Argentbadger

Nice work. It's always interesting to see how good painters work, so this kind of WIP photo is great to see. The skin tone on the head is really well done - how many layers do you usually find yourself using to get the desired effect?

Great reports, and great use of pictures. I'm especially impressed that you can do all this by memory; I take notes and still get plenty of stuff wrong. Congratulations on the good result, and especially on winning the prize for best painted crew. Since you and the other more experienced players were using your 'b team', maybe there's not much point in me adding any comment on the games (since you presumably could have simply chosen a stronger crew if needed, and therefore played the game differently) but I will do it anyway. Game 1: I have to admit that the run of luck mentioned is one of several reasons why I dislike these tiny hardcore games - it's highly unlikely that the majority of the deck will be cycled so a run of good cards at the top is disproptionally effective. Similarly, with so few actions going on it's not such a choice about whether to cheat in a good card or hold it for later in the turn. Nonetheless, it seemed that your idea to block Joss out of the action and then keep him paralysed until death was quite reasonable. Game 2: Did you count the river as difficult terrain? If so it would surely have had a big impact on slow pieces like Izamu and Ototo's advance toward you. Overall it seemd like you got off quite lightly between the two of them. Izamu was a clever move on the part of your opponent as he won't give up Bounty points on death, and with Yan Lo he make you suffer through the pain twice. Wings of Wind on Yan Lo is an interesting option as it competes with his other (0) actions which are pretty good, and for only 1SS more he could have the Soul Porter for bigger pushes, more utility and an extra action (and doesn't even give up point for Collect the Bounty). I definitely agree that spending time and AP messing about in your own deployment zone turning everyone into a peon would have been a waste. Anyway, a convincing win for you, and hopefully your opponent enjoyed the opportunity to get some table time with Yan Lo. Game 3: I see that you were experimenting with the currently-active thread about banning pieces ahead of time . You played a brutal game (of which I approve, of course) but I have to admit that I had thought the simpler play would have been to keep the Belles right at the back and use them to continually Lure ZFiend's pieces away from the Stash markers. Another surprise was ZFiend's activation the Librarian and try to save the Strongarm Suit in turn 2, rather than simply using the Suit to beat Tara (or whatever else was required) into paste. A few hits with weak damage of 3 and either trigger could have really made the difference. Your use of the Nurse is really strong, you always seem to get a Paralyse going on an important model at a key time. Do you specifically save up high cards for use with the Nurse? Or do you just wait until the other player's hand is drained before striking? ZFiend - I'm really interested to know why you feel that Hannah is so critical to Von Schill specifically (by which I mean more than other Outcast masters). I can see the simple Freikorps synergy, but it seems to me that she is at least comparably effective with Tara for the extra Bury tricks. Or do you consider Hannah crucial to the play of all Outcast masters?

Put my name down please. I'm already evangelising it.

Admiralvorkraft - thank you! Thanks very much Math Mathonwy! I really enjoy your insights into the games, they're very thought-provoking. Originally the main purpose of these was to help me get better at the game by making myself re-evaluate my errors, and your comments are wonderful for helping me do exactly that. First game - I think you could have told it was going to be a really tough one simply by looking at the name of my opponent . Looking back again, I wonder if the key point of the game was Tara failing to bury Bishop at the start of turn 2 (or more accurately him resisting it successfully, despite Maria's intentions). Turf War / Interference tends to keep people out of the centre, of course, but I was quite surprised by how isolated the two sections of Maria's crew became, with Bishop and Taelor on one side and Johan and the Effigy in the middle. Second game - It was a lot of fun, and Lewis is really improving now that he and his group have ventured into the wider community and gotten more experience against other play-styles. But as mentioned, I like Sonnia pretty well against Pandora so I felt like I had an upper hand even as soon as the lists were revealed. I had originally planned to try out Sidir in all my games (we've previously discussed my hard time getting good results from the Guild henchmen) but as soon as I drew Maria in round one that went out of the window - playing against the best player in the area means you bring your best game or expect a sound beating! I was hoping to use his Sh7 to keep Pandora honest, but of course that never came off. Third game - I felt Joe was actually bit too defensive with the Viks considering the close deployment and scheme pool. We discussed it a bit later in our FB group, but I think that a standard Viks slingshot with Assassinate and Frame For Murder on Vik of Blood would have stood him in much better stead. As it was, the Viks ended up alone and I was able to do a lot of damage in turn 1 which set up the kills in turn 2. I'm not sure that they become relatively less good at high levels of play though; I've been on the wrong end of John Wharton's Viks once and got my crew blended in short order. Maybe you mean that they amplify the difference in skill level between players? My limited experience playing them has suggest that they often either win big or lose big. The terrain on the table for the first game has a funny story. Before the start of the event, Andrew (the TO) and I went round buling out the terrain on the tables to stop them being too sparse - except for some reason we didn't notice that we would have to use that one. So we removed much of the terrain and spread it out across the other tables. When Maria and I arrived at the table we had to hurriedly cobble together what was available. I'll keep an eye out for a post from your tournament on Sunday. Good luck (but remember that Bad Things Happen), and remember your camera!

Very nice report. You've got a great writing style. How do you find the game at these lower points levels? I understand that it is a slow grow league but I wonder if it favours some masters over others. My own experience has been that summoners or direct damage specialists have a rather easier ride than support masters in smaller games.

None of the masters you mention are especially straightforward, but on the other hand, none of them are at the crazy end of complexity. Since you've read all of the wiki, you presumably already have the idea of what they'll do. If you want to see how a master plays in a bit more detail then I would suggest you head for the battle report subforum. There are plenty of games posted up there in various formats and levels of detail to give you some details on specific game interactions. From my own posts, I'd suggest this fixed Master event with McCabe (link), this fixed Master event with Yan Lo (link) and the UK GT where I used both (link); of course, there are masses of others from people's experiences. If you're only picking one master, pick the one you think looks coolest (at least, if you're going to paint the crew). If you're picking two, you might as well pick Yan Lo plus one of the other two so you can choose between them in games once you declare faction. If you're going to buy everything in the game, as is suggested by many posters here, it's probably not important which ones you get first. Welcome to Malifaux.

Game 3: Guild (me) vs Outcasts (Joe) Strategy: Guard The Stash Schemes Pool: Line in the Sand, Assassinate, Bodyguard, Frame For Murder, Cursed Object Guild: Frame For Murder (Hunter with harpoon (on the left in the photos)), Line in the Sand (announced) Outcasts: Frame For Murder (Freikorps Trapper), Assassinate Crews Guild: Perdita Ortega (Trick Shooting), Nino Ortega (Hair Trigger), Enslaved Nephilim, Austringer, 2 Hunters, Watcher, Brutal Effigy, Guardian Outcasts: Viktoria of Ashes (Oathkeeper), Viktoria of Blood (Mark of Shezuul, Oathkeeper), 2 Ronin, Vanessa, Freikorps Trapper, Ama No Zako, Johan A second game against Outcasts today meant that I went with Perdita again in case Joe used a full Freikorps list to stymie Sonnia’s blasts. I have to admit that I was expecting to see Leveticus here, both because Joe has favoured the old chap lately, and because of the futility of scoring Assassinate against him. But Perdita feels like she has decent answers to the Viktorias too, so I was happy to engage in what would probably be a bloodbath, especially with close deployment. Frame For Murder against the Viktorias was a simple choice, and I picked a Hunter to tempt the use of Viktoria of Blood since she was carrying the Mark of Shezuul upgrade. I’m not really sure why I left Assassinate since I reckon that should always be achievable against Viktoria of Ashes, but anyway picked Line in the Sand instead, figuring I’d be spending time on the centreline anyway. I deployed first trying to space my pieces out as much as possible to avoid a first turn Whirlwind taking to much of my crew out; note Joe’s cheeky deployment of the Trapper in melee with Nino. Turn 1: The left Hunter moves up to try to Slow Vik of Blood with its Chain Harpoon, and also make enough of a pest of itself to make Joe want to kill my Frame For Murder target. The other one mauls the Trapper and the Austringer finishes the job (giving up 2 VP for Frame For Murder in the process) and pings a wound off Vanessa. Ama No Zako double moves into melee with the Hunter and Nino, so the Nephilim Shackles Nino out of melee and Perdita forward toward the Brutal Effigy on the hill. Nino Rapid Fires Vanessa, killing her with a Red Joker on the second shot and Viktoria of Blood finally takes the bait and slaughters the Hunter (3 VP to me for Frame For Murder). Viktoria of Ashes, who has clearly had enough nonsense from Austringers in the past, burns Oathkeeper and charges my poor guardsman, easily killing him. Perdita pumps bullets in to Viktoria of Blood, drawing out most of Joe’s Soulstone cache but doing little actual damage, while the Guardian Protects her and swipes a few damage on to Viktoria of Ashes. Turn 2: The Guardian swings a couple more times into Viktoria of Ashes then chain activates to Perdita. She impressively guns down both Viktorias with a single shot each (admittedly top-decking a Red Joker to deal with Viktoria of Blood) and looks around asking ‘Is there no-one else?’. Johan turns the Hunter into a pile of scrap and my Watcher drops the first of many scheme markers on the centreline. In fact, I mis-position it as in my attempts to stay out of sight of the Ronin, I fail to get within 2″ of the Stash marker. The Nephilim pulls Nino out of melee again and he Rapid Fires Johan, finally picking him off with Headshot; I think that this could be the first time I’ve managed to get that to work in M2E. Ama No Zako piles into the middle of my crew. Joe scores for the Strategy. Turn 3: Ama No Zako puts some nasty damage onto Perdita and releases the Miasma of Boils and Flies. Nino shoots a few wounds off the Ronin on the right who saunters over and almost kills the Watcher before moving back to range of the Stash marker with Next Target. The Watcher itself flies over and picks the only possible landing site which is out of melee with the Ronin, out of sight of Ama No Zako (otherwise the Miasma will kill it), close enough to the centreline to drop a scheme marker on it and close enough to the Stash marker to score. The Nephilim pulls Perdita out of melee as she only had 4 wounds and no Soulstones left, so an unlucky flip on the dangerous terrain from Miasma could have killed her. The Brutal Effigy puts Fear Not The Sword and moves away from Ama No Zako, dropping a scheme marker near the left Stash marker. Perdita shoot Ama No Zako (healing a wound and thereby saving herself from dangerous terrain-related death) then charges back in and, along with the Guardian, nearly kill the Oni. We both score for the Strategy. Turn 4: We both have awful hands (my highest is a 6). The Guardian kills Ama No Zako, and both Ronin go defensive. Nino is Shackled into line of sight of the Ronin but achieves little with a Rapid Fire. Perdita moves round the rocks and charges the right Ronin, but misses both shots. We realised soon after that Ronin are disguised so I could have done that, but never mind; I don’t suppose it mattered since I missed anyway. In fact, I should have used Hero’s Gamble and hoped to get a decent card with which to take the final wound from the Ronin. We both score again from Guard The Stash. Turn 5: The Ronin on the right misses Perdita and the one on the left shrugs off a couple of hits from the Guardian to finish the Effigy (which helpfully drops a scheme marker on the centreline for Line in the Sand, not that I needed it by then). Perdita finally kills the pesky Ronin on the right so that this time only I get a point for the Strategy. Guild win 9 – 5 (3 for Guard the Stash, 3 each for my schemes for me; 3 for Guard the Stash and 2 for Frame For Murder for Joe). Every game against Joe is a pleasure, as he is well-known as the Nicest Man in Malifaux. I’m lucky to be able to play him in my regular gaming group weekly too. Overall, the game was the predicted bloodbath. I made a bit of an error not using Hero’s Gamble on my bad hand in turn 4, but otherwise I felt in control of the game. Especially since I got lucky and was able to only give up 2 points for Frame For Murder this time. When the scores are counted up I am delighted to find that I have come in second behind Dave on VP difference. It was a great event which ran smoothly from start to finish. Thanks to Maria, Lewis and Joe for another 3 very fun games of Malifaux and thanks to Andrew for looking after the whole show.

Game 2: Guild (me) vs Neverborn (Lewis) Strategy: Collect The Bounty Schemes Pool: Line in the Sand, Breakthrough, Protect Territory, Take Prisoner, Spring The Trap Guild: Breakthrough (announced), Protect Territory (announced) Neverborn: Breakthrough (unannounced), Take Prisoner (Sidir Alchibal) Crews Guild: Sonnia Criid (Reincarnation), Papa Loco (Hermanos De Armas), 2 Hunters, Sidir Alchibal, Witchling Stalker, Death Marshal, Austringer Neverborn: Pandora (The Box Opens, Cry For Me, Fugue State), Coppelius (On Dreaming Wings), 2 Silurids, Depleted, 2 Illuminated I wasn’t really sure whether Perdita or Sonnia would be the best option here, but in the end I went for Sonnia due to the swathes of damage she can do to either score or set up scoring for Collect The Bounty. Sidir Alchibal is a bit of an unusual choice for me but I decided to try him to see whether I could get any use out of Empty The Magazine to slow the usually-quick Neverborn down a little. I also partly expected Pandora again and thought that between Ruthless and high attack stats he could be useful to deal with the Master. The rest of my crew was divided between the usual Sonnia support team and some minions to give up as few points as possible. The Austringer is useful (also in Reckoning) for knocking the last wound or two off an enemy who has been mauled by one of the big hitters in the crew. Turn 1: Silurids Leap forward and Papa Loco tells Sonnia to ‘Hold This’, pulls her forward with Cover Me and is eventually dropped into the comforting solitude of his Pine Box. One of the Silurids has come a bit too far forward into view and is attacked by the Austringer and Sidir, who uses Empty The Magazine on it and Pandora. Sadly, neither of them are slowed. I have two options with Sonnia. One is to spread some damage out across Lewis’s crew in preparation for finishing them off over the next turns to score for the Strategy. The other is to unleash full power and try to cripple his crew as much as possible, thereby gaining a substantial AP and activation advantage. I choose the latter. Sonnia immolates the Illuminated and Silurid on the right, splashing some small but important damage onto Pandora in the process (and forcing her to burn a couple of Soulstones early). Turn 2: The surviving Silurid Leaps and charges Sonnia, putting a good number of wounds on her. In return, the Stalker charges it, doing healthy damage and lighting it ablaze. Coppelius hits one of the Hunters, and the Austringer knocks the last wound off the Silurid; Sonnia summons a Stalker from it. Sonnia hurts Pandora badly but can’t get the job done properly, so Pandora comes in, Incites a Stalker and puts out a fairly big chunk of damage across my crew with Inflict. Sidir Alchibal charges to box Pandora in and pokes her a little with his sword, and the Hunters start the long process of killing the Depleted while being too scared to attack Coppelius. I score on the Strategy. Turn 3: Pandora forces the Incited Stalker to go first, so it walks over and smites her with its Shattered Rune Blade. She’s not up for much more of that, so casts Inflict a couple more times (causing the summoned Stalker to blow up, which of course causes even more damage to her) and making Sonnia hit herself with Self Loathing. The Hunter kills the Depleted and Coppelius somehow plucks a couple of eyeballs from its metal frame. Sidir kills Pandora, and I summon another Stalker, mainly because I find it amusing to do so from Masters when the opportunity arises. Sonnia launches a couple of desultory fireballs at Coppelius, but doesn’t achieve anything. I score for the Collect The Bounty again. Turn 4: Coppelius moves over and kills Sonnia. One of my Hunters, spotting the Illuminated making a run for Breakthrough, shifts position to line up the drag and pulls the scary chap back away from my deployment zone. My robot tiger gets killed for its trouble, so the other one pulls the Illuminated still further across the board. The rest of my crew run around dropping scheme markers all over the place. Lewis scores for the Strategy. Turn 5: Sidir smacks Coppelius, who heals himself up and produces a couple of Alps from nowhere. The Alps don’t last long as they are killed off by a Witchling Stalker and the Austringer before activating, and meanwhile the Illuminated and Hunter poke each other gently. No-one scores on the strategy (as I had forgotten that Alps are Peons) but Lewis does reveal Take Prisoner on Sidir, scoring 3 VPs for it. Guild win 8 – 4 (2 for Collect The Bounty and 3 each for both schemes for me; 3 for Take Prisoner and 1 for Collect The Bounty for Lewis). This was a very fun game against an opponent who is really learning each time we play. I believe that the idea with the Silurids was to race them in and lock Sonnia up in melee. This would have been a great except that it allowed me to kill the second one for an easy Bounty point and activate Sonnia anyway. Considering the Strategy, I’m not sure that summoning extra Witchling Stalkers was very useful, but I find it highly amusing to do so (doubly so on a Master) so it was worth it in entertainment even if not from a gaming perspective. Similarly, I’m still undecided about whether making early use of Sonnia to thin out enemy crews is useful in turn one of killing Strategies (i.e. this one and Reckoning, also maybe for Head Hunter). It does allow for a solid control of the game to be taken, but comes at the risk of not scoring in subsequent turns.

I seem to have had a very good run of frequent tournament attendance lately, and though this looks likely to drop off a bit as we move into summer, Furycat and I did head along to the latest event at 6s2hit in Edinburgh. This was the bizarrely and very un-catchily named ‘May the 4th has been and gone so this tournament is “Something. Something. Something Fauxside”‘, which I suppose must be a clever reference to some bit of pop culture that passed me by (I get the first part, of course). Anyway, it is an 50SS, 3 round event run by Andrew within a bus-ride distance of my house so I was certainly going to be attending. It was really well attended with 14 players from across Scotland and even a special guest appearance from Connor travelling up from England. Game 1: Guild (me) vs Outcasts (Maria) Strategy: Interference Schemes Pool: Line in the Sand, Bodyguard, Frame For Murder, Power Ritual, Protect Territory Guild: Power Ritual (announced), Protect Territory (announced) Outcasts: Power Ritual (announced), Protect Territory (announced) Crews Guild: Perdita Ortega (Trick Shooting), Enslaved Nephilim, Witchling Stalker, Austringer, 2 Hunters, Watcher, Brutal Effigy, 2 Guild Hounds Outcasts: Tara (Eternal Journey, Obliteration Symbiote, Knowledge of Eternity), Bishop (Scramble), Taelor, Johan, Malifaux Child, 2 Void Wretches, Hodgepodge Effigy Amazingly I had never managed to play against Maria before, and knowing her reputation as an extremely strong player I was really looking forward to this matchup. We’d been joking for a while about this in the Scottish Malifaux FB group, so I suspect that Andrew (the TO) deliberately paired us up in round one while he was shuffling to avoid clubmates playing each other too much. Anyway, against Outcasts I find Sonnia too risky so it was always going to be Perdita here. I focussed on mobile pieces with the hope of simply getting my stuff where it needed to be and then spending AP fighting only if engaged. Hunters are amazing at this strategy with their end-of-turn push to get in or out of engagement, or move into a quarter to control or deny it. Overall though, this had the makings of a fairly stand off-ish game so I picked some schemes that required minimal interaction with the Outcast crew, in case they didn’t feel they needed to come to me. Turn 1: Tara buries Taelor and makes Bishop Fast. The Void Wretch and Watcher drop scheme markers while the other Void Wretch and the Hounds start their long journey to the far corner. Bishop charges a Witchling Stalker I’ve put out in front, easily beating it to death before being dragged in and mauled badly by the waiting Hunter. Taelor is unburied by Tara and races in to start on the Hunter, dropping it to a single wound easily. Perdita gets Shackled across the board and shoots Johan down to his Hard to Kill wound. Turn 2: Tara fails to bury Bishop as Maria’s hand was so good she couldn’t cheat down to stop him passing the Wp test. The hardship! The Hunter polishes off Bishop and takes a bite out of Taelor. Johan moves to hide from Perdita and drops a scheme marker; the Hunter on that side puts a little damage on the Hodgepodge Effigy. The Void Wretches, Guild Hounds and Watcher continue to move around and drop scheme markers, apparently oblivious to the carnage around them. The Austringer’s Raptor pecks a couple more wounds off Taelor before she tires of being the victim and smites the Hunter into scrap. Tara walks across the board to tidy up the score in that quarter as she needed to balance out the Brutal Effigy crossing the centreline. Perdita is shackled back to my left, walks into the forest and pumps a couple of shots into Taelor. I stone for Rams both times to get her to her Hard to Kill wound, but Black Joker the first shot and leave Taelor hanging on with single wound. We both score on the Strategy. Turn 3: Johan smashes the second Hunter and the Austringer finishes off Taelor. The Hodgepodge Effigy kills one of the Hounds but my Effigy misses a Focussed shot at Johan. Lacking for anything useful to do, the Watcher shoots the Hodgepodge Effigy (amazingly, doing some damage) and the surviving Guild Hound attacks it too. The Child finally makes Tara Fast so she races across the board and buries the Brutal Effigy, mainly to get it out of her quarter I suppose. Perdita is yet again Shackled across the board, moves over and guns down both Johan and the Hodgepodge Effigy (I got lucky shooting into melee). We both score for Interference again. Turn 4: Despite all the killing that has gone on, we actually find our crews rather far apart. Tara, running out of options, buries one of the Void Wretches, and is in turn made Fast by the Child. We move our pieces around to optimise positioning for Interference, but with so few options left I am able to stop Maria scoring this round. Perdita also guns down the Malifaux Child since he’s the only viable target and I hate just walking around. Turn 5: My surviving Guild Hound moves to be within 2″ of a pair of scheme markers for Protect Territory. Tara uses her (0) action to be placed in melee with Perdita and the Watcher and takes a few attempts to bury the Brutal Effigy, but thanks to my good hand it stays on the table. The Austringer pushes the Watcher out of melee and it’s clear that Maria has run out of ways to stop me scoring again on the strategy this turn, so we call it there. Guild win 10 – 8 (full score for me; 2 for Interference and 3 each for both schemes for Maria). As anticipated, that was a terrific game against Maria. We spoke a little after the game and agreed that probably the biggest impact on the game was effectively trading Bishop and Taelor for a Hunter and a Witchling Stalker on the left. Setting it up and executing that took up too much of Maria’s resources and eventually the sheer cost of those two pieces (almost half her crew) to not really affect the scoring directly left her with too few options on the strategy in the later turns. My usual strategy of killing as much as possible in the early turns was effective this time; in turns 4 and 5 there just weren’t enough Outcasts left to hold onto their own table quarters, nevermind do anything to mine. The Enslaved Nephilim was amazing in this game, allowing me to Shackle Perdita left and right across the board to deal with threats as needed. Overall, it was a delight to play against a player of Maria’s calibre.

Thanks! You're right, of course. I'm not really very familiar with Hans (I don't own him, and I see him across the table surprisingly rarely), but anyway I suppose we both just treted the Stash markers as terrain and not a marker. It sounds pretty obvious now that you say it. Thanks very much. I think that the one thing that all this shows is how hard it can be to determine the other player's plan even after the game is over and we're talking about it. I'm really impressed with how quickly you've improved in the three games we've had already, and of course it is very much in my interests that you (and everyone else coming to these events) continue to become a stronger player; after all, a game where I almost certainly win (e.g. in this very tournament, the game against Alistair) is far less interesting than one where I have to use every trick I can think of in order to edge a close game. Of course... I'm still trying to win! One nitpick though is that I don't really rate Chiaki highly as a potential carrier of Hidden Agenda. It is really hard to set things up to get a kill with her.

Thanks for the really detailed and thoughtful post. I'm always interested to see how things looked from the other side of the table. I'm cutting the rest of the quote as I pretty much agree with you, but I did want to go into the Breakthrough thing here (sorry if this takes anything out of context, but I think that your paragraphing was very neat). I believe that you were asking too much of your Torakage as it appears that you were relying on them to score Breakthrough, Power Ritual and pick up the two outermost Squat markers. The pair of Torakage (and Misaki, I suppose, until her untimely death) were the only things you didn't throw into the scrum in the centre. So, assuming that I understood your intentions right, the Torakage had to: Drop the first scheme marker in your own corner for Power Ritual Each cross the entire board edge to the far corner (not a small amount of AP even with Shadowstride) Drop another scheme marker for Power Ritual and flip both Squat markers in the neutral corners Kill anything I've sent to do that task, otherwise I'm just going to take back the Squat marker and remove your scheme marker Cross half of the next board edge Drop another scheme marker each for Breaktrhough. For me, this is more than they could achieve with 10 AP even without me trying to stymie your plans. Protect Territory has its own risks of course, but you can spend more AP keeping the Torakage alive rather than moving. Hahaha, thanks . I don't really have a feel for what would be an orthodox crew build for either Sonnia or Perdita (unless you mean taking the thematic approach of all Family or all Witch Hunters). In fact I don't see a lot of Guild at tournaments in general, which was part of why I got back into them anyway after a year or so of playing Ten Thunders. I'd be really interested to read what you would consider to be the commonly seen crew builds? Thanks, probably you're right about the uses of the Henchmen. I certainly don't think that any of the Henchmen are bad by any means, rather it is the case that I'm not great at using them. There will always be an element of personal preference in a game with so many viable options. For example, the rest of Malifaux community seems to be in agreement that McCabe is very strong, but I find him very hard to use well and would rarely choose him for any game unless I'd commited to it for some other reason. It's not that McCabe's not good, but simply that I am not good at using him. And so it is with the Henchmen. That said, I do like the Judge a lot, even though I almost never trigger the additional attacks from his weapons. He's reasonably likely to hit twice, and minimum damage 3 (with the baked in ) is enough to get the job done that I need. I think you've nailed my problem with Francisco neatly there - I probably expect him to be able to take more punishment that he actually can. Even with Finesse he's not too hard to take down with focussed attacks. Maybe I need to use him rather further back to sweep up incoming enemies with his gun first and sword later. Thanks for the nice words. I really like Hunters; the drag and slow on the ranged attack plus the end of turn push give them a lot of utility. 2 versus 1 is just a question of what else I want in a crew I think; I generally don't use them to support each other so 1 Hunter plus 7 soulstones of other useful stuff is just as viable. They basically have no synergy with Perdita or Sonnia (except the ability to survive severe damage plus a burning from Sonnia, which is handy sometimes) but I feel that they stand on their own merits. Turn 1, including the push, the Hunters can be over the halfway line in normal deployment which allows a good set up for turn 2.

Thanks! Our game was great fun, as always. The Pine Box is definitely comfortable - Papa Loco spends much of his time in there. Getting Ototo out of Pine Box is pretty hard without killing the Death Marshal, though I think in our case I didn't even activate the Marshal again before the game ended anyway. Thank you. The terrain was pretty fine for me. Game 1 was also OK, I thought, but anyway I was playing against another shooting crew so probably it didn't matter much. No tournaments this coming weekend though! Thanks, as always, for your very kind and encouraging words. The terrain was busier compared to other recent tournament games, but my experience has been that neither Sonnia nor Perdita are really too bothered by cover. I'm still waiting for ZFiend to post that they wouldn't play against me on such a board though I also find it funny about playing games killing everything first, as one of the things I always say to sell Malifaux to potential new players is 'it isn't only about killing stuff'. All I can say is that has been an effective strategy for me. The trick, of course, is to know when to kill things and when to do whatever else scores points - basically denial versus active scoring. There are reams of pages on this board about various ways to deny your opponent options (Paralyse, make them a Peon, engage them with Izamu or whatever) - I just aim to apply the next level of debuff: dead. My opponents are generally really fine about this (it is a game, after all) and I can only hope that I'm a nice enough opponent that it doesn't upset anyone. There is certainly nothing wrong with the Guild Henchmen, though I don't find them too easy to use for the most part. Sam Hopkins feels redundant as he mainly brings damage which is something I'm not really lacking anyway, and he dies really easily. Francisco brings a really good melee attack (and El Mayor, of course) but I find that I can get a similar bodyguard role by tight positioning and spending those soulstones on something else to achieve my schemes. He also makes Perdita even more vulnerable to blast attacks if you go with the El Mayor thing, and finally I'm terrible at keeping the poor chap alive. Arguably, you could say much the same about the Guardian, and I admit that not totally sold on the big robot either (but the Guardian doesn't have to stay so close, and Df7 with double defensive flips is quite amusing). Overall, I just find that I get better mileage out of having a bigger crew and having a bigger number of meaningful activations. I say meaningful because all my pieces can actually do something, as opposed to just hiring the rat ball and messing around for a dozen AP in turn 1. One of many things I love about Malifaux is that the balance is tight enough that all these options are viable. Lewis played a pretty good game, and Pandora can carry a lot of weight. Actually I feel that Sonnia causes a real uphill struggle for Pandora (I was really expecting to see the Dreamer) so I thought that Lewis did terrifically well considering. But I think you're doing David (Misaki, game 4) a bit of a disservice here too. Analysis of the other side is a really interesting way to put this, though I'm shockingly bad at seeing even simple counterplays to my game until they get done to me. So, with the benefit of hindsight, and without knowing what my opponents could see in the hands, let us try this. Feel free to join in at home if you have anything to add. Game 1: Allan's biggest things to work on are to make use of cover and keep his models within an appropriate range of each other (in particular, the Librarian repeatedly was struggling to keep up with the things she wanted to heal). Allan got fixated on trying to kill Perdita with Von Schill, but he would have been better off ignoring her (or better, tying her down/burying her with Hannah) and killing off the rest of my crew. He also needs to give a bitmore consideration to his schemes, as Cursed Object wasn't even revealed until turn 4 and anyway we both had almost no reason to close up. Game 2: Alistair just didn't really make any attempt to avoid the barrage from Sonnia, he simply marched his crew up without keeping any of them in cover. He would have been better served deploying much closer together and keeping everyone in Kang's aura. This in one of the few cases where a slow advance under double Vent Steam could have been useful (though I have ways around that of course). Game 3: Lewis played a much tighter game. I think he made the right choice taking out the Hunter with Hans in turn 1 (rather than Papa Loco) but I think Teddy would have been better served going for Papa Loco in almost all cases, partly because he can survive the explosion, and partly because Papa Loco has such abysmal Wp that Gobble You Up is almost sure to work. Pandora dithered a little bit, and I think she would have been better served either guaranteeing the Neverborn won the fight around the right Stash, or racing straight into Sonnia and locking her down with her big Ml range. The Silurid should definitely have started in cover; with Leap there was no reason to have it in sight at all. Leaving aside that Mr Tannen had Bodyguard on him, I'm not sure what he would achieve way out on his own on the far right. Game 4: Dave could have easily scored 3 more VP simply by picking the much-easier-to-score Protect Territory over Breakthrough, which he never got close to scoring on. I was a bit surprised that neither Torakage buried themselves on turn 1 as that would have allowed them to unbury much nearer the corners rather than having slog across the board for 3 turns. Yin could have denied me claiming the central Squat marker by activating sooner. I'm not sure it would have made a difference, but I think that having the Lone Swordsman attack the Death Marshal in turn 3 (rather than Perdita) could have given more AP by unleashing Ototo. On the other hand, he did get Perdita so maybe it was worth it. Dave - if you're reading this, what is your take on it? Thanks! I haven't followed the rankings this year (last year I did keep an eye on them as I wanted to be top Ten Thunders) so I'm quite surprised that I'm so high up. As you point out, winning in small tournaments doesn't really affect the rankings, so unless I attend and place highly in a few big events then I'm unlikely to overtake anyone. If I may sound immodest, I would say that this demonstrates that the game is tolerably balanced, and that it is the player who makes the difference . Hahaha, yes, I do often give up points for Frame For Murder (unless it's really telegraphed, in which case I try to tie up with cheap models or Pine Box it). Bodyguard isn't such a strong bet though: the model has to come at least 8" toward me! Thanks for commenting. As Dirial and Math Mathonwy have rightly pointed out already, this is not correct. If this were the case, you would see ridiculous scenarios of single models being left alive and penned in, trying to kill themselves to end the game early. We don't go as far as Math Mathonwy's light-hearted comment about flipping for initiative, of course. The local culture is to just agree what points can be scored and accept that there is no reason that the player wouldn't do so. I guess if there was anything needing flips we'd probably make those too, but it's almost always just saying 'this model moves here and drops a scheme marker, this one moves here and drops another; I score 3 for Breakthrough' or similar.

Game 4: Guild (me) vs Ten Thunders (Dave) Strategy: Guard The Stash Schemes Pool: Line in the Sand, Entourage, Breakthrough, Power Ritual, Protect Territory Guild: Power Ritual (announced), Protect Territory (announced) Ten Thunders: Power Ritual (announced), Breakthrough (announced) Crews Guild: Perdita Ortega (Trick Shooting), Enslaved Nephilim, Austringer, 2 Hunters, Watcher, Guardian, Death Marshal, 2 Guild Hounds Ten Thunders: Misaki (Stalking Bisento, Smoke and Shadows), Ototo, Yin the Penangalan (Smoke Grenades), Chiaki the Neice, Lone Swordman (Recalled Training), 2 Torakage I’ve played Dave at the last couple of tournaments in Scotland and I think he’s getting pretty sick of seeing Sonnia. Since this game wasn’t going to affect the standings (I had such a ludicrous VP difference by this point that losing 10 – 0 and having Lewis win his last game 10 – 0 would still leave me ahead of him) I told Dave up front that I would use Perdita. I had some kind of vague idea about using the big melee range on the Guardian to lock up a couple of Squat markers, but the corner deployment made them rather more spread out than usual. My crew was filled with cheap minions as there would be no particular benefit (apart from activation control) for Dave to kill my stuff. Interestingly, he took a much more elite crew. The board was good to play on, but the huge frontings and narrow streets meant that the photographs are quite useless for anything in the middle. Turn 1: A Guild Hound and both Torakage drop markers in the corners for Power Ritual; I guess Dave wanted a bit of insurance. Misaki Stalks the Hunter. The Austriner plinks a few wounds off Misaki and Perdita ignores cover to knock her down a few more. Turn 2: The centre Hunter moves onto the central Squat marker and shoots Misaki, missing. Perdita chain activates and shoots Miskaki down to a single wound. She speeds away, killing my Watcher then the Death Marshal takes the central marker while bravely hiding behind the Hunter. Yin puts Gnawing Fear on Perdita and Ototo misses the Hunter in a display of the martial prowess for which he is most famous. With the demise of my Watcher, the other Hunter heads for the corner to get the marker and Power Ritual; the Austringer fittingly avenges the poor winged robot by killing Misaki with his Raptor. The Swordsman comes in and knocks a few chunks out of the Guardian, which has Perdita under Protect. Chiaki floats through a wall and takes one of the Squat markers in the house. Neither of us scores on the strategy. Turn 3: The Death Marshal pushes Ototo into a Pine Box and the Lone Swordsman epically kills Perdita; he didn’t even need to use You Shall Not See Another Sunrise to do it. Even with defense 7 and double positive flips I still couldn’t keep her alive. My Guild Hounds and Hunter in the corner drop scheme markers and claim their Squat markers before the Torakage get to them. Yin and Chiaki hurt the Death Marshal but can’t release Ototo. The Hunter, Guardian and Austringer all put a little damage into the Lone Swordsman, finally taking him down by sheer weight of attacks it seems. I score for Squatter’s Rights. Turn 4: This will be the last turn. We both have shocking hands, and agree to show each other. We each have one moderate card, and the other 10 cards between us hold nothing higher than a 5. The Guild Hounds fail to kill their Torakage. The ninja on the other side of the board walks away from the Hunter and drops a marker for Power Ritual. The Austringer drops a scheme marker. Chiaki moves to stop me messing with the Squat marker Dave has already claimed, then Yin tries to leave melee with the Hunter, which has moved round to force a disengaging strike as she goes for the last marker. But I top deck the Red Joker to stop her getting away on the first attempt. Guild win 8 – 3 (2 for Squatter’s Rights and 3 each for both schemes for me; 3 for Power Ritual for Dave). Dave is always a great chap to play against, and I really feel like he’s improving as a player each time we meet. This game was full of ludicrous flips and terrible hands all round, and we both had a good laugh whenever something else went awry. I think Dave made a really interesting choice to go for Perdita with the Lone Swordsman in turn 3. Of course, it worked and stopped Perdita from laying waste to his crew, but I felt that the Death Marshal would have been an easier target, and would also have allowed him the use of Ototo again. The Guardian probably earned its place in the crew. It may be slow but I think it adds an interesting option for Perdita’s defense against some ranged attacks. In normal or close deployment, that 3″ melee range could have been more effective in Squatter’s Rights too. So once the final scores are called, I come in first place. It wasn’t the strongest field ever, but I was happy to get 4 fun games of Malifaux against nice people and I’m really pleased whenever a tournament is run near where I live. Thanks to Allan, Alistair, Lewis and Dave for playing this great game with me, and thanks to Kai and Jamie for running the event. I’m already looking forward to the next one.

Game 3: Guild (me) vs Neverborn (Lewis) Strategy: Guard The Stash Schemes Pool: Line in the Sand, Assassinate, Bodyguard, Plant Explosives, Deliver A Message Guild: Assassinate, Bodyguard (The Judge) Neverborn: Deliver A Message (announced), Bodyguard (Mr Tannen) Crews Guild: Sonnia Criid (Reincarnation), The Judge, Papa Loco (Hermanos De Armas), Death Marshal, Witchling Stalker, Austringer, 2 Hunters, Watcher Neverborn: Pandora (The Box Opens, Fugue State), Depleted, Silurid, Illuminated, Mr Tannen, Teddy, Hans Perdita and Sonnia both have plenty to offer against Neverborn, but I was in the mood for Sonnia and went for her this time. The Judge was included purely for Bodyguard purposes since I can never rely on Papa Loco making the end of any game. This time I couldn’t think of any real use I could get out of the Guardian so left him out. Killing Pandora seemed both necessary and achievable with Sonnia so I also picked Assassinate. Turn 1: Hans Focuses, ignores armour with Reference the Field Guide and cheats in the Red Joker to kill my Hunter with the first activation of the game. Apparently this happened in the first turn of 3 of Lewis’s 4 games today. Papa Loco tells Sonnia to Hold This and moves to hide from Hans behind a forest, and Sonnia then unleashes her Flame Bursts to kill the Silurid obligingly standing in the middle of the deployment zone. She also kills Mr Tannen, who is hiding behind a tree on the right of the picture above, with the blasts. A brawl develops around the Stash on the right, with the Illuminated, Depleted, Hunter and Stalker all involved to little effect. Pandora scoots past, dropping Incite on Hunter as she goes. Teddy moves in and uses his (0) to take an attack on the Death Marshal, who then buries the big monster. The Austringer sends his bird to peck a few wounds of Pandora. Turn 2: Pandora hurts the Austringer and kills the Death Marshal, releasing Teddy. Thanks to Incite I activate the Hunter, which puts some more damage on the Illuminated, though of course it’ll all be regenerated shortly. Teddy Delivers a Message to Sonnia then uses Gobble You Up to attack the Judge and push him away from the Stash on the left. The Judge walks back and pokes Teddy. The Austringer pushes Sonnia out of melee with Pandora, and she shows her appreciation by firing wildly into the combat. The first two shots helpfully randomise onto Pandora (and I cheat the Red Joker on the first), the third lands on the Austringer, killing him but allowing me to put the finishing blast on Pandora (scoring Assassinate for me). Just to rub it in, I turn Pandora into a Witchling Stalker. Hans finds that due to the placement of forests, Stash markers, and his own crew he has no targets to shoot, so has to actually walk before shooting Papa Loco. We both score on the strategy. Turn 3: Teddy Flurries The Judge, but he survives on his Hard To Kill wound. The Hunter, realising that it is getting hammered by the Illuminated sooner or later anyway, kills the Depleted. Predictably, the Illuminated does scrap my robot. Papa Loco moves, tries to blow up himself and Teddy but Lewis is able to flip the face card needed to avoid death by dynamite; Papa Loco himself is left on a single wound. The Judge kills Teddy and uses Stand For Judgment to pull the Stalker to him. The Stalker then moves round to block a shot from Hans. Sonnia walks to the left Stash marker so I can score on the strategy. Turn 4: Hans shoots Papa Loco, hurting Sonnia in the explosion. The Illuminated kills the Stalker, but sadly finds himself in range of Sonnia while on fire. Luckily, this state doesn’t last long, as Sonnia turns him into charcoal, she also puts some light damage onto Hans. The Judge runs for the right Stash and as far from Hans as possible so I can score both Bodyguard and Guard the Stash this turn. Turn 5: Hans shoots Sonnia so she immolates him for his impudence. I score again for the strategy and Bodyguard. Guild win 9 – 4 (4 for Guard the Stash, 3 for Assassinate, 2 for Bodyguard for me; 1 for Guard the Stash and 3 for Deliver a Message for Lewis). That was more like it! Lewis put up a really good fight there and I very much enjoyed our game. Playing against Pandora can be really hard, but Sonnia has the tools to deal with her, either directly thanks to her high Ca value or indirectly by splashing blasts off nearby victims. Ideally these are in the enemy crew but I have no problem targeting my own minions if the situation calls for it. Lewis told me at the end about having Bodyguard on Mr Tannen, who I’d killed in turn 1. I had considered sending my blasts the other way instead (i.e. to get the Depleted) since Mr Tannen didn’t seem so threatening way out on the right, but he’s such a pain that I figured I needed to get him when I could.

Game 2: Guild (me) vs Arcanists (Alistair) Strategy: Collect The Bounty Schemes Pool: Line in the Sand, Distract, Protect Territory, Plant Explosives, Take Prisoner Guild: Line in the Sand (announced), Protect Territory (announced) Arcanists: [i didn’t actually note Alistair’s schemes down] Crews Guild: Sonnia Criid (Reincarnation), Papa Loco (Hermanos De Armas), Brutal Effigy, Death Marshal, Witchling Stalker, Austringer, Hunter, Watcher, Guardian Arcanists: Mei Feng (Price of Progress, Seismic Claws), Kang (Imbued Protection), Emberling, Willie, 2 Steam Arachnids, 2 Rail Workers I decided that Sonnia Criid would be a good bet for Collect The Bounty as in theory she can kill several models in a single activation. The Guardian got the nod again here mainly on the ground of being a minion (and therefore only worth a single point) which is tricky to get rid of. The rest of the crew was also minions so that I could give up as few strategy points as possible, except for Papa Loco of course who was included to turbo charge Sonnia’s spells. Given that my plan was to burn swathes of Alistair’s crew, I picked the only two schemes that didn’t require me to keep anything alive. Turn 1: Papa Loco does his usual routine of handing Sonnia dynamite, pulling her forward with Cover Me and being tucked safely into his Pine Box by the Death Marshal. Willie gets in range to be immolated by Sonnia so she hits him with a couple of moderate damages to start chipping away at a Rail Worker and Mei Feng behind him; Willie himself burns to death at the end of the turn. Probably just as well considering the havoc he can cause. Turn 2: Sonnia notes that Mei Feng is within 14″, so she barbecues her and Rail Worker, and drops Kang to his Hard To Kill wound. Kang charges the Watcher and smashes it with his spade. The Hunter, which has been carefully positioned at 10″ away from the Metal Gamin and Steam Arachnid on the right, puts Slow onto both of them and pulls them closer. This develops into the world’s most disappointing fight as the Witchling Stalker and Emberling also get involved but nothing of significance occurs to anyone. Papa Loco escapes from the Pine Box and puts the final wound into Kang. The Effigy puts the last wound on the Rail Worker who had been softened up by Sonnia in turn 1. I score for the strategy. Turn 3: The Hunter takes out the Arachnid and is killed off by the Gamin in reply. Sonnia kills the other Arachnid, splashing a blast over the Metal Gamin on the left. The Guardian finishes the job, the Stalker kills the Emberling and the Austringer kills off the last Metal Gamin. Guild win 10 – 0. Alistair is a really nice chap, but I could see in his eyes as soon as we were paired up that he didn’t believe he could beat me here… and of course that became a self-fulfilling prophecy. It was a shame, because I think he can be a pretty decent player on his day, but I didn’t really get his best effort. Oh well. Everything worked nicely for me, and indeed I could have done more damage on turn 1 but for the need to keep things alive until turn 2 for the Strategy.

I headed over to Common Ground Games for my first attendance at a Malifaux tournament run by the 2 Guys 1 Paintpot group. I think a modest attendence of about 12 players had been expected but actually there were a few no-shows and the event went ahead with only 8 people. Nevertheless, it was decided to go with the planned 4 rounds. I had finished putting the Guardian together and decided to use it as much as possible and see if I can make it work for me. Game 1: Guild (me) vs Outcasts (Allan) Strategy: Interference Schemes Pool: Line in the Sand, Bodyguard, Breakthrough, Cursed Object, Outflank Guild: Breakthrough (announced), Outflank (announced) Outcasts: Cursed Object, Bodyguard (Freikorps Librarian) Crews Guild: Perdita Ortega (Trick Shooting), Enslaved Nephilim, Nino Ortega (Hair Trigger), Witchling Stalker, Austringer, 2 Hunters, Watcher, Guardian Outcasts: Von Schill (Shirt COmes Off, Engage At Will), Hannah (Ancient Tomes), 2 Freikorpsmen, Freikorps Trapper, Freikorps Librarian, Strongarm Suit, Steam Trunk So for the second event at CGG in a row, I get paired with Allan in the first round. I strongly suspect that he’ll play Von Schill, but even if not there are just too many bad match ups for Sonnia in Outcasts so I choose Perdita. The Guardian looks to add a lot to Perdita to increase the chances of Quick Draw damage against any shooting attacks. I also think that it could be useful to leverage the big melee range to lock pieces down for Interference. With flank deployment and Outflank I pick the Watcher to simply rush a corner and hide to pick me up some points. Breakthrough also feels strong in flank deployment simply because the deployment zones extend so close to the centre. As it happens, Allan does indeed select his lovely Star Wars-themed Von Schill crew. Turn 1: A Hunter hurts the Trapper, who then pushes away and fires a Focussed shot back. Von Schill moves forward and is, to my great surprise, buried by Hannah. Nino Rapid Fires the Strongarm suit which has come tearing up the centre of the big shed, getting a handy Red Joker on one damage flip. Perdita Relocates to Nino, chooses to ignore armour with Trick Shooting and drops both the Strongarm Suit and the Trapper. The Guardian uses Protect on Perdita. Turn 2: The Hunter on the right attacks Von Schill and is chopped to bits in return after the mustachioed hero removes his shirt. Nino Rapid Fires a few more wounds off Von Schill before Hannah buries him to safety again. The Freikorpsman on the left moves up and shoots Perdita, taking damage from Quick Draw for his trouble thanks to Protect. The other Freikorpsman misses the Watcher which moves up to drop a scheme marker for Breakthrough. The surviving Hunter fails to do anything to the first Freikorpsman, so Perdita once more takes things into her own hands. Ignoring armour again, she guns down first Hannah (with some help from the Austringer) and the Steam Trunk. I score for Interference. Turn 3: I flip an ace for Initiative, and Allan flips a 2. I decide it is worth a stone to try again, and flip another ace. Von Schill charges Perdita, but can’t take her down. The Hunter kills the left Freikorpsman and the Librarian heals some of Von Schill’s manly wounds. The Watcher, not fancying it’s chances giving the Freikorpsman another shot at it, flies back to safety behind a building. Perdita pumps bullets into Von Schill and the Guardian finishes him off. The Austringer kills the surviving Freikorpsman and I score again for the strategy. Turn 4: With only the Librarian remaining, Allan doesn’t have many options. She passes the Guardian a Cursed Object and goes Defensive. Perdita kills her anyway and the Guardian removes the Cursed Object. With nothing left to stop me, we agree that I can spend the rest of the game moving and dropping markers for a full score. Guild win 10 – 0. Allan’s a lovely chap to play against, and his game was much improved from our previous meeting (though the score was the same). He needs to focus more on scoring VPs; in particular he only revealed Cursed Object in turn 4 so could only have possibly scored 2 points from it. But his positioning was rather better and he made better use of his AP this time round. From my side, the game was quite one-sided so not much to learn, except that Perdita with Protect on her is quite amusing if anyone shoots her.

Bump. Come along guys, it'll be good.

Thank you for your always nice words. I am limited in terms of my model pool simply because of what I own (and actually, The Judge, Death Marshalls, Guild Hounds, Austringer and Brutal Effigy are borrowed from Joe already). In general I believe that it's probably better to play with a smaller number of options that you understand really well, rather than having access to the whole faction but not having much experience with any of it. As you mentioned, the common opinion in Malifaux is that because you can tailor your crew to each game you should take advantage and make lots of changes. But overall my high-level plan is going to be much the same for each game - kill as much as I can at the start to reduce the options on the other side of the table. The trick is to know when to spend AP on that, and when to spend it specifically doing things that will earn me VPs (as opposed to probably denying them on the other side). The game against Vince (playing Ironsides) was really good, he's lovely man to game with. I always find that, even though I could surely have learned the threat range on Ironsides just by reading her card, I need to have it happen to me before I can understand how to deal with it. And of course, the first game against any master is bound to be tricky as they all have some cool actions available. Thanks Hopefully I'm not replying out of context here, and I'm also including Dirial, Bengt and Math Mathonwy's comments about the terrain. I guess that the relative sparseness of terrain is due to the logistical issues of one person or club owning the relevant amount of terrain. But actually I thought that these boards were OK. There was plenty of line-of-sight blocking terrain which is probably most important against Sonnia and Perdita since they can both ignore the negative flip for cover by various means. And the ice board (arguably the sparsest one) is probably the one where I have the worst record of any board in existence, having lost on it to Ironsides here, Dreamer at Vapnartak (here) and Collodi at Not a Bad Thing (here). Still, I would certainly be interested to know what other people who were actually there thought about the terrain. Thanks Martin. It was an absolute pleasure to play against you. Your Flesh Constructs certainly had quite the tally over the weekend. I think that the Devouring Perdita episode shows the difference between theory and actual gaming (and again, I'm replying to all the subsquent comments from Dirial and Zfiend here, apologies for taking anyone out of context). In theory, Perdita should always have been able to save a high card to avoid the Paralysis (or the Devour depending on your preference), but in practice if I had had such a card in our game I must have felt that I had to use it earlier in the turn to achieve some other goal.

That's a good point. I think that, despite what the popular opinion is on the game, you can actually do pretty well with a fixed list in Malifaux. I don't mean that it would be optimal, but rather that having a dozen models that you know well is better than an arbitrary mish-mash of stuff that you vaguely feel would be right for the schemes based on reading the cards. I play lots of Malifaux and still usually find that I forget important things on the cards, so if you have 3 masters, all the Arcanists and play comparatively infrequently I suppose that you'll get bogged down in all the rules. Your suggestion to pre-plan crews for each strategy seems good. But if you want to get better then the best possible way is going out to play games (which of course you're doing) and being on the receiving end of whatever cool tricks people can do with their crews.

Awesome - I make that the first stretch goal achieved. TO on time... we hold such high standards up here.

Thanks Mark. I think it was only you and Alastair that I hadn't played previously that weekend, but with you not having played in the 4 games from Saturday that made you a very desirable match up so to speak. It would have been nice to play against you; hopefully we'll get the chance some other time. Maybe you could make it up to Stirling for the Scottish GT (link)? The last two have been excellent. I appreciated the support that you and Martin gave at a couple of points in my game against Kai. As you pointed out, it was a potentially tricky situation, and I certainly don't want to be the person who puts a new player off the game forever. If he'd been a grown up I would have had much less sympathy and simply finished the whole thing as quickly and mercilessly as possible. But I can still remember being that age and I am sure that I would not have had the balls to even go to a tournament with a load of grown-ups, never mind suffer some fairly heavy defeats and take it stoically. I hope he carries on playing and gets a bit more maturity and a bitmore experience at the game. Thanks very much, I also enjoyed our game a lot. Hopefully if we play again I can show you a bit of a tougher time; that was probably one of the least effective games I've had with Sonnia! Probably you're right about the Cerberus and the Child; I don't take such detailed notes. I just remembered you flipping double severe damage on a negative flip to kill the Child off and probably mentally equated it with having a hard time to do it (though I think you mentioned after the game that you hadn't remembered Three-Headed either). Thanks for the very kind words. It's funny you mention not being a tournament player as though there is a difference between tournament and non-tournament players. A couple of years ago, before I dived into my first event, I would probably have made the distinction myself. But now I see tournaments simply as opportunities to play games against people I don't see regularly. Some have become my friends already, and others certainly could become friends if I met them often enough. I don't really feel like there is a much of a difference between tournament and non-tournament games. But this is speaking only from my experience in the (North of the) UK scene and perhaps things are different elsewhere. Thanks. That's an interesting comment about my choice of masters. I do generally favour the strategy of killing everything the other crew (it's like the ultimate de-buff) as it almost always hinders them from scoring points. I own four Guild masters. Sonnia Criid and Perdita Ortega I played at the event. I'm really bad at using McCabe, despite how great the rest of the community seems to think he is, so I don't even think of him unless I've specifically committed myself to playing him. Hoffman I only bought very recently and I haven't even finished assembling him yet. Why do you find it sad? Thanks! Good question about the Henchmen actually. The first time (game 4 of Quest For The Mojo, against Martin's Resurrectionists) I just piled stuff into my crew that I either wanted or felt that I needed, and by the time that was done I didn't have room for a Henchman. In that case, swapping (e.g.) a Hunter for the Judge could have allowed me to score a third Make Them Suffer point once Perdita was dead. The second time (game 3 of Enforcers of the North, against Alastair's Ten Thunders) I just plain forgot about the Henchman thing. As it happened, I spent the whole of turns 2 and 3 with the only remaining Minion (the Dawn Serpent) buried so having a Henchman wouldn't have helped. It's something I'll have to bear in mind in future.

Terrific reports as usual. I'm a huge fan of your style of writing, and the captions on each picture are great. You've done a lot of self-analysis in the post already, so I'll only add one thing. I don't think that making a crew immediately upon seeing the scheme pool is actually helpful until you see the board and know the other faction, which I think is something you felt gave your opponents an advantage. Finally, you mentioned that the Viks were not obliged to take a Horror duel that after being placed in melee with Howard Langston (game 4), but Horror duels are also triggered by declaring an attack action.

Thanks Nate for running a great event. I had a really good time. It's good to see the photos you took. My usual post on the games is up and can be found here: link. We were advertising the Scottish GT 2015 so if anyone is interested then they can sign up here: link.

Game 3: Guild (me) vs Ten Thunders (Alastair) Strategy: Stake a Claim Schemes Pool: Line in the Sand, Bodyguard, Breakthrough, Make Them Suffer, Deliver a Message Guild: Make Them Suffer, Breakthrough (announced) Ten Thunders: Breakthrough (announced), Deliver a Message (unannounced) Crews Guild: Perdita Ortega (Trick Shooting), Enslaved Nephilim, Nino Ortega (Hair Trigger), Watcher, 2 Hunters, Austringer, Death Marshal, 2 Guild Hounds Ten Thunders: Lucas McCabe (Elixir of Life, Badge of Speed, Strangemetal Shirt), Luna, Dawn Serpent, Lone Sowrdsman, Yamaziko, Thunder Archer, Oiran I am notoriously bad at Stake a Claim so I went for all the fastest things I could hire, in case I needed them. The Guild Hounds are excellent in Stake a Claim, of course, as is the Watcher. I chose Perdita for a change, since I’d played Sonnia the previous two rounds. She’s an obvious choice for Make Them Suffer, and I went for Breakthrough since it seems to fit the idea of what I was trying to do anyway (i.e. cross the board as quickly as possible). I was not surprised to be facing McCabe considering the scheme pool and strategy, but I was quite surprised not to see any Guild Hounds. Turn 1: Nino Rapid Fires the Archer to death. McCabe Black Flashes the Oiran, passes her the Badge of Speed the misses Nino with his Net Gun. The Oiran Lures my Death Marshal around a bit and is plinked lightly by the Austringer. Perdita and the Hunter are Shackled forward. Perdita then pitches a card to Relocate to him too and opens up on Luna (killing her) and wounding the Oiran. The Hunter finishes the Oiran. Turn 2: McCabe Black Flashes the Dawn Serpent and passes it the Badge. He shoots Perdita, slowing her and Nino. I have a hand full of high crows and sense the opportunity to be cheeky. The Death Marshal charges the Dawn Serpent and pushes it into the Pine Box. The Lone Swordsman rushes over to try and kill off the Death Marshal but has to settle for double walking into melee and is attacked by The Hunter in return. This allows my Hounds on the right to drop Claim markers without fear of being blended by an irate Samurai. Everything shoots McCabe, eventually knocking him off his horse. Dismounted McCabe charges Nino but can’t kill him. I score for the strategy. Turn 3: The Hunter can’t finish off the Lone Swordsman, but the Lone Swordsman Black Jokers his second damage flip against the Death Marshal to leave him alive and the Dawn Serpent still buried. The Austringer and Perdita gang up to kill McCabe, the Death Marshal polishes off the Lone Swordsman and, over on the left, Yamaziko and the Hunter settle down for what looks likely to be a long slap-fest. The rest of my crew drop Claim and scheme markers. I score Stake a Claim. Turn 4: The Hunter and Yamaziko poke each other ineffectually again. The Dawn Serpent is let out of the box (I think Alastair suspected something bad would happen when I didn’t make any attempt to stop this) and killed between the Death Marshal and Perdita. This scores me a point for Make Them Suffer. With only Yamaziko left, stuck in an interminable fight against my Hunter, Alastair is happy to call it. Guild win 9 – 0 (4 for Stake a Claim, 3 for Breakthrough and 2 for Make Them Suffer for me). It seems that I forgot to take one final photo, but it was pretty much identical to the previous one as the Dawn Serpent didn’t last long enough on the table to get its picture taken. I had a lot of fun playing Alastair, and we were able to joke around throughout the game. Probably there’s not much to note from my side on that one since it all went swimmingly. Alastair has a lot of potential, but he owns so many crews that he’s not that familiar with any of them. So the scores are counted up and I’m marked as 3rd. That means nothing though since we messed around with the final round pairings and I could have easily got a tougher opponent than Alastair. Still, 2nd and (a disputable) 3rd are very satisfactory results, and more importantly I played 7 fun games of Malifaux… 8 if you count the game with Nate. I got to acheive my goal of getting familiar with Hunters, and I have to say that I like them a lot. I had a terrific time and I really want to thank all my opponents for playing this wonderful game with me, Nate for organising the tournaments so smoothly, and the event team for looking after us all so well. I should also thank Connor who not only drove David, Maria and me back to the train station, but then drove me back again to the venue since I’d left my miniature case there like the dipstick I am, and then back again to the station.

Game 2: Guild (me) vs Outcasts (Kai) Strategy: Reckoning Schemes Pool: Line in the Sand, Protect Territory, Distract, Outflank, Frame For Murder Guild: Protect Territory (announced), Frame For Murder (one of the Hunters) Outcasts: Protect Territory (announced), Frame For Murder (Freikorps Trapper) Crews Guild: Sonnia Criid (Reincarnation), Papa Loco (Hermanos De Armas), 2 Hunters, Brutal Effigy, Austringer, Death Marshal, 2 Witchling Stalkers Outcasts: Viktoria of Ashes (Sisters in Spirit), Viktoria of Blood (Mark of Shezuul, Sisters in Fury), Killjoy, Convict Gunslinger, Taelor, Freikorps Librarian, Freikorps Trapper On such an open board, with Reckoning as the strategy, it was an easy to choice to use Sonnia again. The rest of the crew consisted mainly of either ‘things to make Sonnia nastier’ or ‘things to block the Viks from getting into Sonnia’. I took Protect Territory as I wanted at least one scheme that was completely under my control, and Frame For Murder because it’s highly likely to get you some points in a game of Reckoning. Turn 1: The Trapper Focuses and shoots Sonnia. The Viks do some movement stuff, then Sonnia gets fully loaded by the Brutal Effigy and Papa Loco, pulled forward by the latter and gets another push from the Austringer. Sonnia unleashes hot fury over the Trapper, Librarian and Viktoria of Blood, being careful not to kill them so I could score points next turn. I was also careful not to get too close to Viktoria of Blood. Turn 2: The Librarian heals the Trapper and Viktoria. Sonnia then vapourises all three of them (conceding three VP for Frame For Murder on the Trapper); Killjoy pops out of Viktoria of Blood. Viktoria of Ashes moves round and find herself in charge range of Killjoy. Kai is extremely young (he’s here with his Dad, Johnny, my first round opponent from day one) and is extremely unhappy about what I’ve done to his crew already. I was going to just let him off with the positioning thing since it isn’t material and she could easily have been out of Killjoy’s range, but Nate chooses this moment to walk past and insists on doing things by the book. There is a considerable amount of dismay expressed by Kai, which was masterfully handled by Nate as he showed Kai what to do. By the time this is over, Kai is so irritated by the whole game and my part in it that I offer to concede the game 10 – 0 to him so we can end it quickly and do something fun instead, but this seems to bring him back to sense and we carry on. The Gunslinger drops a scheme marker and is attacked by the Hunter. I score on the strategy. Turn 3: Taelor easily kills the Hunter (giving me three VP for Frame For Murder). Sonnia immolates Killjoy and puts some damage on Viktoria who is eventually brought down by a Witchling Stalker. Kai concedes and we agree to score it as though the game ended and not have me rack up points for the last two turns. Guild win 8 – 4 (2 for Reckoning, full points for both schemes for me; 3 for Frame For Murder and 1 for Protect Territory for Kai) For the first time in a long time that was a game of Malifaux I didn’t really enjoy so much and was glad to finish. I suppose that Kai felt the same. We spoke again afterwards and I believe that we’re OK now; I tried to give him some advice on the game too, hopefully that will help him in future events. I also spoke with Nate and Johnny in case they wanted to reproach me for any behaviour on my side. This specific episode aside, I’ve got a lot of time for such a young player coming to play against adults in a tournament situation. With a bit more experience he could be quite a force at future events. There were 6 of us on 1 win and 1 loss and I’d already played against 3 of the other 5, so I asked if Nate would shuffle the pairings to give us each an opponent we hadn’t played in any of the preceding 6 games. No-one objected, and Nate duly made the adjustment to pretty much the only permutation that allowed this to work. I figured that since we were all out of the running it wouldn’t matter much who we played. As it happened, I think that the top tables also made a similar arrangement.