Math Mathonwy

That's really nice. Maybe a bit too many folds on the dress but that's pretty minor. Certainly a big improvement over the original. No one knows.

I use tiny dice to mark wounds (and poison and burning) so I use only one card per type of mini - this has the added benefit that both players can at a glance see how many wounds have been inflicted to a model.

Merris can't burn friendlies. For that you'd need Iggy.

*headdesk* You are absolutely correct. Sheesh! We have remembered it in our previous games (at least in that one Guard the Stash where Von Schill was off on his own and the fact that it didn't work was much lamented). I'm actually pretty damn flabbergasted. Sheesh.

Thank you for the kind words! It really means a lot coming from the master of tournament reporting! I probably do get a lot wrong But really, the pics helped immensely. I wasn't pulling any punches on the battlefield, just when it came to crew creation so any mistakes made were totally my own. In other words, input is very much appreciated! I do wholly agree! OTOH I do understand its value as a sort of warm-up round and due to the points scheme it was essentially a tie-breaker. Aye, it was difficult and it did have a big impact. I think that my opponent should've put the Onryo on the edges and the slower models closer to the middle so they could've taken advantage of the bridge to reposition once my deployment was clear. Agreed on the Izamu! Ototo I really don't rate highly. He is very easy to shut down through various means and his weak damage is really lackluster. To top it off, he really isn't all that tough if focused on. One of the worst Henchmen in the game, IMO. I actually asked him about both of these things at the beginning of the game once I had checked what Wings did. He said that he didn't take the Soul Porter due to being afraid of Make Them Suffer and he did take Wings in order to get Pushes to deal with the river. He did use the Push twice from it and both times it was no contest at all compared to his other (0) possibilities so I guess it did work out. And he also hoped to make use of the end-of-turn Push on Yan Lo to help get Entourage. Certainly an unorthodox choice, though. Aye, that could've been a good move, for sure. He would've died to Induction+Catalyst had he activated before healing (and he was Slow so not all that effective). A bit of both really. I do often use high cards on Nurses (not just for the Paralyze as all the other Conditions can be absolutely debilitating as well) and Ca6 against Wp is simply really good. Often I also just fire random meds at models at the end of the round hoping for a random Crow. When it doesn't pay off, I usually don't mention it. This happened twice in the HC round, for example, as I simply couldn't seemingly draw any Crows into hand through the whole game. But yeah, I dunno - it seems that Nurses are my MVP in 90% of the matches when I take them. Crazy good.

I simply forgot. Interestingly, this was the first time her Horror immunity would've actually affected a game in all the games that I've played with her.

I could see Endless Hunger people considering Rising Sun as being the superior choice in Collect the Bounty, for example.

What are people's opinions about the terrain, btw? I thought that it was generally fine, though the one I didn't end up playing on (first pic in the first post) was a bit light on blocking terrain - or rather, the blocking terrain was concentrated too heavily to the edges.

If the terrain and the scenario dictates that you should build a powerful firebase, she is pretty damn nice protection for it. Otherwise she is a bit lackluster. Maybe a Stone too expensive (at six she would certainly be an interesting choice).

What do you think of ZFiend's list in the third round?

Fixed. It really is! The scheme works absolutely amazingly on the table. There! Zfiend, you hear that? Straight from the expert's mouth! Ladies tend to paralyze at the sight, it's true.

Ophelia. Her damage output is second to none in the game, essentially her whole crew has access to three AP and nice Mv values, Gremlins have a ton of synergy, and she's sexy as hell. Ophelia box, Somer box and Slop Haulers will give you two different crews that complement one another really well and both fulfill all your criteria.

Third game: Me (Resser Tara) vs ZFiend (Von Schill) Strategy: Guard the stash Schemes: A Line in the Sand, Plant Explosives, Spring the Trap, Assassinate, Protect Territory Close deployment I took Tara (Knowledge, Symbiote), Sybelle (Bleeding Tongue, Not too Banged Up), Sebastian, two Belles, Necropunk, Nurse, and a Crooked Man. ZFiend didn’t take Hannah when I whined to him about something or the other really pitifully and about our agreement. So it was Von Schill (Shirt, Survivalist, I Pay Better), Specialist (Oathkeeper), Strongarm (Oathkeeper), two Trappers, Librarian and a Freikorpsman. We both revealed Protect Territory and I took Plant Explosives while ZFiend took Assassinate. This report is a bit weird due to several things but not the least because my recollection of the game starts to be a bit hazy. The first two games I managed to write on Sunday and Monday but this third I didn’t get to until Wednesday and Thursday and my memory might fail. At the very least the activation order is probably somewhat messed up. My apologies. ZFiend can correct, though. First turn he shot his Trappers with a bazillion plus flips for everything but missed with one and got weak damage on Sybelle with the other which I prevented. Whew! Still this ate into my SS pool by quite a bit. Sybelle moved boldly and took a Belle along. ZFiend advanced cautiously to avoid my Belles but I managed to Lure the Strongarm into a precarious position. Von Schill charged Belle and Sybelle but did just four damage to the Belle. Nurse came along to Paralyze Schill. Tara gave Sebastian Fast (I didn’t start with Tara as I didn’t feel that the reactivate was all that important for my on the first round), walked forward and made the Suit Slow. Sebastian charged the scary suit. the plucky little attendant hit the Suit twice giving it three Poison and dooming it if the Librarian couldn’t save it. Necropunk hopped to do Protect Territory. Second turn the Suit was almost dead and Tara charged it hoping to seal the deal before the Librarian gets to go. But she failed. Librarian went and healed a lot of damage on the suit which made me sad. Crooked Man charged the Suit to seal the deal and Paralyzed the Suit for good measure but also doing enough damage so that the Suit would die when activating near Seb. Nurse gave a Trapper some more Wk since they seemed too content to just sit around. Freikorpsman and Belle went to guard the left Stash while Sybelle went to engage the Librarian. Specialist told Von Schill to Move or Burn and Schill decided to move. He burnt Oathkeeper, killed the Belle and then started wailing on Tara but didn’t do much. Sebastian charged the Trapper doing enough damage and Poison to doom the poor fellow. Third turn Tara made Schill Slow and then took double Defensive Stance. Schill retaliated and did some damage but nothing too absurd. He did ruin Tara’s Df stat, though. And then he took off his Shirt and paralyzed Tara and Sybelle. Crooked Man came along to tie up the Specialist who disengaged and went after the Necropunk. The surviving Trapper shot the Nurse but didn’t kill her. Sebastian charged the Librarian getting a lucky Infect and dooming the poor lass. Freikorpsman and Belle flailed at one another mostly ineffectually. At this point ZFiend conceded since he had almost run out of models and the TO had had to go and ZFiend took on the mantle. And the game really didn’t matter since everyone knew that Myyrä would win in any case. Analysis Sebastian is just crazy killy. Damn. Also, those five point Resser Minions are pretty ball Not all that much else to say, really. Close Deployment is always a bit weird. I believe I got second place in the tournament but more importantly I won the best painted. Hooray!

Second game: Me (Resser Tara) vs Faurer (Ten Thunders Yan Lo) Strategy: Collect the bounty Schemes: A Line in the Sand, Breakthrough, Distract, Make Them Suffer, Entourage Standard deployment The Strategy and Scheme combo was going to be seriously tough for Tara and my collection of well-painted Ressers. My crew was Tara (Corpse Bloat, Obliteration Symbiote, Knowledge of Eternity), Sybelle (Bleeding Tongue), Punk Zombie, Bete Noire, Rotten Belle, Nurse, Necropunk, Graveyard Spirit. So my star killing power for Collect the Bounty was a hired Punk Zombie (definitely not something I would normally hire in a competitive event), Bete Noire and Sybelle. Oh, and Corpse Bloat which I never got a chance to use, though I thought it was a good idea in principle since Tara is often a bit lacking for things to do on her re-activate at the end of the round and Corpse Bloat does insane damage and the duel isn’t all that easy to pass with an end-of-turn type of hand. Faurer had Yan Lo with Wings and Ancestor Summoning, Izamu with Smoke Grenades, Ototo with Call the Thunder, two Onryo and Toshiro with Summoning. A much better crew for the mission IMO but I felt confident that I could deal with Ototo through indirect means (burying him, Paralyzing, stuff like that) and hopefully kill something with the Punk Zombie and Bete. I took Entourage on Tara and announced Breakthrough while Faurer had two hidden Schemes (Make Them Suffer and Entourage on Yan Lo). The battlefield had a river across it and Faurer deployed Izamu and Ototo on one side of the river with the rest on the other side and Yan Lo in the middle bridge. I put Necropunk and Belle on the Ototo side and the rest on the other side. I advanced, he advanced. Izamu dove into the river and Ototo also started moving that way. Yan Lo gave Izamu a boost with the Wings Push and Belle forgot about the Smoke giving negative flips against Luring Izamu so failed. On Tara’s Reactivate activation I pulsed Fast onto Toshiro as well as Sybelle, Punk Zombie, Graveyard Spirit and Nurse. (Those little flame tokens and the boot are just there to indicate Fast) On the second round the Rotten Belle Slowed Ototo who then trodded slowly across the river. Both of the Onryo shot Graveyard Spirit with me getting a BJ on defense and blasts hitting Sybelle and Punk Zombie as well. Sybelle retaliated by Focusing and Screeching one Onryo dead splashing Toshiro with her lovely voice as well. She also called the Belle to her side since the other side held only the lone Necropunk at this point. Yan Lo blasted the Punk Zombie but did not get him into Hard to Kill. He also turned Incorporeal. Nurse decided to show who is the best model in the game and Paralyzed Yan Lo. Izamu moved into the forest (he seemed to enjoy the Severe terrain) and Punk Zombie realized that it was in a precarious position and ran to hide behind the wood in a really stupid place where Izamu could engage him (what the hell?). Toshiro rumbled over to engage Tara and Necropunk ran forwards. Tara tried to disengage bu failed three times. I got a VP for the Strategy by killing an Onryo. Hooray! Third round Tara finally got away a bit with the help of the Belle luring in Toshiro. Izamu charged the Punk Zombie. He hit twice but got Black Joker on damage for his second swing. Nice! Punk Zombie retaliated with a somewhat fearsome Flurry doing a bunch of damage. Nurse gave Toshiro some meds to help with his too slow walk and rendering him somewhat useless. Ototo came along but didn’t reach anything important yet and Belle, Onryo, and Sybelle failed to achieve anything much. Necropunk hopped to do Breakthrough and Tara sprang for Entourage. Fourth turn Punk Zombie started (not Tara!) by Flurrying for his life but couldn’t kill Izamu. Yan Lo sprang into action, Pushed Ototo and Lightning Danced Tara into a precarious position. Nurse gave Tara speed meds and Ototo minus flip and armor meds allowing Tara to escape easily. Izamu killed Punk Zombie and I brought forth Bete Noire who took one hit from Izamu, activated and killed the big brute. Of course I had utterly forgotten Warrior’s Death which killed Bete (and I had no card left to save her since I thought she was safe) and also meant that I got no Bounty points for killing Izamu (since he sacrifices himself). D’oh! I own Izamu but have used him all of one time and that was quite a while ago. That’s my excuse. Sybelle, Toshiro, Ototo, Nurse, Belle, and Onryo formed a big melee ball which achieved nothing much due mostly to the meds of the Nurse. Sybelle did fling the Onryo to the other side of a shed using her Bleeding Tongue. Necropunk did Breakthrough. Fifth turn Yan Lo Lightning Danced next to Tara but couldn’t fling her away since his models were too far away. This was Faurer’s first time using Yan Lo in a proper game and Lightning Dance takes some careful forethought - he certainly learned alot. Nurse gave meds, again armor and negatives for Ototo and speed for Toshiro. Ototo tried to Flurry Sybelle but failed his Terror duel. The ball didn’t achieve much. Tara did Entourage. I won 6-1 (3 from Breakthrough, 2 from Entourage and one from Strat against one from Strat for Faurer). Analysis I felt that my choice of models was quite suboptimal for the Strategy but it was actually really good for the Schemes. I thought about turning my models into Peons with Sybelle to prevent my opponent from getting Bounty points - with the Graveyard Spirit this can be done at a relatively low cost but in the end decided against it since it looked that the river would mean that the opponent’s heavy hitters would be arriving piece meal and I hoped to be able to deal with them if I didn’t waste AP and Wd into Peonization. Nurse was definitely the MVP of the game getting Tara out and shutting down Ototo and Toshiro and thus effectively denying my opponent Make Them Suffer. She also paralyzed Yan Lo for one turn. I don’t understand why Yan Lo’s Wp defenses are so super bad. It’s weird. The other MVP was the river as it meant that my opponent either had to use someone really heavy to go after the Necropunk (which is really difficult as the Necropunk is fast and has HtK and self-heal). Ototo for example is almost useless against the humble Necropunk who then goes to score three VP.

First game: Me (Resser Sybelle) vs Pete (Arcanist Joss) Strategy: Turf War (Hardcore) Schemes: Assassinate Close deployment My crew: Sybelle (Not too Banged Up, Bleeding Tongue), Sebastian (Unnerving Aura), Rotten Belle, Nurse Pete’s crew: Joss (Arcane Reservoir, Imbued Protection), Large Steampunk Arachnid, Rail Worker, Metal Gamin Hardcore is quite a different animal from normal games and that Joss looked like killing him would be extremely difficult. OTOH Sebastian is complete murder against non-SS users so I was feeling confident about killing all bar Joss and netting a draw. We advanced with Pete being cautious about the Rotten Belle and me being cautious about not getting charged in the face by all that killyness. I Lured the Metal Gamin over and killed it in short order using Sebastian, Belle and Sybelle. Next LSPA came into the meatgrinder - it did some damage to Sybelle but I gave it quite a bit back and Sybelle got Mask trigger and moved the big lug into a position to block Joss from charging. LSPA died and I paralyzed Joss. All was going swell and I was headed to a comfortable draw. But then disaster struck. On the final two turns Pete’s hand and draw luck were utterly unbelievable. I couldn’t get anything through and he smashed face. His first eight or so cards in his discard pile on one round featured three 13s, two 12s and one or two 10s and 11s. It was utterly crazy. Under this insane onslaught Sybelle bit the dust and I ended up losing 7-4. Analysis: I have to say that this is probably the first time that I feel I have truly lost a game of Malifaux to honest luck. But even saying that, I could have prevented even that by simply playing more conservatively. I got greedy and tried to kill Joss even though I realized that it was likely futile and I should’ve just kept medicating Joss and evacuating Sybelle. I was also somewhat hampered by my inability to draw Crows into my hand bar once (a two of Crows at that) but really, I certainly could’ve gotten a tie. OTOH only a win gives tournament points in the HC round, so there is that but I honestly didnät consider that during the game.

Ropecon, the biggest non-commercial gaming con in Europe, was held uncustomarily early this year since the traditional venue will be in renovation during the summer. Malifaux tournament has a somewhat long tradition in Ropecon though attendance has never been all that high. This year the time of the con also limited attendance from further away compared to the usual time in the holiday season. We were nine, so the TO stood by as a judge. That called for four tables. Three games were the order of the day. First round was a Hardcore round worth one tournament point for victory while the other two were worth three for a win and one for a tie. The tournament was fixed Master. This last one was debated a bit but the TO's reasoning was that it would allow for people with more modest collections a more even playing field. Me and ZFiend had agreed to go a bit away from our comfort zones since the Malifaux scene in Finland is in its infancy and we thought that going in full blast would be a bit unsporting. OTOH since the actual game is supposed to be serious tournament business ( ) we just agreed to take our “B”-class Masters as opposed to the A-level stuff (respective to our minis collections, experience and personal play styles). So I went with Resser Tara. She is strong but my collection of painted Ressers is a bit sub-optimal for her so it will be an interesting challenge to concoct good crews. This goes double for the second round since painting was to be judged based on the crew used for the second round meaning that if I wanted to have a chance at winning the best-looking, I would need to consider my choices from that angle as well.

That particular Young first killed Ototo (from HtK, though) and then Lynch (though that last shot killed the Young as well) - Dumb Luck Severe while Lynch was at six wounds and he even prevented two. The little Young that could

I don't think that she is a generalist any more than most other Resser Henchmen. In fact, I would argue that she is one of the most specialized Henchmen that the Ressers have. She is fast, has huge Ml range on a big base and is extremely durable: she's a tie-up piece. All of those abilities are important for the role. Her damage and Trigger shutdown are bonuses like, say, Sybelle's Shriek or Mortimer's Ml 7.

For me, the biggest draw of the Young is activation control. Six SS buys you three Activations which is one more than Bayous. They are also rather nasty little buggers when they get to Focus shoot their own guns near Lenny - that 2/6/8 damage track is pretty damn boss and, as a bonus, they won't even die from full wounds unless they get Severe damage. Bayous are of course far more versatile but if you want to kill something, the Youngs are actually not half bad. Cranky, naturally, has utterly abilities and does very hefty damage himself - no denying that, mind.

I'm pretty sure it's Bumpas ses - as is "Bumpas ses dat dis be good, man!" So it preceding everything he writes makes a lot of sense.

You can also find metal blisters of the Young LaCroix. Many Gremlin players don't appreciate them but I like them quite a bit. Still, Old Cranky, as Monsternoggin suggests, is a very fine substitute so I wouldn't say that they are indispensable or anything. In any case: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Malifaux-Outcasts-Young-Lacroix-3-pack-WYR-5057-/121380891322?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c42dd6aba As for what to get, Slop Haulers first and then Somer's box to get Lenny and Bayou Gremlins.

I also like the mechanical take on them but I was hoping something a bit less high tech -looking. I do agree that as far as their stats they look very solid.

An excellent choice! Welcome to the best faction! Once you feel like expanding, Slop Haulers and Bayou Gremlins would be really nice additions. Then you'll have a tournament-worthy force that can tackle any Strategy and give at least as good as they take against any enemy. We have a local player who has just the Lilith box and the Mature and Young Nephilim box and has been happily playing for a year now. Lilith is so insanly versatile that just that very basic crew can hadle anything, really. He did get some Waldgeists lately to add some more staying power.

I don't understand the view that information can be a bad thing. I deeply appreciate release schedules and I also realize that they are projections and deal with the future which is uncertain and things might go wrong. And sure, it sucks when things do go wrong but it really isn't Wyrd's fault (and even if/when it is, what's that to anyone?) and schedules shift. I still always appreciate the information. And I say this as someone who pre-ordered Ironsides (normally I'm not much for pre-ordering but it gave me free postage since I wanted some discounted things from the store).

Gremlins tend to have quite a few annoying Df Triggers as do Arcanists (stuff like Mech Rider (though Stubborn is annoying), Rail Workers, Silent Ones, LSPA, Colette, Ironsides, all the Smoldering Heart stuff (though that's quite minor), The Captain, Mei Feng - the list is long).