jump and Dig Their Graves

So as you may see my big big mistake was being scared of lots of poison, so I brought McTavish for access to Mud Toss with the proviso that he's decent into Resurrectionists because he gets cover against Belle lures and can eat corpses. But having an even number of models is pretty difficult and I should absolutely have swapped McTavish, Mud Toss and Can O' Beans for 3 Bayous and Family Tree. I was just also worried about Hunting Party, but I could have probably made it work.

Anyway, turn 1 was a cagey turn. I both love and hate when everyone is super cautious, it makes for some nice tense games. Most of George's models ended up hiding behind some trees by the Extraction marker. I was also cautious, knowing how far McMourning can move in one turn and not wanting to get obliterated with no chance to react, but the alpha strike never came. The only action that occurred was Som'er dropping a Ram for Do It Like Dis and then trying to shoot the Valedictorian... only to Black Joker the terrifying, which is a shame because it could have been a couple of solid hits. I won turn 2 initiative and I was dead set on killing that flipping Valedictorian so I went first with Som'er again and while I did not Black Joker the horror this time (it was in my hand), I didn't do very much damage because the combination of Armour and Soulstones reduced my 4 damage shots to only a total of 3 damage. Had I really considered Armour and Soulstones I should have probably just gone for something else. Really I should have given George the first activation. I later tried to stall by flying Skeeters into enemy models to tie them up, but the issue with Skeeters is they're only indestructible if you either have the high cards to back them up, or you try to tie up models that are fairly important but not worth spending a card on offense for. I flew it into McMourning. It died. It was the first of many models to die, as I went in aggressively with Francois trying to hurt Chiaki. He would die that turn to a massive expunge. I didn't manage to get Extraction and so on the first turn it was placed pretty much out of my reach. The one upside of losing so many models was that they were being Expunged into Flesh Constructs or becoming Canine Remains from Sebastian and so I had fairly easy Hunting Party targets to pick up with Sammy and McTavish... until McTavish was also killed. The game was mostly me trying as hard as I could to minimise the differential at this point and it was made worse when it turned out that George's second scheme was not Undercover Entourage as I had assumed on McMourning, but was instead Dig Their Graves because it meant he didn't have to come to me at all. I ended the game with just Burt and Som'er left, the low point being Sammy getting devoured by a Flesh Construct.

It ended 10-4 and I regretted so many decisions I made.

Firstly I think I'm mostly used to playing cagey myself and it threw me off to have the other player suddenly holding back really hard. It was absolutely the right move for him to do, I should have responded in kind and tried more to snipe out the Hunting Party kills. McTavish was a mistake, I had no chances to actually remove Poison because whenever it got stacked up, those models died anyway. And the Skeeters were totally wasted, I totally threw them away. I was definitely not playing my best and while I think if I were to play all three matches over again I would play pretty much the same against Ben, I would make some pretty sweeping changes to this match. I commented afterwards that it felt like what I imagine playing against me normally feels like with all the stalling I like to do, and don't get me wrong it was a really fun game, I just wish I'd played better both for myself and because I would have given George a more satisfying match.

 

Overall a fun tournament, and the Ulix success made me consider branching out in my tournament picks. I rarely play Som'er outside of tournaments now and I think that hurt because I haven't used Skeeters in ages and I totally threw them away in my last game. I should probably play more Som'er outside tournaments and maybe less inside tournaments because I really like Ulix, and playing in a really tryhard tournament setting would really help me improve. Anyway next time Solo Yan Lo? Maybe, because then I will be allowed to enter my beautiful pink Shadow Emissary into Best Painted.

[Doctor Dave]

Your VERY pink Emmisary is banned in the painting contest.  We've talked about this.

 

[Mutter]

Thanks for the reports, nice & easy to read. I enjoyed those a lot.

[Argentbadger]

Thanks for taking the time to write up these battle reports.  I really like your style and it feels easy to follow the action.

In your game 1 (against Ben) I think that you made the right move to be able to nearly drop Myranda in a single flip, and I would say that your conclusion from the episode should be simply that nothing is certain rather than that similar situations should be handled differently.  The Black Joker is always a potential confounding factor in Malifaux.  This article by the excellent Joe Taylor feels relevant: Why You Should Ignore Your Instincts (due to the rather frustrating way posts are ordered on Arcane Reservoir it might be needed to search by the title).

Keep up the good work!

 

[Nikodemus]

Good reading as always. Interesting to see how you dissected your losses.