Argentbadger

Enforcers of the North (50SS) Game 1: Guild (me) vs Arcanists (Vince) Strategy: Guard the Stash Schemes Pool: Line in the Sand, Assassinate, Cursed Object, Breakthrough, Frame For Murder Guild: Assassinate, Breakthrough (announced), Arcanists: Line in the Sand (announced), Frame For Murder (one of the December Acolytes) Crews Guild: Sonnia Criid (Reincarnation, Cherufe’s Imprint), Malifaux Child, Papa Loco (Hermanos De Armas), Nino Ortega (Hair Trigger), Hunter, Austringer, Death Marshal, 2 Witchling Stalkers Arcanists: Toni Ironsides (Iron Determination, Seize The Day), Cassandra (Smoke and Mirrors), Myranda (Imbued Energies), Angelica, 2 December Acolytes, 2 Union Miners Taking a look at the terrain, I felt that this would be a reasonable place to try some Flame Walls and block off lanes about the place so I took Sonnia and the Malifaux Child. I didn’t give a lot of thought to the rest of the crew, it was pretty much just a selection of the pieces I own (apart from Papa Loco and the Death Marshal of course). I chose Assassinate with the assumption that Ironsides would have to come into me to get anything useful done, and Breakthrough because it didn’t rely on anything from Vince. Vince deployed second, putting his Acolytes right on top of Nino. Turn 1: The Acolytes slow everything in sight (Sonnia, Nino, the Hunter and the Austringer). Cassandra rushes up and Breathed Fire on Papa Loco but can only get weak damage on a straight damage flip with no fate hand left. I dally too long before using Sonnia and Ironsides walks up, charges Nino (killing him off) and uses Rush ‘Em to place in engagement range of Sonnia. This is a bit annoying, so Sonnia stabs Ironsides repeatedly with a flaming sword. Turn 2: Ironsides punches Sonnia a lot, but to my great surprise, not fatally. The Hunter Black Jokers a shot on an Acolyte, which then shoots the Stalker on the right. The left Stalker charges the other Acolyte, fails to achieve anything and is killed for its trouble. The Austringer pushes the Death Marshal into the centre of the group of Acolytes, Cassandra, Angelica and Ironsides. Papa Loco gets out of his box and blows himself up twice (I took care to place him with no line of sight to Sonnia). By this point, Vince has nothing in hand and loses both Acolytes and Cassandra, though annoyingly Ironsides top decks a pair of kings to save herself from all but the last explosion. Needless to say, the Death Marshal doesn’t survive either. One of the Acolytes has Frame For Murder on him, so I concede two VP. Sonnia puts a large amount of damage onto Ironsides. Myranda fails to do much to the surviving Stalker. The Union Miners are standing next to each other dropping millions of markers for Line in the Sand with False Claim. The Child uses Flame Burst to put a little damage onto Angelica. We both score for the strategy. Turn 3: Ironsides and Sonnia trade blows, but crucially Sonnia gets Ironsides down to her Hard to Kill at the end of her activation so that when the killing blow is delivered the Witch Hunter explodes from Inferno, taking both off the table. I score for Assassinate. The Hunter eats one of the Miners. Myranda kills the Stalker and turns into a Cerberus (actually, this is probably the longest I’ve ever seen Myranda stay on the table before doing that). The Austringer takes out Angelica and the last Miner knocks the Hunter down to a single wound. Vince scores on the strategy. Turn 4: The Hunter fails to kill the Miner and Vince cheats in a Red Joker to put burning on it so it will not survive the round. Actually, it doesn’t anyway as the Miner offs the Hunter with his pick anyway. The Austringer finishes the Miner and the Cerberus makes a surprisingly difficult time of eating the Child. Turn 5: I make a really big mistake here. For some reason, I think the Vince only has 4 markers out for Line in the Sand, so even though I win the initiative I let him go first, hoping that he won’t be able to get the leap off or otherwise will somehow fail to kill the Austringer. I would them remove a marker and deny him some points for that scheme (I could do that if I went first, of course, but the Cerberus could simply drop another one if he saw it coming). But there are clearly 5 markers, so it wouldn’t matter. Vince is delighted to get to move first, and sends the Cerberus Leaping over to mangle the Austringer. Thanks to some crazy flips, the Austringer does indeed survive, but can only push out of combat and drop a single Breakthrough marker. Guild lose 5 – 7 (1 for Guard The Stash, 3 for Assassinate and 1 for Breakthrough for me; 2 for Guard The Stash, 2 for Frame For Murder and 3 for Line in the Sand for Vince). It was a very amusing game, and I was particularly glad to play against Ironsides in a tournament, as I really need to be on the receiving end of a crew to get an understanding of what it can do. It was an interesting lesson in placement using Sonnia against Ironsides, and I was amazed by how long my master held up. I was a little annoyed at making such a big and obvious error at the end, but overall, it probably didn’t matter unless I’d gone first, dropped the marker and then somehow baited Vince into killing the Austringer and getting a second one for Finish The Job. Even that would have only resulted in a draw. I was outplayed throughout.

Game 4: Guild (me) vs Resurrectionists (Martin) Strategy: Squatter’s Rights Schemes Pool: Line in the Sand, Assassinate, Bodyguard, Make Them Suffer, Cursed Object Guild: Make Them Suffer, Cursed Object Resurrectionists: Make Them Suffer, Cursed Object Crews Guild: Perdita Ortega (Trick Shooting), Enslaved Nephilim, Nino Ortega (Hair Trigger), Watcher, 2 Hunters, Witchling Stalker, Austringer Resurrectionists: Dr Douglas McMourning (Moonlighting, Plastic Surgery), Flesh Construct, Madame Sybelle (Transfusion, Not Too Banged Up), Zombie Chihuahua, 2 Rotten Belles, Sebastian (Transfusion), Nurse I was torn between Perdita and Sonnia here. On the one hand, Sonnia provides all the killing power I could need in a single piece and would protect me against Belles with the right upgrade. But on the other hand, Perdita can bring the Nephilim to Shackle my pieces around, which is of course helpful for getting onto the markers early. She also cares less about the likely swathes of Hard To Wound floating around. Make Them Suffer went in because I didn’t think I could rely on killing McMourning and Cursed Object seemed like it would be quite easy to score against Flesh Constructs. Turn 1: The two Belles companion and Lure Nino right across the board into the middle of the Resurrectionist crew. He pushes away and takes a shot a Sebastian before his expected death… which doesn’t come (though he is taken down to a single wound quite easily). Sybelle Calls Belle to get one of them further up the board, and the Nurse charges the Flesh Construct to rack up the Poison on it. The Chihuahua puts some Poison on McMourning and Sebastian uses Under Cover to make my life awkward. My own crew advances with the Watcher heading over to take a corner marker. The Austringer makes a Hunter flip the nearest Squat marker. Turn 2: McMourning Expunges the left Hunter into a Flesh Construct, scoring himself a point for Make Them Suffer, and reflips that marker. My other Hunter charges Sybelle to stick some nice damage on her; in return she passes it a Cursed Object and hatful of Poison (I think it reached 19 tokens at one point). The lead Belle takes another Marker and Nino pushes out of combat again and Black Jokers a shot on the Chihuahua. My Watcher flips the end marker and the Stalker puts a Cursed Object in the pocket of the new Flesh Construct, which has moved to engage the Stalker and Austringer. The Nephilim pulls the Austringer out of melee. Perdita guns down the lead Belle (for Make The Suffer) and the Austringer Delivers Orders to make to retake the central marker. The surviving Belle Lures Nino back into melee. I score on the strategy and we both score both schemes. Turn 3: The Hunter polishes off Sybelle and companions to Perdita. She stones for a ram and shoots the Chihuahua, cheating in another ram (to ensure that I’d get the weak damage to kill it with a single shot)… and top deck the Red Joker on damage. Bits of dead(er) dog rain down across the board. Perdita then charges McMourning, mainly to stop him from wandering about and messing with the Squat markers. The Belle Lures the Hunter over and passes another Cursed Object to Nino. He hands her one right back and pushes away. McMourning pushes Sebastian toward the marker on the Watcher’s side of the board and Rancid Transplants the Stalker. In a move made of pure awesome, the Nurse moves toward Perdita and Paralyses her with Take Your Meds, then companions the Flesh Construct who saunters over and Devours her. Beautiful. The Austringer Delivers Orders to the Watcher to pick up another Squat marker. We both score Squatter’s Rights and Cursed Object; I also score for Make Them Suffer. Turn 4: The Stalker passes another Cursed Object to the Flesh Construct and the Belle Lures the Watcher away from the markers. Nino Rapid Fires the Nurse but I forgot she has a defensive trigger to push to safety, which of course she does. The Nurse fails to make the Austringer Take Your Meds. The Nephilim trudges onto the marker recently departed by the Watcher to block Sebastian from taking it too easily. McMourning somehow fails to kill the Hunter and pushes Sebastian toward the Nephilim, which also inexplicably survives. The Hunter finally explodes from some Poison interaction. The Watcher slips away from the Belle to take back the central marker. The Flesh Construct fails to be so agile and can’t get away from the Witchling Stalker and so hands him another Cursed Object. The Austringer uses Deliver Orders to push the Stalker out of melee and interact to remove the condition. But I’m unable to top-deck the required card, and only have one card left in hand (which would have been good enough) so I can’t cheat it in or I’ll let both Constructs reactivate. We both score Squatter’s Rights and Cursed Object. Turn 5: Nino Rapid Fires at McMourning. He hits 3 times, getting him down to 2 wounds on the last shot (triggering Critical Strike)… and I Black Joker the last damage flip to leave McMourning alive. McMourning is able to polish off the Nephilim so the Austringer moves in to body block the marker. Sebastian moves in and flips it anyway since the Austringer has no melee attack with which to engage him. Actually, now that I think about it, I suppose that Sebastian was engaged due to his own melee weapon so he couldn’t have done that, but whatever. The game ends in a draw at 8 – 8 (3 for Squatter’s Rights, 2 for Make Them Suffer and 3 for Cursed Object for me; 2 for Squatter’s Rights and 3 each for both schemes for Martin). Wow, what a close game. I felt that I’d taken enough of a lead when I kept Martin off the strategy for two turns in a row but he came back strongly and right down to the last thing it could have gone either way. This sort of game, where the result isn’t decided until the very end, is absolutely my most fun kind. Martin was a great chap to play against, really strong but a real gentleman too. Also, I tipped my hat to him when his construct ate Perdita… I know it’s a possible thing in the game but it’s hilarious to pull off. So when the results come in, I’m just behind Martin on VP difference, getting myself a nice trophy in the process. Also, our draw was the only possible result to keep David Hamilton out of the trophies so there was plenty of banter about us fixing it! We were well looked after in the evening by the event staff, and I got to complete a personal hobby goal by finally playing Nate at Malifaux. We took a 53 soulstone game, and those who get the joke of this will share our amusement when we noticed part way through turn 1 that Nate had accidentally fielded an extra miniature in his crew to put him over the agreed game size.

Game 3: Guild (me) vs Resurrectionists (David) Strategy: Head Hunter Schemes Pool: Line in the Sand, Breakthrough, Protect Territory, Plant Evidence, Entourage Guild: Protect Territory (announced), Plant Evidence (announced) Resurrectionists: Protect Territory (announced), Breakthrough (announced) Crews Guild: Perdita Ortega (Trick Shooting), Enslaved Nephilim, Watcher, 2 Hunters, Brutal Effigy, 2 Witchling Stalkers, Austringer Resurrectionists: Kirai (Bloody Shears, Absorb Spirit), Lost Love, Onryo, Flesh Construct, Drowned, Shikome, 2 Necropunks I have to admit that I’m not really sure what is useful for Head Hunter, as you need pieces that can actually kill something, but also have to have scheme runners that don’t mind being in the thick of it to pick up the heads. And of course, those scheme runners inevitably end up being the targets for the next round of killing. I suspect that I might have erred a little too much on the side of ‘cheap and numerous’ here, but I figured that Perdita herself should be able to drop at least one enemy model per turn so I just needed to have something around to collect it, and also to avoid letting David maul my own minions too much. I’m not sure what I was expecting to see on the other side, but I guess it was probably not a summoning master who would be just feeding me half-wound models to finish off. The schemes pool also contributed to the scheme-runner heavy crews as it was all about dropping markers to score points; I picked the schemes that involved least movement (we ruled that the huge terrain piece in the middle counted as 2 pieces for Plant Evidence purposes, with the bridge as the split). Overall, a really interesting set up for a game. Turn 1: Everything runs forward. Kirai summons a Drowned, a Shikome and a Seishin. My hand is dreadful so I Hero’s Gamble with Perdita at the start of her activation. She drops the summoned Shikome and wounds the other one, which causes the Ikiryo to appear behind her. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem since she could ignore Incorporeal, but of course this isn’t an option here. Luckily, Hero’s Gamble got me the Red Joker in hand, so Perdita is able to put in a high Mask for Witched Bullet then drop the Red Joker on the poor ghost before it even activates. Turn 2: The Necropunk leaps and collects the first head of the game. The Stalker kills the Seishin and engages the Drowned. On the right, the Necropunk gets the scheme marker train going. The Hunter on the left kills the Necropunk, drawing out the Ikiryo in the process. I was hoping for that since it’s so far from the rest of my crew. Not surprisingly, the Ikiryo mauls the Hunter quite badly. A Stalker kills the second Shikome, and the Effigy picks up a head marker from the first Ikiryo. The Drowned hits a Stalker on the right and the Flesh Construct moves to engage Perdita. By the time Kirai activates David is out of cards so she achieves nothing apart from Swirling the Onryo forward. The second Drowned kills the injured Stalker, then Perdita drops the Flesh Construct and the summoned Drowned. We both score on the strategy. Turn 3: The Necropunk leaps and drops more scheme markers. The Hunter kills the second Drowned. Running out of significant pieces near head markers, Kirai is forced to walk and pick one up herself. My Effigy collects a head marker for my side. Perdita drops the Lost Love, who had moved next to Kirai. Ikiryo has no trouble dealing with the wounded Hunter. We both get a point for Head Hunter. My notes get very sparse at this point as we realised that we would need to hurry along to make it to turn 5. Turn 4: Perdita kills the Onryo, and Kirai puts a couple of wounds on the Hunter I’ve moved in to keep her in place (but I don’t want to hurt her either or I’ll get another shot of the Ikiryo). Most of my stuff moves around dropping scheme markers. Critically, David can’t get anything to pick up a head this turn; I score on the strategy. Turn 5: The Necropunk is decisively blown away by Perdita. Kirai can’t one-shot the Hunter like she’d need in order to walk over and pick up the head. The Effigy collects a fourth head for the Guild. Guild win 10 – 8 (full score for me; 2 for Head Hunter and 3 for each scheme for David). As mentioned in the preamble, this had the makings of a very interesting game and it did not disappoint. The combination of the scheme pool, the strategy and an opponent of David’s calibre meant that this could easily have gone either way right up to the end. The first few turns took a while, and indeed the 30-minutes-to-go warning was called while we were on turn 3. But by that point I’d killed most of Kirai’s crew and the rest of the game went very swiftly.

Game 2: Guild (me) vs Ten Thunders (Peter) Strategy: Reconnoitre Schemes Pool: Line in the Sand, Distract, Plant Explosives, Bodyguard, Spring the Trap Guild: Line in the Sand (announced), Plant Explosives Ten Thunders: Distract, Plant Explosives Crews Guild: Sonnia Criid (Reincarnation), Papa Loco (Hermanos de Armas), 2 Hunters, Death Marshal, Austringer, Witchling Stalker, Watcher Ten Thunders: Lucas McCabe (Badge of Speed, Glowing Sabre, Promises), Dawn Serpent, 2 Tengu, Luna, 3 Guild Hounds, Shadow Effigy I decided to try my strategy for Turf War of killing everything on the other crew so that they don’t have anything to contest table quarters with. I expected a load of easy-to-kill models like Guild Hounds to be running at me so put down Sonnia Criid with the usual package. The Watcher came along so I could attempt to score Line in the Sand, a scheme I’m generally terrible at; I didn’t really fancy anything else in the pool though. I was even worried about Plant Explosives as I was really intending to kill everything… but I had to take something so that seemed reasonable. The big cliff terrain was excellent to play on, but a bit awkward for photography. Most of Peter’s crew is deployed completely out of sight behind various bits of scenery. Turn 1: The Shadow Effigy puts Remember The Mission on a pair of Guild Hounds. Papa Loco gives Sonnia dynamite, moves up through the trees and pulls her in with Cover Me. One of the Hounds moves near to an activated Stalker, dropping a marker at the end of its movement… but ending almost exactly 14″ from Sonnia. I figure that this is my best chance to use Sonnia, so she begins the trail of devastation, first killing the visible Hound and trailing the blasts back across the rest of the crew behind the cliffs while making sure to set everything ablaze for the next action. Two more shots later and two Hounds and the Effigy are dead, McCabe is dismounted and the Dawn Serpent has taken some damage. McCabe leaves his charred horse, Black Flash-es the Dawn Serpent and hands it the Badge. On the right, a Hunter polishes off the final Guild Hound between the Chain Spear and Leap On Chest. The Dawn Serpent comes in and does some nasty damage to Papa Loco, splashing blasts over Sonnia, so the Marshal goes in to tuck the old man safely in his Pine Box. Except I have trash in hand and fail to top deck the 5 needed to do it on either attack. This is looking pretty bad. Peter has a difficult decision to make with the Dawn Serpent. Either he can drop a scheme marker and lock in three VP for Plant Explosives, or he can focus a shot at Papa Loco, probably killing him and doing damage to Sonnia in the process. He opts for the scheme marker. My Austringer pushes the DM and makes him drop a scheme marker near the Dawn Serpent as I’m resigned to only scoring one for Plant Explosives already. The Tengu races over and drops a card to remove my marker. You would think I’d have seen that coming since Peter did exactly the same thing to me at Vapnartak a couple of months ago. The other Tengu Distracts a Hunter. Peter scores his three points for Plant Explosives. Turn 2: I win initiative, and Sonnia vapourises the Dawn Serpent and nearby Tengu. McCabe Distracts the Stalker. One Hunter drops the Tengu on the right, the other drags in Luna, fails to kill her and gets a couple of nibbles for its trouble. I manage to get a scheme marker near McCabe thanks to the Austringer. I score Reconnoitre and one for Plant Explosives; Peter scores Distract. Turn 3: The Hunter shreds Luna. McCabe takes triple defensive stance, and I throw everything I’ve got at him. Eventually, between the Austringer and Sonnia firing into combat (I don’t care if I kill my Stalker, in fact I want it dead to avoid giving up the point for Distract) I kill off McCabe. The Stalker, incredibly, has a single wound left after all this, so the Death Marshal caps him. Guild win 8 – 4 (4 for Reconnoitre, 3 for Line in the Sand and 1 for Plant Explosives for me; 3 for Plant Explosives and 1 for Distract for Peter). That was a highly satisfying win over a good player. Peter is always a gentleman to face across a gaming table, and I hope that he gets some cunning plans to get round Sonnia by the time we next meet up (of course, I’ll have to drop another master on him then). I really need to up my game when facing Plant Explosives as I always seem to score low and give up maximum points on it. After a short lunch break I was paired up with David Hamilton, a great player with whom I’ve shared many a close tournament game.

A group of the Scotland Malifools (Maria, Meech, Alastair and David) made our way down to Durham over the weekend to take part in a new gaming convention organised by the local club. Kings of the North was advertised as a residential gaming weekend, with tournaments being run for a variety of systems. Since the Malifaux events were being organised by Nate Zettle I was very pleased to get enough Wife Points to be able to attend; the other events I’ve attended that Nate has run have been terrific. The events on each day were considered separate, with Quest for the Mojo (45SS) on the Saturday and Enforcers of the North (50SS) on Sunday. I did manage to leave my camera at home (I got it out to charge, then forgot to actually pack it) so the photography is even worse than my usual. Quest for the Mojo (45SS) Game 1: Guild (me) vs Neverborn (Johnny) Strategy: Turf War Schemes Pool: Line in the Sand, Assassinate, Protect Territory, Deliver a Message, Spring the Trap Guild: Protect Territory (announced), Assassinate Neverborn: Spring the Trap, Assassinate Crews Guild: Perdita Ortega (Trick Shooting), Enslaved Nephilim, Nino Ortega (Hair Trigger), 2 Witchling Stalkers, Death Marshal, Austringer, 2 Hunters Neverborn: Jakob Lynch (Endless Hunger, Woke Up With a Hand), Hungering Darkness, Mr Graves, Beckoner, 2 Illuminated, Doppelganger I quite arbitrarily decided that I fancied playing Perdita here, though considering the board and strategy I think that Sonnia with the Malifaux Child and Cherufe’s Imprint could have been fine. My main goal for the weekend was to try to learn what to do with Hunters so they made the choice and the rest of my crew was just a mish-mash of what I have available. Protect Territory is an easy scheme to score and so is a good option for the first game of a day where I’m still trying to get my game running smoothly. Looking at the other schemes I considered Deliver a Message but thought that Lynch could too easily hide himself to avoid giving it up. So I went instead with Assassinate as it isn’t announced so I could try to fake something else if it looked like I would need it. Turn 1: The Doppelganger gets Johnny off to a good start by flipping the Black Joker trying to copy Lure. Nino Rapid Fires quite ineffectually into the Beckoner, who is then pushed forward by Mr Graves. The Nephilim Shackles the Austringer and Perdita forward, then the latter chain activates. She Relocates toward Nino then shows him how shooting is done properly, gunning down the Beckoner before the Lure-train gets going. Hungering Darkness Heeds My Voice to make Nino shoot Perdita. Turn 2: Nino Rapid Fires a few wounds and soulstones out of Hungering Darkness, then Perdita companions and charges, killing the big beast easily. She walks back toward the centre to reduce the possibilities for vengeance. Mr Graves pushes one of the Illuminated forward. Both Illuminated gang up to kill off the Death Marshal at range. One Hunter shoots Lynch and the other shoots an Illuminated; sadly the terrain doesn’t allow the drag to get the target into melee. Both Witchling Stalkers get Shackled forward by the Nephilim. The Doppelganger Mimics Nino’s gun and shoots the Hunter before being charged by a Witchling Stalker for no effect at all. Lynch pings a little damage onto the Stalker by reply while the Austringer and other Stalker fail to hurt the Illuminated. We both score on the strategy. Turn 3: In the centre the first Illuminated and a Stalker maul each other a bit. The Hunter drags in Lynch and Perdita companions and finishes him off; I score Assassinate. Both Stalkers are killed, one by an Illuminated and the other by the Doppelganger Mimic-ing the Hunter. Johnny starts dropping scheme markers that look like he’s going for Spring the Trap so the Nephilim Shackles himself forward, then Shackles Perdita out of range. We both score for Turf War. Turn 4: One Hunter kills an Illuminated; the other fails to make much of an impression on Perdita. The Austringer hurts it, then Perdita finishes the job. Mr Graves swings away at the Hunter, but Johnny has seen enough. Guild win 10 – 2 (full score for me; 2 for Turf War for Johnny). I enjoyed playing against Johnny, he’s really enthusiastic about Malifaux and takes everything with a fun attitude. Unfortunately for him, I know how to take apart a Lynch crew having played Lynch myself many times (though I used Ten Thunders) so I had a big experience advantage over him. Hopefully he’ll continue to come along to tournaments and I’ll get another chance to play Johnny after he has a few more games under his belt.

Great stuff. Maybe you should actually mention the date here? I think it's 10th May. I'll be there.

Zfiend - I really enjoyed painting Nino actually. Especially by comparison to the old metal version, which I really hated. The coat is a bit flat; probably skilled painters would find it frustratingly un-detailed but it was OK for me. I didn't really make any effort with the goggles at all since they're practically invisible during play. The last of my new plastic Witch Hunters (though of course they’re Torch and Blade now) is Samael Hopkins. In Malifaux 1.5 he was a damage output specialist who was incredibly easy to kill. After a fairly good number of games using him with Sonnia Criid and Perdita Ortega in M2E, I would say that he is the same. I have to admit that I’m not really very good at using Sam. His high damage output feels like it ought to be near the front so he can either kill things or deny the area. But his lack of meaningful defense means that this is a (so far) sure-fire way to have the big chap killed. I’ve had a little more luck using him as a bodyguard for Sonnia, but this has been limited for a couple of reasons. First, Sonnia is also quite easy to kill and Sam has no way to actually intercept the attacks other than standing in the way, so often he ends up as a bodyguard standing next to his client’s gently cooling corpse. Secondly, to turn on his melee damage output he really needs his victims to be on fire already, which means sinking even more resources into the bodyguard role; a Witchling Stalker is probably the cheapest way to do the job. The final nail in his coffin is that Sonnia and Perdita (the only Guild masters I’ve played so far in M2E) are also damage specialists and therefore I don’t really need to spend additional soulstones on more of the same. So now I find that I prefer other options over poor neglected Sam. So to make up for the rather negative review of Samael’s in-game performances, I would like to say that I loved painting him. Every part of this miniature has nice detail over it; and he has such a determined look on his face that I can’t help but like his attitude. I was very close to not using red at all on Samael as I felt he deserved a more moody cowboy look, but by the time I picked up the paintbrush I went back to keeping the overall Guild colour scheme. In case anyone hasn’t seen this on the sprue, Sam’s sporran (OK, I know it’s meant to be a mantrap really) comes in more pieces than all three plastic Witchling Stalkers combined.

Nice work. I briefly thought that the blood splatter was meant to be some sort of war-paint on the Tots (which would also have been quite cool), but I like the effect. Looks like Barbaros has been a bit neater with his work. What will you do with Lilith? It seems like the blood splatter will clash a little with her red clothing.

That Cherub looks a lot less cute now! I like the look of where you're going with this, and I can't wait to see a bit of paint on these.

Money down. Start digging out your alarm clock.

In terms of upgrades I agree with Tom Joad that Recalled Training on Izamu is the big one. I don't find that Ten Thunders want to have too much in the way of upgrades anyway as the crews are so good that you want to save your soulstones for more crew. If you want to step outside the thematic crew, Thunder Archers are good for freeing up your scary fighting pieces from being tied up in melee with stuff that doesn't matter. Illuminated become even more ridiculously good when around Toshiro. I've tried Mr Graves a few times to move Izamu forward on turn 1; I don't really feel this is that useful but it is quite amusing sometimes.

I play against a lot of Misaki. So mostly what happens is that Misaki hops across the table, stepping over the charred remains of her crew, and chops Sonnia's stupid head off. Luckily Ancient Runes only gives to the attack duel, which I interpret as not including the damage flip. So it isn't quite as bad as that. I have very little experience playing against Sonnia; in fact I don't think I ever even saw her on a table at any tournament I attended in 2014, let alone played against her in a tournament environment. Still, here are some things that I find I don't want to happen when I'm playing Sonnia: Lots of Hard To Wound, or worse Impossible To Wound (though the latter is quite rare). Sonnia doing only weak damage is a sad Sonnia, though of course this can be mitigated by Focus. Very fast models. Sonnia is not really very good in combat, and even if she's engaged by something that is unlikely to kill her, it stops her from firing Flame Bursts all over the place. Serious sustained ranged threat. Pairs of Freikorps Trappers and Katanaka Snipers are problematic as they can drain my resources or put out damage without really needing much in the way of card pressure. There are also 'harder' counters. An all-Freikorps crew will make life very hard for Sonnia's game plan, and this goes double if you also put in Papa Loco. I'm very wary of playing against Tara as she can mess with Papa Loco while he's buried, and also against Kirai as it seems like it would be hard to stop the Ikiryo from messing you up. However, I have to admit that I haven't played the latter matchup at all yet. However, all this can be played around by the Sonnia player so it's hardly a silver bullet. On the other hand, this is probably the way it needs to be - there shouldn't be a list full of hard counters for other things in the game, and I believe that good positioning and use of AP can be more effective. However, positioning and AP usage is hard to describe over the internet, especially in general terms, so again I'd refer anyone who wants to know how to beat (my version of) Sonnia to the battle reports in which I get beaten.

Sign me up! The last two of these were awesome.

To add to Adran's excellent contribution to the thread, I'd like to share my own experiences with Sonnia. I picked her up at the start of 2015 and have since run her in three tournaments to date (all posted in the battle reports thread). I hope that Bodiless and others can learn from what the players who beat me were able to do, but in general my opinion is that positioning and AP use are the key things in winning games of Malifaux since all masters have their tricks. I do love Papa Loco with Sonnia as it makes her highly effective at doing what she does best. Putting Papa Loco in a Death Marshal's box is not really a problem since I'm going to have to move his slow, self-destructive self upfield some how anyway; I might as well do it in such a way that gives some chance of it happening without blowing up my own crew in the process. I've struggled to get Francisco to work well with Sonnia; my opponents have always seemed able to kill him off without too much difficulty. Indeed, I probably have had more use out of The Judge moving Sonnia about with Stand For Judgement. If I'm really desperate to disengage Sonnia I'm not above using Deliver Orders from an Austringer to push her out of melee range. Mostly I've found that if someone really wants to kill Sonnia then it's very likely to happen. She does most of her damage at the start of a game and is often dead by turn 3. Sometimes using her to devastate a chunk of the other crew at the start of the game has been sufficient to give me enough of an upper hand that I can win; other times I get bogged down or the scheme pools allow the other player to outscore me anyway. I played all of 2014 using Ten Thunders and I've probably had about as good a set of results in the UK tournament scene with Guild so far this year as I did with Ten Thunders last year. Therefore I would say that to me, Guild (or at least Sonnia) are about as powerful as Ten Thunders.

Hurray, I'm looking forward to it already. I am Joe Taylor's second ticket.

I've played a lot of Mei Feng in Ten Thunders, so hopefully I can add to the other responses here. Firstly, to answer your specific questions. 1. I've had a lot of success with Mei Feng on the UK tournament scene playing as Ten Thunders so it would be my opinion that she isn't weak. 2. If you specifically want to bring on the Rail Walk parties then I'd recommend a box of Metal Gamin. They're cheap significant minions who take a fair bit of work to remove. They won't be able to punch their way out of a paper bag, but you're not taking them for fighting. Probably the Rail Golem would also be a good purchase on the 'only benefits Mei Feng' side, but I don't own it so I can't comment (other than that I haven't missed it). There are plenty of other great options in Ten Thunders which are good for Mei Feng, but they're good with all sorts of other crews too. If you search in the battle reports forum for threads started by me you can see plenty of my games using Mei Feng to varying success against some very strong players in the UK. They might give a little context to what works (for me at least) with Mei Feng.

Welcome to Malifaux! Most of the discussion about Scottish Malifaux is on the Facebook group, the Society of Scottish Malifools. If you're not on there already then it is probably worth joining. There are tournaments periodically in Common Grounds Games and 6s2hit; some of us also take trips to events in northern England. Are you the person from the Twisted Toys blog?

I am looking forward to it already. Connor - it'll be great to see you up here again.

Bengt, Sybarite - thanks for the kind words; I'm glad you enjoyed them. Thanks. I am just going to reply to all the bits about the terrain this part since it's spread across the thread and the multiquotes would become unwieldly. I agree that the terrain on the first board was very thin indeed. But as Allan and I both had shooting crews it probably didn't matter too much. And it was actually the bottom table, and Allan was there all day and got the wooden spoon ultimately, so unless he only faced other (better played) shooting crews all day then it probably didn't make much difference. The table for the other two games (which was the top table) was much more interesting. It probably could have stood to have a bit more density, but I really like that it was asymmetric. In almost any other gaming table I see at a tournament, the terrain is pretty similar on both sides, so the flip at the start of the game for who chooses sides and deploys first really only matters for who deploys first. In this case, the winner of the flip had to choose between picking the side with the favourable terrain or seeing the deployment of the other crew. Thanks very much! As mentioned for the first game, Allan isn't very experienced at Malifaux, so you are right that there are better choices than Take Prisoner on Francisco. I'm guess he figured that Francisco would be tricky to kill and likely to end up in melee, therefore making this a reasonable decision. Or maybe he just fancied trying something a bit different. For the second game, I think that David L / Bighammer has covered it all nicely. From my side I had tried to put pressure from all sides on Misaki. As she was the only piece left, David had to send her off toward a corner to score for Power Ritual. It was a pleasure to play against him and there were points where David could easily have taken this; on turn 2 he flipped a black joker on damage against a Witchling Stalker at one point, preventing the push from Next Target and keeping my minion alive to hit back. Regarding the third game, I'll ask David H if he would consider posting his opinion about crew selection, but I have to admit that I wasn't too surprised to see Punk Zombies in the crew. Between Nicodem making them fast and the Nurse speeding them up on turn 1 they were both right in my face when the action started. They're very effective at killing and only give up a single point for Collect The Bounty. Of course, Hanged would normally be a terrific idea in this strategy but Sonnia can make short work of them. Nonetheless, I found it a very satisfying game because it was so close, because we were both in it all the way through, and because David is such a strong opponent that actually beating him for a change feels awesome. Furycat - welcome to the forum. I look forward to you reaching the end of your learning... my young apprentice.

Game 3: Guild (me) vs Resurrectionists (David Hamilton; Davi on the forums) Strategy: Collect the Bounty Schemes Pool: Line in the Sand, Bodyguard, Outflank, Plant Evidence, Breakthrough Guild: Bodyguard (The Judge), Plant Evidence (announced) Resurrectionists: Plant Evidence (announced), Breakthrough (announced) Crews Guild: Sonnia Criid (Reincarnation, Disrupt Magic, Counterspell Aura), Papa Loco (Hermanos de Armas), The Judge, 2 Witchling Stalkers, Death Marshal, Austringer, Brutal Effigy Resurrectionists: Nicodem (Undertaker, Love Thy Master), Necropunk, Rogue Necromancy (Decaying Aura), 2 Punk Zombies, Crooligan, Flesh Construct, Nurse I played David’s Nicodem crew in the final game of the previous tournament and was well beaten. But this time the strategy was about killing things, which I felt was something that I was set up to do well with Sonnia. I put The Judge in for Bodyguard purposes, and with the idea that it might be useful to have both Stand For Judgement and Cover Me as options for moving around out of activation. I was very close to including the Purifying Flame since it wouldn’t give up any stratgey points, but in the end I decided that a bigger cache of soulstones would be helpful. After deciding on Bodyguard (probably a silly choice in this strategy in retrospect) I had to choose between Plant Evidence and Breakthrough; Plant Evidence won because the terrain I was planning on using was rather closer than the line for Breakthrough. Turn 1: The Crooligan uses the Mist, the Nurse puts Uppers on a Punk Zombie (which soon races over to my side of the board near the Crooligan) and moves behind a house after measuring Sonnia’s threat range. Papa Loco does the usual Hold This and Cover Me routine with Sonnia. Nicodem, lacking corpse counters, makes the Flesh Construct, Punk Zombie and Crooligan Fast. The Death Marshal Pine Boxes Papa Loco and Sonnia expends a few Soulstones spreading blasts over the Flesh Construct, Punk Zombie and Crooligan. Turn 2: Sonnia wins initiative and kills off the nearby Flesh Construct, Punk Zombie and Crooligan; a Stalker is summoned from the former. However, because I’m a fool I forgot to use the Brutal Effigy to put Fear Not The Sword on her first. The other Punk Zombie kills my Stalker on the left, while on the right the other one puts some damage onto the Rogue Necromancy and remarkably survives the return attacks. My Austringer’s bird pecks at the Punk Zombie. The Necropunk does leaping and scheme marker things over on the right. Nico uses Decay to heal the Rogue Necromancy and kill off the Stalker, then makes the former Fast. The Judge shoots Nicodem and The Effigy shoots the Punk Zombie so that it will die when the Burning resolves; another Stalker pops out of it. I score on the strategy. Turn 3: The Rogue Necromancy walks then charges The Judge for some nice damage. A nearby Stalker charges Nicodem, flipping the Red Joker on one damage flip and nearly finishing the old chap. More importantly he is now in the Disrupt Magic aura). Nicodem uses Chime of Sorrows to heal himself then focuses an attack on the Judge but Black Jokers it. The Necropunk continues to leap around dropping scheme markers and the Austringer takes a shot at it to minimal effect. The Nurse puts Downers on the Judge; he focuses to hit the Rogue Necromancy but I forgot about the Horror duel which (of course) he fails and gets another bite taken out of him. Sonnia moves round to take a Focussed shot at the pesky Necropunk and ensures it’ll burn to death at the end of the turn. Much of the rest of my crew drop markers. Neither of us managed to kill anything this turn so no scoring on the strategy. Turn 4: The Nurse Paralyses my Stalker near Nicodem, who walks off, heals and makes the Judge Slow, causing the Rogue Necromancy to eat him with Smell Fear. Papa Loco runs up to the Rogue Necromancy to keep it busy. One Stalker un-paralyses the other which then charges in to deal with that Nurse before she caused any more mischief. The Death Marshal follows the trail of markers left by the Necropunk to try and remove some of them. The Austringer moves into range to see Nicodem and then Sonnia has a few attempts to spark flames off him and onto Nicodem. Sadly, my hand is terrible and devoid of the Tomes I would need so I just end up charring the coat of my minion. David scores on Collect the Bounty. Turn 5: Nicodem moves up to make the Rogue Necromancy kill Papa Loco with Smell Fear, then heals it to full after the explosion. One of my Stalkers rushes over to engage it so that the Rogue Necromancy can’t do anything important. After failing the first disengaging attempt, the big beast takes a big bite out of the Stalker. The Austringer knocks a few wounds off Nicodem then Sonnia is finally able to get burning on the old man and finish him off at last (killing the Austringer in the process). The Death Marshal carries on clearing up after the Necropunk. Guild win 5 – 4 (3 for Plant Evidence and 2 for Collect the Bounty for me; 3 for Breakthrough and 1 for Collect the Bounty for David). What a close and fun game. I love it when I get to play games like that where I’m not sure even very close to the end what the result will be. I realised afterward that I could have used Sonnia to move over and remove another scheme marker rather than killing Nicodem but I was conscious that we might have gone another turn and I didn’t want Nicodem at me for another turn if I could help it. I need to get better at remembering that the Brutal Effigy is meant to use its (0) action on Sonnia each time, and not just to be a cheap Minion (though it works well at that too). So after all the scores come in, I’m in first place and receive a lovely voucher that I’ll use next time I’m in the shop. I learned a lot about placement of my miniatures that hopefully I can remember and apply in future games, and of course there are plenty of abilities that I forgot to use (but that is always the way for me). I had three very fun games against Allan, David and David, and I’d like to thank Joe too for running the show.

Game 2: Guild (me) vs Ten Thunders (David Laing; Bighammer on the forums) Strategy: Guard the Stash Schemes Pool: Line in the Sand, Assassinate, Distract, Power Ritual, Deliver a Message Guild: Assassinate, Power Ritual (announced) Ten Thunders: Assassinate, Power Ritual (announced) Crews Guild: Sonnia Criid (Reincarnation), Papa Loco (Hermanos De Armas), Nino Ortega (Hair Trigger), 2 Witchling Stalkers, Death Marshal, Austringer, 2 Guild Hounds, Brutal Effigy Ten Thunders: Misaki (Stalking Bisento, Wings of Wind, Recalled Training), Ototo (Smoke Grenades, Smoke and Shadows), Oiran, 2 Torakage, 2 Samurai (one with Favour of Jigoku, one with Favour of Earth) I’ve been playing a lot against Misaki lately as she is Furycat’s current master of choice. However, I’ve never actually played this strategy, but I figured it was a bit like Turf War and therefore picked a another crew with a high model count. Papa Loco came back in as I wasn’t expected many blast-immune models this time, and the rest of the crew was based on the high strategy of ‘models I have access to’. I didn’t fancy any of the scheme pool too much, but I figured that Misaki would have to come to me if she wanted to do anything and so picked Assassinate (I did consider Deliver a Message on the same basis but didn’t want to pick them both). Power Ritual, while much harder in standard deployment compared to corner or flank deployment, does have the advantage of being scheme that didn’t rely on doing anything with or to the other crew. I made David deploy first and he wisely chose the side with the cover on it; we’d played in the last tournament (link) and David was much more wary of Sonnia’s power this time. Turn 1: Both Torakage drop scheme markers in the corner then disappear in a puff of smoke; one of my Hounds drops a marker in my corner and starts pacing up the board. Papa Loco tells Sonnia to Hold This then moves up the board and brings her to him with Cover Me. The left Samurai (Favour of Jigoku) puts a couple of wounds on Nino. I should have had Nino return fire here but instead the Death Marshal puts Papa Loco in his Pine Box. Misaki pushes the Samurai out of Nino’s line of sight with Wings of Wind and moves far to the right out of sight of just about anything. Nino just moves around for a better shot. Sonnia focuses and starts setting the right Samurai (Favour of Earth) ablaze; any blasts are splashed over Ototo. The Torakage reappear. Turn 2: Sonnia kills of the Earth Samurai and one of the Torakage nearby; she also puts some serious damage onto Ototo in the process. He heals himself up (but is still Enraged) and moves to engage a good chunk of my crew. Nino shoots the Jigoku Samurai down to a single wound and Misaki pops out from her hiding place and charges my rightmost Stalker. She’s foiled by the black joker on one attack, then she ends by Stalking Sonnia Criid. The Stalker moves into range and hits her back. Papa Loco gets out of the Pine Box and the Death Marshal moves around Ototo’s melee range to get close enough to the left Stash for scoring. My crew throws everything they’ve got at Ototo, finally they get him down to Hard to Kill and out of soulstones so he burns to death at the end of the turn and I turn him into a Witchling Stalker. We both score on the strategy. Turn 3: Misaki wins the initiative and is clearly sick of Sonnia’s nonsense. She easily kills the witch hunter, scoring Assassinate in the process and dances off into the middle of my crew laughing. Nino finishes the last Samurai. The Oiran hits my Hound, triggering No Witnesses, so the Hound moves out of the way and the Death Marshal strolls over and kills the Oiran with a fortuitous Red Joker. One Stalker charges the Torakage before being killed in return; the explosion puts the ninja down in a mutual destruction. The Effigy walks over to the right Stash, the other Hound makes a run for the far corner and rest of my crew does their level best to try to hurt Misaki. Turn 4: Misaki charges the Austringer, kills him without fuss, pushes toward the corner with Next Target and drops a scheme marker. The nearest Stalker charges in and puts some more damage onto Misaki, then the other one moves up to within 100 mm of her. Papa Loco throws dynamite at the unengaged Stalker, cheating so that I can get a straight flip and then putting in severe damage to lay the blasts over Misaki and the first Stalker. Misaki survived the dynamite thanks to Bullet Proof but then died when my Stalker exploded. Over in the far corner my Hounds set to do scheme things and in the next turn my Stalker cleans up Misaki’s scheme marker while the Hounds do what the came for. Guild win 10 – 5 (full score for me; 3 for Assassinate, 1 for Power Ritual and 1 for Guard the Stash for David). I really enjoyed playing against David. He’s a really nice chap and he always seems to enjoy learning from his defeats. It was notable how much more he was able to work around my crew this time compared to only a few weeks ago. I was quite happy to remember that I could throw dynamite at my own Witchling Stalker at the end to finish off Misaki; that move was the difference between a win and draw in this game.

This weekend Furycat and I shared a ride with Joe to Common Ground Games in Stirling to play in A Mother’s Fury Malifaux tournament (presumably she is furious because her children are out playing wargames); Joe was the tournament organiser while Furycat and I were playing. In classic style Joe slept in so he was late to his own event. This was a 50SS affair billed as ‘beginner friendly’ which apparently meant fixed-master, slightly longer round times and pre-announced scheme pools. I’m not sure how much of an effect this had as most of the attendees were folks I’d seen at other events, but there was at least one newcomer to the scene. Game 1: Guild (me) vs Outcasts (Allan) Strategy: Reconnoitre Schemes Pool: Line in the Sand, Plant Explosives, Protect Territory, Take Prisoner, Breakthrough Guild: Protect Territory (announced), Breakthrough (announced) Outcasts: Breakthrough (unannounced), Take Prisoner (Francisco Ortega) Crews Guild: Sonnia Criid (Reincarnation), Francisco Ortega (Wade In), Nino Ortega (Hair Trigger), 2 Witchling Stalkers, Death Marshal, Austringer, 2 Guild Hounds Brutal Effigy Outcasts: Von Schill (Engage at Will, Hard and Relentless), Steam Trunk, Freikorps Trapper, 2 Freikorpsmen, Hannah (Spoils of War), Lazarus, Freikorps Librarian I’d been debating in the car on the way to the event whether to play Sonnia or Perdita. I finally settled on Sonnia as I know her fairly well (I’ve only played a handful of games so far with Perdita) but I was concerned about finding myself stuck against a lot of Freikorps models if I came up against an Outcast player. So I knew when Allan announced that he was playing Von Schill that this would not be a game in which I could rely on much help from Sonnia’s blasts since they’re largely immune to them. Considering the schemes and strategies I opted for a fairly high model count crew and figured that probably Allan couldn’t gun them all down before I got some points on the board. Protect Territory and Breakthrough are generally quite straightforward schemes to score on, and crucially don’t require anything of the other player. Turn 1: Most folks just walk forward. I curse the Freikorps Suit rule. Sonnia does Flame Burst a couple of times off Hannah for some fairly paltry damage, but the blasts do remove the Steam Trunk, one of the few targets that was vulnerable to them. Nino shoots Hannah too. Turn 2: A Freikorpsman walks round a lump of rock and shoots at one of my Hounds. Nino puts three bullets into Hannah, dropping her before she had done anything. Lazarus advances and fires ineffectually at Francisco due to the cover. The Freikorpsman on my left shoots one of my Witchling Stalkers, the Death Marshal shoots back and then the Librarian heals him to full anyway. Von Schill shoots at the Effigy, my Hounds gang up to kill the Freikorpsman on the right and everyone else seems to just flail around uselessly. I score on the strategy. Turn 3: Nino Rapid Fires the Librarian to death. Von Schill uses Stand and Shoot, killing both Guild Hounds but missing both the Effigy and Francisco. The latter charges into Lazarus and uses Finesse to weather the retaliation. Lazarus helpfully Black Jokers the Self Repair. One Stalker hits the Trapper who pushes out of melee and shoots the poor little chap. The other Stalker charges the remaining Freikorpsman and they exchange blows; the Freikorpsman will burn to death at the end of the turn. Sonnia moves into range to turn him into a Stalker when this happens. The Death Marshal finishes off the Trapper. I score on the strategy. Turn 4: Von Schill does his Stand and Shoot again, bagging him a Stalker and forcing Allan to cheat low to avoid hitting Lazarus in the back. Francisco kills Lazarus, then Nino and Sonnia join forces to drop Von Schill himself (technically he burns to death at the end of the turn but the effect is the same. The rest of my crew spends this and the next turn dropping scheme markers all over the place. Guild win 10 – 0. That was a fun game, but Allan isn’t very experienced with his Von Schill crew; I believe that mainly he plays Warmachine, and his usual Malifaux fare is Arcanists. By luck his crew was almost the perfect counter for Sonnia but his lack of familiarity with it meant that I was able to capitalise. The board was almost comically sparse but since we were both playing fairly shooty crews it probably didn’t have much of an impact.

Great reads as always, and the captions really add to the flavour. Johan was my favourite though.

Terrific reports, thanks for sharing. And congratulations on finishing first; that last game in particular looked very interesting. I like that you explain the reasoning for scheme and crew choices for each game.

There is also an event on at Common Ground Games in Stirling (link). If you want to get three fun games in against three random folks then come along and join in - the crowd is very friendly. If you're interested enough to come along but don't want to bother with the tournament then probably there will be someone around to run you through a few demo games. Welcome to this wonderful game.