The Road to Adepticon 2012

[Tauwolf]

Hello and good day to all my fellow puppet masters! I’ve been nominated by my slightly-lazier cohorts to introduce a new project blog that will run through April. The other day, as we were all discussing our plans for Adepticon and the first ever Puppet Wars tournament there, we realized that we had the makings of a great “Tale of Four Gamers” style article primed and ready to go. So, I am excited to present to you:

A Tale of Five Puppet Masters: The Road to Adepticon -- Part One, The Bloggening

(brought to you with minimal commercial interruption by Full Borer Miniatures, Free Mars, and Gorgon Studios).

As fate would have it, there are currently five Masters (Marcus, Seamus, Pokey Vik, Lady J, and Pandora) and we each happened to gravitate toward a different master (what a crazy, random, happenstance!). We each also, as gamers and hobbyists, differ somewhat in our styles. I feel a quote from Chris (fullborer) describes us pretty darn well:

“…at one extreme is me - highly obsessed with paint, often to the detriment of game play or finished forces. Next, Dave (DaveyP), still very high paint skills, less obsessive, can still get armies done when he wants to. Brian (Tauwolf), who has appreciation for good painting and skills to apply it, but still wants to get things done. And at the opposite side from me is Dennis (wulfen33) who paints forces to get them on the table while still doing a good job of it. At this point, Lisa (LaFemmeGeekita) is a wild card, still comparatively new to the hobby side and as yet uncommitted to a stance…”

Side Note: Lisa has won 3 of our 5 local games of four-player Puppet Wars…… yeah….. and she’s incredibly creative and paints really well for a n00b….. we don’t always like her very much…..

Over the next several months, we’ll each be posting in this thread with updates on our progress, pictures of our minis, random thoughts, and general hobby shenanigans. We’ll also be using the information collected here to produce a series of articles for the Adepticon website.

However (and this is important!), this isn’t just our thread. This is your thread too. We have waaaaaaay more collective years gaming and painting than we care to admit, and one of our favorite parts of this hobby is sharing what we know. Please please please, ask us questions, get us chatting about this stuff, share your pics and stories with us! We love this game and we want this community to grow.

Another side note, we have no set schedule for posting and no rules. This thing is going to be as organic as it gets.

Alright, enough of my blah blah blah-ing. Our Road to Adepticon begins... NOW!

:hidingpuppet

Edited November 27, 2011 by Tauwolf

[Justin]

Cool. I'll be following. Which master does each of you gravitate towards?

[LaFemmeGeekita]

Allow myself to introduce... myself. My name is Lisa, and as Brian so elegantly described me, I am a "n00b". I am new to this whole gaming/painting hobby thing. The total number of models I have painted in my lifetime would easily be below 20 if not for my new Blood Bowl team (go Skavenblight Pi-rats!) That being said, I'm excited to get this puppetry in motion!

I chose Pokey Viktoria as my puppet crew's mistress. The first crew I purchased for Malifaux was the Vikis' box and I fell in love immediately. I love the "stalking panther" sort of feel the crew has, while still having other characters that can hold their own (Taelor, Johann, I'm lookin' at you.). It takes a lot of deception and mind games to draw in your opponent in before pouncing for the kill with the Vikis, so it was natural that I'd pick the same sort of crew for Puppet Wars. I decided to go with the following list for Puppet Wars:

Pokey Viktoria

Rusty Alyce

Hog Whisperer

Piglet

Convict Gunslinger

Ronin x2

Witchling Stalker

Bad Juju

I considered the idea of bringing the Hooded Rider instead of either the Bad Juju or Convict Gunslinger, but decided against it. The Hooded Rider's high activation cost makes him suck up a card to activate that could be picked up to use when Viki gets to slashing. (That, and I don't have a Hooded Rider, so you can see how that would pose a problem...) As far as the Hog Whisperer and the Piglet go, well.. I'll admit, I'm a sucker for cute. Initially I took them because, come on.. adorable Piggy! But then I realized that I could use the expendable Piglet to do some pretty amazing things. With the Hog Whisperer / Witchling Stalker combo, he can sprint across the board with amazing speed to claim a workbench or attach an upgrade from your opponent's bench that he REALLY wanted (Right, Chris?). And both the Hog Whisperer and Piglet are incredibly useful when torn up.

At this point, I could have chosen to take two Bayou Gremlins instead of the Convict Gunslinger and Bad Juju, but decided not to. The gremlins are fun and have great synergy, but having another mercenary puppet on the board means that's just one more puppet for Viki to pop out of. The Bad Juju does the brunt of the defensive work, and his Manhandle ability is great for positioning that pesky Joss or Punk Zombie right next to Alyce or Viki.

One of the great things I've found about this game is that there is no min/maxed "BEST PUPPET ARMY EVER" list. I could tweak my list in a million different ways and still be successful, but this is the list that fits my play style best. As we continue to practice and train (cue Rocky-style training montage), some things may get tweaked, but all in all, I'm pretty satisfied with my choices! Looking forward to hearing what the puppet gallery has to say, so bring on the comments!

:smugpuppet1:

Edited November 22, 2011 by LaFemmeGeekita

[nilus]

Now if only the guy organizing the event doesn't screw it up

Keep blogging and letting us know your plans. There should be a lot of open play Puppet Wars at Adepticon as well.

[ukrocky]

One question from myself to you all is how exactly do you go about building lists? Do you mainly look at the minions and their AC and what they all do, or half minions/half upgrades etc. I'm just starting P-wars and since you all play a faction each I'm particularly intrigued as to how you each build looking at it from a different faction PoV.

Following with interest!

[LaFemmeGeekita]

One question from myself to you all is how exactly do you go about building lists? Do you mainly look at the minions and their AC and what they all do, or half minions/half upgrades etc. I'm just starting P-wars and since you all play a faction each I'm particularly intrigued as to how you each build looking at it from a different faction PoV.

Following with interest!

I know that for myself, Viktoria's reduction of a puppet's AR by 2 as long as they are an Outcast meant that I wanted all Outcasts. Are there other puppets that would play well with Viki? Sure, but I'd rather keep my high numbers / low suited cards to use with Viki. She's spoiled like that.

As far as for the others, I'm not sure, but I honestly don't think you could make a BAD puppet list. Just like any other game.. balance your big guns with light support, cross check for synergy with other puppets.. basic list-building stuff. If you wanted to bounce your lists in progress off of any of the contributors to this thread, I'm sure that we'd all be willing to help you out!

[Justin]

Between this thread and the doll house of doom, I really want to go to Adepticon.

[karn987]

Why can't there be any big gaming con's in Ma >.>

[Zephir]

How come Vicki is only bringing 1 side kick? You mentioned you didn't like the Rider, but what about Misaki?

[Hugor]

Curious on the choice of the two Ronins. Was having a conversation yesterday about their best uses in a Seamus list, and we hashed through several different possible uses (the more we talked about it, the better she seemed for the list), so was wondering what you thought since you play a list with two.

[Tauwolf]

A little bit about me… My name is Brian, and I’ve been doing this a long time. I can start sentences with “Back in the Rogue Trader days….” and speak with first-hand experience of 1st Edition Blood Bowl, Space Hulk and Talisman. Back in my day, minis were lead and “painting tutorials” involved staring at a picture for hours, trying to figure out how the heck they did that (And we liked it!).

Side note: I used to look at pictures of minis painted by Chris and wonder how the heck he did that, years before I met him. Now I consider him a good friend, and I'm still wondering how the heck he does it.... I’d be afraid saying this would go to his head, but really, it can’t get much bigger…..

:focus:

Puppet Wars is the first miniature game in a long time to really grab my attention. Malifaux is a bit too in-depth for my very limited gaming time these days – even though the game is really well done and I love the fluff behind the game. Puppet Wars strikes that perfect balance between quick board game and deep miniature game, and still retains that twisted-but-fun feel of Malifaux.

After messing with Pandora for a couple of games, I tried Seamus and found his crew to really click with me. I like the tough, tenacious style they bring to the board. My Adepticon list is still a work in progress, but the last game I played I was using this:

Seamus

Bete Noir and Baby Kade

2 Punk Zombies

2 Rotten Belles

Sorrow

Ronin

You’ll notice a trend: lots and lots of stitches to cut through. The Punk Zombies are my work horses. The Rotten Belles are pretty reliable work horses, as well, and as of right now in the game’s development, their attachment side is outstanding with no downside. Ronin make great fast attack. The Sorrow will probably get dropped, as it was ineffective in the last game we played. I feel like I haven’t really gotten the timing right on when to use it for maximum effect, but more importantly, it’s using mask cards that I need for Baby Kade.

Baby Kade is one mean little rugrat. Seriously, someone change that kid’s diaper or something. If you haven’t played with or against Baby Kade, you’re missing out on one of the most fun puppets in the game. And that being said, if I manage to score a Hooded Rider before April, I might have to sit Kade on the sidelines <pouty sad face>. HR just fits my play style so well, and my list is currently missing a true heavy hitter.

Bete is…. interesting. I can use her ultra-aggressively, knowing that I can always send her back to the toy box for another animation. Or, as an attachment for Seamus, she can be very game-changing. She is one heck of a good sidekick, and really would help any Master who can manage their suits well. Want to know a surefire way to mess with the heads and game plans of your opponents? Remind them of her one-hit-kill capability and then move her into a vaguely menacing position. <evil grin>

More to come……

:hidingpuppet

Edited November 25, 2011 by Tauwolf

[Tauwolf]

A word on choosing a shoebox: we usually play 3-4 player games, draft style. It has allowed us to get experience using and playing against most of the puppets. Like LFG said, it’s hard to choose a bad list. When you’re playing to get experience, stay mostly within one faction, but mix in a couple of puppets from other factions that you think might fit your play style. If you have every puppet trying to use precious cards from the same suit, you are quickly going to find yourself short-suited.

Also, I can’t seem to get good use out of two high AR puppets. In early games I was running a Hooded Rider with the Mature Nephilim. Both are amazing offensive beasts. The high AR, however, usually resulted in only a few activations a game shared between them.

And the flip side of that: it’s nice to have a really low AR puppet on the board, like a Piglet, Misaki, or in my case, Seamus. Looking at my list, activation cards under 7 are almost worthless once Seamus is exhausted.

:hidingpuppet

[Tauwolf]

Between this thread and the doll house of doom, I really want to go to Adepticon.

You should. It's one of the few gaming conventions worth travelling for.

:hidingpuppet

Edited November 26, 2011 by Tauwolf

[Hugor]

Just played with pokey, see why the two Ronnins would be a good thing.

[LaFemmeGeekita]

Curious on the choice of the two Ronins. Was having a conversation yesterday about their best uses in a Seamus list, and we hashed through several different possible uses (the more we talked about it, the better she seemed for the list), so was wondering what you thought since you play a list with two.

I have two Ronin and a Convict Gunslinger because they all have the mercenary keyword, meaning that Viktoria can swap places with them if she is within 3 squares of them. It's easy to keep away from one master, but it's a lot more difficult to stay away from a master AND three other puppets she can pop out of. Also, their hand recharge ability is invaluable when you have to discard so many cards for her fast actions, and the rad sword is... Rad.

As far as a second sidekick goes, I didn't feel the need. Misaki requires you to discard a card to activate her, which can be fairly expensive with Viki. And Viki already has a weapon that ignores suits. I guess it just has never really been necessary.

[fullborer]

Greetings puppets and puppettes,

My name is Chris and I’ll be playing the role of puppet-Marcus in this bloggy little exercise.

I’d intended to chime in on this thread sooner, but had a bit of a holiday delay-of-gaming. Nevertheless, I really liked Tauwolf’s suggestion that we do this, and I think it will help keep me on track for the Puppet Wars event at Adepticon…

I described myself in Tauwolf’s initial post as “highly obsessed with paint, often to the detriment of game play or finished forces” and I totally stand by that. I spend the vast majority of my miniature gaming time on the painting-hobby side of the bell curve (vs. the game-play side) and have for years.

For the record, that’s not an issue of right/wrong or better/worse, I just really enjoy painting/sculpting/etc. and thus it gets the lion’s share of my hobby time.

When I choose a force for a miniatures game, the decision-making process is primarily about the minis I’d be painting (thus my fledgling Malifaux crew is Colette’s Showgirls). You could show me a mini that comes with a game-winning guarantee, but I’ll never use it if I don’t like the figure. Along the same lines, a mini could be outright detrimental to game play and I’d still take it if I like the sculpt enough…

Applying the “what minis I like” test to Puppet Wars was a little trickier, because I like a lot of the puppet minis.

Nevertheless, choosing a master didn’t take that long. Purely on the minis, I immediately favored Marcus and Pokey Viktoria. I’m not as fond of some of the Mercenary puppets, but I like the look of virtually all the Stuffed Animals, so Marcus quickly became my primary master puppet.

With Marcus selected for this exercise, I started cleaning and tweaking his mini. I wanted to keep this a fairly simple “paint-to-play” force, but part-way through cleaning the mold lines on Marcus, I found myself trying to make the staff look more like the puppet art by twisting one of the branches a bit more and adding a leaf. It sounds minor (and the end results are), but that leaf was hammered out of a piece of brass rod, filed into shape, pinned into the staff and then made a bit more 3D with some putty. It’s a 3-frakkin’-mm leaf, but that should give you an idea of the level of crazy I’m working with here.

This would have been a perfectly reasonable place to stop messing with him and start painting. And I tried to do that, I really did. You can see from the photo below that I actually got him based and primed before my OCD (Obsessive Conversions Disorder) kicked in. I thought “hey, I’ve never sculpted flames before; maybe I should give that a try.” I broke out the “how to sculpt flames” section of Joe Orteza's handout from his green putty sculpting class from waaaay back when and gave it a try. My initial attempts were a bit too pyro-maniacal, so I trimmed back my huge leaping flames a couple of times and you can see the end result. It’s honestly not a big change, but neither was the leaf. I can spend a baffling amount of time on tiny cosmetic changes.

I was pretty sure I was done (again) when I had one more flash of OCD. Marcus’s totem is a jackalope. There isn’t a separate jackalope puppet (yet? I’m not sure there’s even jackalope puppet art), so I could add one.

“But where to get a tiny bunny… hmm… tiny bunny… tiny bunny… got it!” So I sculpted a Puppet-esque Peeps bunny totem from gray putty and added tiny antlers (again, shaped from brass rod) to make a Puppet-esque Peeps Jackalope (or PPJ). His name is Bun.

I tucked the 10mm tall Bun between Marcus’s coat and staff; partially to protect him from in-game handling and partially to keep him away from the flaming arm since he might be made of sugar-coated marshmallow. We’ll see. I may paint him slightly toasted.

And now I’m done converting Marcus.

…probably.

Tune in next time when my topic will be "Unnecessary Conversions to Puppet Pawns - Episode 1".

[themurphyfella]

Chris,

You are nuts. But it's in a good way

[ukrocky]

I want that bunny.

[Tauwolf]

lol Chris that turned out great. Well done.

[Cadilon]

I love that base. Did you sculpt that too or is that pre-made?

[wulfen33]

It looks like I am the forth puppet master to chime in. My name is Dennis and I will be trying to run Lady Justice. I did not want to writing anything until I actually had something done. This last weekend I was actually able to paint and finish the the Lady herself. I am glad I got asked to do this project, because I have been in a painting rut lately. This should help light a fire under my rear a little.

A little bit about me. I think Tauwolf hit it on the head. When I wanted to play Malifaux, it took me two weeks and my crew was ready and I was playing (a high quality paint job, can never slack). For Puppet wars I'm giving myself 8 weeks. A puppet a week. For approximately the last 7 or 8 year I have been on the painting side of things. Now I want to change that up a little. Been playing Malifaux since I saw a friend playing at Adepticon last year, and really like it. Just have to remember its not 40K or Warmachine, I need to worry about the objectives and not about killing everything. Might be why I always loss. So I'm giving puppet wars a try.

I choose my force of puppets the old fashion way, split the boxes of puppets with DaveyP. I took good and he took evil. That’s how Lady Justice ended up at my house. As far as my force of 8 I chose all the Guide. There are 8 Guide puppets, I took 1 of each. Normally I would be a little bit pickier, but since I don’t know the rules yet I have to start somewhere. Normally I choose what I like. This makes painting easier. If I like it, its done fast and good. If I don’t enjoy the mini it ends up next to my Bloodbowl team. It has been 4 years and its still not done. Example: I bought a Rasputina box set and I just keep buying models for her crew. Would love to start Lilith but every time I get ready to do Lilith, a Rasputina Avatar comes out.

Hoping to post a picture of the Lady this week. I'm not computer savvy, and I have to have my wife or 14 year old do it for me. Death Marshall next. It's based, primed and coat is brown.

Dennis out for now.

[yetischool]

Pokey Viktoria

Rusty Alyce

Hog Whisperer

Piglet

Convict Gunslinger

Ronin x2

Witchling Stalker

Bad Juju

I considered the idea of bringing the Hooded Rider instead of either the Bad Juju or Convict Gunslinger, but decided against it. The Hooded Rider's high activation cost makes him suck up a card to activate that could be picked up to use when Viki gets to slashing. (That, and I don't have a Hooded Rider, so you can see how that would pose a problem...) As far as the Hog Whisperer and the Piglet go, well.. I'll admit, I'm a sucker for cute. Initially I took them because, come on.. adorable Piggy! But then I realized that I could use the expendable Piglet to do some pretty amazing things. With the Hog Whisperer / Witchling Stalker combo, he can sprint across the board with amazing speed to claim a workbench or attach an upgrade from your opponent's bench that he REALLY wanted (Right, Chris?). And both the Hog Whisperer and Piglet are incredibly useful when torn up.

:smugpuppet1:

I think you're missing a critical combo by not taking the piglet and hooded rider combo. The hooded rider does have a high AC, but taking a piglet and tearing him apart at the right time could allow you to pull out the HR at just the right time.

[ThePandaDirector]

Haven't looked at this till now, being Scottish means I tend to ignore any US event related chatter.

I definitely describe myself as a Marcus player, through and through, and can't wait to see what Chris does with the little stuffed animals (Nice job on the beastmaster himself btw).

I have been in a very large painting rut and despite having everything I need, my puppets still sit unpainted (started two, but was disheartened by poor results). I'm the kind of person that tends to focus on gameplay, but takes painting seriously to the point that no painting gets done =[ Maybe I should take up the flame again (over here Marcus oldboy)

@Brian: One Sorrow isn't that great anyway, but you'll definitely want to pick something else out-of-suit (Seamus tends to need his crows). Maybe consider Moleman, he's only 5 tomes (not hard to animate), and is Df12 on impassable markers. Great late game with Pop Gun and either Rad Sword or Mouldy Stuffing - resilient, and tough enough to influence your opponent's movement (is why Pop Gun comes in handy)

@Lisa: Your list is solid. Not a big fan of Bad Juju, but he's hard to argue against. Witchling Stalker is rather refreshing huh? Don't know if you can resist using Puppet Roulette as badly as I can =]

@Chris: What models are you taking, going pure Stuffed Animals or will there be a cheeky Ice Golem? I imagine you'll be taking Joss?

@Dennis: I've seen 2 Executioners and a Mature Nephilim used with Justice, and my opponent was fine, but then that was only one game.

I tend to form my Toybox differently depending on whether I'm playing versus a singular or multiple opponent/s. In multi-player games I like to have reserves, so I take 2 December Acolytes but don't bring the 2nd out until the first is removed (unless I'm feeling confident). As I've mentioned elsewhere, I like cheap and nasty and stick to Molemen, Guild Hound, Acolytes, etc. For upgrades, Rotten Belle and Ronin, while stealing from the enemy as much as possible. For Sidekicks I love me some Joss and Misaki, though Rusty sometimes sneaks in..

Edited November 30, 2011 by ThePandaDirector

[DaveyP]

Okay, finally getting a chance to post something. I’m the fifth Puppet Master in our Puppet collective. These days, like some of my compatriots, I don’t play as much as I paint. PW seemed like a good fit as I love the Malifaux background and the model count was completely doable. I am going to be running Pandora: my favorite master (and Malifaux character). I’m still a little unsure about my toy box, so I’d love some input from people who have had a chance to play some games with ‘Dora. I know that I’m probably looking at including the following:

Baby Kade

Hooded Rider

2-3 Sorrows

But any recommendations?

In the meantime, besides working on my Puppets, I’ve started construction on my custom PW board. I’m thinking that I’ll be bringing this with to Adepticon. Chris and I talked early on about doing a couple custom game boards. Now, I’m not knocking the board that comes with the boxed set; it’s perfectly adequate. However, I wanted the game board to match the detail and character of the Puppets that would be racing and/or shambling across it. To that end, I began planning what I’m calling my Nightmarescape PW board.

I didn’t want to go the “planky/wooden” floor route (Chris is planning something along those lines), so I needed an alternate “theme” for the board. I figured a nightmarish, Tim Burton-esque graveyard would be suitable. I’ve attached a few pictures here. The board is still in its early stages. I’ve used Litko’s 1.5 inch hexes as the main component. Once these were glued (with wood glue) to my 18x18 inch art board (it’s like a frame), I started adding some details in the form of ruins and debris. The next step will be to give the entire board a texture, using fine and medium sand.

I’ll keep you posted on the board’s progress, along with my Puppets. But again, I need some guidance on my Pandora list.

Dave

[fullborer]

Hey Puppets and Puppettes,

So far this thread is doing exactly what I’d hoped – keeping me thinking about my Puppet crew so I can get them done (to my satisfaction), and in time for Adepticon. More conversions are already underway. Huzzah!

@themurphyfella – thanks, it’s usually just a matter of steering my crazy in “useful” directions.

@ukrocky – thanks, he was shockingly easy to sculpt. I got knocked out of a game of Forumla De very early (“Wait, we can crash?”), started and finished him before their game ended. That’s insanely fast for me. It probably helps that he’s shaped like a tiny bunny snowman.

@Cadilon – thanks, I sculpted some planks, made some planky bases and have been resin-casting them since. You can see the rest of the “set” I made here. If anyone’s interested in some, they can PM me.

@yetischool – I can vouch that LaFemmeGeekita figured out the piggy-bacon-Hooded Rider thing, it’s just that she doesn’t have one. Yet.

“Say, can I borrow that Hooded Rider and kill you with it?”

“Sure. Hey, wait!”

So while I’m posting – a very rough draft of my Marcus ShoeBox:

• Marcus
  
• Joss
  
• Moleman
  
• Razorspine Rattler
  
• Guild Hound
  
• December Acolyte
  
• ?
  
• ?
  
• ?
  

More than half the slots are filled, but who makes the cut for the last three positions? (suggestions are solicited)

Some current contenders are:

Silurid, Chihuahua, Rattler #2, Witchling Stalker, Ice Golem and thanks to the Wyrd Black Friday sale, Teddies. I feel like Teddies really should be taken as a pair – one to sacrifice, one to play.* I’m not entirely sure how valid that is, but there will be playtesting regardless.

*I know that sounds like some kind of in-game tactical conclusion from the guy who claims to put painting over playing, but I call it “rationalization for painting the Teddies I just bought”…

Edited November 30, 2011 by fullborer