Argentbadger

Thanks very much. It was quite a tough field; indeed both Ant and Greg are former UK Masters title holders. I think that game 1 was quite cut and dried; I had a decisive edge over Ant, and while I don't like to consider things as complete until it is certain against such an experienced player, I don't think that he had enough pieces left to come back and take a victory. Game 3 was much more interesting in that regard. By the end of turn 3 I believe I had established a strong position as Nathan had only the Midnight Stalker and Nix left to do much work with... but there was a lot of gaming left to complete. I really like the Graveyard Spirit for Forgotten Path Molly. Being immune to the Black Blood is critical of course; I wouldn't even contemplate hiring it with Forgotten Life. Initially I had the idea that I'd want to activate it early in turn one (in order to waste activations) and then use Molly's (0) action to move it into place to protect her. In practice of course I use Molly's (0) action do something that is actually useful, such as an extra swing out of Izamu. Adding that extra Armour +2 can really change the calculation about what is a viable target for the other crew. Further to that, few opponents seem to actively pack anti-armour tech against Resurrectionists. What do you use the Necrotic Machine for? It's main use (at least for me) seems to be moving your own your crew up with Brethren. But that needs a crow to work and I usually prefer them for Molly herself (if high enough) or to threaten the trigger on the Goryo's (0) action. The latter won't always work, but cheating in a crow to that attack is a sure way to draw a card from the other crew. I would say that getting a couple of decent cards is a reasonable expectation, once you consider Rush of Magic from Anna Lovelace and possibly using a Soulstone for cards too. In game 1 here I got very lucky with a pair of 13s, but on the other hand in game 2 I only had a single high card (though admittedly it was the Red Joker). A bit of variance in turn 1 hands is to be expected and I don't feel that it is too detrimental if I don't have anything good. I'm happy to spend an AP and an 8 of crows to get a Gaki depending on the situation, though of course my preference is for the more expensive models. If I truly have an awful hand then I'd be more likely to spend AP testing my luck on opposed duels such as Sundering or Revelation.

Thanks Graham, I had a top time. Only constructive feedback is that it would help if you were a bit louder to make announcements; you're naturally very quietly spoken and it was sometimes hard to hear calls for last round. I'd be happy with a two-day Vappa. But isn't the show only on the Sunday? As usual, I also wrote about how the games felt from my side of the board; you can read them here:

Game 3: Resurrectionists (me) vs Outcasts (Nathan Chenery) Strategy: Public Executions, close deployment Schemes Pool: Eliminate the Leadership, Search the Ruins, Take One for the Team, Show of Force, Recover Evidence Resurrectionists: Search the Ruins, Show of Force Outcasts: Search the Ruins, Recover Evidence Crews Resurrectionists: Molly Squidpiddge (Forgotten Path, Take Back The Night, Wronged Spirits), Izamu the Armour (Unnerving Aura), Hannah (Unnerving Aura), Anna Lovelace, Onryo, Dead Doxy, Graveyard Spirit Outcasts: Hamelin (Plague Pits, Survivalist, The Piper), Hodgepodge Emissary (Conflux of Plague), Midnight Stalker, Nix (Hollow), Stolen, Obedient Wretch, 3 Malifaux Rats The crew here is the same as when I played a similar scheme pool for Public Executions against Jamie Clark in round 5 at Gaining Force last month. The general plan was to take the centre early and hold it with Hannah (and Izamu if needed for Show of Force) then project damage out as required. Since I was going to be in the middle anyway, I took Search the Ruins too. Molly's general plan to summon in models with few wounds would be a concern in the strategy but my experience has been that eventually a critical momentum builds up and attrition starts to favour the Resurrectionist crew. On the plus side, being unable to charge near Hamelin wasn't going to be a problem since I could just summon next to him instead. Turn 1: Nathan announces Recover Evidence so I choose the models that are in the centre of my crew. The Doxy pushes Molly up and removes the central Plague Pit. Molly summons a Goryo and a Hanged next to Hamelin, killing the Stolen and Rat nearby and hurting Hamelin himself. The Emissary gives the Pretty Floral Bonnet to the Midnight Stalker then Hamelin kills the Hanged before it does anything useful, though there is a significant dent in Hamelin's wounds already thanks to Black Blood. He also summons a pair of Stolen. The rest of our crews move for position. The Obedient Wretch throws rats about the place, eventually summoning a Rat King. Turn 2: Molly summons another Hanged and Goryo. The Goryo kills Hamelin but I forgot that he could sacrifice the Stolen to ignore this. That was a big mistake on my part as I am fairly sure that I could have dropped the Stolen before hitting Hamelin. Hamelin summons another pair of Stolen but stops short of killing the Hanged as he's drowning in Black Blood by this point. Izamu charges the Hodgepodge Effigy, cheats in the Red Joker for damage on the second attack to get it to Hard to Kill then frustratingly flips the Black Joker on damage for the killing blow. More Rat Kings start to appear. Hannah finally kills Hamelin after both Stolen are dropped with a cheeky spray of Black Blood from something; she Makes A New Entry to copy The Swirling Damned from her sister. A Rat Catcher appears from a Rat King and reactivates another Rat King. This one kills the Hanged and starts attacking Izamu. The Midnight Stalker collects Evidence markers. I score for Show of Force but we draw for Public Executions. Turn 3: The first Rat King attacks Izamu, but thanks to Armour and Black Blood they are doing more damage to themselves as to Izamu then turns into a Rat Catcher to avoid giving up an easy kill; the Obedient Wretch comes out to kill Izamu with Bleeding Disease instead since he's sitting on Blighted +9 or something by this point. The Goryo kills the first Rat Catcher and comes back to put down a scheme marker. The Doxy pushes Hannah into range of Nix then puts out another scheme marker. My Onryo goes to hurt the new Rat Catcher and gets beaten up a bit in return, then Molly kills the Rat King and my own Onryo, finally pushing into range to chain activate Hannah. Sadly Hannah does nothing useful to Nix except copy Anna's Vortex to push Nix further back. This turns out to be important because Nix can't then get far enough into the middle to clear Hannah's massive engagement range to put down scheme markers so he just settles for getting close enough to deny Show of Force. Somewhere around here we get the call for last turn, we were both quite surprised at how little we'd got done but the turns were very busy. Anna drops a scheme marker herself then uses the Red Joker to Vortex Nix clear of the centre. The Midnight Stalker collects a third bit of evidence and puts down a scheme marker, and the Hodgepodge Effigy comes steaming round the corner and uses its (0) action to push and put another scheme marker out (in retrospect, this wouldn't have worked as Anna's Clockwork Dress would have stopped the push). I score for the strategy and Show of Force again. I also have three markers out for Search The Ruins and Nathan could only get two. Resurrectionists win 6 - 3 (1 for Public Executions, 3 for Search The Ruins and 2 for Show of Force for me; 3 for Recover Evidence for Nathan). Wow, that was a hell of a game! I was delighted to get to play with Nathan as I've seen him around at tournaments for years but we've somehow just never been drawn together. He was a terrific opponent, a gentleman throughout and the whole game was played with smiles on both sides. I must also admit here that I had underestimated Nathan; I had considered him before in the 'good but not great' category but on this evidence he is a truly strong player of Malifaux. In terms of the game itself, I was happy that Molly was the right Master here as her aggressive playstyle fits the strategy and deployment well. Being able to bombard Hamelin with Black Blood seemed like a fairly effective way to deal with him. I did wonder if Eliminate the Leadership would have been a more suitable scheme to pick but in the end I think it was more of a gamble than those that I actually selected. Flipping the Black Joker on the killing blow against the Hodgepodge Emissary was a crucial moment and that could have lead to a very different result. I would have been very interested to see how the game would have gone on if we had enough time to play the full five turns. I felt that I had the advantage in attrition and could probably have held on to win via strategy points but it would have been extremely close; probably Nathan would disagree. Playing against Hamelin and Nix's Nihilism was the same exercise in frustration as usual. Once all the scores are in I'm delighted to find that I took first place, beating Lewis Phillips by a single point of VP differential and I got a very nice engraved beer glass to bring home with me. As always I had a lovely time meeting friends both old and new. Thanks to Ant, Greg and Nathan for three hard-fought fun games of Malifaux, and of course to Graham for stepping up and running the event this year.

Game 2: Resurrectionists (me) vs Resurrectionists (Greg Piskosz) Strategy: Symbols of Authority, flank deployment Schemes Pool: Punish the Weak, Set Up, Dig Their Graves, Hold up their Forces, Take Prisoner My Resurrectionists: Punish the Weak, Dig Their Graves Greg's Resurrectionists: Punish the Weak, Dig Their Graves Crews My Resurrectionists: Molly Squidpiddge (Forgotten Path, Take Back The Night, Wronged Spirits), Izamu the Armour, Anna Lovelace, Datsue Ba, Onryo, Rotten Belle, Dead Doxy, Graveyard Spirit Greg's Resurrectionists: Reva (Guises of Death, Decaying Aura, Blood Mark), Asura Roten, Anna Lovelace, Lampad (My Little Helper), Rotten Belle, Valedictorian, Necropunk I was a bit concerned going into this match-up. I had intended on playing Spirit Molly since she fits my preferred aggressive style and loves the flank deployment options to get her summoning early and effectively. I decided that I would just be able to ride out giving up points for Punish The Weak and try to deny the other scheme. But when I was paired with Greg, I started worrying that he would counter-pick me very effectively since we've been discussing Molly back and forth over the last few months. In the end, I decided that I'd be best served by playing to my own strengths rather than worrying about what was coming from the other side of the board. The basic plan was to have the Belle, Doxy and Onryo head for the Symbol markers while everything else jumped down Greg's throat as quickly as possible to keep them in a ball. With Asura and Reva on the other side of the board I felt comfortable in taking Punish The Weak and eventually decided that Dig Their Graves was better for my game plan that the other options. Critically, Greg didn't take the Litany of the Fallen upgrade on Reva that would have let her ignore armour. Turn 1: I have an awful hand; even after using a Soulstone I have the Red Joker and then my highest card is seven. Asura summons a Mindless Zombie which Datsue Ba turns into and Onryo (mistake here, I think that a Gaki would have been a better call); she also order Izamu to move forward. Greg's Anna nearly kills the Onryo, getting the trigger to summon another Mindless Zombie which then annoyingly finishes off my Onryo. So we've both spent several activations and the only upshot is that there is an extra corpse maker in the middle of the board. The Belle, Necropunk and Onryo all start the long slogs out toward Symbol markers on the corners. The Doxy pushes Molly forward and she moves up aggressively to summon a Goryo in the middle of Greg's crew. I chose a Goryo over a Hanged even though I had the card for the latter since the bigger base meant I could get more wounds on it. Greg's Belle Slows Izamu to stop me charging him into the fray and the Valedictorian uses Lecture Notes to turn off Molly's triggers. Oh dear. The Graveyard Spirit moves to cuddle up to Molly and Izamu and makes Greg discard a card. This turned out to be critical as I dropped a weak card myself and forced Greg to use a card he'd been relying on having access to for the rest of his cunning plan. The Lampad misses a shot at the Graveyard Spirit and my Anna pushes him and Asura back. Reva summons a Corpse Candle, attacks Molly once and realises that she's not going to achieve anything with so much Armour on Molly. We discussed this after the game and think that he was probably in range to just kill the Graveyard Spirit with the first attack which would have opened the game up a lot more. Instead, Reva turns a nearby corpse into a scheme marker then kills the Goryo for Dig Their Graves. At least it got to splash a bit of Black Blood over her. Turn 2: Molly summons another Goryo and a Drowned, then kills a nearby Corpse Candle for Punish The Weak. The Goryo hurts Reva, Slowing her, but not enough to stop he from easily dispatching the Drowned for Punish The Weak. This does helpfully leave a scheme marker in the middle of Greg's crew for future attempts at Dig Their Graves. My Anna kills the Lampad, then the Necropunk Leaps over to pick up my first Symbol. Eventually, the Doxy puts down a scheme markers, pushes the Necropunk up to Pounce on it (applying Confused Feelings in the process) and despite all that it still takes the attentions of Datsue Ba and my Onryo to kill it for Dig Their Graves. The Grave Spirit pokes Izamu to kill off another Corpse Candle to clear his way. Asura and a horde of Zombies pile Grasping Hands onto Izamu but he is still able to drop the Mindless Zombie engaging him and charge Reva, killing her and allowing me to breathe a big sigh of relief. In return the Valedictorian kills the Goryo for Punish the Weak but she's feeling a bit hurt due to the sea of Black Blood that's been sprayed over her. My Belle can't quite make it to the Symbol on the right so she hides behind it instead. Greg scores for the strategy. Turn 3: Molly kills a Mindless Zombie for Punish The Weak, then puts Whispered Secret on the Valedictorian and kills her with a lucky Red Joker on damage. This also scores me Dig Their Graves thanks to the scheme marker left behind by the Drowned. Quite a good activation, so Izamu chain activates and shows how it is not done by failing to hit the Belle on three attempts. She Slows him in return. Mindless Zombies put Grasping Hands on my Anna, then Greg's Anna makes a break for a Symbol marker as she's the only thing he has that is likely to reach them. My Anna pushes away a Zombie engaging her, then charges her doppelganger. This doesn't have any effect but it does make it very hard for Greg to get to the marker. My Belle finally takes Greg's first Symbol marker. I score for Symbols of Authority. We look at the board state and agree that it is unlikey for Greg to get anything else out of the game, nor for him to stop me from getting all my points so we call it there rather than playing out the inevitable. My Resurrectionists win 10 - 4 (full score for me; 1 for Symbols of Authority, 2 for Dig Their Graves and 1 for Punish The Weak for Greg). What a tight game. I really love to play Greg because he looks at the board state and acts in a completely different way to me. He's very good at attacking from angles that I just don't see (probably because I'm focusing on a more direct play) and as such I have to be on my guard for every activation. Of course, he is also a very friendly and fun gentleman to play against so in that regard is surely one of my favourite opponents. The game hinged on my being able to keep Molly alive and pressure Reva and the Valedictorian with summons. When Molly survived turn 1 and I got initiative in turn 2 I felt that I had enough power to just attrition my way through the game. Killing the Necropunk early was also important because it was the only thing in Greg's crew that was really suited to collecting my Symbol markers. I believe that Greg's plan was to use Reva's sheer damage output to cripple my crew early then pick up any point he could after all my pieces were dead.

Joe drove Gareth, Mike and me down to York for our fifth Vappa in a row. I have a soft spot for Vappafaux as it's been quite a happy hunting ground for me and indeed gave me my first big tournament win back in 2014. The locals and other travellers are always most welcoming and the standard of play has always seemed quite high in general. After a colossal pie dinner and beer on the Saturday night we rocked up to York Racecourse (not getting lost on the way for the first time ever) early and ready to roll. First round pairings put me with the mighty Ant Hoult, so no chance of a nice easy run into game one. Game 1: Resurrectionists (me) vs Outcasts (Ant Hoult) Strategy: Supply Wagon, corner deployment Schemes Pool: Guarded Treasure, Inescapable Trap, Undercover Entourage, Public Demonstration, Vendetta Resurrectionists: Public Demonstration (all three Shieldbearers), Vendetta (Rotten Belle on Bandido) Outcasts: Inescapable Trap, Undercover Entourage (Parker Barrows) Crews Resurrectionists: Kirai Ankoku (Wronged Spirits, Unforgiven, Maniacal Laugh), Asura Roten, Anna Lovelace, Rotten Belle, Dead Doxy, 3 Shieldbearers Outcasts: Parker Barrows (Coordinated Heist, Oathkeeper, Stick Up), Mad Dog Brackett (Lucky Poncho, Oathkeeper), Sue (Oathkeeper), Wokou Raider, Bandido, Hodgepodge Emissary (Conflux of Stolen Goods) [note that this was proxied with Ant's Carrion Emissary], Doc Mitchell I picked this crew in a fairly back-to-front way. I was looking for something that could efficiently push the Wagon and settled on Asura as she has a big base (so can push it further) and doesn't really do much with her own AP. Since I was taking Asura, it made sense to take the Maniacal Laugh upgrade so that there would be plenty of Mindless Zombies to make use of her abilities. Then, as I was going to do that, I took Kirai because I like her with that upgrade. I got the idea of using Mindless Zombies for Kirai's summoning from the excellent Dave Laing and liked it well, especially with Asura. Anna got into the crew simply because she brings so many solutions to problems and I love to play her. The Belle acts as a spare battery of wounds for Kirai's summoning and the Doxy is to make sure that I get Kirai into a relevant part of the board at the start; this is especially important in corner deployment. The Shieldbearers work well for Public Demonstration since they are quite mobile and it is very easy to get them Fast for turn 2 by using a Soulstone for Kirai to summon something. Having taken the Belle I thought it would be rude not to abuse her huge range for Vendetta. Turn 1: Almost the whole of Ant's crew take a move forward thanks to Coordinated Heist. Sue pushes the wagon forward, and Asura pushes mine and summons a Mindless Zombie. The Emissary gives Sue the Vitality potion and some other upgrade to the Bandido, then immediately takes the latter back to draw cards. Finally, it drops one of my scheme markers to let the Wokou Raider move up. My Doxy pushes Kirai forward with Take The Lead, then moves my wagon. Parker discards Stick Up, moves the Bandido, uses Five Finger Discount to attach Black Market and makes the Bandido push the wagon. Finally he guns down the Mindless Zombie and gets Ikiryo in the middle of his crew for his troubles. My Shieldbearers all move up to end within 6" of Kirai. The Wokou Raider kills Ikiryo; I'm not sure whether the impact on Ant's AP use was more effective than just using Ikiryo to start attacking something. Mad Dog moves up and puts a Blow It To Hell marker in the middle of the board and Doc Mitchell heals Sue. The Belle, unable to see the Bandido, moves my Wagon and Kirai summons a pair of Hanged from the Doxy (I couldn't use the Belle since I needed her for Vendetta) which float forward to get in the way next turn. The use of Soulstones makes all three Shieldbearers Fast. Turn 2: Parker uses Oathkeeper, Focusses then Black Jokers damage on the Hanged. This frustrates Ant immensely (chatting before the game he'd mentioned that flipping the Black Joker on Parker's activation is tantamount to suicide) and he almost concedes there and then. Fortunately we agree to continue playing, but this does end up eating quite a chunk of the round time. Parker then uses Five Finger Discount to attach Stick Up and uses Black Market to make the Bandido push the Wagon. The Hanged breathes a sigh of relief and does Whispers From Beyond on the Hodgepodge Emissary. In turn, it cycles another trinket to the Bandido and pulls it back for cards then kills the other Hanged. Ikiryo comes out and misses the Emissary, then disappears again as I was hoping to be able to summon it again later. Sue, Asura, the Bandido and my Belle all take turns at pushing their wagons forward; the Belle still didn't have a line of sight at the Bandido to start on Vendetta. The Wokou Raider drops a scheme marker in the midst of my crew and before I can do anything about it, Mad Dog comes rushing in to stop me removing it, thereby telegraphing Inescapable Trap. Still, that did make it easier for me to score Public Demonstration. Two Shieldbearers charge into Mad Dog and burn through a good number of Soulstones while the last pushes my wagon just over the halfway line and stands near the Hodgepodge Emissary. Anna and Kirai both attack Mad Dog too, for relatively little effect. I score for Supply Wagon (Ant's wagon is just out of my half of the board) and 3VP for Public Demonstration; Ant scores for Inescapable Trap. Turn 3: The Hanged moved into a somewhat annoying position and gently tickles the Emissary. The Emissary hands the Bandido the Pretty Floral Bonnet and the Memento, she chain activates and pushes the wagon. Kirai kills the Wokou Raider and puts some more wounds into Mad Dog. He attacks the Belle, then Asura and one of my Shieldbearers hit him; I still can't actually finish him off by the end of the turn. Sue puts down a scheme marker near my models in the centre that I won't be able to avoid for Inescapable Trap. Parker finds the Black Joker again, this time on Five Finger Discount, then runs to hide behind a forest so that he can score for Undercover Entourage since between the discussion at the start of turn 2 and a brief interlude for a fire alarm, this will be the last turn. The Shieldbearer near the middle pushes Ant's wagon back across the centre line (i.e. where it won't score) and also opens up a line for the Belle to see the Bandido. The Belle fails to Lure the Bandido due to Sue's Man In Black, but the point was to score one for Vendetta anyway. I score again for the strategy and Ant scores Inescapable Trap. Resurrectionists win 6 - 4 (2 for Supply Wagons, 3 for Public Demonstration and 1 for Vendetta for me; 2 for Inescapable Trap and 2 for Undercover Entourage for Ant). I had a very enjoyable time playing against Ant, and it's a mark of his skill that he was able to work around the critical Black Jokers to keep this close. I think that if the game had gone on longer I probably had enough of an attrition advantage that I could have stayed in the lead, but some of the last turn actions were played with the knowledge that we were nearly out of time so perhaps things might have gone differently with the full turns. Overall I was quite pleased with how my plans went, and I felt that I should be able to score at least 9 VP if we went to turn 5 (it was unlikely that the Belle would have personally killed the Bandido). I would have been interested to see how survivable the Shieldbearers were in practice but in fact Ant never had spare AP to even attack them so I only got to experience their distinctly average offense. As is customary at Vappa, a long lunch break was arranged so that we could go and see the rest of the Vapnartak show so Gareth and I wandered around looking at all the other shiny wargames we could get into, if only we somehow had an infinite amount of time in which to play them.

I take copious notes for my battle reports. The most important thing is to know your own crew well enough (and by habit be a fast player) such that you would comfortably finish any game within the time limit. A few things that work for me: Try to take notes on when the other player is thinking, not when you are thinking, or either of you are supposed to be acting Take a picture each round that will jog your memory of the less legible notes If you do the same thing repeatedly (e.g. the old pre-errata Sonnia trick where Papa Loco does Hold This, moves up, pulls her with Hermanos De Armas, and is charged and Pine Boxed by a Death Marshal) then use some kind of short hand for it Don't note down inconsequential stuff like scheme runners moving about in the first turn Don't worry about getting precise action names; you can look that stuff up later Critically, I always ask the other player if they mind me doing all this, and offer to stop upon their request if they think it's affecting the game. So far, no-one has ever taken me up on this. Good luck!

Interesting topic. I don't consider Barbaros, the Black Blood Shaman or Young Nephilim to be anywhere near bad. Barbaros is a simply fantastic control piece. Activate him early to put up Challenge and Nimble / Charge into the most annoying spot possible. Your goal is to have enemies engaged with something else big and scary (or that they actually want to hit) but not able to touch Barbaros himself. The other player will happily cheat mid cards on the first couple of Challenge duels but when it comes to mid turn and the choice is to drop a face card or waste the AP it becomes much more fun. Armour, Black Blood and decent defensive statistics will keep him around for a good few turns even if he does get caught (and sometimes you can surprise people with a cheeky use of his defensive trigger). Sample game report here, especially turn two. The Black Blood Shaman is more niche (i.e. crews predominantly filled with other Black Blood models) but fills that niche nicely. I've used him with a Collodi grow crew several times and been very happy, here for example. Young Nephilim are highly mobile due to Flight and can eat most other scheme runners in their range. Mobility allows good positional play; good positional play will mean that you win. They're also amusing to keep floating around the fringes to opportunistically become Matures. I quite often start with Tots and look to Grow them but I have some Young in my starting crew in this game. Tannen, Candy and the Mature Nephilim I feel have their places. Tannen is an excellent control piece; that you've seen him taken down swiftly demonstrates that the other player is aware of his potential and is taking steps to deal with him. You can use this to your advantage and trade Tannen for board position or attrition if the trap goes well. I will admit that I've found Candy hard to use well, but I have seen others do OK with her so I assume that this is mainly a matter of playstyle. She has some cool tricks with the Sweets / Sours abilities and it is rare that I regret a big engagement range. I could see her getting some minor adjustment. The Mature Nephilim brings good speed and weak damage of 4. I do feel like a utility (0) action would be quite helpful, but otherwise I do quite like him for a budget fighter. Between flight and that colossal charge range he's quite easy to bring to bear, and positive attack flips means that he's not too card hungry. I do agree on Wicked Dolls, I can't find any good use for them.

Here is Collodi, Neverborn master for Malifaux. It is the model that made me want to start playing Neverborn in the first place. For me, Collodi really encapsulates the Neverborn experience: mainly control with a side order of support and damage, and highly rewarding of close positional play. I could write tomes about my enjoyment of playing Collodi but since this is a painting post I will stick to generalities. Collodi's main use for AP in my opinion is applying Slow or other, even more amusing, conditions to the other crew, thereby dictating what they can do to stop my plans. It also allows some sharing of AP with various minions or Puppets in your own crew. This meant that, despite the nice theme available of playing 'the puppet crew', Collodi actually plays very effectively with pretty much anything you like in Neverborn. For example, I enjoy using it with a Nephilim grow crew, not because of some supreme synergy but rather because it was highly entertaining; it also turned out to be quite effective on the tabletop. For painting I decided that Collodi looked like a Redcoat and applied colours accordingly. The wood effect for the puppet parts (i.e. the 'skin') ended up being a bit of an experiment in using dark brown as a base then a much lighter one over the top and tying it all back together with medium brown wash. I am pleased with the overall effect.

I really like your style. But the most impressive part is the water effect on the Lone Marshal's horse hooves - well done.

Amazing work. Is the tool in his left hand non-metallic metal style painting?

Nice work! I like the way the green blends in on the clothes and flesh. It does look like she is boasting about the size of fish she just caught though.

I'm glad you're inspired! Molly is certainly a lot of fun whether I win or lose, have her strong at the end of the game or dead in turn 2. I tried using Philip and the Nanny in early testing. Of course, they are great because of the keywords, but lately I've found them too static to keep up with the rest of the crew rushing forward as fast as possible. I'm also a bit cautious since I consider them to be very pure support and I just don't like spending 8SS (plus whatever I've got to drop the scheme markers) just to hang around in my own deployment zone drawing cards. I've found the model to be a bit more appealing in a Kirai crew, partly because Philip can hold Take Back The Night which obviously synergises well with her summons and partly because I find Kirai to want less of a breakneck rush down the other crew's throat. I've been trying Hannah and Anna as a combination with Molly and liked it well. Hannah can do a lot of work in addition to just giving that sweet Arcane Reservoir and having Anna around means that she's never short of something good to copy with Make A New Entry. Being immune to Black Blood is quite a bonus since it means one less positional aspect to worry about. I got one tournament game (link) with this combination was happy with the results.

Malifaux doesn't really lend itself to recording lists since in theory every game's crew can be completely different; indeed, every faction has a choice of 8 masters so even recording that would be quite an undertaking. I record all my tournament experience in tedious glorious detail in the battle reports section of this forum (for which I suppose you can search by my username) and my blog (link in my signature); I normally float between about 10th and 15th or so in the UK rankings. Still speaking for the UK, many of the skilled players seem to be more active on twitter so if you use that tool you could possibly ask for more information from specific individuals. Regarding the impact of the errata, I look forward to seeing it. In general for Malifaux I've found that player skill is a bigger determinant in win/loss ratio than faction choice. This might be the wave/errata/GG that changes that but I've no particular reason to expect it.

Game 5: Resurrectionists (me) vs Arcanists (Jamie Clark) Strategy: Public Executions, close deployment Schemes Pool: Eliminate the Leadership, Dig Their Graves, Undercover Entourage, Show of Force, Take One For the Team Resurrectionists: Dig Their Graves, Show of Force Arcanists : Dig Their Graves, Take One For the Team (Wind Gamin) Crews Resurrectionists: Molly Squidpiddge (Forgotten Path, Take Back The Night, Wronged Spirits), Izamu the Armour (Unnerving Aura), Hannah (Unnerving Aura), Anna Lovelace, Onryo, Dead Doxy, Graveyard Spirit Arcanists : Viktor Ramos (Arcane Reservoir, Philosopher's Stone), Joss (Open Current), Howard Langston (Imbued Energies), Mobile Toolkit, Metal Gamin, Wind Gamin, Brass Arachnid, Arcane Effigy I extended my Henchman Hardcore crew to be lead by Molly with my preferred Spirit build. I've been trying Hannah lately with Molly, partly because I just love to use her, partly because of the amusing theme of having both Lovelaces in the same crew, partly because of Arcane Reservoir and partly because she doesn't have to worry about Black Blood thanks to her Freikorps suit. Having Anna around also means that Hannah is never short of something useful to copy with Make A New Entry. I considered taking a Belle instead of the Onryo but the latter won out because we defined the canals as difficult terrain, and I decided that Lures would be a bit less critical in close deployment. The two copies of Unnerving Aura were specifically for Show of Force, and I have to admit that I forgot about them for much of the game otherwise (to be fair, Jamie mentioned at the end that he had forgotten about his Arcane Reservoir for some of the turns). Jamie surprises me with a very cautious deployment. Turn 1: The Doxy pushes Molly and the Toolkit turns Langston up before Joss kills it to get the spider engine going for Ramos. I was expecting to get Langston right in Molly's face instead of Joss activating, so I take advantage of still actually having my Master unmolested by moving her forward and summoning a Goryo and a Drowned. I had the card to have a Hanged instead of the Goryo but I felt that the larger base of the Goryo made it a better option considering the board state. Molly makes the Goryo hit Langston and then chain activates to do it again, Slowing the big chap in the process. Ramos summons a pair of Steam Arachnids then kills both the Goryo and the Drowned which leaves Molly feeling again a bit exposed to Langston, though the Drowned does leave a scheme marker in quite a nice place. The Graveyard Spirit moves to Molly to make the inevitable arrive of Mr Langston a little less unpleasant. The Brass Arachnid Reactivates Langston and Hannah moves up to copy her sister's ranged attack but it misses Joss. Langston gets stuck into Molly but between armour from the Graveyard Spirit and having milled all teh good cards out of Jamie's hand earlier, I get away with only a relatively mild beating. Turn 2: Langston fails to kill Molly. She summons another Goryo and kills Langston to score for Dig Their Graves, pushing back to relative safety in the process. Hannah chain activates to kill a Spider and again copies Anna's Swirling Damned attack which draws a lot of Jamie's cards avoiding the resulting Horror duel in his bunched up crew. Joss misses a couple of attacks on the Goryo and my Onryo totally fails to land anything on the right-most Steam Arachnid. Ramos summons three more Steam Arachnids then the Goryo misses Joss who gets Reactivated by the Brass Arachnid. The Doxy pushes Izamu forward then charges in to kill one of the Steam Arachnids. Joss goes again and kills the Goryo, this time scoring for Dig Their Graves. Izamu charges into Joss; I'm thinking that if I can get him down to one wound it won't trigger the Reactivate again since each model can only get that condition once per turn, but it doesn't matter and the attacks are not particularly effective. The Spiders chip away at Izamu and Anna continues to miss shots at Joss. I score for Public Executions and Show of Force. Turn 3: The Arcanist crew have very conveniently formed a crowd around where the Goryo was just standing, so Molly summons in another Goryo and a Hanged, getting the former on full wounds and the latter on six. I'm not sure that was the best play, but it is not everyday that one gets an opportunity to do that so I wanted to take advantage while I could. She makes the Goryo stab Joss down to his last wound then chain activates Izamu who kills Joss and 2 Steam Arachnids. A highly effective couple of activations if I do say so myself. Jamie is getting sick of the Graveyard Spirit but only has the Effigy in a good spot to deal with it, resulting in a fight between two of the least effective combatants in the entire game. The Goryo kills the Brass Arachnid, mainly to get it out of my hair. Ramos summons a pair of Steam Arachnids to replace the ones despatched by Izamu, magnetises to one of them just to get clear of the scrum and shoots the Goryo. Anna kills the Wind Gamin, giving up 2VP for Take One For The Team and Hannah gently tickles the Metal Gamin which has finally completed its epic run round the side of the building. I throw everything I have left at the Effigy and finally kill it with the Hanged to score Dig Their Graves. I also pick up points for Public Executions and Show of Force. Turn 4: One of the Steam Arachnids and my Onryo both drop scheme markers. This is one of the many things I love about Malifaux: that sometimes a decision has to be made between activating a big fighter and just stabbing stuff versus using the smaller models to do things that will score points. A Steam Arachnid bites the Goryo. Izamu hurts Ramos, who summons a single Steam Arachnid, blows up the old one and magnetises to the new one. Anna and Hannah combine to kills the Metal Gamin which took a lot more work than I would have liked. The Goryo kills Ramos for Dig Their Graves and the Hanged kills the last Steam Arachnid. I score for the strategy and Show of Force again, and I won't be able to get Public Executions next turn as there is nothing left. Resurrectionists win 9 - 3 (3 for Public Executions, 3 for Dig Their Graves and 3 for Show of Force for me; 1 for Dig Their Graves and 2 for Take One For the Team for Jamie). Jamie is a really top chap to play against, he know his Malifaux really well (apart from his inexplicable failure to remember Arcane Reservoir) and all in all I had a very enjoyable game. We were both joking and laughing together at various happenings on the table and with the card flips, while at the same time playing a tight game and trying to win. In other words, how Malifaux should be, in my opinion. I think that Jamie made a mistake with a very defensive deployment that gave me access to control the choke point on the bridge and as a result his pieces were very clumped together while he tried to deal with the models I sent in. Clumped up opponents are what Molly loves to see. I liked the addition of Hannah instead of Datsue Ba [and 3SS of other stuff] and I certainly plan to try her in similar crews again. Once the scores are all counted, I'm in first place (based on VP for as otherwise the Enforcer Brawl messes things up, though I think it would have been the same based on other measures). I still prefer standard 50SS games but this was an enjoyable change of pace and I think it could be a good format for introducing new players, at least as long as no-one is too abusive on the Enforcer Brawls. Thanks to Gareth, Mark, Martyn, Andy and Jamie for the fun games, and as always to Kai for doing all the work of running the whole show.

Henchman Hardcore 1: Resurrectionists (me) vs Resurrectionists (Gareth Henry) Crews Resurrectionists: Anna Lovelace, Izamu the Armour (Unnerving Aura), Dead Doxy, Graveyard Spirit Resurrectionists: Valedictorian (Unnerving Aura), Yin the Penangalan (Unnerving Aura), 2 Rotten Belles I knew what was coming here as Gareth and I had been discussing crews on the train to Stirling, but it didn't make this easier to deal with. Gareth basic game plan was to apply crippling conditions with Yin, put one model per turn where he needed it with the Belles (and Slow everything else as needed) and then kill it with the Valedictorian. Having one model locked down by Yin each turn would be a big problem with only four in my entire crew (and one of them a fairly useless Totem). My plan was to throw Izamu up as aggressively as possible, using the Doxy to push him into melee if Yin gave him the No Escape condition, and then hit things with him and Anna until they went away. Weak damage of three can solve a lot of problems. Turn 1: The Belles Lure and Slow Izamu, and the Doxy Takes The Lead to push him into melee with the left one. Yin gives Izamu both Gnawing Fear and No Escape, but he's able to drop the Belle in two hits which felt quite fortunate. The Valedictorian comes in and puts a bit of damage onto Izamu, then Anna hits her twice with the Swirling Damned. I trigger Screaming From The Aether once and Gareth helpfully fails the resulting Horror duels for both Yin and the Valedictorian. This stroke of luck pretty much ensures that I'll win the game right there. I score Extraction. Turn 2: Izamu smites the Valedictorian, scoring me a point for Eliminate the Leadership, then the Belle Lures him to my right and Slows him again. Anna kills the Valedictorian to get the rest of the points for Eliminate the Leadership and I score for Extraction again. I do rather unwisely keep pulling the marker back toward my table edge even though I would have been better served leaving it in the middle. Turn 3: Izamu Black Jokers his chance to Reform, the misses a speculative swing at Yin. She kills him (though she does flip the Black Joker herself on my Warrior's Death attack so some damage does get stacked up) then puts various conditions on Anna. I waste some Soulstones to get round all the negative flips attacking Yin with Anna and miss the shot anyway, apparently because Gareth has a truly heroic control hand this turn. The Belle Lures Anna and Pounces on her. No score for the Strategy. Turn 4: The Belle Slows Anna. The Doxy Focuses and lands Take The Lead on Yin, getting me the Confused Feelings trigger. With us both on negative flips it just comes down to luck whether I can actually do anything to Yin, but have the better stat and only need to draw. Between the pounce and the second AP, Yin goes down and I breathe a big sigh of relief. Anna pushes the Belle away and shoots her. Neither of us score for the Strategy. Turn 5: Anna fails to kill the Belle who hurts her back, but not by enough to get a point for Eliminate the Leadership. My Resurrectionists win 5 - 0 (2 for Extraction and 3 for Eliminate the Leadership for me; nothing for Gareth). Gareth is my main opponent at Malifaux (and indeed, all wargames) and it's always a fun experience. I think that we were both a bit sad that this one was pretty much decided by luck in turn 1, but I guess if Gareth hadn't been so keen to fire all his good cards into locking Izamu down with Yin he would have had something left to pass the Horror duels on Yin and the Valedictorian. My main error was to move the Extraction marker way back then commit my crew too far forward to actually score from it.

Henchman Hardcore 1: Resurrectionists (me) vs Ten Thunders (Martyn Nicol) Crews Resurrectionists: Anna Lovelace, Izamu the Armour (Unnerving Aura), Dead Doxy, Graveyard Spirit Ten Thunders: Sensei Yu (Low River Style), Lone Swordsman, 2 Monks of High River I realised that I could approach this whole event by either picking a Henchman Hardcore crew that I thought was good, and then hoping that it would lead nicely into a 50SS crew in the end, or largely pre-select my 50SS crew and pick the Henchman Hardcore models as a subset of that. In the end, I took the latter approach mainly because I vastly prefer 50SS Gaining Grounds as a format, especially over Henchman Hardcore. Nonethless, I did put some thought into it. With Eliminate the Leadership as the always scheme I decided that Anna Lovelace's preference for range, good stats and armour would be a good selection; I had considered Datsue Ba instead but thought that she would be too easy to kill in this format. The Dead Doxy can get a chance at a third attack if she Pounces after Take The Lead, and while one of my main criticisms of Henchman Hardcore is the decreased importance of positional play, her ability to move things around is never not useful. Finally, the Graveyard Spirit was added simply because it fit the points. Being able to add Armour is useful but I did think that only having 3 non-Peons to score for the strategy would be a concern. I expected Sensei Yu to move my models out of scoring position, and then the Lone Swordsman to come in and try to kill Izamu by ignoring armour on one of his triggers. Turn 1: The Monks move up and take Defensive Stance and the Dead Doxy pushes Izamu forward. Yu Airbursts him back but not far enough and I'm able get a swing on the right Monk (though it misses anyway) and Anna fires a barrage of ghosts at Sensei Yu which scores me the first point for Eliminate the Leadership. We both score for the strategy. Turn 2: Sensei Yu realised that if he doesn't heal himself, he'll not get another try, so he punches himself better. The Doxy pushes Izamu into the guts of Martyn's crew, then charges the right Monk for no effect whatsoever. The Monk then kills her straight out in return, not even needing the huge stack of Burning he had applied. Izamu smacks Sensei Yu a little, allowing him to pick up a few Defensive conditions when I missed. The Lone Swordsman declares the Izamu Will Not See Another Sunrise but can't kill the big chap even with a second activation and kills himself to expunge the shame. Anna misses a couple of shots at Sensei Yu. We both score again for Extraction. Turn 3: Sensei Yu heals himself again. Izamu again fails to do anything useful to him and instead switches attention to the Monks. One of them Focuses but misses Izamu and in desperation I throw in the Graveyard Spirit which kills the wounded Monk (only had to do one damage due to the Unnerving Aura). Anna continues to attack Sensei Yu who Soulstones all the damage away. We both score for Extraction once again. Turn 4: Sensei Yu heals himself. Izamu kills the second Monk and Anna finally finishes off Yu to get me the rest of the Eliminate the Leadership points. I score for Extraction too. Resurrectionists win 7 - 3 (full score for me; 3 for Extraction for Martyn). I always have a nice time playing Martyn as he is just such a cheerful gentleman. He had me worried here with his crew selection and I thought that the combination of Sensei Yu pushing my models away from the scoring area plus the threat of the Lone Swordsman just carving through Izamu would have been possibly a winning strategy. As it happened, the high minimum damage on Anna's ranged attack forced Yu to play passively to stay alive for almost the whole game, and Martyn just didn't get the cards he needed for the Lone Swordsman's Perfect Cut. I was really impressed with the Monks of High River at their new cost.

Enforcer Brawl 2: The second Enforcer Brawl sees the model I expected in abundance in this format. I just had to hope that the Langston players didn't get too lucky with their Decapitate triggers, then counter-punch them. Note that the photos are a bit weird for this one; the big buildings were constantly in the way of one model or another so some were taken from different angles. Me: Izamu the Armour Andy Bush: Howard Langston (Imbued Energies) Jamie Clark: Howard Langston (Imbued Energies) Martyn Nicol: Lone Swordsman (Recalled Training) Turn 1: Andy's Langston comes in for Izamu but can't kill him so Izamu stabs the big construct right back. Jamie's Langston fails to drop the Lone Swordsman in one go and is easily taken down in return during the second activation after declaring that he Will Not See Another Sunrise. Turn 2: Jamie's Langston appears and immediately ends the Lone Swordsman who reappears on the far side of the board. Andy's Langston kills Izamu and Nimbles away from his imposter. Izamu gently tickles Jamie's Langston. Turn 3: Jamie's Langston kills Izamu. The Lone Swordsman declares Sunrise on Andy's Langston but is killed in return before getting a second activation. Izamu helpfully reappears on the edge of the board furthest from anything, and girds himself for a long walk. Turn 4: After flipping an ace for the previous two turns of initiative, I flip the Red Joker for this turn, ensuring that Izamu can get straight on to the business of double walking toward the action. The Lone Swordsman reappears and kills Andy's Langston having declared Sunrise on him. Jamie's Langston shows up but fails to off the Lone Swordsman, and is shanked back to death immediately by Andy's copy. Turn 5: Andy's Langston kills the Lone Swordsman and hurts Jamie's Langston badly. Jamie then fails the horror duel for his Langston to attack back. Izamu trudges across the board. Turn 6: Jamie's Langston recovers his wits and kills Andy's Langston before being murdered in turn by the Lone Swordsman. Andy Langston reappears in range to come and try his luck with Izamu, but after 3 turns of nothing but hand sculpting Izamu easily survives and kills him in return. The final scores are: Me: 5 Andy: 0 Jamie: 2 Martyn: 5

The first Malifaux event of 2018 at Common Grounds was Gaining Force. It was described as a story event but I would say it is more like an escalation since the story didn't go further than 'an Enforcer went for a walk and gradually found friends while being attacked'. The format was to select one Enforcer and play two Enforcer Brawls, then add that Enforcer to a Henchman Hardcore crew and play two games of that. The entire Henchman Hardcore crew was then to be included in a regular 50SS Malifaux crew for one final game using the new Gaining Grounds 2018. I will admit that I'm not a big fan of Henchman Hardcore but Kai's events are always excellent so I wanted to attend anyway. I selected Izamu as my Enforcer for the highly tactical reason that he is the only Enforcer I have available (the Carrion Emissary is still part-built on my painting tray and Ikiryo isn't eligible anyway). Izamu's Warrior's Death ability does mess with the scoring in a fairly amusing way so it's not like I would have chosen anyone else. Enforcer Brawl 1: For the first round I was set up with Gareth, Martyn and Mark. We got the rules slightly wrong; killed Enforcers should be able to return to the game at their own initiative step and not just at the end of each round. Also, to make the overall event scoring practical we were capped at 5VPs at any one time. Me: Izamu the Armour Gareth Henry: Yin the Penangalan (Unnerving Aura) Martyn Nicol: Lone Swordsman (Recalled Training) Mark Watson: Ice Golem (Armour of December) Turn 1: The Lone Swordsman charges into the Ice Golem and declares that it Shall Not See Another Sunrise. This doesn't help as the Ice Golem swats him and Yin polishes him off. Izamu kills the Ice Golem. Turn 2: Izamu smacks the newly-returned Lone Swordsman but incredibly the Ice Golem fails to kill the plucky chap. Yin, who is left too far away to participate, floats back toward the action. The Lone Swordsman declares (again) something about Ice Golems and Sunrises, and kills the big construct. The resulting explosion is fatal for the Lone Swordsman too. Turn 3: The Ice Golem moves up and is gently tickled by Izamu's Dadao. Yin puts Gnawing Fear on Izamu and hurts him. Turn 4: Izamu smacks the Ice Golem again. The Lone Swordsman uses Recalled Training but Black Jokers one attack on Yin. To keep up with the action, the Ice Golem Black Jokers an attack on her too. Yin attacks the Golem. Turn 5: Yin kills the Lone Swordsman. The Ice Golem attacks Izamu and is killed in return. Turn 6: The Lone Swordsman uses Recalled Training (such a good upgrade when you can use it all the time!) and kills Yin. Izamu and the Ice Golem are too far apart to do anything meaningful. The final scores are: Me: 5 Gareth: 2 Martyn: 5 Mark: 0

I couldn't agree more with Diceman87's praise for your style; it is detailed enough to be able to follow the action closely without being needlessly bogged down in minutiae. How do you plan to use your high cards with this crew? With the mix of summoning and straight-up damage from Rasputina, it seems like you could easily switch focus between bringing Ice Golems and killing stuff directly.

Cool battle report. It sounds like the flips in the critical turn 2 were quite crazy; do think that affected things much? It occurred to me that if you're planning to sit the Piglets all over on one side of the board you could possibly afford not to bother with the Hog Whisperer and just let them get on with the mayhem.

Paid for Gareth Henry and Paul Campbell.

These cute little chaps are Gupps, part of my Neverborn crews. They hold the Swampfiend keyword and are therefore arguable thematically linked with Zoraida; however she doesn't interest me and I'm not really a big fluff player anyway. They come three to a base and while I could have split them up further to get more bases of Gupps, I have never found that I wanted more than three at a time. Their main attraction is being cheap and have a Leap which will work on any mask card, both qualities which make them suitable a scheme runners. Even at the low price, I realised that with the combination of a Spawn Mother and Will O The Wisp I could summon as many Gupps as I would ever require and therefore stopped hiring them (and actually I find Terror Tots more entertaining at the same cost). For such simple pieces, I kept a deliberately simple colour scheme; two tones of green for the body, yellow eyes and then ended by picking out the teeth. The Gupps are tiny, and although they're very cute, they are also a bit of a pain to get into more detail for painting. I did enjoy getting to the final result swiftly though.

Great skin tone on these pigs. The basing work really ties the crew together - well done!

Thanks to Hydranixx and Mo11usq for their thoughts and experience. It is certainly true that variations in local preferences (i.e. 'the meta') can have a big impact on what is perceived as good or bad. This is the base crew that I've been working from, obviously with alterations as needed to account for the board, strats/schemes, opponent, my mood on the day: Molly Squidpiddge (Forgotten Path, Take Back The Night, Wronged Spirits), Izamu the Armour, Datsue Ba, Anna Lovelace, Onryo, Dead Doxy, Grave Spirit, 2 Night Terrors In case it is easier for commentary, the battle report mentioned is also posted on these forums (link). At the moment, it represents the sum of my documented tournament experience with Forgotten Path Molly; I plan to add more as I attend events in 2018. The forthcoming GG2018 might make a big difference to how best to use Molly of course. Between Molly herself, Izamu, Datsue Ba and Anna there is a lot of threat that has to be dealt with and they tend to arrive at pretty much the same time. I almost always lose one or two of these before the end of turn 2, but I am usually able to trade them for either momentum in the attrition game or favourable board position. For very killy strategies or scheme pools I'd drop the Night Terrors as they are a bit of a liability there (AP inefficient to kill, but not very hard either) and bring in a Belle to Lure my victims in. I'm on the fence about whether Anna Lovelace is the right pick. She has a lot of amusing tech that comes up reasonably often, and having a gun that doesn't randomise into melee is obviously helpful in a crew that wants to jump right down the other crew's throat at the first opportunity. Rush of Magic helps get high cards / crows too. All in all I feel like she's a little bit of a lot of good things that Molly likes. Nonetheless, there is certainly a lot of testing still to be done, and Malifaux's balance is good enough that one could make a case for a lot of the other 'tech picks' in the same 9ss slot. Regarding getting the good cards for summoning Hanged (or whatever else) I have found that the card draw from Take Back The Night is really helpful. I also try to be a bit circumspect about summoning models that will come in on 2 or fewer wounds. 3 seems to be the magic number in this case as it stops people just landing a couple of weak damage hits and dropping your new Spirits too easily. Most Horrors will drop after 2 hits from pretty much anything unless you can bring them in within range of 4 victims; this is of course not impossible, but is seems quite rare. For Spirits, 3 wounds will keep you safe from even two hits at weak damage of 2. Depending on what I else bring, I might also consider that trade of 1 master AP plus a decent card is worth it to waste something's AP to attack a summoned Spirit anyway. In addition, if I expect that something will die very soon after being summoned, I try to leverage the Black Blood as much as possible, sometimes even coming in with fewer wounds than the maximum possible (i.e. cuddling up close to a couple of models that I want to get Black Blood over rather than summoning in the centre of the enemy crew. Stewbert - that's a pretty cute trick with Izamu. I'm not sure I can see myself spending the extra Soulstone for Spirit Beacon on Izamu though; it feels rather situational. And Seishin are just not that amazing.

I am the author of the report that ttsgosadow linked (thank you!) so I have some relevant experience here. My journey with Resurrectionists is just starting though, so I may miss some context or 'better' options that can be achieved with parts of the factions that I haven't dabbled in. Hydranixx writes very well here about the options open to Spirit Molly. I would add that, despite the huge boon that putting Adversary on something gives, I find it quite hard to reliably apply. Goryo need crows to do so and therefore I almost only get this when top-decking the needed card as I would generally prefer to save high crows for future summoning. Once I explain about the 1AP charges etc, it can be quite useful for drawing cards out of the other player's hand as no-one wants to let you get this running for a really low crow. Originally I included Onryo for the express purpose of applying Poison or Adversary at range but in practice it I have found that either the Onryo are off doing something else (scheme running or whatever) or it is simply not worth investing a decent card to make it stick. Similarly, Datsue Ba can put Adversary on her victims but I prefer to use her to pick off the weak and turn them into Gaki / more Onryo. Having written all that, I can say that the crew is perfectly viable without Adversary. As per the original post, Molly is a very aggressive master and the sheer threat overload gives a lot of survivability to your crew even when they are low on wounds simply because opponents will struggle to correctly prioritise threats. Incorporeal can be quite a convenient defense unless you get a really unlucky match-up, and good positioning can allow you to splash Black Blood over anything that does take a poke at your crew. Indeed, in an ideal world something with weak damage of 2 will hit your Spirit and you can then bleed over 2 or more victims and do more damage than was taken in the first place. Obviously this is not something to be relied upon. One point on which I will disagree with Hydranixx is that Spirit Molly could be taken primarily in order to challenge yourself, and by extension that Horror Molly is strictly stronger. My experience has been that most crews do not load up on Ca attacks unless you give a strong reason to expect a lot of Incorporeal. If you have both Horrors and Spirits available then the other player counter-picking one incorrectly would be a disadvantage against the other. Other things that are particularly great about Forgotten Path Molly: Incorporeal gives a colossal advantage in positioning. Even on terrain-sparse tournament boards, being able to ignore it with a chunk of your crew is massive. Positioning will win your games of Malifaux for you, far more than any advantage in crew selection. You can make much better use of cover, you can use terrain block to line-of-sight to some pieces while still leaving open charges to your intended victim because you no longer need to completely clear the edge of a house (or whatever) when charging. And this is on top of the occasional defensive aspect if your Spirits are attacked by non-Ca actions. You can summon Hanged. The main problem with Hanged is that they are significantly easier to handle at range compared to up close. Summoning them into the right position can make them horrendous to deal with, probably requiring a significant investment of cards / AP to put down. And since no-one in their right mind will leave a Hanged floating about in the middle of their crew, this can be a functional Paralyse / card drain on a few models, leaving aside that you can actually do some work with them (and Black Blood may also make this even more punishing). Black Blood Izamu is simply hilarious. You're going to throw the big chap into the biggest clump of the other crew that you can find anyway, and Molly wants to be there too for summoning purposes. Obviously you need to avoid stuff than can drop him at range (I'm doing a pretty poor job of this lately) and you then make the other player choose to try to escape Izamu's engagement or take the risk on their Rg1 attacks that they'll take as much damage hitting him as they do due to Armour. I can certainly understand the concern about some strategies / schemes punishing Molly for summoning wounded pieces. In such a case you can either overwhelm them by sheer number of summons so that they can score these points a couple of times before they are eventually swamped by your attrition advantage (this is my preferred option as it is most entertaining) or you can be a bit more circumspect about summoning and leverage Molly's excellent other actions to hamper the other crew. Obviously this isn't specific to either of Molly's Limited upgrades.