oozeboss

The wisdom has already been imparted here, so it just remains for somebody to do the warm & fuzzy bit. Welcome to this side of The Breach. I played against a Colette crew on Sunday, and they are an excellent choice. Their rules are very characterful, and the miniatures are drop dead gorgeous. Enjoy.

This: [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx99ngfekwo[/ame] The main vocal refrain is sung 104 times. Play it loud & it'll never leave your head.

OK - tournament's done, and (for a change) I'll keep this presentation in bland mode (at least, aesthetically). It was a highly enjoyable day, although it did not run to script. The tournament scorekeeping appears to have spent far too long in The Breach as our club's touring party has already worked out a plethora of wrong placings in a tournament which was supposedly applying KISS principles (wins/ draws/ losses only - not vp's). Not least of which was me: 1 win, 2 losses & a bye should not equate to 4th/ 12 by any stretch of the imagination. But that's bye the bye. I won't bother too much with describing scenery for each round as it was extremely bland & perfectly balanced. There was always three features (usually houses, an occasional forest - balanced by one on the other side, of course) perfectly spaced in front of each deployment zone, plus something big in the middle of the field. It was balanced, fair, and boring. Since we're discussing this in terms of the Neverborn, I propose to merely focus on the performance of Zoraida & lessons learnt, so that others can avoid my mistakes (or emulate my occasional triumph). Round 1 was a 5ss scrap (yes, 5ss - no typo), with a limited range of possible strategies & no schemes. I drew a delightful McMourning player named Geoff, who opted to run 2 dead doggies & a stuffed chihuaha (is there any better state for the loathsome latter?). I ran Zoraida with one Malifaux Raptor (as they were the only things I had under 5 points) & pocketed the extra 2ss. The game was won when we flipped for Strategies. Geoff drew Distract, so he basically had to keep Zoraida out of his half of the board. I drew Escape & Survive, so I basically had to have Zoraida 8"+ away from my deployment zone. Geoff spent an inordinate amount of time & effort using McM & his puppies to search for corpses, and succeeded in raising 3 Flesh Constructs. Eventually the whole lot lumbered forward after The Hag. I kept Zoraida pretty much in my half of the table for the first three turns in order to encourage Geoff forward (saccing teh Raptor to deny Geoff a body), and only used Walk to move tentatively forward. Then 3 quick bursts of Raven were all that I needed to literally fly straight past him - all the way to his deserted baseline. 4 - 0 win, but hardly a performance of guile & genius as much as perfect luck with the strategies. Geoff made one mistake in roaring forward as he did, but I doubt that he really had too much hope in that scenario. Round 2 was a 20ss scrap with random strategy + 1 scheme, and I was faced up against another nice bloke called Drew, who was running Colette. He had 2 Performer/ Mannequin duos, the Gunsmith, and (eventually) all three Mechanical Doves in what was the nicest looking army I faced all day. I ran the Doppla, Convict Gunslinger & 2 Malifaux Raptors, which I ended up using completely illegally. Drew scored Plant Evidence as his Strategy, while I flipped that most unNeverborn of strategies: Supply Wagon. Drew chose & announced Bodyguard as his Scheme (which I then promptly forgot), while I went with Reclaim Malifaux. Essentially we did stuff all to inhibit each other attaining every objective. Drew shot the two birds & I took out one of his Performer/ Mannequin pairs with the 'slinger, before he was taken apart by exploding mechanical doves. Zoraida Ravened the majority of my Scheme requirements so we settled for a 6 - 6 tie. This round ran well past my lunchtime, and being a diabetic, I was off with the fairies by the end of it & my cognitive functioning was basically shot. I stumbled out in to the deserted streets of Sunday arvo Gosford desperately searching for carbs (before I fainted - my knees were literally on the verge of going on me), & despite eventually devouring the worst Maccas meal I have ever tasted, I never really recovered from that episode all day. It was during my set up for Round 3 that I had pointed out to me that the Raptors couldn't claim items in my scheme. So I went to the tournament scribe immediately & had the result amended to a Win for Drew. I can't remember what the name of my opponent was in Round 3, but he'd made an immediate impact the minute we'd all walked in to the shop by opening a huge carry case of entirely black undercoated minis & loudly announcing that he'd now played close on 60 games of Malifaux. "Mate", I'd replied at the time, "that's more than all of us combined". That up front bravado had really put me off - I stopped playing Warhammer tournaments when that type became predominant, but in the end he was quite lovely to play. I was still recovering from the hypo so was nowhere near my most mentally adept. But he was a better player than me anyway. The game was a 30ss scrap, with again one scheme. His Strategy was Deliver A Message, and I can't remember his scheme (although he did achieve it). My Strategy was Claim Jump, and I again chose Reclaim Malifaux as my scheme. My opponent was running Pandora, with a very predictable line up of Kade, Candy, Teddy & some Sorrows. I opted to road test the Hooded Rider, and also ran the 'slinger, Doppla & a couple of Raptors. It was my opponent who pointed out that the Raptors couldn't fulfill my scheme, so we were momentarily delayed while I toddled off & retrospectively conceded my Round 2 game. My opponent had played both of his previous games on our table, and started with his troops in one solid mass advancing on his left flank. With the Raptors now all but useless, I focused on playing out an heroic loss by sending the Dark Rider to grab as many terrain items as possible while everything else scampered to the Claim and attempted to hold on. Zoraida's second activation basically cost me the game. I had created a Voodoo Doll, and sighted in on Teddy in Turn 1, planning to sic Teddy on to Pandy and give her a real boxing lesson. My opponent wouldn't let me, citing Immune To Influence, but conveniently ignoring the adjacent Pandora's nuking of that capability. In the end Pandy & crew lumbered over & achieved everything except their Strategy (nothing catches Zoraida) (unless she allows it). The high point for me was the performance of the Hooded Rider. Charged by Teddy, he basically stood & duked it out (I sacrificed common sense for the sake of an experiment), then being helped by the Doppla's domination of the Initiative flip to finally stick it to the great stuffed beastie when all was on the line. Pandy ended up killing him, as she did almost all of my crew. My opponent was really good at correcting my errors, and I think I now have a far better knowledge & feel for Zoraida as a result of playing him. I didn't learn about his Teddy boo-boo till it was pointed out to me as I was being driven home, and for somebody who knew every nuance of my army to have not known that of his own (and I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt here) was extremely disappointing. I did have problems actually seeing his army. Candy in black undercoat on a black sewer base looks remarkably like Kade in black undercoat on a black sewer base, and his owning almost every possible crew but with none painted beyond generic black is also evidence of the direction of his focus. I think that it should be a requirement of all tournaments for fully painted armies, as I really had basic visual issues with his crew. In the end, this bloke won the tournament, despite being comprehensively smashed (using Pandora again) in Round 4 - on the same table - by a Seamus crew, the player of which ended up with the best record for the day (3 wins/ 1 draw), but second prize. Round 4 was to be a 40ss Brawl. One of the three Seamus players had gone off, leaving a bye for another player, & this had fallen to Tiny. I was set to play another fantastic bloke who was using Leveticus, but a combination of a pounding headache (from the hypo) & a sense that it wasn't right for Tiny to have been such a driving force behind our club going to the tournament in the first place (let alone chauffering a couple of us there) only to get to be a spectator for Round 4 was just plain wrong. So I withdrew, & watched Tiny & the Leveticus dude play out a fantastic advert for our game, culminating in The Funniest Move of the entire tournament to end it. I'll leave it for Tiny to tell that tale. In the end I was credited with coming 4th, which was just patently incorrect (as previously discussed). I got a lot of Hag Lurrrrve out of my day, and despite that damned hypo in the middle, I really enjoyed myself immensely. Lessons: 1) take a supply of sugar, & keep on top of my bloods (which is basic for diabetics, but I didn't this time); 2) read, then reread & know to the nth degree the full range of capabilities of the troops used & all Strategies & Schemes. I learned that Zoraida is Really Fast, and should never be caught. And her casting abilities were never really used that well by me. The Doppleganger is a fantastic offsider for her - I lost 3 Initiative flips all weekend, and soulstoned a win on 2 of them - as well as being (as I've stated in another thread) elegance made pewter. And the Hooded Rider is not only a phenomenal piece of metal, but a very very very useful tool for any Neverborn crew. He's a typical Neverborn paper tiger, but the tiger part has some serious claws. I found the Convict Gunslinger unconvincing, but I probably need to get my head around him a tad more. Rami LaCroix & Hans both stayed in my mini box all day, and may have solved some issues (especially with the Doppla & Voodoo Doll increasing their shot production). The weakness with the 'slinger may well have been my misuse of the Doppla, as having effectively two sets of 'slinger fyre per round could have been decisive. The Malifaux Raptors were too frail, too few, and too sad for words in the context of a Zoraida crew. I can, however, see how potentially game winning they could be for Marcus (their potential to turn anything in to a beast was wasted with The Hag). They'll never return to my Neverborn crews. I find that a full on day sometimes burns me out for a while, so that I turn away from the game in question for at least a while. It may have been the general exuberance of the players yesterday if not this amazing game itself, but I've returned home (sick as a puppy but) fired up with inspirations and ideas for my Neverborn, my terrain projects & for running Malifaux tournaments myself. And of course, Hag Lurrrve flows through my veins like swamp water (and I am the oozeboss, after all). On that basis alone, it was a truly great day. (Thank you for persisting this far.)

Welcome to this side of The Breach. One can never have too many heart broken geishas!

Greetings & Salutations. Good to see another Guilder here - fresh blood, so to speak. :evil:

This rich vein of inspiration is precisely why I play Neverborn! My own Neverborn (and it will ultimately include all Masters) are to be based on a black and white tiled surface which is roiling over the floorboards like ocean waves. So it will be floorboards attached to the base, then the 'waves' created using PVA soaked paper serviettes/ napkins as underlay, followed by cardboard cut out tiles. (The black and white checkerboard patterning will also be the predominant motif on the actual minis.) This will tie in to my two planned playing boards, the theme of which I think of as 'The Big House'. It is basically The Dreamer's 'other' home (his home away from home, per se), and I intend to make it as surreal as I can, all based on a warped version of the black & white checkerboard visual riff. The whole point is that we came to the Neverborn by being caught hanging over the abyss at the very edge of normality, and then, realising that the normal rules need not apply, we simply let go and embraced our freefall in to uninhibited creativity. There is no aesthetic motif that a Neverborn player ever needs to justify. Just basically flaunt! Our's is the freefall of the inspired.

We were discussing these very figures during our 90 minute drive home from a tournament last night, and the consensus of opinion in our vehicle was that we'd rather have existing lines completed than new ones initiated. I hope this thread rapidly achieves irrelevance.

Although it goes completely against the grain for me to march to the beat of the collective drum, I have to go with the flow of the answers on this thread. Freikorps would be an easier option as a first crew, as you can largely focus on getting your head around the mechanics of the game. But Gremlins will be the go if you're up for a far more complex tactical challenge & a lot of laughs. One is a romance, the other a marriage. (I'm going to do up Freikorps as a force for newbs to use in demonstration games. I'll eventually do the Gremlins for my own personal enjoyment.) And welcome to this side of The Breach!

As sensational as this crew looks here - and as cliched as the next part of this oh-so-familiar sentence is going to be - they are even more jaw droppingly beautiful irl. And Tiny has spared no expenses in obtaining an incredibly unique and distinctive set of carrying cases, which so perfectly encapsulates the very definition - nay, the very soul - of any Gremlin crew. Certainly at the tournament today, every player present was drawn irrevocably in to commenting on them. He'll just have to post pics of them, as mere words would do them no justice. :musicus:

The fluff & sheer vision of Collodi is breathtaking, even though he's not all that practical in his own right. Yet. I also see him as a reinforcement of everything I find so intoxicatingly appealing about playing & collecting Neverborn.

Maybe it's because I wear glasses, Ratty, but even in grey - and with me well in to my 50s - I see you, Comrat!

Edited for accessibility. (Appropriate joke not inserted.) :ahhhhh: And as for content of list: * Don't have Pandora; * Lilith is still lying nude in her box, and the playing of undercoated minis alone is an affront to my sensitivities, so bare metal is totally no-go; * The Dreamer is flying towards my place as we squeak (and I know he wasn't suggested, but when he arrives he'll become my main focus for a while); * The Raptors are there for sheer speed (8" 'Walk') & surprise factor, in that they start apart & they're Insignificant, but flock up & they're suddenly Significant. Even with the additional soulstone cost for being from another faction, they are still cheaper than anything wholly Neverborn, so they allow me to build up a decent body count as well. And lastly, the moment my opponent flips some low cards (esp the Black Joker), the birds are in for the kill looking to return that card back to the top of their pack. But their main function will be to use their sheer speed to clean up my schemes. There's a heck of a lot to like about the chooks (imnsho). I'd also like to say that I really enjoy Rathnard's vivid pink script, and enjoy the humour and artistic panache he encompasses to pass on some quite inspiring pieces of wisdom. I have no issues at all with accessibility to his stuff, and would encourage others to adopt similar, more entertaining elements of presentation. A long long time ago I used to post on The UnderEmpire in Warpstone green (as Xh!n Tarat - Ratty will understand), so the artistic side - or maybe just me being a lair - is part of the deal. Sorry if that offends.

Greetings and salutations. This is the night before my first ever Malifaux tournament, and I thought I'd initiate a bit of a rolling commentary, most probably in order that others can learn from my inevitable mistakes. The tournament is to be held in the NSW town of Gosford, and my chauffer (and Malifaux mentor), Tiny, is due to pick me up at (allegedly) 7:00am tomorrow for the 94.6km (or 1hr 31min, according to Whereis) drive north from "The Shire" (the most southerly aspect of the Sydney suburban sprawl) to the Central Coast manifestation of cosmopolitan downtown Malifaux. Details of the tournament can be found at http://www.wargamerau.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=104453 but essentially it's a 4 round escalation, with 3 scraps + 1 brawl. Sadly, the visionary responsible for the wholeshebang won't be present due to other pressing issues (and our thoughts go out to him at this time), but as Colette would say, "Ewwww, there's a ladder in my gussett!" ... erm, sorry ... that should read, "The show must go on!". After initially labelling myself on these pages as "Zoraida's Sugar Daddy", I am finally going to indulge in some sustained Hag Lurrrve. The only figures that I know will play a part in all 4 games are The Hag, the Doll, and my personal fave, Doppla (xoxox) (sorry, that's kinda wyrd, huh?). Having played the grand total of two games of Malifaux to this point (both being quite substantial smashings - with me being the smashee rather than the smasher), I am not exactly holding my breath about my chances, except that I should be 300% more experienced a Malifool by this time tomorrow night than I am right now. (Which probably only means that I'll have less excuses after that.) I have a wyld & eclectic mix of superbly undercoated minis in my knapsack (and their being in their lingerie, painting wise, is precisely why I'll be taking no happy snappies to accompany this fable), some of which - I'm thinking Jack Daw, Bad Juju & Killjoy especially - are there primarily to fool any prospective opponent into thinking me a potential tiger (instead of the tabby cat that I really am). For the 40ss finale, I'm thinking my crew will be: Zoraida (Voodoo Doll ... pretty obviously) Doppleganger Convict 'slinger Hans Rami LaCroix Hooded Rider (& isn't that just one impressive hunk of pewter!!!!!) 4 Malifaux Raptors (obviously using ring-ins) The Grand Master Plan is to combine sheer unadulterated speed with a heavy fire base, but the reality will probably be that I am Victory Points Inna Bun for anybody with even the slightest bit of intelligence &/or experience. Or miniatures. The knowledge of that doesn't diminish in the slightest my rapidly growing sense of excitement at the prospect of my impending Day of the Learning Curve, and on this note (a C flat), I shall sign off here until after the event. (Now where did I leave my pocket Rathnard ....... ?) :masks:masks:masks:masks:masks :hoodedrider:zoraida:hoodedrider :masks:masks:masks:masks:masks :marshmell:marshmell:marshmell:marshmell:marshmell

Thank you for the flowing & absorbing account of what seems like a brilliant game, and you are right in saying that winning through the judicious application of a Black Joker is just the bees' knees! A couple of small points need to be made though. Firstly, paragraphs are your friend. I find it really challenging to read an unbroken stream of small script, & usually don't bother. And you may wish to edit the last couple of lines, because although you state that you won narrowly, your quoted figures say it was a 6 - 5 loss.

A small sleepy boy going, "BOO!". (Everything else seems so ... so ... so ... normal by comparison.) :masks:masks:masks:masks:masks :daydream:teddy:dreamer:stitched:daydream :masks:masks:masks:masks:masks

Yes. But my doctor's going to prescribe something else from now on. (Sorry, couldn't resist ... )

Oi!!! I resemble that remark! (I am thoroughly enjoying the manner in which you keep reaching for ever more outrageous visions, and the intelligent application of deductive processes which are making these Dreams manifest.)

:vb_devil: You are so right - that is Sensational. I've never seen the insidious delight of that possibility discussed in the (admittedly few & far between) Marcus threads. :thcow2::thcow2::thcow2::thcow2::thcow2: :marcus :thcow2::thcow2::thcow2::thcow2::thcow2:

Greetings all, I have found that the attacks of some figures (Marcus & Malifaux Raptors, to name two) result in the target gaining the Beast Characteristic, but I haven't been able to find any definition of said Characteristic in either book. Could somebody please direct me to the appropriate page? And is it a significant adjustment? Many thanks ...

None of the above. Other than focusing on one faction (cos I love the fluff) & a tendency to put strings of games together with a single master, I tend to play on a whim. I don't really care too much about what I'm playing against so much, as focusing on winning games of toy soldiers with the constant interference of the gods of fortune is indicitive of a need to get a life (imo). I'd rather my crew played fast, died young & had a good looking corpse.

Greetings & Salutations. I hope you realise that once you venture through The Breach you'll find it well nigh impossible to return to the land of bland vanilla gaming ever again. Luckily, there's always room for more in the asylum. :dancing2::dancing2::dancing2::dancing2::dancing2:

Good to see another member of the Host of the Neverborn, and an Alice fan to boot. I love your work on the Danish site, and you really should use your avatar from there in the same capacity here. I'll be interested to see where you take this army - I suspect that it's going to be a wyld & wonderous ride. (Funnily enough, I'm rereading Alice at the moment as I plan out my crews & playing boards.)

Ah, love is a warm Doppla! The initiative flips have already been so rightfully lauded. I have her running in a Zoraida crew these daze, and Obey and Raven both transition wonderfully. It means that between the Doppla, the Doll & the Hag, I can cast 3 Obey's per turn. "Dance, dance, dance ... Baby!" I try to include it in every Neverborn list I draft, even if it is an indulgence at times. (And the miniature itself is elegance made pewter.)

... and nicely panted yourself, my man! But all the above praises are apt - the miniature, especially painted as it is, certainly does scream: "Kiss my art!"

:congrats::congrats::congrats::congrats::congrats: Stunning opening gambit, Guilder, and it is a pleasure to see you emerge from the shadows. One can never have too many Guilders around here, son. (They're our most reliable source of protein.)