Ropecon 2017 tournament report

[Math Mathonwy]

 

Ropecon is the biggest non-commercial con in Europe and it has been hosting Malifaux tournaments since the halcyon days of the first edition. We got a nice attendance of 16 players.

I took Wong with Do Over, Ooo Glowy, and Dirty Cheater to all three games. I also had two Swine-cursed and Francois with Stilts in all three games.

First one was Turf War, Standard deployment
Claim Jump
Eliminate The Leadership (Wong)
Dig Their Graves (Reva)
Covert Breaktrough (Wong)
Undercover Entourage (Reva)

I took, as additional stuff Trixie, a number of Stuffed Piglets, and a Slop Hauler. I played against a really good played from Turku who took Reva, Emissary, Nurse, Yin, Belle, Necropunk, Bete, and maybe something that I'm forgetting.

The battlefield was dominated by a gigantic church in the middle which we played like a hard-cover forest but it really made the game a bit weird (especially with Turf War). Ressers took up position behind the church sending a Necropunk down one flank. I sent Francois after the Necropunk and advanced with the rest on both sides of the church. A candle turned into Bete and killed a Stuffed Piglet while Trixie Pushed a Swine-Cursed into position to Charge Nurse and/or Reva next turn.

I forgot(!) that Trixie can cheat initiative and so, on the second turn, lost ini in a very crucial way and the Nurse Paralyzed my Swine-Cursed while the other one was killed by Reva. Wong retaliated burying Bete (and my opponent forgot her for the rest of the game(!)).

Wong, with help from one of the Stuffeds, did a lot of damage to the Emissary and killed the Nurse. Magical Francois shot the Necropunk. Reva killed lots of stuff and Yin and Reva went to tie up Trixie. Emissary died and at the very end all I had left was Wong. But between him and Trix's earlier efforts I scored full from Covert Breakthrough. Unfortunately Reva had Undercover Entourage and took three from that and my Eliminate the Leadership had failed spectacularly. And Wong couldn't hold Turf War so I lost.

Good game and I was surprised by how well I did considering that Reva killed all my models super quick barring my two Henchmen and Wong. Also, this was my first time against Reva. Had I chosen better Schemes (Eliminate the Leadership is always such a gamble against backline Masters) I could've won.

Head Hunter, Flank deployment
Claim Jump (Wong and Marcus)
Frame For Murder (Wong on a Swine-cursed)
Leave Your Mark (Marcus)
Show Of Force
Last Stand

Second game was against Marcus on a horrid sewer board. Headhunter so I had Fingers and took Merris as well as Stuffeds. He had three Corrupted Hounds, Cerberus, Luther, Jackalope, Silurid, and the Arcane Effigy. I was really stumped by the board and was being very cautious. All his Leap didn't help things!

On the first turn Marcus Alphaed a Swine-Cursed to kill a Stuffed and hit Francois three times draining my stones. My opponent's deck was on fire though naturally the match-up wasn't very fair. 

Second turn I won ini with Red Joker against Black. I bluffed Frame for Murder with Merris but the Cerberus decided to kill her anyway. She exploded and three Corrupted Hounds and the Cerberus took four burning. Hounds patted one another and the Effigy helped the Cerberus. Francois killed a Raptor and went to a corner to sulk and do Claim Jump.

Meanwhile Marcus and the Blessed tag-teamed my FFM Swine-Cursed (Blessed killing it) and the other Swine ate the Silurid. Fingers picked up his head while Hounds picked up Merris's and Marcus took Swine's.

A Stuffed sauntered to the Hounds and killed all three of them by blowing up. Marcus and the Blessed started mauling Wong but the little guy held firm though he failed to do anything in return. Cerberus tried to do Leave Your Mark but Swine gave Fingers an extra boost of speed and he ran to the scene and flipped the Scheme Markers. I ended up winning 5-3.

A very, very weird game due to the bizarre table. This was only my second time against Marcus so it was very refreshing to get a win. My opponent got maybe a bit too bloodthirsty and didn't quite realize the power of the various death explosions I had access to.

Interference, Close deployment
Claim Jump (Wong)
Accusation
Dig Their Graves
Recover Evidence (Wong and Von Schill)
Tail 'Em

Final game was against Von Schill in close deployment. Interference so I took Raphael, a Slop Hauler and three Bayou Gremlins as extras. Can't remember his second Scheme. He had Schill, Hannah, Strongarm, Trapper, Specialist, Freikorpsman, and the Trunk.

The game began with the Trapper taking aim at a Bayou Gremlin but I cheated in a 13 and he missed. My opponent came to me boldly but ended up flipping absolutely atrociously. When I flipped bad, he flipped a bit worse and Von Schill and Hannah died in the first activation of the second round. A telling thing was, at the end of round one, Raphael walked twice and took a potshot at the Strongarm when both of us had no meaningful hand left. I flip a 12 of rams, he flips a four or something. Dumb Luck, straight damage flip, severe: 10 damage.

When Von Schill and Hannah died I hadn't taken any non-self-inflicted damage and was in strong scoring position with easy kills against the Freikorpsman, and the Strongarm set up while my opponent was completely in the ropes and we ended up calling it then and there - 10-0.

Two very tight games and one where my opponent was a bit too aggressive and then flipped absolutely horribly. I came in at fourth out of sixteen so that was nice.

 

[Nikodemus]

By my recollection our game ended 5-3, not 6-4. Same differential either way.

[Math Mathonwy]

21 minutes ago, Nikodemus said:

By my recollection our game ended 5-3, not 6-4. Same differential either way.

Oh aye, you are correct. I remember winning by two and getting two from FFM, two from Claim Jump, and one from the Strat. I'll edit it in.

[Mutter]

Thanks for the reports, and congrats on the placing.

Did you get much use out of Do Over and Dirty Cheater for Wong throughout the games?

[Math Mathonwy]

13 minutes ago, Mutter said:

Thanks for the reports, and congrats on the placing.

Did you get much use out of Do Over and Dirty Cheater for Wong throughout the games?

Dirty Cheater: Wong wasn't very threatened in any of the games barring the Marcus and Blessed tag team and there I healed quite a bit with it. I had a rubbish hand and missed with my attacks and then cheated down with the low cards to heal at least. I thought it useful in the first since Eliminate the Leadership was in the pool and in the second because I knew I would be facing Marcus. In the third I took it because of Close Deployment.

Do Over: well, I managed to randomize to a Stuffed Piglet in games one and two but in the first I had no targets left after the Stuffed died and in the second I missed on the second shot (I believe). I also forgot to use it for cards in both games... In all the games all my targets were always in hard cover so the extra shot wasn't very useful. The cards could've been handy had I remembered them, though...

[Mutter]

Thanks for the explanation. I guess both of them are cheap enough, and Wong doesn't really NEED any upgrade apart from Ooo Glowy, that it's okay for those occasional upgrades. What are your experiences with A Gremlin's Luck (which is the one I see most besides Ooo Glowy, that's why I'm asking all this ... :))?

[Math Mathonwy]

6 minutes ago, Mutter said:

Thanks for the explanation. I guess both of them are cheap enough, and Wong doesn't really NEED any upgrade apart from Ooo Glowy, that it's okay for those occasional upgrades. What are your experiences with A Gremlin's Luck (which is the one I see most besides Ooo Glowy, that's why I'm asking all this ... :))?

I had a practice game before the tournament using Sammy with Ooo Glowy so Wong was free to rock both Gremlin's Luck and Do Over and that is pretty potent. In fact, a bit too potent in that I won the game on the second turn and my opponent decided to switch factions for the tournament... The dream sequence is to shoot into combat, randomize into a Stuffed, inflict moderate, Do Over, randomize into the Stuffed again, do Severe, pop the Pig, and then have two AP left. And that dream sequence is even rather likely and not all that resource intensive.

[Mutter]

D'oh, I missed that A Gremlin's Luck is Limited, too.

So, yeah, that sounds nasty. O.o

 

*edit: You could sneak in some additional Lightning Storm, too, couldn't you?

[Paddywhack]

Any pictures of the 'maze' table you played against Marcus on? I'm curious as to what it looked like. 

[Math Mathonwy]

47 minutes ago, Paddywhack said:

Any pictures of the 'maze' table you played against Marcus on? I'm curious as to what it looked like. 

Unfortunately I didn't think of taking a pic of the whole table. It was made with Terraclips Sewers of Malifaux set, so something roughly in this vein:

 

[Nikodemus]

I took a shot:

[Math Mathonwy]

Thank you! Absolutely great! And why didn't I think of flagging you to ask whether you happened to take a shot I don't know.

We played the brown sludge as just normal floor and all the doorways were deemed to function such that if your base touches a doorway, you can go through so Pushes didn't have to happen in just the correct angle and big bases fit through small openings.

...sludge as Hazardous 1/1/7 would've been interesting, though...  

[Nikodemus]

44 minutes ago, Math Mathonwy said:

...sludge as Hazardous 1/1/7 would've been interesting, though...  

I was onboard with that joke/suggestion from the start  Would've been a silly game.

[Dogmantra]

Hazardous is underused, and I for one love risky hazardous terrain with silly tracks like 0/1/4. I like to play rivers etc as 0/1/2 instead of severe, so you know I'm up for sludge :3

We have the same terraclips set at one of my local stores, but I think we have less of it (it was secondhand) and our board isn't quite as crowded, we usually play 30mm ht2 can get through the small doors, then anything can get through the big doors.

I wonder how that sewer was to play on in something like Turf War. Probably a nightmare for everyone except Kirai.

 

Anyway, well done Math! I liked reading your reports and I especially liked seeing Raphael representation!

[Math Mathonwy]

1 hour ago, Dogmantra said:

Hazardous is underused, and I for one love risky hazardous terrain with silly tracks like 0/1/4. I like to play rivers etc as 0/1/2 instead of severe, so you know I'm up for sludge :3

We have the same terraclips set at one of my local stores, but I think we have less of it (it was secondhand) and our board isn't quite as crowded, we usually play 30mm ht2 can get through the small doors, then anything can get through the big doors.

I believe that this setup is two (or maybe even three?) Terraclips sets. @Molja knows.

1 hour ago, Dogmantra said:

I wonder how that sewer was to play on in something like Turf War. Probably a nightmare for everyone except Kirai.

Somer won Turf War on it but the player said that the table was seriously horrid. Headhunter definitely suited it better! And Kirai did Interference on it for the last round but I'm not sure how that played out.

1 hour ago, Dogmantra said:

Anyway, well done Math! I liked reading your reports and I especially liked seeing Raphael representation!

Thank you, much appreciated! And you inspired me to start a thread.  

[Nikodemus]

Just now, Math Mathonwy said:

Somer won Turf War on it but the player said that the table was seriously horrid. Headhunter definitely suited it better! And Kirai did Interference on it for the last round but I'm not sure how that played out.

Kirai lost to Marcus (not mine).

From what I asked the tipping point was Marcus tarpitting some important models using his non-damaging upgrade for +flips to attack (=disengaging strikes).

[Paddywhack]

Hmmm. it looks like it could be fun to play on, but perhaps not the best table for a tournament. That would be a lot of hazardous terrain though - maybe a 0/1/4 would have been fun.

 

[Nikodemus]

13 hours ago, Paddywhack said:

Hmmm. it looks like it could be fun to play on, but perhaps not the best table for a tournament. That would be a lot of hazardous terrain though - maybe a 0/1/4 would have been fun.

It was very different from my usual fare of "few houses, few forests, scatter to taste". An interesting experience for sure, though I prefer a bit more varied terrain in my tables. I think I told TO it was functional but my least favourite of the three that I played on.

In retrospect I think Claim Jump in a corner was a bit too easy on this one. Had I not been an idiot with Merris & Piglet I'd have had three easy points. Apart from Merris Math didn't really have mobility to get there. Though I suppose that's a thing you account for during crew building. Leap/Flight/Incorp really shines here.

[Molja]

21 hours ago, Dogmantra said:

 

We have the same terraclips set at one of my local stores, but I think we have less of it (it was secondhand) and our board isn't quite as crowded, we usually play 30mm ht2 can get through the small doors, then anything can get through the big doors.

 

Sewers had eaten two sets of sewers kit and two or three sets of clips. Wasn't sure if we had enough mats for tournament so hastily put that abomination together.  Indeed it would have been fun to watch a game where players would have treated sludge as hazardous as silly as Math suggested.

[Adran]

I've seen maze'ier boards. They are playable, but really push up some models in terms of power. (lileth and Kirai spring to mind). 

If anything, it looks a little open to me, but it depends on how many doors and so forth are actually there. 

From an outside perspective, I enjoy changing up the type of table a lot, as it really does make players think in a slightly different way. I wouldn't want lots of boards like that but having 10% or so not a standard Forest or town is a nice break up of mindsets.